Text | Ratchet
Text | Ratchet
"Lie down and make money, with a daily interest rate of 2%." Recently, many "USDT running points" advertisements have been circulated in the currency circle.
Running points is a way of money laundering. On the running points platform, running points players use their own WeChat and Alipay payment codes to launder money for criminals and get commissions at the same time.
Today, the running points of the black production circle have also begun to enter the currency circle. USDT replaced RMB and became the new favorite of the benchmarking platform. The USDT running score was thus born.
Funding, killing pigs, platform running away... Before helping the gangsters to launder money, the players are often ransacked by the gangsters.
secondary title
The Rise of USDT Benchmarks
"USDT running score, the latest project, earning 2% a day, no worries about the principal, stable profit without loss, absolutely reliable."
Recently, many similar advertisements have appeared in the currency community. This is the latest so-called "investment model" in the currency circle - USDT running points.
What exactly is "USDT running score"? This also starts with the "traditional running points" of the black production circle.
In the past, online gambling platforms would acquire a large number of bank cards to collect money. But doing so costs a lot—it costs hundreds to thousands of yuan to charge a bank card. Once the bank card is blocked, the money will be wasted.
After 2018, the running score mode began to rise. Many benchmarking platforms have emerged in the market, and they use crowdsourcing to greatly reduce the cost of money laundering.
Specifically, they will advertise on major online earning platforms, claiming that "as long as you have a QR code, you can make money while lying at home."
Such an advertisement will attract players who are willing to participate in the running score. The latter has to pay a deposit and upload their own WeChat and Alipay payment QR codes.
If a score-running player pays a deposit of 10,000 yuan to the score-running platform, he will receive money from users of the gaming platform one after another. After collecting 10,000 yuan, the score-running will end. The running score platform will give him a 2% commission, and then transfer the deposit of 10,000 yuan to the gaming platform.
"The benchmarking platform is very similar to Didi. The players of the benchmarking platform are drivers and earn money by picking up jobs. The gambling platform is a passenger and pays for the car. Compared with buying a car by yourself, it is definitely cheaper to hail a taxi on Didi." Industry insiders said, "Now at least half of the online gambling platforms use running points to launder money."
image description
The business model of the running score platform
The USDT running score is a new model of the running score industry - the traditional running score is run in RMB; the USDT running score is run in USDT.
In this mode, the benchmark player deposits USDT to the benchmark platform. After running the score, players will receive USDT one after another. After the received USDT reaches the deposit amount, the running score ends.
"Although USDT is a digital currency, it is a 'stable currency' that will not go up or down, so you don't have to worry about it." Zhang Qiang, a promoter of a USDT benchmarking project, told new benchmark players.
"It's not difficult to score USDT, but you need to register a digital currency wallet in advance, and then go to the exchange to buy USDT. If you don't know how, I can teach you by hand." He said.
Like the traditional running score, the USDT running score attracts players most because of its high returns.
"If you do USDT running points, the highest income can be up to 2%." Zhang Qiang said, "The 2% is not a monthly interest rate, nor a daily interest rate, but a round of running points. When it is fast, it only takes a few hours. Can do a round."
secondary title
Cause of rise
The reason for the rise of USDT running score is not complicated.
In the traditional mode, running points can easily trigger the risk control rules of each payment channel.
For example, in February 2019, Tencent's payment risk control team issued an announcement stating that it would crack down on illegal activities of "WeChat running points", and if the circumstances were serious, it would be handed over to the judicial authorities.
"Traditional running points cannot be done all the time. It is relatively safe to do it once in a while and earn tens of thousands of dollars." Chen Guang said, "If you keep running, the 'horse' will die."
Another major factor for the rise of USDT benchmarks comes from online gambling platforms. At present, more and more such platforms are beginning to support digital currency deposits, and USDT, as the most commonly used stable currency in the currency circle, is also very popular among players.
image description
A well-known domestic gaming website supports USDT deposit
However, although USDT benchmarks are on the rise, many industry insiders pointed out that there are huge problems in the USDT benchmark model.
"The USDT score is actually not laundering money, but 'coin laundering'." Blockchain researcher Sun Yuan said, "Money is real-named, so money laundering is just needed; but currency is anonymous, so it does not necessarily need to be laundered."
It is not difficult to see that in the traditional scoring model, the commercial value of the scoring platform lies in obtaining personal collection channels at low cost and providing money laundering channels for gaming platforms.
But registering a USDT account does not require real-name authentication. Anyone can generate a USDT account at will, and the account is anonymous. Money laundering does not seem to matter to gaming platforms using USDT.
"Even if USDT is exchanged for fiat currency, gaming platforms can find cheap enough off-market channels." Sun Yuan said, "So I doubt what the meaning of USDT money laundering is."
In fact, many so-called USDT benchmark projects are just fund scams.
As a buyer, Yiben Blockchain contacted a USDT benchmarking system developer. The other party said: "You may have misunderstood our products. We are developing funds, not really running scores."
Guo Liang, the person in charge of the developer, pointed out that among various fund systems, the development cost of the USDT running score model is not high. “A ready-made system only costs 20,000 yuan.”
"Running points is to return the deposit. How much is returned each time, how many times, and how often, the backstage can control it." Guo Liang said.
image description
A USDT running sub-fund system background
In this case, players with running points can easily become leeks.
In fact, the regular rebate mechanism of the running sub-platform is very similar to the fund plate, so it is not difficult to package it as a fund plate.
"If a player finds that the USDT he receives always comes from several fixed addresses, and even the so-called USDT transfer can only be found on the platform's own APP, then what he encounters must be a fund board." A Dong said .
03 Scams abound
"95% of the USDT scoring projects on the market are unreliable." A Dong, a senior fund player, told Yiben Blockchain.
He said that these USDT running score scams can be divided into three types.
The first type is the fund disk mentioned above.
In fact, as early as 2019, there were funds packaged as running sub-platforms crashing and running away. In October of that year, 17 traders of the fund "Boxin Laundering Code" were arrested by the Shandong Pingdu police. The amount involved in the case Up to 1.9 billion.
In August 2019, the USDT benchmark project "SDS Jufuhui" collapsed. According to media reports, there are 2.37 million USDT in the three collection accounts of the project party, which is equivalent to about 18 million yuan in RMB.
The second scam of USDT running score is "killing pigs".
In the fund scam, the project party relies on the rules to "manipulate", and most of them will not communicate directly with the players. In the pig killing game, the trader will use the identity of "customer service" and other identities to customize exclusive routines for each player, and guide players into the pit "by following the temptation".
For example, the trader who kills the pig will continue to give players sweetness, attracting players to continue to increase investment. This process is called "pig raising". After the players increase their investment, the trader will "kill the pig" and take away all the assets.
On the other hand, the USDT running score payback cycle is short, and a round of running points can often be completed in a few hours, and players are easily motivated. At the same time, the threshold for USDT running score is high, and the investment amount of most players is in the 5-6 digits.
"Therefore, the USDT running score can easily be packaged as a killing machine." A Dong said.
In addition to the fund market and pig killing market, the third type of scam of USDT running scores is the most difficult to guard against.
On the USDT running score platform, players must first recharge the deposit. There is also a certain delay when the running points platform pays to the gaming platform. If things go on like this, most of the running score platforms will form a certain fund pool.
Under the lure of huge sums of money, they may suddenly run away with money.
"This is a typical case of gangsters. Gaming platforms are cheated, and they definitely dare not call the police; gamers who run the score know that they are helping others to launder money, and most of them will not call the police." A Dong said.
In this way, the running score platform harvested at both ends and became the only winner.
The running score mode that is rampant in the black production circle has finally entered the currency circle.
Although players in the currency circle have experienced hundreds of battles, they are still defeated in the face of running score scams.
In the lawless land of running points, no one is innocent.
*The interviewees in this article are pseudonyms.
