In the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, there are multiple pump-and-dump schemes to be found every week. Mainly smaller coins are often pumped to inflate the price, in the hopes of getting other people to buy in. Unfortunately, there is often a lot of hype associated with any major pump, regardless of whether it is relevant news or not. We have seen quite a few pumps in recent weeks, and the following ones stood out.
6. Vertcoin
One of the many smaller altcoins to integrate Segregated WItness goes by the name of Vertcoin. On paper, there is no real reason to sue this cryptocurrency over others, by any means. However, some people are trying to drive the price up, and one VTC is worth nearly US$1 at the time of writing. That is quite a jump in value, considering VTC was valued at roughly US$0.25 a few weeks ago. Someone is definitely pumping the value.
5. CloakCoin
It has been extremely quiet where CloakCoin was considered for quite some time. A few days ago, the value per coin suddenly started going up, despite there being very little trading volume. One CLOAK is valued at US$3.83 now. There is absolutely no reason to use CloakCoin, other than from a privacy perspective. Then again, there are multiple major cryptocurrencies offering similar – and sometimes better- technology to achieve the same goal. It looks like CloakCoin is a clear pump-and-dump, although it is too early to tell what might happen.
4. BitcoinDark
It is not hard to see why people think of BitcoinDark as a pump-and-dump scheme. The currency is trying to ride Bitcoin’s coattails on the way to success. It is one of the many – futile – attempts to bring more privacy and anonymity to Bitcoin. In fact, it uses its own blockchain, removing any potential ties with Bitcoin in the process. Every BTCD is worth US$65.65 right now, which is massively overvalued, to say the least.
3. Primecoin
When Primecoin initially launched, a lot of people got excited because it provides a bit of a novel concept. To this very day, there is no reason to actually use Primecoin, other than from a speculative point of view, though. Primecoin has seen its market cap grow to over US$10.7m, despite having no real use cases. Once again, a clear example of someone trying to pump the price and looking to dump on investors getting caught up in the frenzy.
2. Digibyte
Although a lot of people would rather not see Digibyte on the list, it is impossible to deny the currency is getting pumped hard right now. Many people still believe there is a Minecraft deal, which is not the case. Nor did Digibyte win the Citibank tech challenge, which is somewhat of a shame. In fact, there is no real reason for one Digibyte to be worth what it is today, and the trend is already showing signs of reversing. The Digibyte team is working on some amazing technology, yet they do not hinge on the success of DGB as a currency.
1. Stellar Lumens
It is a bit difficult to quantify the use cases for Stellar, albeit they are quite similar to Ripple and their XRP asset. It appears Stellar is trying to compete with Ripple in developing technology and a currency for the financial sector. There are some key differences between both projects, as we highlighted before. Over the past few weeks, the value of Stellar Lumens has been pumped to US$0.05. That is rather remarkable, considering a large amount of XLM is distributed free of charge. Stellar has some partnerships with banks, but it is not even close to the same level Ripple is at right now.
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