An ICO for a company called Miroskii has been outed for listing Ryan Gosling as part of their team. The Chinese coin offering gives investors the chance to “join the Crypto Revolution” but there are several red flags over its legitimacy. The chief of these, of course, is their decision to include a stock photo of a Hollywood actor on their website.
Miroskii Appears to be the Latest in a Growing List of ICO Scams
On the Miroskii website, under the section listing the project’s team members, there is a headshot of Ryan Gosling, the star of The Notebook, Drive, and La La Land. The name accompanying the photo is “Kevin Belanger”. He is listed as an “experienced graphic designer with a clear focus on identities and illustration” for the company.
Eagle-eyed Twitter user @CryptoShillNye pointed out the uncanny resemblance of the Miroskii artist and the A-list celebrity:
Well, my twitter blew the fuck up today lmfao pic.twitter.com/mIalvZRqKL
— Shill Nye The Lambo Guy (@CryptoShillNye) March 4, 2018
Miroskii has presented themselves as a crypto coin aimed at revolutionising the financial industry. They claim on their website to have developed “highly secure encrypted decentralized blockchain technology.” Amongst the sea of buzzwords, it is stated that they have united experts from several countries where cryptocurrency is incredibly popular: China, Hongkong, Singapore, and Japan.
As mentioned, there are several other causes for concern over the legitimacy of the Miroskii ICO. CNet highlighted that many of the other members of the team appear to be fraudulent too. Perry Henderson, a supposed CEO of various online companies, turns out to be a Texas estate agent, Joel Hermann, the founder of Mysterium Network, is, in reality, a lawyer from New York, and Craig Gulledge is actually Peter Roper a business consultant from the firm The Family Business Man. Further examples of the fake Miroskii team have been provided by Claus Wahlers.
Miroskii also claims to have raised over $830,000 from private investors. This is despite them only having a combined total of seven followers on prominent social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Whilst the Miroskii case appears to be the most blatant (and amusing) example of a fraudulent ICO, it highlights just how simple it is to create such a sale and dupe gullible investors into parting with their cash. However, most scam ICOs are much less easy to spot than the Miroskii effort. Such a proliferation of fraudulent companies associated with the revolutionary funding method has led to calls for greater regulation to protect investors in the space.