The Most Complex Crypto Scam I Have Ever Seen Is Also The Laziest
The most complex rendition of Earth in a 1x1 scale made on a Unity engine is apparently made by a team of people you’ve never heard of.
Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum; surely you’ve heard the buzz about at least one of them.
Cryptocurrency has surged in value in 2020 & 2021, making investors margins far beyond anything the stock market could offer. And now that more people have their eye on crypto, many aren’t just looking at buying the most popular or sustainable coins now. Instead, they want to find the next big thing. They want to find the next cryptocurrency that will soar by 10,000% in a month.
But this has made the market especially ripe for scammers, particularly because many investors of crypto don’t actually understand how it works or what its practicality is. The line goes up, you make money. And that’s good enough for most people.
Enter: Earth 2 (AKA Earth2 or Earth2.io)
“Earth 2” is a kind of cryptocurrency that is a bit… different from your traditional one.
Where mainstream cryptocurrencies purpose is to become practical for buying products and use in online sales, Earth 2 is selling “land.”
You obviously already read the title of this article, but before I delve into this mess of a digital Ponzi scheme, I need to make clear:
Do not invest in or sign up for Earth2. Seriously.
You may ask “why not” as opposed to other obscure cryptocurrencies available on popular platforms like Binance — in the same sense, it’s still just a gamble on a digital token that is completely worthless in the real world, whose value is determined based on the interest of other crypto traders.
What exactly is it?
Well, you’re not really buying “coins” with Earth 2, per se. As I said they’re selling “land,” which are broken into 10x10 meter squares, mapped over the entire planet.
Essentially, it is Google Earth with a grid of 10x10 meter squares on it, each of which are purchasable, have individual identifying codes, and these are not solely determined in price based on market demand. They are also priced based on the value that land would actually hold in the real world. Except you’re not buying any actual land, real or digital. Did I mention there are 5.1 trillion squares available?
It’s a brilliant marketing technique, really, because you’re buying tokens presented on a grid as land, but when you purchase one, all you have is that code. It’s no different than owning 1 Dogecoin at that point, except Dogecoin has far more flexibility and you can sell it pretty much any time you want. It gives the illusion of property ownership, something unattainable for many. Combined with the ambition of getting rich by investing early, this scam has already generated millions of dollars from a variety of people.
You cannot sell purchased grid squares back to Earth2, only to other users.
This is just “phase 1” of 3 laid out steps (another ‘explanation’ commonly used by pyramid schemes & scams). Right now, Earth2 is in the buying phase, where users purchase squares.
By phase 2, you are apparently able to edit the land or mine it for its resources, which is a precursor to phase 3, the intended finished product which is still far from completion.
Phase 3 is quite simply an online MMO involving digital land editing with sellable tokens (the grid squares) & in-game currency in real-time with other users on a 1-to-1 scale of the Earth, available for console or VR and with eventual 3d graphics.
It’s a cryptocurrency video game, but the game they’ve described is so incredibly complex, it makes you wonder if running it could make the computers NASA uses crash.
Earth2 profits on all squares sold, but each buyer risks losing it all
Earth2 is selling you grid squares from their database, so them selling you a square is of no loss financially to them, you’re just added to the database. But that one square you just purchased could vary in price from a dime to $500.
And there is absolutely nothing to suggest that these squares will grow in value, or that the finished product will ever even arrive. And if (take “if” with a grain of salt) the finished product never arrives, investors will be left out to dry in phase 1, only able to sell squares to other users, after everyone has already packed their bags and left.
Shady Practices
On top of all of that, if you still think it’s a good idea to buy Earth2, let’s just gloss over what is needed to be eligible to.
You need to give them your first and last name, your email, your address, but most notably: banking information.
While there is not a lot of clarity on who exactly it is you’re giving this information to, the CEO does have a LinkedIn profile.
The only other experience listed, however, comes in the form of a failed social media alternative from 2016, that cumulatively has under 200 reviews between the App Store & Google Play Store.
Reverse image search does not return any other profiles or accounts that could verify who “Shane Issac” was. He’s revealed his face on video before (search “Shane Issac” on YouTube) but has presented no way of verifying if that is even his real name.
And it’s all legal
At least, for now. As of right now, the people behind Earth2 haven’t used users’ banking information for their gain. They have only sold the squares they advertised in a way that is both deceptive and genius. No laws have really been broken.
At the end of the day, it’s an investment, and you can even go invest right now.
You can go to Earth2.io, give your money and banking information to complete strangers, in exchange for some 10x10 squares on Google Maps with no real value and a very limited market that you’re supposed to be able to sell when you’re ready. And if that isn’t a wise investment, I don’t know what is.