The Central Bank has identified a new type of financial pyramid

The Central Bank has revealed a new type of financial pyramids operating on the principle of investment online games. The project also works through cryptocurrencies and is curtailed in the absence of new players.

“Usually, a user can register in a gaming economic project with the ability to withdraw funds, buy a certain character or, for example, virtual real estate, which should generate income,” said Valery Lyakh, head of the Central Bank’s department for combating unfair practices .

Almost any type of electronic means of payment is accepted, including cryptocurrencies. But in order to win, you need to bring new players, otherwise the project is curtailed, and there are no guarantees of a refund, Lyakh warns.

As Pavel Ikkert, managing partner of the law firm Ickert and Partners, explained to RBC, scammers can build pyramids based on the ideas of NFT games, such as the CryptoKitties online game. Its participants buy, breed and sell virtual cats with a unique digital certificate using the Etherium cryptocurrency. On average, such a cat costs $ 250, but it can be several million, wrote the BBC.

• In January-September, the Central Bank revealed 424 financial pyramid schemes. In the third quarter of 2021, 278 pyramid schemes were recorded against 140 for the same period last year.

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The loudest financial pyramid of 2021 was Finiko, founded by four natives of Tatarstan and burst this summer. According to official data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the creators of the pyramid have deprived customers of at least 80 million rubles, but, according to The Bell's source in the Central Bank, the amount could be almost a hundred times more. We studied the history of Finiko and told how four entrepreneurs with a dubious background managed to convince more than 200 thousand people to invest in a project that did not guarantee them anything.