Behind the investor's money withdrawal tricks in the Shark Binh case

Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh (Shark Binh) at the police station. Photo: Hanoi City Police .

After the AntEx cryptocurrency project collapsed, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh (Shark Binh) repeatedly asserted that he was a victim, denying any involvement in the "carpet-pulling" behavior. However, revelations from the person claiming to be the project's Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and publicly available blockchain transaction data have complicated the story, sparking many controversies in the crypto asset community.

Mr. Tran Huyen Dinh, Head of ChainTracer project, believes that a project allowing individuals or organizations to interfere with the liquidity pool, like the way the AntEx team withdrew money, does not necessarily violate the principle of decentralization. This depends on the initial commitment between the project owner and the investor.

Accordingly, if a project announces a clear roadmap but stops halfway and does not fulfill its promises, it is a sign of misuse of capital. For example, some projects stipulate the right to withdraw liquidity from the beginning after 5 or 10 years. When investors agree to this condition, they can participate. On the contrary, they have the right to withdraw from the project if they do not accept.

“The principle of decentralization in blockchain is only relative, the problem is whether the project owner fulfills the commitment to the investor or not. In many cases, they have not done that,” Mr. Dinh said.

According to the representative of the ChainTracer project, in many cases, the management of liquidity pools is transferred to the community or operated through smart contracts, token lock mechanisms or other decentralized management models, such as DAOs.

Regarding how to recognize fraudulent projects, Mr. Dinh believes that investors can completely detect them early. The research team of the ChainTracer project analyzed more than 200 projects and found that most scams have in common the promise of unreasonable profits, lack of transparency in information and unclear financial models.

Mr. Tran Huyen Dinh, Head of ChainTracer project, shares about the topic of fraud in the blockchain field. Photo: Van Anh/VBA .

Many projects commit to profits of up to 10-15%/month, an unrealistic number for legal investment models. In addition, many projects only have information in Vietnamese, although they are advertised to have many foreign investors or the project owners are foreigners. Investors should also consider carefully if there is no data on international platforms.

According to a report by the Vietnam Cyber Security Association in 2023, Vietnamese people were scammed out of about VND19,000 billion , of which more than 60% were related to investment models. “The mentality of wanting to make high, fast and safe profits is a weakness that makes investors vulnerable to financial criminals,” Mr. Dinh emphasized.

Before his arrest, Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh repeatedly claimed that he was a victim of the collapse of the AntEx cryptocurrency project, emphasizing that the "carpet withdrawal" was carried out by the technical team. However, the whistleblower account "Shark Binh" publicly disclosed the wallet addresses allegedly related to the project so that the community could check the transactions.

“At that time, Mr. Binh said that investors were very interested, this was the right time to withdraw liquidity,” this person recounted.

On the afternoon of October 14, Hanoi City Police prosecuted and temporarily detained Mr. Nguyen Hoa Binh and 9 accomplices to investigate the act of "Fraudulent appropriation of property" related to the AntEx cryptocurrency project. According to the investigation agency, the total amount of money appropriated is estimated at about 117 billion VND , converted from the capital contributions of about 30,000 investor wallet addresses participating in the project.

Source: https://znews.vn/vu-tien-so-antex-he-lo-ban-chat-phi-tap-trung-cua-blockchain-post1594085.html