BlockBroker ICO appears to have been scam after website goes offline

BlockBroker, a company that recently held an ICO for its brokerage platform, appears to have been part of an exit scam after the website was replaced with a maintenance message.

When visiting the site, users are now greeted with a mispelled message declaring that the platform is undergoing “maintenence”. It adds: “Please check back soon. Thanks.”

Taken alone, this isn’t a smoking gun, but other warning signs have been apepearing over the last few months. In May, an eagle-eyed Reddit user noticed that CEO John Jacobs’ photograph on the site was almost identical to one of Ukrainian photographer Alex Amadeo, and his LinkedIn page was suspciously streamlined.

As with any scheme as elaborate as this seems to be, money has been raised despite the red flags – BlockBroker has reportedly managed to gather more than $3 million in investment.

There’s irony to spare on this one, as BlockBroker was supposed to have launched a platform that helped reduce the number of ICO scams in the crypto sector.