The fraudster Penta transformed into MantraDAO. Foreign actors went crazy on Chinese exchanges. Yi Lihua continued to promote

MantraDAO (Token OM, Rio DeFi), a name that is obviously a copy of MakerDAO, claims to be "the first DeFi project on the Polkadot chain". But in fact, it is a scam jointly created by overseas fraudsters and domestic pyramid schemes. It has raised a lot of funds, and major first- and second-tier exchanges have listed the currency. Lede Capital has once again boosted it after Penta, but fake can't become true after all. "Issuing currency-marketing-cashing-zeroing" is its final outcome.

However, Chinese investors and exchanges seem to be flocking to MantraDao under the DeFi craze. Its token OM has been listed on multiple second-tier exchanges, including Bitmax, gate, P network (under Sun Yuchen), etc. On August 25, the leading exchange OKEx also launched MANTRA DAO (OM) and opened market transactions of OM/USDT and OM/ETH. A large number of soft articles about the strong combination were issued in the Chinese world, and OM provided a total reward of up to 200,000 OM (about 100,000 US dollars). But so far, this project, which claims that the team is all overseas, has not been listed on any centralized overseas exchange.

The core investor of MantraDAO is Lede Capital. A senior player of the exchange said: If you see Lede Capital from the project investors, it is best not to touch it, or run away early. Is this really the case?

After browsing the partners of MantraDAO's official website, Wu said blockchain sent several consultation letters. Currently, many have clearly stated that there is no cooperation relationship and asked the other party to remove their logo. Among them, the well-known derivatives exchange FTX told Wu said blockchain: FTX and MantraDAO have no cooperation relationship, and they put their logo on it. Many other institutions also expressed the same statement to Wu said blockchain.

MantraDAO’s main strategy is to use first-tier exchanges. In addition to using first-tier exchanges such as OKEx and FTX, the logo of the so-called Rio Chain is mistaken for Huobi.

Several insiders revealed to Wu Blockchain that the founder of the project is named Calvin Ng, who claims to be Malaysian, based in Hong Kong, and speaks fluent Chinese. People who have met him said that Calvin Ng clearly stated: "I want to make some money." The technology of this so-called Polkadot + DeFi project is actually outsourced to one or two original definex technologies.

(Image from Calvin Ng's LinkedIn profile picture)

According to his self-introduction, Calvin Ng is a serial entrepreneur and investor with extensive experience in the digital media, social networking and gaming industries. Today, Calvin manages a $200 million blockchain and innovation fund (PLUTUS VC) and has invested in many blockchain and technology companies around the world.

Calvin Ng serves as an advisor to Habbo, the world's largest virtual world. He has also served as Vice President of CITIC Pacific (SEHK0627) and CITIC 1616 (IPO-2007: SEHK1883). Previously, Calvin was a member of the team that successfully brought World of Warcraft to China in collaboration with The 9 and developed China's first mobile digital comic series.

It is certain that this resume is almost entirely forged. We found out that he was the founder of 21 Pink , an online gaming website. It was a natural transition for him to move from the gaming industry to the cryptocurrency industry.

We found that MantraDao is very similar to the 2018 project Penta, and has the same overseas fraud team. Penta is committed to developing into one of the world's largest and most powerful public chain projects in China. It has been listed on exchanges such as HADAX, Bit-Z, LBank, BCEX, HitBTC, and FCoin GEM. It is also invested by Yi Lihua's Lede Capital and personally serves as a consultant. This project also caused a war of words between Li Xiaolai, Yi Lihua, Chen Weixing and others.

As for the price, Penta almost went to zero a few months after its launch, and is currently only $0.00008. Interestingly, Huobi still retains the trading pairs of PNT/BTC and PNT/ETH, and has not removed them.

From Penta to MantraDAO, they still use the same marketing tactics: all consultants and team members are arranged to be foreigners to defraud Chinese investors. Even the "foreign actors" of the core team have not changed. It is a waste of time to expose these actors one by one, because it is simple, almost no information is true.

For example, several council members claim to be Polkadot ambassadors, but this is an open identity that can be obtained by signing up, similar to a community volunteer. John Patrick Mullin, CEO of MantraDAO, used to be a soft copywriter for Antcoin and has participated in Zcoin TIO and the aborted exchange Trade.io. Stephane, CMO of Penta and consultant of MantraDAo, has served as a consultant for at least three fraudulent ICOs, and these projects have been exposed by many overseas media.

For reference, please refer to the article: https://www.sohu.com/a/244734201_100134346

(penta member)

(MantraDao member)

Penta and MantraDao have similarities and differences. The similarity is that they are old ICO fraud gangs from overseas, and the difference is that the southern casino CX organization, such as Calvin Ng, has joined. Currently, the CX community is vigorously promoting the coin. Who is He Feifan? He once promoted the capital project DFM with Martians, and it is even rumored that he was beaten by rights defenders in 2018.

There are so many problems with a simple investigation. Is the due diligence of exchanges and investors in vain, or are they knowingly committing a crime? Wu Blockchain advises investors and exchanges not to destroy their own reputations for the sake of petty listing fees or the desire to be a scythe. Investors should also keep their eyes open and be wary of all fraudulent projects that use popular selling points such as DeFi, Polkadot, and Filecoin.