Bitcoin.com Lists Ponzi-like Token HEX to the Dismay of BCH Fans

Share this article

Roger Ver, a co-founder of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and owner of Bitcoin.com, finally responded to criticism after listing the controversial altcoin, HEX. “If you don’t like HEX, don’t trade it,” he wrote on Reddit. The Bitcoin Cash community has since been up in arms that their project’s founder has openly validated the highly controversial crypto project.

Enriching Mr. Heart and Mr. Ver

Crypto Twitter has been debating the nature of crypto influencer Richard Heart’s latest project, HEX. 

Pitched as a staking platform that “starves scams of attention and referrers by using the same and better sales tactics they do,” users send ETH to “The Origin Address” in exchange for the token. HEX holders are then promised “10,000x returns in under 2.5 years.”

After digging through the documentation on the project, however, it becomes clear that Heart is in control of nearly half of the tokens sent to the address despite stating otherwise. It should also be noted that at the time of press, the ETH address attached to the project has recorded $5.7 million in incoming transactions. 

"Richard Heart is going to have so much $ETH by the time this 365 day lobby is over with that he would be a fool not to reinvest and build the $HEX platform […] because I've been in the dApp space for over 2 years now, and I KNOW that's how it works."

Can't make this shit up. pic.twitter.com/i0SNr6RAZj

— Bagsy (@Bagsy) December 14, 2019

Although the project features several other questionable components (i.e. a referral system, “Adoption Amplifier,” founder’s tax), the unknown owner of the Origin Address is an immediate red flag. Goldman Sats, a noted crypto commentator, put it best in an exhaustive Medium article on the project:

“When Richard has been pressed on information about the Origin Address, he goes to lengths to stress that he doesn’t own it, and he doesn’t know who WILL own it. Listening to him describe it, you could wake up tomorrow to an unsolicited letter telling you YOU are the owner of the Hex Origin Address. This is a lie.”

As seen in the Tweet above, Heart has also recruited the services of noted Bitconnect influencers Trevon James and Craig Grant. Bitconnect was an open-source crypto project released in 2016. In 2018, the platform shut down after it became clear that it was nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme. 

The inclusion of these two individuals has naturally led to even greater criticism from the crypto community. 

In the latest HEX development, Roger Ver has now added the token to Bitcoin.com’s exchange. Trading began on December 13, 2019, according to a press release. In that release, they remind users that if they are “thinking about claiming HEX” to be sure they “use privacy tools to obfuscate your transaction history before taking any action that can possibly lead back to you.” That could also be a general warning, however.

When visiting the r/BTC subreddit, a BCH-dominated community on Reddit, the criticism of the listing has been severe. One user writes that while they “agree with [Roger Ver] and support [Ver] on the majority of [his] endeavors, this time [his] company is doing something inexcusable.” Other comments describe worry that associating BCH with HEX will inevitably taint the credibility of the Bitcoin fork. 

To this and other commentaries, Ver responded with a curt, “if you don’t like HEX, don’t trade it.”

Share this article