WoToken Wallet Service

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The website was extremely simple and promised a "New Safe Platform". Users were instructed to "Download WO TOKEN DAPP, Create an account by phone number or email." There was an Android and iPhone version of the wallet. "WO TOKEN wallet can add mainstream digital asset like BTC ETH LTC ETC. Platform coin 'WOR' can exchange others." The only mention of profit was a "financial management tool" refered to as "Apollo Plan" - which did not include any specific expected returns on the website. Trust was built based on logos of numerous credible organizations such as BTC.com, Forbes, CCN, and Ethereum.org. Videos promoting the wallet on Facebook informed users that they remained in control of their private keys (which was false), while simultaneously describing "risk-free arbitrage trades" made by the Apollo AI Trading Bot making 0.21% - 0.61% per day, which would double if the user shared the wallet with a few friends. Other posts simply had people showing off modest gains after short periods of time. In reality, it appears the scheme was actually using the deposits of new participants to pay the interest for existing participants, and withdrawals continued until April 4th, when users were "temporarily unable to access" withdrawals due to "block synchronization", and "system upgrade and maintenance for 24H" on April 5th. By September, the website hosting had expired. Easy registration for all cryptocurrency trading businesses can give consumers an easy way to check the legitimacy and backing level of any operation.

This exchange or platform is based in China, or the incident targeted people primarily in China.

About WoToken

"WOTOKEN functioned from July 2018 to October 2019." "715,249 people registered on its platform. WOTOKEN absorbed from them 46,000 bitcoins, over 2 million ethers, 292,000 litecoins, 56,000 BCH, 684,000 EOS, and large quantities of several other less known digital assets." "[M]arketing messages claimed that [the wallet] worked as a smart online wallet for cryptocurrencies that generated automatic profits for users without their involvement." "It worked as a classic MLM project, but it had a suspiciously high number of total hierarchical levels – 501"

"27 members were reportedly masterminds within Plustoken’s empire, which was extremely popular in China and South Korea." "According to local reports, the trial began on May 14th in the People’s Court of Binhai Country, Yancheng City, against six defendants allegedly operating the WOTOKEN project. More specifically, the court blamed that they organized and managed multi-level marketing (MLM) activities, covered up false stories, provided misleading information, and concealed income, and even crimes." "While the prosecution had requested all of them to pay an undisclosed fine for their actions, the jail time may vary from six months to eleven years, the report outlined."

"On May 14, 2020, the trail against six core operators responsible for organizing and leading multi-level marketing (MLM) activities for Wotoken began in the People's Court of Binhai County, Yancheng City. According to the public hearing, this Ponzi scheme was active from July 2018 to October 2019 and had 715,249 registered users. In its little over a year of operation, the scheme netted the Wotoken fraudsters more than 7.7 billion yuan (roughly US$1.09 billion) worth of crypto."

This exchange or platform is based in China, or the incident targeted people primarily in China.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - WoToken Wallet Service

Date	Event	Description
October 1st, 2019 12:00:02 AM	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost has been estimated at $1,100,000,000 USD.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Prevention Policies

Which policies could have prevented this event from happening?