Bitcoin Daily: Crypto Scammers’ Daily Haul Drops 66 Pct Due To COVID-19; ATBCoin To Settle ICO Suit For $250,000; Gold Investor Peter Schiff Predicts Bitcoin Fall

Cryptocurrency scams aren’t doing so hot with the current pandemic conditions, dropping in value by 61 percent between March 13 and 31.

It’s recovered a bit since that time, but the value of Ponzi schemes and investment scams, which are most of what constitute cryptocurrency scams, has been seriously deficient due to the pandemic. That could be due to the falling prices of cryptocurrency during this pandemic, leading to less money coming in from scams.

Now the main focus of scams has shifted to preying upon those confused by the conditions of the virus, with scammers more focused on blackmail — in some cases saying they have COVID-19 and threatening to spread it to the victim’s family unless paid a certain amount — or phishing email scams.

Peter Schiff, a known bitcoin skeptic who instead champions gold, said on Twitter recently that he thought the coming years would see bitcoin plummeting.

Schiff wrote that he thought gold would “moon” in the next few years while bitcoin flounders, sniping at bitcoin users and calling them “bitcoin bugs,” accusing them of not having any understanding of money or its history.

In response, one cryptocurrency fan Tweeted back that it was time to “stop using rocks as currency” and saying most of them had moved beyond that.

Another said the debate didn’t need to be framed as “gold v. bitcoin,” instead saying the real enemy was the unlimited printing of money by global governments. That user also inquired if Schiff’s arguments were anything more than pitches for his own business interests.

Raymond Balerta, the plaintiff in the lawsuit against ATBCoin and its initial coin offering (ICO) has now agreed to settle for $250,000, or 1.5 percent of the total raised.

The lawsuit said ATBCoin had not properly filed its registration statement for the $20 million ICO. Balerta and other plaintiffs said ATBCoin’s claims of being “the fastest cryptography network in the Milky Way galaxy” and other such claims were exaggerated. They also say the platform changed its prices on tokens multiple times.

ATBCoin tried and failed to have the case dismissed, with a judge saying the case could have valid complaints.