A cryptocurrency investor is suing an investment firm for giving him advice that led to the loss of his investment. Per a legal filing published on February 1 in a United States district court in New York, Lijun Sun, a Chinese investor based in California, was duped into making a $2 million investment in digital asset MCash, by a New York-based investment firm Blue Ocean Capital Group.
MCash is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 digital token which, as of this writing, has little in the way of development. The token is not listed on any known or recognized crypto exchange, and according to data from EtherScan, it’s currently worth $0.00. According to the filing, the investor was looking to make an entry into the crypto market, and was advised by the investment firm to purchase the MCash tokens.
Omitting the Facts
However, Sun wasn’t provided with the full details into the transaction, and was ultimately convinced to shell out $2 million on a digital asset which, for all intended purposes, is not functional.
The filing reads,
“Not only was the MCash Token not properly registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, but more importantly, in connection with selling the MCash Token, Defendants made numerous misrepresentations and omissions that induced Plaintiff to invest $2 million.”
The plaintiff said he had lay claim to an annulment of his investment and a return of his funds, while also requesting $6 million in additional damages.
Worthless MCash Tokens, Image from Etherscan.
Apart from the fact that the tokens weren’t registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the document revealed that Sun only became aware of the required Token Purchase Agreement that needed to be signed after purchasing the tokens in question, and that Blue Ocean didn’t disclose such information beforehand.
Sun claimed that knowledge of these facts would have made him rescind his investment while also adding that Antony Liu, the president of Blue Ocean, was aware of the illegal nature of the transaction as well as the legal consequences that were involved. At press time, Blue Ocean Capital’s website is down but there’s a video on Youtube celebrating the investment firm’s launch in New York, along with a presentation of a Six-Star Diamond award presented to Trump family associate and mobster Joey Cinque.
This alleged token fraud goes to show why crypto investors need to get proper knowledge of their prospective crypto-related business transactions, as well as for investment firms and startups to be held more accountable for their actions.
Misappropriation of Funds
Last month, Zhewen Hu, a Chinese investor, sued Israeli blockchain firm Stox over alleged fraud. According to the report, Hu sued Stox and its funder Moshe Hogeg for $4.6 million, after investing $3.8 million worth of Ether (ETH) tokens in the firm.
The lawsuit alleged that Hogeg and the company misappropriated the funds which they had received. It claimed that Stox’s whitepaper had promised to work on developing its product market platform as soon as it hit an investment mark of $30 million in Ether. The suit further claimed that after raising about $34 million in its 2017 Initial Coin Offering, Moshe only invested $5 million into the product’s development, while pouring the rest of the capital into other ICO projects.