It was reported some days ago that the Hong Kong bitcoin company mycoin.hk went away with investors’ money. According to various sources, the total estimate of losses nears $390m. Hong Kong lawmakers are now commenting on a ban on bitcoin. In the meantime, more than 25 people are reportedly flocking police headquarters to complain about the mycoin.hk scam.
According to lawmakers Leung Yiu-chung and James To “The government should clamp down on bitcoin.” Leung adds, “The government should not just stand aside, […] It’s simply not enough to just ask people to exercise caution when investing … it has to ban the circulation of such virtual currency in the market.”
Those comments are coming in after Hong Kong’s central bank warned the public against bitcoin, suggesting that people “should exercise extra caution when considering an investment in bitcoin because of the digital currency’s “highly speculative” nature”.
The company that is behind all this drama, MyCoin, described itself as a “leading global Bitcoin trading platform and application service provider”. According to South China Morning, MyCoin claimed that 3000 of their customers invested an average of HK$1 million each.
MyCoin advertised returns of HK$1 million over a period of four months, based on investments of HK$400,000 that produced 90 bitcoins when they matured.
As the unfortunate investors told to Chinese Media, they were lured to join MyCoin’s scheme by real estate brokers, legal clerks and even insurance agents.
An official from the local police declined to make a statement on how many complaints were filed, but mentioned that an official statement would be issued.
In the meantime, there are currently no signs of hope for investors. It was revealed yesterday that MyCoin’s director had quit a month before the incident. Some clients claimed that he had even taken shares of the company offshore to a British Virgin Islands company.
