Watch out! Some "metaverse games" and "cloud mining" APP have become fraud traps

Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai, December 15 Title: Beware! Some "metaverse games" and "cloud mining" APP have become fraud traps

Xinhua News Agency reporters Lan Tianming and Hu Nayun

Recently, high-tech concepts such as "meta-universe", "blockchain", "NFT" (non-homogeneous tokens), and "cloud mining" have been sought after by the market.

Xinhua News Agency reporter found that there are some apps in the current market that defraud money under the guise of "meta-universe blockchain game" and "cloud mining". Criminals falsely claim that the APP has high technology content and good money-making effect, which attracts people to the bait, causing many users to fall into traps and suffer losses.

Earn tens of thousands of dollars a day lying down? Who is blowing "high-tech" cattle

The reporter's investigation found that such fraudulent apps have some characteristics.

The first feature is that they are all under the guise of high-tech and rub high-tech hotspots. The reporter found that many suspected fraud games such as "Nong X World", "X Valkyrie", "Colonial X Star", "Binance XX" and so on were packaged with concepts such as "meta-universe" and "blockchain".

The reporter's experience found that such games are the same as ordinary games, most of which are web version of 2D games. The operation is also simple, according to the operator's introduction is to "buy related tools", click the button to put the game for a period of time, you can get "income".

The "mining" APP is to package itself with the concept of "cloud mining". The "X Si Mining Storage" APP claims to be able to perform "cloud mining" by leasing graphics cards. Another "X-step mining" APP calls itself a "blockchain + sports" application, and the way to achieve "cloud mining" is that users walk a certain number of steps every day.

The second feature is that they all involve illegal issuance, speculation, and exchange of virtual currency to make money. The reporter learned that "meta-universe blockchain game" players need to buy virtual coins such as "Ethereum", "AXS" and "WAXP" to purchase expensive props in order to make money through the game. Some "mining" APPS often "mine" a certain type of virtual currency for exchange for RMB.

The reporter noted that in the "Agricultural X World", players need to buy tools such as "saws", "axes" and "fishing rods", and the price of each tool ranges from hundreds of yuan to hundreds of thousands of yuan, and real money and silver must be exchanged for virtual currency. The "Quick Step Mining" APP allows users to exchange the number of steps they walk for the opportunity to receive "candy coins" with "scrolls", and then "make money" by exchanging "candy coins" into rmb.

The third characteristic is that they all try to advocate that "the greater the investment, the faster the sudden riches." In Baidu Tieba Bar, the reporter found that many of the "meta-universe blockchain games" exchange posts, teaching posts, and promotion posts were related to how users "got rich" and "got rich" through games. On QQ, the number of users of such game exchange groups has reached 10,000 people.

There are also many promotion and teaching videos on the Internet that advocate playing such games to get rich, among which "you can get back in 3 days", "earn 70,000 per day", "customers have doubled their assets", "new ways to force wealth", "chain game No.1, it is impossible to run away" and other content appear repeatedly.

Illegal coin issuance, packaging procedures, deceptive entry, harvesting for profit Who is doing the most ruthless innings

"I have played a blockchain game called 'Lucky XX Zodiac' before, saying that it is an investment of 5,000 yuan, and there is a 12% return in 6 days." Ms. Zhang of Zhejiang told reporters that after playing the game for 4 months, she could not log in, and she lost all her money. Mr. Mo of Jiangsu is a player of "blockchain pet cultivation game" and "Dragon Phoenix Chengxiang", the platform was shut down after only 3 days of playing, and he was defrauded of more than 5,000 yuan.

The reporter's investigation found that behind the "game" and "mining" APP fraud is a black industrial chain of "illegal coin issuance, packaging procedures, deception into the game, and harvesting for profit".

"You can issue coins in 6 minutes." A senior person in the blockchain industry told reporters that issuing a virtual coin is very simple, in the relevant non-centralized exchange platform, a few clicks can be completed, the cost is only a few hundred yuan. There are also some criminals who use game "equipment" instead of virtual currency to cheat.

As a "package" of virtual currency or "equipment", the "game" and "mining" programs can also be easily purchased. A technology company in Shaanxi made a quotation to reporters: the "meta-universe game" template includes cultivation classes, cards, synthetics, farms, etc., and the price ranges from 150,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan.

Means such as "heavy dividends to encourage users to pull people's heads" are important ways for unscrupulous elements to "deceive people into the game". The "Promotion Reward" of the "X Si Mining Reserve" APP promises that users can get an additional commission for each promotion of the APP to a friend. The blockchain game "Lucky XX Zodiac" said that users recharge 10,000 yuan to the game for every additional person pulled, and can rebate 300 yuan to the recommender.

The reporter also found that there are still many "gold studios" on the Internet that claim to help customers manage funds and play games on behalf of customers. Ding Feipeng, director of Beijing Linkcom Law Firm, said that game developers often cooperate with "gold-fighting studios" that attract players to "invest" and use short-term high returns as bait to attract a large number of players to buy virtual currency to participate in the game.

The reporter's investigation found that most of the virtual coins in such APPS are self-made "air coins", and their rise and fall are controlled by criminals. When the capital order reaches a certain amount, they will run offline.

As of press time, a number of virtual coins issued under the banner of "meta-universe", "blockchain" and "cloud mining" have plummeted in the trading platform, and the BNBH coins issued by the "Binance XX" game have dropped by about 99% in half a month, almost zero.

Online clearance and offline blockage must break the roots of scammers

"The concept of a metaverse is currently inconclusive, and blockchain technology itself is for the purpose of multi-party participation in supervision to prevent tampering with the rules. At present, most of the so-called blockchain games are only marketing or even scams under the guise of blockchain technology. Liu Xiaolei, director of the Department of Finance at Peking University Guanghua School of Management and director of Peking University Guanghua Blockchain Lab, said.

Huang Zhen, director of the Institute of Financial Law of the Central University of Finance and Economics, said that many departments such as the Chinese Bank have long stipulated that whether it is through "mining" or other forms of "mining" APP, as long as there is a so-called incentive mechanism in the form of tokens or points, and to carry out monetization transactions through currency or finance, it is illegal fundraising or financial fraud activities, which also constitutes a crime.

Experts such as Liu Xiaolei suggest that the general public should be vigilant against such new types of fraud, and regulators should improve the form of supervision and increase the intensity of supervision.

"Most of these illegal games bypass the game review department, hide on social platforms, and promote them to users point-to-point, making it difficult to be regulated in a timely manner." Pan Helin, executive dean of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, suggested that the Internet information law enforcement department can regularly organize relevant network platforms to conduct self-examination and self-correction, block the transmission channels of illegal games, especially to carry out centralized rectification and cleanup of WeChat public accounts, short video accounts, and social groups involving content such as "coin speculation teaching", "advocating playing games to get rich", and "publicizing fraudulent games".

Some experts believe that due to the current differences in the understanding of legal issues such as "whether virtual currency is data or property", some problems have been formed in the aspects of investigation and evidence collection and application of law, which has affected the efficiency of governance.

Huang Zhen suggested: "Accelerate the introduction of judicial interpretations involving virtual currency violations and crimes, and prevent large differences in the intensity and standards of judicial crackdowns." Once the signs and trends of possible major violations and crimes are discovered, the judicial organs should investigate and intervene as soon as possible, 'cracking down early and hitting small'; for transnational fraud crimes, they should promptly intervene and pursue escape through cross-border judicial. ”