Freeway, Crypto Platform That Promised 43% Returns, Halts Withdrawals (gizmodo.com) 42
Freeway, a UK-based crypto platform that promised annual returns up to a mind-boggling 43%, halted withdrawals on Sunday, according to a notice published to the company's website. Freeway's native cryptocurrency, which goes by the ticker FWT, plummeted 74% following the announcement and, to top it all off, the Freeway website appears to be scrubbing the names and photos of some executives. From a report: Upset users have taken to the community Telegram channel for Freeway, expressing frustration that they can't access their accounts. People who told friends and family members to invest in the platform seemed the most angry, based on comments viewed by Gizmodo early Monday. The news, first reported by the crypto-watcher Twitter account FatManTerra, comes in the wake of other high-profile collapses in the crypto space this year, including Celsius, which has filed for bankruptcy. FatManTerra tweeted on Saturday that they believed Freeway was a Ponzi scheme which would likely collapse by this time next year. Well, apparently we didn't have to wait a whole year for things to collapse. It seems to have happened in just a day, as Freeway's website includes a varied assortment of confusing terms to explain that users can no longer access their money. And it sounds a lot like what Celsius said after it announced it was halting withdrawals back in June.
All 3 users (Score:5, Funny)
And they put up photos of the executives? The company owners must be as dumb as the users.
MGGA (Score:1)
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Could be worse. At least they're spared the indignance of having to say they "own" a link to an image of a cartoon monkey somewhere on the web.
What goes up (Score:2)
High guaranteed returns are Ponzis (Score:5, Insightful)
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They probably needed the 43% returns to entice the crypto gamblers/"investors" to invest. They would have been getting used to getting 100+ percent annual increases on their Bitcoin/Ethereum/Solana/Dogecoin in 2020 and early 2021.
Of course, it all went to hell in late 2021 and most cryptocurrencies are still down over 70% from their all-time highs. Even the puny 4% returns that Solana and Ethereum staking offers now is starting to look decent in comparison.
Amazed that people still have crypto accounts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Amazed that people still have crypto accounts (Score:4, Insightful)
We live in a world that requires a certain level of intelligence and education in order to succeed. That includes the ability to detect and avoid scams.
Absolutely nobody likes to hear "it's your own fault you are poor." Their pride can't handle it. They want to believe that "rich people" aren't any smarter than they are and maintain their wealth exclusively by hoarding and blocking anyone else's attempts at acquiring wealth. "The only reason I am poor," they think, "Is because I don't have the right connections. The cards are stacked against me. It has nothing to do with my intelligence."
And yet, huge numbers of people threw their money at this obvious scam, because they didn't have the intelligence and education necessary to recognize it as a scam. Now they are poorer than they were before, and it has nothing to do with someone else exerting power over them, and everything to do with their own failure to invest their money wisely.
On the one hand, it IS true that one needs money to make money. But that is not enough. One also needs the understanding of how the financial infrastructure works. Without that, you are just driving blind on the freeway.
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And yet it remains true that getting rich is as much a matter of blind luck as anything else. And, of course the best and surest way to be rich is to start rich. There's a lot of non-rich people who have clearly seen the crypto scams as scams. It didn't make them rich, but it did help them to not become more poor.
It would be more accurate to say that staying rich requires intelligence and the ability to not get hooked by a scam. But note there that many rich people have fallen for scams as well, it's just t
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The "blind luck" aspect of getting wealthy includes such elements as: being born in a wealthy country, being born to wealthy parents, receiving good nutrition as a child, receiving good medical care as a child, and especially receiving a good education as a child. These elements enormously contribute to a person being well-situated to become rich.
If they simply start out rich, then they would have to be stupid enough to squander it all in order to become poor. But of course, very few are in this category.
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However, provided one has access to education, luck stops being the factor and wisdom becomes the primary determinant. The wise will make an assessment of what jobs actually pay, how those may overlap with their preferences, and acquire an education in the field that gives the highest of both. Then it's just a matter of working in that field, investing properly, and avoiding stupid money mistakes.
Even then, luck comes in to play. Those things can lead to relative prosperity in a profession, but you won't get out of the working class. For that, you need a lack of medical and other disasters just to get started. Then you'll either make some investments and have lightning strike, or you'll start a business and be one of the minority that doesn't crash and burn, then one of even a smaller minority that takes off and becomes big.
Otherwise, it'll need to be connections you made in the Ivy League, or a dad
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There is some "it's your own fault" - not everyone is good with money.
But there's also "how come you're not as smart, competent, mentally and physically healthy as rich me?".
If you've got money to start, healthcare from a job or a nation, white skin (at least in the West), a penis, a stable home life to grow up in, all these things are advantages that some get, some don't, through no fault of their own. Rich guys' starting blocks get moved closer to the finish line.
My question is: with plenty-and-a-half ske
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Having a cryptocurrency account isn't that amazing. If you need to send $25-worth-of-something to someone across the world, cryptocurrency can be a good answer, and if you don't mine (who does?) then trading in some other currency is, by far, the most convenient way to get some. So you might have a few bucks worth of "change" sitting in some exchange.
But .. invest?! Anyone who is holding thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency but isn't using it to buy cars or something like that, is totally off the ma
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I would agree crypto has some promise... but what am I "investing" in? Right now, "investing" in a currency doesn't do anything. If I wanted to truly invest in a company, it would be some firm that is doing hardware cryptocurrency wallets or something that is useful. What does "investing" in a currency get me? It is like investing in Chuck E. Cheese pizza tokens, where at best, they are useful for a transitional/ephemeral currency to go from USD to Fazbucks to what I want to purchase.
No, that can't be. (Score:3)
Something crypto related turned out to be a ponzi scheme? No, never, utterly impossible.
It has to be said (Score:2)
That is all [youtube.com].
Not really 74% down if not value... (Score:1)
FWT, plummeted 74%
It seems pretty obvious the currency is just gone, so a more realistic statement is to say the value of FWT has dropped 100%, to 0.
Where are the confident crypto-bros? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember a few months back we had people telling us that the "guys with lambos" are buying so we should too, when it was clearly obvious that "the guys with lambos" already had the god damn Lamborghini and thus already sold?
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it was clearly obvious that "the guys with lambos" already had the god damn Lamborghini
Quite often you'll find that either a) their bank had the god damn Lamborghini, or b) a rental company had the god damn Lamborghini.
Fraudsters don't have a good track record of accurately portraying themselves.
No. Way. (Score:2)
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Another crypto "investment" that turns out to be a Ponzi, pyramid scheme or some other scam. What I want to know is where all these suckers are coming from and why they don't wise up.
"You will never go broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
Also, "There's a sucker born every minute.",/p>
Oh No! (Score:2)
Anyway...
https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ [web3isgoinggreat.com]
How stupid do you have to be to believe 43%? (Score:2)
Hmm.
100 + 3 - "percentage believed" = 60 [IQ] ?
That would be the lower level IQ where people are barely functional enough to buy into this nonsense.
If you invested in a crypto coin ... (Score:2)
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Fools and their imaginary money are soon to be parted.
Could it be more obviously a scam? (Score:2)
Freeway was offering "simulations" of crypto. Not actual crypto.
43% profit isn't much use if it's only a simulated profit!
The website screams "scam" to me.
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Sounds very similar. Perhaps the founders of Freeway looked at StockGeneration for ways to avoid prosecution by the SEC.
Don't Walk... (Score:2)
Wow, Freeway doesn't sound at ALL like a pure hijack scam: “It doesn’t matter if the market’s going up or down, you’re always getting a little bit more of what we already have,” Matt Spangard, CTO of Freeway, said in a video from July 12, 2021. Well... as long as everyone always wins!
If that doesn't get you running for the exits you deserve to be fleeced.
Luckily I invested in ugly monkey image links (Score:2)
Who would fall for such a scam?
Everyone knows that ugly monkey pics url links, on which the artist probably didn't spent more than 5 minutes because they all look alike, are the real money makers.
UK Based? (Score:2)
UK Based ?
At the bottom of the website it says "Freeway Operations Inc. with registration number 226056 and address 306 Victoria House, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles." A bit far from the UK.
The T&Cs also mention entities in Talinn but then talks about UK law being in effect. It's not clear if there is any legal UK operation - might be a reason for that....
If you read the T&Cs there are so many get-out and indemnity clauses it's ridiculous.