She affectionately refers to herself as the “Baroness of Mayfair OBE.” Others use names just as colorful, but that can’t be repeated in a forum that might be seen by the younger generation. Scotland’s Michelle Mone has made a successful living as a failure – a lingerie line that was anything but sexy, a fake tan product line that was a little streaky and diet pills that only reduced the size of some individuals’ wallets. She’s back in the news again, this time behind a shady cryptocurrency initial coin offering (ICO) that is only about as valuable as fool’s gold.
The company behind the ICO, Equi Capital launched earlier this year with Mone standing confident and large at the Dorchester Hotel in London. She espoused the virtues of Equi Capital and how its ICO would raise $75 million. Her partner, Doug Barrowman, said of the new firm, “Equi is that disruptor in venture capital investing and, for me, represents the final evolution of a lifetime’s work spent in the industry.”
Five days after Equi Capital launched, Mone bragged that the company had taken in $7 million for its ICO. However, soon after, the token sale fizzled and nothing more was ever released from Barrowman, Mone or Equi Capital. Eventually, investors received word that it would be offering them a refund since the project didn’t “meet the minimum funding threshold required.” At the same time, Mone said that there would be “exciting news” about her next, new adventure. No investor has ever reportedly received a refund.
The company promised “huge returns” to those that would act as bounty hunters for the company. The bounty hunters would receive 2% of $2.5 million, but, after the five-month bounty ended, the 3,000-plus pool of campaigners were left splitting a pot worth only around $5,433. That means that each took about $1.81.
One bounty hunter that got taken lashed out on Twitter. “Bounty Women” said, “Guys, if you ever wondered investing in @Equi_Capital, forget. Those are scammers. They don’t follow obligations. Instead of paying bounty hunters 2% of tokens or 2% of 7 [million] raised for 6 month bounty, they just giving out 15 [ETH]. Can’t believe. Absolutely shady behavior.”
Those comments were echoed by another Twitter poster, “Kripto.HR.” The poster said, “Sadly, must say that it is a scam project….Some rich [people] tried to take money from the crypto community!…”
On August 5, Mone announced via Twitter that she was on her way to Silicon Valley in California for a new “global” business enterprise. This was exactly how she described the failed Equi Capital experiment, and it has now been determined that Equi Capital has been rebranded as Equi Global. It is preparing to launch another ICO under the new name, which will almost definitely end the same way as the previous one did – Barrowman and Mone will pick up some cash, while investors are scammed out of possibly millions. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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