McAfee Shilled a PIVX Ripoff, but Investors Don’t Seem to Mind
- Carmela Murray
- June 11, 2020
- Market
- 0 Comments
Key Takeaways
Ghost is a ripoff of the open-source privacy coin PIVX, according to PIVX developers
Privacy-focused token Ghost has seen its value skyrocket since the beginning of the month
Retail investors have been pouring a lot of money into the project, with prices doubling in less than two weeks
Share this article
The John McAfee-endorsed Ghost token is up 100% since the start of the month, even though McAfee admitted it was a ripoff of the PIVX privacy coin.
Ghost Token Feels the McAfee Effect
Even before its launch, Ghost token has been surrounded by controversy. Nevertheless, the price of the token has skyrocketed since the beginning of the month. Ghost was endorsed by presidential candidate and known crypto shill John McAfee before its launch.
At launch on May 27, the Ghost token was worth around $1.12. On Jun. 9, when trading officially began, Ghost’s market cap increased from $0 to just over $24.4 million. The coin saw its price increase by more than 91% in two days.
Crypto analytics company Dapp Radar called this spike the “McAfee effect,” alluding to the once-inevitable price spike caused by the Coinbase effect.
Graph showing Ghost’s’s price chart from May 27 to Jun. 11. (Source: CoinMarketCap)Investors Pour Money Into Ghost Despite
Ghost’s rising market cap shows that retail investors have been pouring a lot of money into the project. Data from Dapp Radar shows that the new token was responsible for over $21 million in trading volume on decentralized cryptocurrency exchange IDEX since the beginning of June.
Graph showing the Ghost trading volume on IDEX from Jun. 1 to Jun. 11. (Source: Dapp Radar)While Ghost isn’t the first nor the last altcoin to see its price skyrocket after launch, the fact that its value increased by more than 100% in 10 days does come as a surprise. Namely, the project was accused of plagiarizing its whitepaper.
Developers of PIVX said that “at least 20 of the 26 total pages” of its whitepaper contained material directly plagiarized from an outdated PIVX whitepaper published in 2018. As said by PIVX advisor Bryan Doreian:
“You have the head of a project copying a whitepaper, saying we didn’t copy it, then saying we did copy it. And people are supposed to trust this? From another lens, once we called the project out, it was then they started hiring devs.”
Speaking to Akshay CM, a member of the Ghost core development team, “We aren’t forking PIVX, we have made that clear in the new whitepaper that ghost will be forked from Particl.” He did not comment on whether the decision to fork Particl instead of PIVX was related to the plagiarism accusation.
Officially, Ghost defended itself by saying that their base code is a “forked version of PIVX,” but PIVX claimed the company gave no copyright credits to them. McAfee even threatened to sue PIVX for defamation, but the protocol’s developers said that there was no one to sue because of the decentralized nature of the project.
Share this article
The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
See full terms and conditions.
John McAfee Announces 2020 Presidential Bid
What Is PIVX? Introduction to PIV and zPIV Tokens
Privacy-Enhancing Brave Browser May Not Be So Private After All
