Ethereum Startup Vanishes After Seemingly Making $11, Leaves Message: 'Penis'

CaptainDork shares a report from Motherboard: An Ethereum startup called Prodeum disappeared from the web on Sunday after raising a grand total of $11 USD from investors in a crowdsale. Shortly after the website disappeared, a message appeared on its homepage: "penis." Prodeum's website now redirects visitors to the Twitter account of a cryptocurrency trader (they did not immediately respond to our request for comment), and its Twitter account has been deactivated. Prodeum is at least the second Ethereum startup to pull up stakes after raising money from people in events called Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, in which a startup funds their enterprise by taking cryptocurrency from people in exchange for digital tokens. Some ICOs have managed to raise millions of dollars, and the last startup to vanish after conducting an ICO -- Confido, which disappeared from the internet in late 2017 -- made off with roughly $374,000. (A message later appeared on Confido's site stating that it would buy back investors' tokens, but it's unclear if that took place.)

Prodeum, by comparison, only seems to have raised $11 based on the Ethereum address that was advertised on Prodeum's site as being the ICO address. (Update: After this article was published the contents of the ICO wallet were sent to another wallet. That wallet contains roughly $100, with the other funds all coming from a single wallet that predates the Prodeum ICO and contains 46 cents.) Prodeum's pitch, according to a cached version of its webpage, was to track vegetables in a supply chain using digital addresses on a blockchain -- a decentralized ledger at the heart of Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. As for why the "penis" message was left on its homepage, it may have something to do with the name of the startup. Prodeum is a medication that treats urinary tract infections and other urinary problems...

Penis.

[Anonymous Coward]

Penis.

Re:Penis.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent erect

Re:Penis.

[Wescotte]

I don't want to think about my parent having an erection thank you very much.

Re: Penis.

[c6gunner]

Too late.

Re:

[Cryacin]

And yet the rest of the world thinks about it on a daily basis...

Re:

[MightyMartian]

Yeah, grandparent neither!

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

If the best you've got is attempting (and failing) to taunt someone because of their chosen online account name, you have spectacularly failed at what you set out to accomplish, and you've done it very publicly.

Well done, dipshit.

Re:

[MightyMartian]

I'm more amused by the extreme irony of someone who posts AC mocking me for my handle.

Re:

[RockDoctor]

You don't want to think of your Mummy having an erection? But you do want to think about your daddy having an erection.

Get this man to a psychologist and a lombotomy theatre, STAT!

Re:

[denzacar]

"Raised" would be more appropriate to the story.

Re:

[CaptainDork]

I wonder where my pen is.

Re:

[CaptainDork]

Point taken.

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

That's what she said.

Re:

[arth1]

You're the one who submitted this "story", and felt a need to add your wit in the comments too? It wasn't inane enough?

Re:

[CaptainDork]

It wasn't inane enough?

And yet you commented as well ...

Re:

[CaptainDork]

You win.

Re:

[amicusNYCL]

No, it's not inane enough.

As for why the "penis" message was left on its homepage, it may have something to do with the name of the startup. Prodeum is a medication that treats urinary tract infections and other urinary problems...

That's a great observation. And the crudely-drawn cock and balls on the side of this building is probably an advertisement for the urologist a few blocks away.

Re:

[DontBeAMoran]

Maybe it's on an island. Next to Megaflicks and KidsExchange.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The penis: mightier than the sword.

Re:

[ngc5194]

Your penis mightier, does it work?

Re:

[Flea of Pain]

You're sitting on a gold mine Trebec!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't this be modded informative??? Thanks to this post I didn't have to click the link to their homepage.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Penis.

Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.

What

[Topwiz]

A dick!

I wants my $11 back

[Anonymous Coward]

How do I get my $11 back???

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Send them a subpenis

Re: I wants my $11 back

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a flaccid suggestion.

Re:

[MightyMartian]

Come now, it does make a vast difference

Re:

[PopeRatzo]

Come now, it does make a vast difference

I'm not too drunk to have caught that joke. I should probably drink more.

Re:

[thegreatbob]

Make a Discharge-back with your bank?

the cryptocurrency bubble

[FudRucker]

is going to burst soon, and all of it is going to be worthless before the end of the year

Re:

[OldMugwump]

Either that, or not. One or the other. Never can tell.

Cost of Story

[Moblaster]

So this Slashdot story about $11 prank... or "ICO"... basically will up chewing about $25,000 worth of time from its primarily tech/IT-related audience.

Not to be a .... penis about editorial decisions, but I'm wondering how this was deemed either news for nerds or stuff that matters?

Re:

[Gravis Zero]

You're right! I'm pissed about getting shafted! I mean, $11 for penis? That sucks balls because they could have just asked google for penis and gotten it free! ;)

hehe peepee.

Re:

[JoshuaZ]

Well, they are going to get click through simply from some people wondering if the $11 was a typo and they meant some larger quantity. Also, to put this in perspective in the last few days, there have been submissions for Rocket Lab's successful test of the kick stage rocket(my own submission) as well as a submission from someone else about Ariane 5's launch anomaly, both of which were apparently declined. If I go to the Firehose from a few days ago, I imagine I'll see many similar things getting zero cover

Re:

[inking]

As opposed to all the other productive stuff you read about here.

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

As far as I know, I'm the only one on here who actually reads anything.

Re:

[denzacar]

but I'm wondering how this was deemed either news for nerds or stuff that matters?

Handling penises is a traditional pastime for nerds, and most of the humanity. Entire human culture is built around a penis. [youtube.com]

Also, something something cryptocurrency something something bubble.

Re:

[sheramil]

So this Slashdot story about $11 prank... or "ICO"... basically will up chewing about $25,000 worth of time from its primarily tech/IT-related audience.

*interested* How did you arrive at that $25,000 figure? The number of "penis" posts multiplied by how long it took to post each one, multiplied by, what? An estimate of the wage of the average slashdotter?

Re:

[asylumx]

He just pulled it out of his pants.

Re:

[Eloking]

So this Slashdot story about $11 prank... or "ICO"... basically will up chewing about $25,000 worth of time from its primarily tech/IT-related audience.

Citation needed!

And it's a funny story with a very funny /. comment section. Help with my morale for the day.

Re:

[SoulRider]

Your new here aren't you? They said...Penis! hehehehe

I'm struggling to see why this matters

[JoshuaZ]

It would be one thing if they had made off with 11 million dollars worth of cryptocurrency, but this is literally $11. I got scammed out of $20 last year by a con-artist. That's not newsworthy, and having the same thing happen for about half that doesn't magically become newsworthy because it happened with a cryptocurrency.

Re:

[No Longer an AC]

It seems like a challenge to me now. Surely I could do better than $11, right?

I seriously doubt I'll follow through on this, but if I really tried, I should be able to scam more than $11 out of gullible people. I should be able to get at least...$24!

And cryptocurrency is how I could make it happen because people don't understand it. I don't even understand it exactly. But I know "blockchain"is a selling point so I'll have to incorporate that into my cryptocoins - which will need a really catchy name

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

How can a zero-knowledge proof system solve double-spending?

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

BTW, thanks for being the first procrypto person to actually respond with a link when asked.

Re:

[DontBeAMoran]

There already is a ByteCoin [coingecko.com].

Re:

[No Longer an AC]

Well that sucks. And I was going to suggest maybe a Nibble Coin too, but apparently someone had that idea already also.

https://coinmarketcap.com/curr... [coinmarketcap.com]

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Hopefully it's the start of a trend where people have woken up to the fact that ICOs are scams and companies can't raise millions of dollars just by changing their name to "Cypto [oldname] Blockchain [meme]" any more.

I see. OK listen carefully, this is important:

[RightwingNutjob]

Grow the fuck up.

And yet,

[Snufu]

their customer service is still rate better than Comcast.

Come get some

[AndyKron]

PeNiS

Why is this news?

[mferrare]

Just asking.

Re:

[arth1]

It happened recently.
Not that much happened, but I guess references to genitalia is enough for some?

Re:

[Guignol]

Parce que biteCoins...

Another cogent department name

[Two99Point80]

Who at /. comes up with... I mean thinks up... those things? I have great, ongoing appreciation for them.

Why is this news?

[grahamsaa]

Somebody (may have) scammed someone else for $11. Seriously, isn't there more important stuff Slashdot could cover? If I lost $11, I'd be ticked off for no more than a couple minutes. Seriously, this is not news.

Cool story

[PopeRatzo]

"...Confido...Prodeum..."

Brocoin dudes are trying to outdo the pharma companies for the worst names. Confido really sounds like something you take for IBS and has a list of side effects that includes dizziness, suicidal thoughts, elephantitis and death. Ask your doctor if Confido is right for you, you poor bastard.

Re:

[thegreatbob]

<pedantic>That's "elephantiasis".</pedantic>

The reason for the penis message

[Khyber]

They got exactly dick in this whole little scam attempt of theirs.

No one can say

[MrKaos]

They were M.T Gox.

Re:

[Megane]

I could say they were Empty Gox.

Re:

[MrKaos]

I'm glad someone got the joke.

Nice.

[Qbertino]

Somebody cashed out on the craze, left and left the rest a giant "f*ck you". Nice. Pretty much spot on. I can't really blame them.

Re:

[Khashishi]

They didn't exactly cash out. $11 probably doesn't cover their expenses. Rather, this was probably some kind of satire of the crypto community. If so, it's fully apt.

Isn't it awfully nice...

[cmdr_klarg]

... to have a penis? Isn't it frightfully good to have a dong?

Burned

[sacrilicious]

Prodeum... seems to have raised $11

Mark my words, the investors are highly unlikely to see any of their money back.