Recently, a brand new cryptocurrency called the Plus One Coin (PLS1) has been getting a lot of attention. It all began with an article in the popular British paper the Daily Express. The article spoke about the merit of this brand new coin and certainly got some investors excited.
So what is the Plus One Coin? Plus One Coin is branded as a social media cryptocurrency in which social media users can earn money for viral posts. It also rewards online engagement and fights against fake accounts, which are sometimes known as bots. So it rewards real comments and popular posts and due to it being on the blockchain, will be able to identify when a comment, user or like is fake. The token itself will act a little bit like a social validation token, according to the creator and founder.
It was founded by Clem Chambers, who is a British entrepreneur and author, known for his role with ADVFN and On-Line PLC. He has also written and blogged extensively about finance and has several books under his belt. So while the idea for the cryptocurrency sounds interesting enough; and the founder/creator seems knowledgeable and trustworthy enough, you should pump your brakes before investing in the Plus One Coin. This is because many people are questioning the validity of this coin and the attention it has been getting in the world of cryptocurrency news.
One of the biggest questions most people have is just how little is known about the coin. Sure, you can find a few interviews and articles about it, but not as much as you’d expect with the buzz around this coin. While many new coins or ICOs have thousands of interested investors and followers on social media, the account for Plus One Coin (which is @PlusOneCoin) is very different.
They have only three total tweets (none of which have been sent in the last few months), no interactions at all, and just barely 30 followers. This is a concern as any blockchain or coin investor or user knows that community engagement and transparency is very important, and the Plus One Coin demonstrates none of that. If you had discovered their account out of the blue, there is no way you would have thought it was the account for a budding coin.
Also, most websites for new coins will feature a ton of information about the team, the coin, the features of the platform, a detailed roadmap and of course, a whitepaper. However, the Plus One Coin website features a total of about 4 paragraphs of content, which are extremely general and basic, and don’t really tell us anything at all about the validity of the coin. They also offer no whitepaper and no information about the team involved, so their transparency levels are fairly low. It is a crudely designed website and pales in comparison to what most new or existing coins/ICOs have.
Also, the methods of actually purchasing the coin are unlike many others, which also raise a huge red flag for most people. Firstly, the app says you need to download a Plus One Coin wallet to your computer, which is odd as most other currencies let you use your own existing wallet to store or transfer coins. The coin isn’t even on Coinmarketcap, despite that site featuring virtually every other legitimate cryptocurrency, and being a trusted source for all things crypto.
Secondly, the only exchange you can purchase the coin on is the infamous TradeSatoshi. If you are unfamiliar with the exchange, let me bring you up to speed. While they offer an extensive selection of coins, there are many red flags about their exchange such as no leveraged trading, no information about payment methods and lackluster communication with their users. Also, many people have had numerous problems with the exchange and are accusing the exchange of being a scam. While it may not be a scam, with this many people concerned over the exchange, it is not a good sign.
In addition to the coin itself being a little bit shady, so is the article itself. The article in the Daily Express doesn’t offer much in terms of numbers or concrete features or benefits of the coin. Other than saying what it will do, it offers up nothing. Nothing about how it will do it, or anything like that. It also features fairly weak quotations from Clem Chambers in which the founder doesn’t say much of anything. In another interview, Chambers sort of dodges questions about why they didn’t have an ICO and don’t have a whitepaper, like most traditional coins.
Being that the cryptocurrency and the article itself looks fairly shady, how on earth did this article find its way into the Daily Express?! It is a newspaper that is respected and has been around for many decades. Well, we believe it is because of one of two reasons. The first is that the editor or paper doesn’t have a grasp on the blockchain or cryptocurrency space, and when approached, agreed to craft the article without doing much research. The second is that there is always a chance that someone at Plus One Coin actually paid the Daily Express to write about them in hopes of generating some sort of buzz or interest in the coin.
In conclusion, there is a high probability that not only will the Plus One Coin be a bad investment, but it might be a full-on scam and you could love everything. While the explosion of cryptocurrency recently has been an amazing thing overall, you should be aware it also brought with it a fair share of scams, so watch out. Many of these scams will appear legitimate, which is why you should always do your research. While we cannot say with 100% certainty that the Plus One Coin is a scam, there are a lot of arrows pointing to that distinction.