Bitcoin users all over the world are very wary of newly airdropped currencies. Although Bitcoin Cash has proven to be a success, people have been showing far less interest in Bitcoin Gold. It now turns out Bitcoin Platinum may face a lot more scrutiny than either of those forks ever did. It was seemingly created by a South Korean teenager and is a pure scam. It’s not as if anyone expected anything different, but it’s good to see confirmation on this front.

Bitcoin Platinum Comes Unhinged

Every time someone decides to create a Bitcoin hard fork, there is a very real chance the project will turn into a money grab sooner or later. Particularly at a time when all new Bitcoin hard forks have very similar features, things have gotten even more confusing and worrisome. Bitcoin Platinum is the first of these forks to have essentially fallen apart before it even became a thing. No one will be surprised by this development, as there was virtually no interest in this project from day one.

It is not all that difficult to copy working code, change the name, and turn it into something “brand new”. This is exactly what happens with most smaller altcoins right now, as the majority are copies of existing projects which may or may not introduce additional functionality over time. In most cases, projects are abandoned pretty quickly, leaving holders of the coin hanging. There is plenty of money to be made by creating altcoins and dumping them on the open market shortly afterward.

Bitcoin Platinum serves as further confirmation that investors need to be very wary of Bitcoin forks yet to be released. Bitcoin God is one of those projects which has yet to launch, although no one knows for sure if that is a joke or not. There are some other forks on the horizon as well, although it is doubtful any of them will amount to anything. Bitcoin Platinum will certainly not go anywhere in the near future.

One thing everyone would like to know is who created this project in the first place. It seems a South Korean teenager came up with the idea for Bitcoin Platinum in an attempt to push the Bitcoin price down. In most cases, such airdrops derive value from the Bitcoin price and its trading volume. With the launch of Bitcoin Cash, we saw the Bitcoin price dip for a few days until all markets settled down. It seems that was the main objective of Bitcoin Platinum as well, although it probably wouldn’t have made any sort of impact to speak of.

All of this creates more controversy surrounding a project very few people cared about to begin with. Since no one knows for sure what is going on here, Bitcoin Platinum should be ignored. Anyone can put together a website to ride Bitcoin’s coattails, copy existing source code, and slap a different name on it. It is likely this project was a joke and a money grab from day one, and thus should be treated as such moving forward.

We will see more of these idiotic attempts at creating value out of thin air in the future. People have been mimicking both Bitcoin and Ethereum in many different ways, although none of these efforts have resulted in any major changes for the cryptocurrency community. Thankfully, the truth about Bitcoin Platinum came to light before any serious damage was done. It is a very troublesome development, but veteran cryptocurrency users will have noticed something was wrong with this project from day one.