People seemingly like to issue existing cryptocurrencies and digital assets as ERC20 tokens on top of the Ethereum blockchain. There is very little to gain by doing so, other than tricking novice cryptocurrency users into buying these crappy tokens. It seems there is a fake IOTA token out there which runs on top of the Ethereum blockchain. So far, there has only been one transaction associated with this token.
Beware of the Fake IOTA Token
We have seen a lot of interest in the IOTA currency over the past few weeks. Its value and market capitalization have grown beyond belief, and it seems criminals and scammers are looking to take advantage of this trend. More specifically, someone has created an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain which is labeled as MIOTA, and which contains the same supply as IOTA does. Thankfully, there is no value associated with this token, nor has this token ever been purchased.
It is unclear why people keep issuing existing currencies as ERC20 tokens, though. We have seen quite a few of these attempts in the past, yet everyone should know which one is real and which is fake. If you find “Bitcoin” in the form of an ERC20 token, you should automatically know it’s not the real deal. The same goes for most ERC20 tokens which are issued under the same name as an existing cryptocurrency.
With IOTA joining this list of scammy ERC20 tokens, things have certainly gotten worrisome. The legitimate IOTA – which uses the MIOTA unit of account – is not based on Ethereum technology whatsoever. That wouldn’t do it any favors either, as it is evident Ethereum is still incapable of scaling properly whenever major network activity occurs. IOTA aims to solve this with its DAG implementation, though it’s unclear if it will be successful in this regard.
For the time being, it is important to remember that there is a fake IOTA token out there which should be avoided. It seems most people have already done so, as there is only one outgoing token transfer associated with this smart contract. Someone out there received 2.858 million tokens, although it is unclear why anyone would want them in the first place. It is possible we will see some form of an ICO selling these tokens in the future, although it remains to be seen why anyone would want to take that route.
Moreover, it is unclear why anyone would call this token MIOTA and call its supply IOTA. It is evident there are some strange things going on with this contract in its current form, yet no one knows what the background story is here. This will not be the last time someone tries to trick investors into buying fake ERC20 tokens which resemble actual cryptocurrencies, though. This business model has proven to be somewhat lucrative in recent months, and the various schemes may well have been orchestrated by the very same people.
It doesn’t appear as if this smart contract is taking the spotlight away from the real IOTA, though. That is a good thing, as people should only pay attention to the real thing and ignore everything else. It will be interesting to see which currency these folks try to bring to the Ethereum network next. The cryptocurrency world gets weirder and weirder by the week; that much is evident.
