Bitget Behind Some Solana meme Coin Scams

[ScamHunt]

In a previous post i presented the scam coin Water: https://www.altcoinstalks.com/index.php?topic=322617.0

I presented the involvement of Gotbit in the pump and dump process, or rather the dump and dump scam.
Luckily the FBI took action and are now suing Gotbit :
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/eighteen-individuals-and-entities-charged-international-operation-targeting-widespread

But after further investigation into this project, i believe another entity is behind this scam project and possibly many others.

The entity is the exchange Bitget.

Here's my reasons to believe so:

1 - Bitget listed several scam coins within 48-72h from coin creation, a good example: 
June 21 2024 the scam project water coin finished the presale >> June 24 it was listed on Bitget
(presale tokens were distributed manually, and by June 24 only a small portion of buyers have already received the tokens)

2 -Bitget is directly involved in promoting these scam coins, via it's established celebrity partnerships.
Messi:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Bitget+Renews+Partnership+with+Lionel+Messi



Messi promotes Water coin

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/07/09/lionel-messi-promotes-obscure-meme-coin-on-instagram-leading-to-350-surge/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/lionel-messi-promotes-solana-memecoin-instagram




3 - Bitget attempt to censor reports exposing this involvement in scam coins, for instance this article:
quote:

Bitget's Frequent Launches of Unclear Meme Coin Projects
Among the many top-ranked exchanges in trading volume, Bitget is arguably the fastest in launching new projects, with a significant number of meme coins introduced recently. Many of these projects have unclear situations and unverifiable team information, posing high risks.

Recently, Bitget launched several meme coins, including Biaoqing, APEcoin, Beer, and WATER coin. These meme coins share similar market volatility characteristics. WATER coin and Beer are backed by the same team, while information about Biaoqing and APEcoin projects is unavailable, seemingly appearing out of thin air.

This raises doubts about Bitget's cryptocurrency listing review system, as they promote and launch meme coins without investigating the team's situation and project information. Such behavior undoubtedly facilitates the completion of meme coin scams.

Bitget Suspected of Collaborating with Scam Groups
On June 21, a meme coin called WATER Coin raised over $41 million during its presale stage.

The project raised 200,000 SOL within one minute of the presale and 300,000 SOL within five minutes, worth about $41 million, making it the largest meme coin presale case to date, with over 26,000 wallet addresses participating in this presale.

On June 24, the WATER token was listed on Bitget, with a market value once exceeding $1 billion.

For a newly launched project without a clear endorsement, achieving such a dramatic funding amount is striking.

Notorious "German Prince" as the Manipulator Behind the Scenes
Investigations revealed that the team behind WATER is the same as the manipulator team behind the previously launched BEER meme token on Bitget.

BEER token, themed around beer, reached a presale of 30,000 SOL on May 20, worth nearly $5 million. After its launch, BEER token's price soared, with the highest increase reaching 30 times, and the market value peaked at $500 million. Currently, BEER token's price has plummeted to the bottom.


According to reports, the team behind BEER token includes German businessman Marcus Prinz von Anhalt (commonly known as Prinz Markus), who is famous for his luxurious lifestyle.

In 2006, he spent millions of dollars to acquire his new name Marcus Prinz von Anhalt through adoption by a prince's wife. Since then, Prinz Markus has liked to call himself the "German Prince."

In 2014, Prinz Markus was sentenced to four years in prison for tax evasion and fraud and was also charged with money laundering, tax fraud, and human trafficking.

From Prinz Markus's social media, it can be seen that he has recently been enthusiastic about investing in the cryptocurrency field. After BEER token was launched, he repeatedly endorsed it.

Currently, Prinz Markus has 7.74 million followers on Instagram, and prizes from BEER's holding activities, such as CYBERTRUCK and private jet trips, free beer supply, etc., have been displayed on Prinz Markus's social media.

However, Prinz Markus's reputation is not good, with many people directly calling him a scammer on social media.


According to reports, another initiator of BEER is German entrepreneur Ben Bilski, a former professional swimmer who has won multiple German championships.

After retiring, he has continuously started businesses in the tech field, including founding NAGA Group AG (one of Europe's highest-valued fintech companies). Ben Bilski resigned as CEO of NAGA Group AG in March this year. Public information shows that Ben Bilski is also enthusiastic about cryptocurrency investment.

In addition to these two German entrepreneurs, Gotbit Hedge Fund is also behind the manipulation of BEER. Gotbit has explicitly stated on Twitter that it has cooperated with BEER and helped BEER with market capitalization management.

Gotbit is a hedge fund specializing in helping tokens achieve market capitalization growth. Previously, on the X platform, blockchain detective ZachXBT stated: "I would be cautious about any project cooperating with the market maker Gotbit Hedge Fund because a leaked report shows significant issues with their services. Gotbit claims in this document that its strategy in the initial few minutes of the price discovery phase is to drive the price up to 10 times to create FOMO and accumulate as much buying power as possible, to the extreme, and then sell all tokens at the subsequent peak."

From BEER's price curve, it seems to conform to this manipulation strategy.

Manipulation Team Continues to Dump and Build Rat's Nest
The initial increase in BEER token was quite exaggerated, but as the team frequently sold, the price plummeted. As of June 25, the price of BEER token has fallen by more than 90% from its peak, and the market value has fallen back to around $50 million.

According to LookonChain monitoring, BEER team's related addresses have sold more than $3 million after the price was pushed up.

After the WATER token was listed, it surged nearly tenfold in a short time, and then plummeted within a few hours. As of June 25, its price dropped to a minimum of $0.00097, below the initial offering price of $0.0016.

In addition, the #DevelopmentTeam  seems to have replicated the rat's nest operation on BEER. According to LookonChain, the #DevelopmentTeam  has transferred 844 million WATER tokens to 11 wallets that did not participate in the presale.

Investigation found that these 11 wallets have sold WATER tokens worth $2.36 million and still hold tokens worth $1.75 million, which are being sold continuously.

Bitget Lists WATER Coin Despite Known Risks
Despite experiencing the market fluctuations of BEER coin and knowing that the Water coin team is the same, Bitget still listed Water coin.

This behavior is puzzling. Knowing that investors might fall into a significant scam, Bitget chose to list Water coin, contrary to other major exchanges.

Whether Bitget reached some consensus with the team behind Water coin is unknown, but it is certain that Bitget did not prioritize users but rather focused on its own interests.

[Findingnemo]

It looks like you have done good work of exposing these scam/shady exchange, they have been shady with the way they approached and that's all I know about them and never really used their service and if I see Bitget then I'll simply ignore reading the content.

But really Messi is being part of advertising and also get paid, these guys probably made huge money by doing these kind of things to make it happen.

[target]

Bitget being the first exchange adding these unknown memecoins is sketchy.

Denying the allegation of course is expected and people may conclude they have nothing to do with the developers scamming its investors but the fact the exchange adding these scam coins is initiating the scam.

[dkbit98]

This is not enough evidence to prove connection with Birget exchange and this scam tokens, and centralized exchanges have always been doing this, just remember Binance and others.
I didn't know that solana crap turned into scam token factory, but Messi knows nothing about any coins... they just tell him what to post and he is doing it for money, unless someone hacked his social media accounts.

[Mia Chloe]

Actually I haven't really looked deep into the whole stuff however just like dkbit98 mentioned, I think one has to have more solid proof to be able to say that bitget is part of the pioneers aiding scam tokens like this. Anyways I really won't be much surprised if the whole stuff turns out to be true since it isn't pretty much a new thing to find centralised exchanges fueling some tokens that are literally pump and dump.

The problem is the crypto space is flooded with too many profit targeters and as long as they are paid enough they will make sure to successfully promote a coin knowing fully well that it is a pump dump coins or a scam one.

[Lucius]

I was not at all surprised that some scam coins are promoted on one such CEX, which is otherwise known for being called the kings of shill campaigns. The people behind such projects and those who get paid to promote them and provide trading platforms are basically the same - as long as they can make a profit they don't really care what they do.

Still, I can't understand that one of the most famous football players has stooped to such a low level, because the man has money for ten lifetimes, but he is obviously one of those greedy people who never have enough.

[albon]

I am not at all shocked by this as there are many scam coins listed on various exchanges. Fake crypto exchanges pose significant risks beyond financial loss, and victims can also suffer identity theft as these scams often list false project tokens. It is also essential to be aware of the latest trends and tactics employed by crypto scammers. There are many exchanges that are only in crypto with the intention of making money which is why they keep listing tokens of scam projects day after day. For token listing on reputable exchanges one needs to submit a large amount of fees due to which the scams and bad projects cannot crowd there.

[philipma1957]

Well the issue comes down to a lack of worldwide regulation,(good luck with that), for larger exchanges to be able to vet and add new coins.

It would be nice to know that if a major exchange adds a coin they followed a legit vetting of the coin.

But by now it should be obvious the rich do not want this since it would stop pump and dump.