The cryptocurrency industry thrives on personal and group discussions on social media platforms such as Telegram, Reddit and Steemit. Many influencers in this industry use these platforms to voice their opinions and current trends as they foresee.  A new controversy has come to light as an account by the name of @cryptomedication claiming that many cryptocurrency influencers such as BitcoinBravado, CryptoGat, Peripheral, CryptoHornHairs, ParabolicMp, CryptoDog, CryptoSignals had been colluding to suppress the price of a new cryptocurrency HavenProtocol (XHV). 

After purchasing the currency, they were then found to be promoting it among their followers in order to inflate the price and make a large profit out of it. The account holder has published 76 screenshots of the pump and dump Telegram group chat. Various responses have been given by the accused parties and the BravadoGroup appears to have taken legal steps as well. Though the screenshots could not be verified independently, few parties have acknowledged that such messages did take place which would point towards a confirmation.

 Details of the Chat:

  • Crypto Signals starts talking about  “buying up a large portion of the supply with a group of people when the market cap is around 1mm [1 million] and then controlling price with suppression and so forth”

  • Various interested parties put up for free Bitcoin in the scheme

  • Crypto Signals allege that several miners and a programmer have built the exchange bought and a lot of capital would be invested.  He says that these people have “enough to start controlling the order books so we can just accumulate the rest through mining".

  • A new group chat by the name of Project X Y Z is formed. The screenshot carries  the link but it results in a broken link

  • Google Drive document with an offering of 20 BTC has been created and appears to be built by Jeremy Spence.

  • Various exchanges are discussed to get the coin listed on and Bitfinex is decided finally.  Different coins are discussed it's that the price of XHV is already pumped up and XRB is the new coin of choice.

  • Different market manipulation and discussed and after a  20% reduction, the coin is supposed to be pumped hard

  • Peripheral claims that he can get into the next Bravado newsletter and various another claim about getting the coin on CNBC. More discussions take place on the coin to be chosen and the chat ends with the screenshot of the telegram account of other members.

The Fallout

Amidst the discussion, a user called ParabolicMp replies to the tweet saying that he has not put up any money for the coin. Another Twitter user by the name of Crypto Pigs replies that he has tried to make the aforementioned purchase of 5 BTC worth of XHV. ParabolicMp expresses his wishes to be part of the deal. Following the brouhaha, the BitcoinBravado group released a 16-page document stating that he was not a part of all this and he has distanced himself from the other parties, along with posting the entire messaging history between cryptomedication and the founder of BitcoinBravado founder.

The messages published by BitcoinBravado explain how CryptoMedication was an unpaid analyst for the group and he accused BitcoinBravado of being sponsored by Ncash and giving out false advice as part of a pump and dump. He claimed BitcoinBravado to have “zero integrity” and a referenced an article he had been made to write about Ncash. Post this CryptoMedication is demoted from analyst wherein a fight ensues without any party admitting fault. CryptoMedicated is messaged with a threat of legal action if he does not post a retraction of the article posted by him.

As this does not happen, after the article is posted, CryptoMedicated is painted in a negative light as a liar on different account supposedly owned by him. Questions are raised about his emotional stability with a further allegation that he attacked another coin on 4chan without showing any proof. It is also alleged that he bought followers on Instagram and this claim is supported by the username –Socialblade.

Various parties such as Serial Shiller, who is the co-founder of BitcoinBravado talks about severing all ties with CryptoGat and Peripheral and even though CryptoGat though has not commented he retweeted BitcoinBravado’s statement. CryptoDog admits to being in the group chat but denied being part of any market manipulation and says that the questions he asked were to understand the good coins to accumulate.

Later Peripheral who earlier claimed to get the coin into the Bravado newsletter retracts his statement and claim that it was a mistake to mention it and said he would be releasing a statement soon. CryptoHornHairs says that he was a minimal participant and check his messages only once a week – a  claim which seems to be true. ParabolicMp made a bunch of claims saying he did not promote the coin (apparently found true). Several responses suggest this was because the coin had not yet been accumulated (understandably so). He also claims he deleted the group chats several days ago and that he never owned any XHV.

The chronology of messages and events suggest a major fallout with each party blaming the others for the pump and dump and exonerating their role. The intentions of Crypto medicated need to be taken into account as fuel the participant's think that he was coming at them for some reason or the other he has also asserted over the chat groups that he would outwork everyone and has also shown fattening behaviour on his part.