Tech

True story of town devastated by Koda cryptocurrency

Published

8 months ago

4 June, 2024

A crypto tale of highs and lows and how a village was charmed by a wolf in geek’s clothing

The Potters Arms, with its white washed exterior adorned with bright floral arrangements and hanging baskets is exactly what comes to mind when you think of a quintessential country pub.

It is set in the heart of the idyllic village of Winchmore Hill, just north-east of Slough, a place half an hour away by train from central London. With its winding lanes and expansive greenery as far as the eye can see, the area is a far cry from the metallic slick of Silicon valley – the more traditional playground for tech bros. But, for a while at least in the latter half of 2021, this community in the belly of rural England became an unlikely recruiting ground for a crypto currency called Koda.

‘In winter it looks like Narnia,’ Pete Gilbert, the pub landlord tells me as he gives me a tour. ‘All covered in snow it looks absolutely unbelievable and then in the spring with the yellow coming through.’

The reason I’m speaking to Pete is because he is a pretty key player in the story of Koda and The Potters arms, which I’ve been investigating for BBC Radio 4’s The Wolf of Crypto.

Pete, the landlord of The Potters Arms was the first in the village to invest in the crypto currency (Picture: Maureen McLean/REX/Shutterstock)

He was the first in Winchmore Hill to invest in the crypto currency when it launched in the summer of 2021 and in his role as landlord of The Potters Arms he promoted the opportunity to family, friends and pub regulars.

He estimates that there are probably hundreds of people who either directly or indirectly invested in Koda because of him.

Now, they’ve lost that money.

Road sign of Winchmore Hill, Buckinghamshire, England, UK Many people in the village of Winchmore Hill were keen to get involved in the cypto currency game (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Koda was founded in May 2021 by the then 32-year-old James Gale. The venture wasn’t his first business, for the previous decade he’d been running a successful pest control company, and since 2018 had been dabbling in the world of crypto with his own money.

However, Koda was a new venture for the entrepreneur, his first professional foray into the world of crypto with other people’s money.

And straight away the business was hitting the headlines. Unlike traditional crypto coins, where you can never tell who exactly owns the currency, Koda was upfront about who was in charge and what it wanted to achieve. It was a refreshing change from bigger enterprises such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, with the company’s motto being ‘trust, education and ease of access.’

There was a huge fanfare around the start-up, too. The lavish launch party was attended by porn stars and entertainers, while Lamborghinis lined the street outside.

Koda founder James Gale , who calls himself the Wolf of Crypto ‘I prefer to refer to myself as a geek in wolf’s clothing,’ James Gale told a My London reporter (Picture:Linkedin)

In an interview the next day with a reporter for My London, Gale described how money could buy happiness and that he was already earning a new nickname: ‘The Wolf of Crypto’. However, he added, ‘I prefer to refer to myself as a geek in wolf’s clothing.

‘I plan to make everyone involved in the project millionaires,’ he continued to the reporter, adding: ‘I’m going to make people’s dreams come true. But for me, in the not too distant future I won’t just be a millionaire, I’ll be a billionaire.’

Just a few weeks later, in the September of 2021, Gale also launched a car giveaway in which over the course of a year, three lucky investors would each win a sports car.

It was shortly after the launch of Koda that landlord Pete came across the crypto coin.

Having left school over 30 years ago with no qualifications, he’d made his wealth originally working on building sites and then later buying, renovating and selling houses. It was through one of his contacts in the building industry that Pete claims he first encountered Koda.

A friend had been working at the offices and told him about the project. Curious, Pete went down to the offices, met the team and invested.

Computer graphic of standing coin, abstract futuristic background Before too long, Pete was running crypto nights at the pub (Picture: Getty Images)

At first, the value of the currency he’d bought seemed to be going up and up – so he invested more. At the same time, the landlord was recommending the product to family, friends and pub regulars.

Before too long, Pete was running crypto nights at the pub with members of the Koda team in attendance to help people who might want to invest.

‘Imagine you want to buy Bitcoin for example,’ Pete tells me. ‘You’re a crypto virgin and you have to learn it yourself. But with this, what you got was professional help. It was “put him on the phone” professional help, and that’s what gave it substance.’

32-year-old Lewis, one of the pub regulars agrees that this was part of the appeal. ‘I think the risk feels bigger with Bitcoin and stuff, because it didn’t have that whereas Koda did,’ he explains. ‘Early opportunity I think is not a thing for a lot of people and it [Koda] had a lot of benefits. There’s not a lot of crypto companies that had a home office space.’

However, Koda wasn’t just grabbing the attention of The Potters Arms, it was also getting national recognition within the media.

As well as being featured in My London, James Gale and Koda were also profiled in The Times and The Sun, where James provided readers with a list of ‘red flags to avoid when investing in crypto’. He also warned investors to ‘only invest what you can afford to lose’.

But he wasn’t just getting the thumbs up in print.

James Gale holding the Koda football shirt Koda became the sponsors of local football team Slough FC (Picture: Twitter/@CoinKoda)

In the summer of 2021, a sponsorship deal was announced between Koda and the local football team Slough Town FC. The Koda team, alongside Danny Dyer, former footballer Nicky Shorey and actor Will Mellor were playing charity football matches against the club.

Two Pints star Will later posted that Koda were the ‘UK leaders’ in crypto and NFTs, in January 2022, while just over a year after Koda had launched, James was speaking as an expert voice on the documentary Crypto: Has The Bubble Burst?

‘Crypto currency took my love and I built a real world business around it,’ he told presenter Ade Adepitan. ‘So we have a face you know and I’m here as what we call doxed, which is a means of sharing my identity.’

A cautionary crypto tale of how a village was charmed by a wolf in geek's clothing Credit Twitter @CoinKoda The Koda team played in a charity match with actors Danny Dyer and Will Mellor (Picture: Twitter/@CoinKoda)

The documentary, made by Parable Works, aired on Channel 4 on 9 August 2022. But already there were concerns about whether things were going well at Koda.

In the previous November, the value of the currency, like many others such as Bitcoin, had plummeted due to an industry-wide decline. However, while some coins bounced back before a second crypto crash the following May, Koda’s value continued to drop. To this day, it hasn’t picked up.

The impact of this was devastating on the community,

‘I’d lost my son four years ago and that had made me look at the world in a different light,’ explains Lewis Blackmore, when talking about why he’d invested in Koda.

‘I’ve worked for a builders for 12 or 13 years, constantly grafting. I got myself to a place where there wasn’t any more opportunities for me to get ahead in life so I had to make a decision to find an investment to move forward in life because no-one’s going to do that for me.

‘Hence why I invested,’ he adds. ‘If Koda hasn’t gone the way it went it could have changed my life massively.’

In total, Lewis lost just under £5,000 but he considers himself to be lucky. Many of the investors, including a friend of Pete’s, a man called Bobby, lost tens of thousands of pounds, their entire life savings.

This photo was taken in Winchmore Hill, Buckinghamshire, England, UK The village was rocked by the losses from their crypto currency investments (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

‘I think because of the way it was being sold, it was the fact that moving forward it would be something that you were safe with,’ Bobby’s partner Amber told me. ‘I don’t think he felt like it could ever fail.’

Bobby died in July 2022 of suicide. The coroners report into his death found that his mental health was a contributing factor. Amber, who is going by a pseudonym, believes that losing so much money in Koda was a huge impact on his emotional wellbeing.

‘It caused him not to sleep and worry about money,’ she explains. ‘Money issues moving forwards and how he could ever recuperate what he’d lost, where he’d not slept for so long. He started hallucinating and he would just say, “If only I could sleep one night”.’

Over the course of the Radio 4 investigation, a number of those who invested, as well as former employees, have spoken out about how the company was run and whether this contributed to failure of the currency.

While the BBC found no evidence that Gale did anything other than preside over a cryptocurrency that precipitously dropped in value, there were a number of practices that raise concern.

A quick look on Companies House found that Koda’s parent company Summit Better Crypto Ltd was registered in 2021. However, over the two years it was registered, no financial documents were submitted.

Making Money in the Meta verse Over the course of the Radio 4 investigation, a number of those who invested, as well as former employees, have spoken out about how the company was run(Picture: Getty Images)

When the BBC put this to Gale he said that all of Koda’s trading had actually been done through his Dubai Company Summit Better Crypto DMCC.

Summit Better Crypto Ltd had never actually traded in the UK, he said.

Of the three cars in the prize giveaway, it turns out that only one was ever issued as a prize. The second car was sold to an ex-employee in return for Koda, while the third prize was never even purchased by the company.

Gale explained that this was because there weren’t enough entrants to the competition – however, so far, no information has been found to show that he had made investors aware that it had been cancelled.

And the Slough football deal? Well, that was supposed to be a two year deal, but half way through Gale backed out shortly before the second season was due to start. As a result, the club spent half a season without the sponsorship funding they’d budgeted for.

Gale told the BBC this was a commercial decision and he was unaware of any financial difficulty faced by the club.

It was also alleged that Gale sent abusive messages to a fired employee Carl Dawkins, who raised concerns about Koda on his Youtube channel. Gale has since admitted he sent these, but added that he has apologised to Carl.

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Tech

The Information Hires Peterson to Cover Tech, Finance, Cryptocurrency

Published

6 months ago

29 July, 2024

CoinFlix Staff

The Information Hires Peterson to Cover Tech, Finance, Cryptocurrency

My life is nice

Tech news site The Information has hired Business Insider actress to cover technology, finance and cryptocurrencies.

She was part of Business Insider’s investigative team. She was also previously a corporate technology reporter and a technology deals reporter.

Peterson has been with Business Insider since June 2017 and is based in the San Francisco office.

She previously worked for Folio as an associate editor. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California-Davis and a master’s degree from New York University.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush is the former dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Previously, he was the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor of Business Journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business reporter for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune, and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business journalism textbook, Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication, and of Thinking Things Over, a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.

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Tech

Trump Courts Crypto Industry Votes, Campaign Donations

Published

6 months ago

28 July, 2024

CoinFlix Staff

Trump Courts Crypto Industry Votes, Campaign Donations

Author, Brandon Livesay
Role, BBC News
July 27, 2024

Donald Trump said at one of the biggest cryptocurrency events of the year that if he is re-elected president, he will fire the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on his first day.

On Saturday, Trump was the keynote speaker at Bitcoin 2024, a gathering of industry heavyweights in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Republican presidential candidate used the event to woo voters and encourage the tech community to donate to his campaign.

Cryptocurrencies have emerged as a political battleground for Republicans, with Trump saying that the Democratic Party and Vice President Kamala Harris were “against cryptocurrencies.”

The crowd was at its most animated when Trump declared, “On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler,” the SEC chairman appointed by now-President Joe Biden. The crowd applauded loudly and began chanting “Trump” at this statement.

SEC files charges against ‘Cryptocurrency King’ Sam Bankman-Frittosentenced to 25 years for stealing billions of dollars from customers of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

Speaking for about 45 minutes, Trump outlined some of his ideas for the industry if he wins the November election. He said he would make the United States the crypto capital of the world. His support for the sector is a 180-degree reversal from his comments in 2021, when he told Fox Business he saw Bitcoin as a “scam” that influence the value of the US dollar.

Trump told the crowd at the event that he would retain 100% of the Bitcoin currently owned or acquired by the U.S. government, adding that it would be a “national stockpile of Bitcoin.”

The former president also said he would “immediately appoint a presidential advisory council on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.”

He talked about the power needed to mine cryptocurrencies. “It takes a lot of electricity,” he said, adding that he would build power plants “to do that” and that it would “use fossil fuels.”

In recent months, some tech leaders have seen growing support for Trump’s presidential campaign. Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is the world’s richest person, has backed Trump. And cryptocurrency moguls the Winklevoss twins, who attended his speech on Saturday, have also come out in support.

Trump noted that his campaign accepts cryptocurrency donations, saying that in the two months since allowing cryptocurrency transactions, he has received $25 million (£20 million) in donations. However, he did not say how much of the payments came from cryptocurrency.

Trump used his speech to frame cryptocurrency regulation as a partisan issue, saying the Biden administration was “anti-crypto.”

Several Republican lawmakers also attended Trump’s speech, including Senators Tim Scott and Tommy Tuberville. Former Republican presidential candidate and Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy was also in attendance.

The event was also attended by independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. and Democratic Party congressmen Wiley Nickel and Ro Khanna.

Earlier, during Bitcoin 2024, Democratic Congressman Nickel said that Kamala Harris was taking a “forward-thinking approach to digital assets and blockchain technology.”

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Tech

WazirX Crypto Exchange Hack and Its Bounty Program: What Does It Mean for Crypto Investors in India?

Published

6 months ago

28 July, 2024

CoinFlix Staff

WazirX Crypto Exchange Hack and Its Bounty Program: What Does It Mean for Crypto Investors in India?

On July 18, India Cryptocurrency exchange WazirX has been hit by a cyber attack which resulted in the loss of over $230 million worth of digital assets from one of its wallets. The exchange responded by suspending regular trading and reporting the incident to Indian authorities and other cryptocurrency exchanges. The company also launched two reward programs for ethical hackers who can help the exchange trace, freeze, and recover stolen funds.

WazirX said there was a cyberattack on a multi-signature wallet operated through a digital asset custodian service known as Liminal. Multi-signature wallets have a built-in security feature that requires multiple parties to sign transactions.

“The impact of the cyberattack is over $230 million on our clients’ digital assets,” WazirX said in a blog post, adding that INR funds were not affected. The company has firmly denied that WazirX itself was hacked and has brushed aside rumors that it was tricked by a phishing attack.

The exchange also noted that it was “certain” that its hardware keys had not been compromised, adding that an external forensic team would be tasked with investigating the matter further.

But Liminal, after completing its investigation, said: “It is clear that the genesis of this hack stems from three devices compromised by WazirX.”

Meanwhile, WazirX founder and CEO Nischal Shetty said that the attack would have been possible only if there were four points of failure in the digital signature process.

Who is behind the cyber attack?

WazirX has not yet disclosed the suspected parties or perpetrators responsible for the hack. However, news reports have emerged that North Korean hackers were responsible for the incident.

On-chain analytics and other information indicate “that this attack was perpetrated by hackers affiliated with North Korea,” blockchain analytics platform Elliptic said.

In response to The Hindu’s questions to WazirX about the North Korean hackers, cryptocurrency exchange WazirX directed us to its blog and said it was working with law enforcement to investigate whether a known malicious group was behind the attack.

“This incident affected the Ethereum multisig wallet, which consists of ETH and ERC20 tokens. Other blockchain funds are not affected,” WazirX said in its official blog, specifying that approximately 45% (according to preliminary work) of cryptocurrencies were affected by the attack.

The company largely placed the blame on the process of securing Ethereum multisig wallets and said that the vulnerability was not unique to WazirX.

How important is WazirX in the cryptocurrency industry?

WazirX calls itself India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. As of June 10, it reported total holdings of ₹4,203.88 Crores, or 503.64 million USDT. Tether [USDT] It is a stablecoin, that is, a cryptocurrency pegged to the value of the US dollar, but it is not an official currency of the United States.

When The Hindu tried to access WazirX Public and Real-Time Reserve Proof After the hack, we were greeted with a notice that the page was under maintenance.

WazirX has received both positive and negative reviews in India. The Enforcement Directorate froze the exchange’s assets in 2022, criticizing its operating procedures and lax Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.

“By encouraging obscurity and adopting lax AML norms, it has actively assisted around 16 accused fintech companies in laundering proceeds of crime using the cryptocurrency route. Accordingly, equivalent movable assets amounting to Rs 64.67 Crore in possession of WazirX have been frozen under the PMLA, 2002,” the ED said in a statement.

What will happen to WazirX assets?

It is unlikely that the stolen WazirX assets will be fully recovered anytime soon. This is due to the very nature of cryptocurrency, where assets can be easily mixed, transferred, converted, and sent to anonymous wallets. The chances of asset recovery are even slimmer if it is confirmed that North Korean hackers are behind the incident.

CEO Shetty said on X on July 22 that “small” portions of the stolen funds had been frozen, but declined to provide further details. He added that the majority of the funds had not been moved from the attacker’s wallet.

In recent years, North Korean hackers have stolen billions of dollars in cryptocurrency, aiming to circumvent various financial and economic sanctions.

WazirX is currently working to resume normal operations and has planned to launch an online survey to decide how to resume trading on the platform.

While the Indian exchange has defended its security practices and highlighted the challenges facing the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, savvy crypto traders will be looking for action plans and accountability, rather than emotional reassurance.

What does your rewards program consist of?

WazirX has announced two bounty programs: one to gain more information about stolen funds, and the other to recover them. Both programs are open to everyone except WazirX employees and their immediate family members.

Under the first program, WaxirX will reward up to $10,000 to anyone who can provide the exchange with information that can help freeze the funds. If the bounty hunter is unable to freeze the funds on their own, they should work with WazirX by providing enough evidence to facilitate the process.

But “if the participant fails to freeze and/or does not cooperate with WazirX to facilitate the freezing of funds, then the participant will not be entitled to any rewards,” the exchange said.

The second program, called White Hat Recovery, is aimed at recovering funds. Participants are offered 10% of the amount recovered as a white hat incentive.

“This reward will be paid only after and subject to the successful receipt of the stolen amount by WazirX. The above rewards will be payable in USDT or in the form of recovered funds at the sole discretion of WazirX,” the exchange noted.

The bounty programs are expected to last for the next three months.

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Tech

Trump Vows to Make US ‘Crypto Capital of the Planet and Bitcoin Superpower’

Published

6 months ago

27 July, 2024

CoinFlix Staff

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump said that if elected, he would make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet and a Bitcoin superpower.”

Trump added that he would “appoint a Presidential Advisory Council on Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies,” which would have 100 days to “design transparent regulatory guidance that will benefit the entire industry.”

Trump has publicly opposed cryptocurrencies until recently. His latest statements serve as a rallying cry for a tech industry that has long called for more flexible regulatory oversight.

Shortly after taking the stage, Trump spent several minutes naming some of the conference attendees, at one point describing Winklevoss Twins Cameron and Tyler as “male role models with big, beautiful brains.” The former president has continued to speak out against electric car mandates and called for more fossil-fuel burning power plants.

Trump also said he would order the United States to withhold all Bitcoin it currently owns “in the future.” The U.S. government reportedly holds billions of dollars in Bitcoin.

About three years ago, Trump called Bitcoin “a fraud“that is “competing against the dollar.” In February 2024, the former president said that establishing a central bank digital currency would represent a “dangerous threat to freedom.” Yet, in May, Trump declared that he was “good with [crypto]“, adding, “if you’re pro-cryptocurrency you’d better vote for Trump.” That same month, he said he would commute with the Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s Sentencingand his campaign said it would accept cryptocurrency donations.

Recent comments from Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have helped make cryptocurrency regulation a major political issue in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. This comes as the SEC intensifies its scrutiny of the cryptocurrency industry. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, appointed by President Joe Biden, called the activity “full of fraud, scams, bankruptcies and money laundering.” Trump drew applause at the conference after promising to “fire” Gensler. (U.S. presidents have the power to appoint the heads of many federal commissions, including the SEC.)

With Biden out of the raceVice President Kamala Harris’s campaign advisers have He is said to have contacted to cryptocurrency leaders in an effort to “reset” relations with the industry. Harris’s campaign has not yet said whether her stance on the industry differs from Biden’s.

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