Hello all!

It's Crypto Karen ;-)
One of the reasons I write blogs is to share my personal experience.

In this blog I'm going to tell you my biggest crypto mistake ever #whatnottodo

I'm a little embarrassed for how stupid I've been BUT by sharing this I hope to prevent you from making the same mistake. So okay to be honest about crypto: I don't find the crypto world very easy for beginners and I don't find using crypto user friendly. However, I do believe that crypto and blockchain are the future and I hope it will eventually be used on a wider scale.

Crypto difficult to learn? 
As I see how the usage system of the crypto and blockchain is at the moment, I compare it to the first computer control like  MS  -DOS versus Apple. MS-DOS was one of the first solutions for PCs. MS-DOS was difficult to use. Since MS-DOS is a command-based operating system, it is difficult for beginners to use as it requires commands to become similar for specific actions. Extreme sharing has always been Apple's greatest strength. The company's first computers had a true virtual version of a physical "desktop," transforming computers from a command-line standard into something that was visually appealing and easy to use.

My crypto journey started in 2017

I came into contact with crypto through Mary and Abigail. Mary, the mother of a very good friend, came to visit our good family in early 2017 and Mary brought up a conversation with Abigail (a mutual acquaintance) who has great success with crypto. Mary told me that Abigail offered to help her get started with Bitcoin. It was good money! And Abigail had great results with it. At first, Mary held back. She didn't know much about crypto and all seemed too difficult. But when Abigail offered to help set up an account through USI-TECH (the platform Abigail was using) she jumped on board. At USI-TECH you could invest in Bitcoin from as little as 50 dollars. That was a nice entry and Mary decided to invest $600.

USI Tech Limited (also known as United Software Intelligence, or stylized as USI-TECH) was a Dubai-based cryptocurrency and forex platform trading provider.

Make money through USI-TECH

Abigail was very successful making money through USI-TECH.

Several friends had confirmed that Abigail was born from a stay-at-home mom to a successful businesswoman. They had paid off her house and on social media we saw her attending midterm USI-TECH crypto conferences. Although Abigail's success was questionable, it wasn't quite me. I have not established how this crypto platform worked. Meanwhile, Mary had saved her $600 through USI-TECH, and told me she was getting her money back! And that this USI-TECH really works. Mary had nothing to do and received income. This got me thinking: why not get in there too. And so I bought my first Bitcoin in October 2017 and I believe the BTC value was around $5.500. Can you believe it!!! 

Looking back, I didn't realize I was giving away control of my investment instead of retaining my own authority...

USI-TECH: 140 percent return on investment
How did investing work at USI-TECH. At USI-TECH, you could invest in BTC packs that cost around $50 each. The more packs you bought, the higher your return would be, supposedly. USI Tech's mature software was supposed to provide users with a way to earn passive income. The return (an average of one percent daily payout for five days a week) is equal. USI-TECH promised that when you invested on their platform, you would receive a 140 percent return on your investment within 140 business days. If you are logged in to your personal account, you would see that your rent is credited to your personal account every working day. After 140 working days (28 weeks) you got your investment back and you were free to withdraw it. The interest paid by you would be sent after 140 business days.

How did Abigail make so much money?
Of course, Abigail was an early adopter. She started investing in USI-TECH at an early stage and discovered that she could introduce new members to USI-TECH and receive a reward for that. Instead of having a regular member status, Abigail got a USI-TECH manager status. She found out that bringing new members under her group brings her a lot of profit. Next to having a group, she also started heavy promoting USI-TECH on Facebook. Shared her personal invitation link and got more folks in. The next level of earning a percentage of rewards was to promote your members to start their own group. Abigail would receive (I think) till 5 levels below her a percentage of the investments USI-TECH members (under her) made. 

Call it a Ponzi scheme (text below is from source www.investor.gov) 

If you're not familiar with a Ponzi scheme...  well, USI-TECH definitely is one!

*A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing investors with funds collected from new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often promise to invest your money and generate high returns with little or no risk. But in many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters do not invest the money. Instead, they use it to pay those who invested earlier and may keep some for themselves.

With little or no legitimate earnings, Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of new money to survive. When it becomes hard to recruit new investors, or when large numbers of existing investors cash out, these schemes tend to collapse.

Ponzi schemes are named after Charles Ponzi, who duped investors in the 1920s with a postage stamp speculation scheme.

Ponzi scheme “red flags”
Many Ponzi schemes share common characteristics. Look for these warning signs:

• High returns with little or no risk.
• Overly consistent returns
• Unregistered investments
• Unlicensed sellers
• Secretive, complex strategies
• Issues with paperwork
• Difficulty receiving payments*

How did things end up with USI-Tech?

It wasn't long before authorities in the United States, Canada and New Zealand caught up with USI-TECH and issued cease and desist orders. I noticed the USI-TECH rules started to change. It got harder to withdraw money and things got unclear. When I had questions, I had to turn to Abigail for help, but she hardly answered my questions. I felt a bit stupid that I didn't know myself how to solve USI-TECH issues but looking back I now know that Abigail was saving her own ass instead of helping other. Just a few months later (this I found out later), an estimated tens of millions of dollars had vanished from investors' (like me) accounts. I felt desperate, what happened?? Why was my account not accessible? The message USI-TECH send me and to all other investors was that due to law regulations they had to change policies, and they started USI-TECH 2.0 and.... they asked me to deposit money there, so my original funding got free, and they promised to add it to my USI-TECH 2.0 account.

Okay, I had been stupid enough to join up one time but a second, no way!!! What also pissed me off was that felt used by Abigail. I trusted her, and she dropped me like a hot brick. Never answered my emails or calls. Since she was living in California, I unfortunately could stop by.

USI-TECH 2.0, seriously!!!
So after this, the internet was full of USI-TECH scam stories. You reckon this would be the end of USI-TECH, but that wasn't the case....  This business model soon reappeared with a new name: Eyeline Trading. The former USI Tech website was redirected to Eyeline, but when authorities caught on to the seemingly rehashed scam, Eyeline rebranded to its current form: WealthBoss.

So how much money I lost?
OKAY, I lost around 5000 dollar :-( Maybe that doesn't sound like not a lot of money for you but for me, it is. I really worked hard for that!! And the thought of my BTC investment and how high Bitcoin got over the years, then you know I lost more than 5000 dollars. It really stings. While writing this blog, I can image you're thinking: OMG Karen you did such a dumb thing, how did you fell for that??? You deserved this if you're so naïf. Well, yes, it's been the dumbest thing I ever have done in my life. I should have never trusted Abigail and relied on the good review/feedback from Mary. All I can do at this point is to take this experience as a learning curve and warning you not to do this!

How did things end up with Abigail?
Since Abigail was so high up in the USI-TECH (how high I never got to know...) and the fact that she lured her friends and acquaintance into investing in USI-TECH... for her own benefit.... she lost a lot of friendships and respect. Although it's not her fault USI-TECH scammed many people, she was part of it. She could at least have the respect of contacting me and answer my emails. To be clear, we're not friends anymore.

Learn from my crypto mistake

As I wrote earlier on this blog, trading and investing in crypto through an online platform equals for me: giving away authority. After my USI-TECH failure, I decided I never trusted my money to anyone else but me. All my current crypto investements are saved on a hardware wallet. And I prefer to trade and invest through decentralized exchanges. Because my crypto passion lays with decentralized, I met Ethan (TIB team member) and I found this website filled with handy tools.

Okay friends, this blog was about #Whatnottodo
remember: Forewarned is forearmed.

Let's stay in touch!
Crypto_Karen