Central bank digital currency is being hyped: concept stocks rose 51% in a week, fake APP claims to issue 1 billion in 7 days

By: Bissa Linger

Source: A Blockchain

Of course, there are also companies that take the initiative to take advantage of the trend, even if their business is a bit far away from digital currency.

Not only that, Ponzi schemes and exchanges have all taken advantage of the DC/EP popularity, and there are “fakes” everywhere.

Before DC/EP is actually implemented, various forces have already begun to act in disorder.

On April 11, a test image of a legal digital currency wallet appeared online and quickly attracted outside attention.

The capital market undoubtedly has the most sensitive sense of smell.

On April 13, the digital currency concept sector officially started its upward trend.

From April 13 to April 20, the entire digital currency concept sector rose by as much as 13%. On April 20 alone, the net inflow of funds reached RMB 994 million.

During this period, stocks such as Jinguan Co., Ltd., Zhongying Internet, China Media Capital, Hengbao Co., Ltd., Langac Technology, Feiteng Chengxin, Huijin Co., Ltd., Hanye Co., Ltd., Digital Certification, Sifang Jingchuang, Hailian Jinhui, Julon Co., Ltd., Gaowei Technology, and Jincai Internet all had one or more daily limit increases.

On April 15, the trend of digital currency concept stocks

Among them, Huijin shares had the largest increase, with a share price increase of 51%. Feitian Chengxin shares rose by 28%, GD Yuntong shares rose by 26%, and Hanye shares rose by 20%. The other stocks all rose by more than 10%.

However, a blockchain survey found that behind the popularity of digital currency concept stocks, some companies included in the category of digital currency concept stocks actually have nothing to do with the central bank's digital currency.

Some companies are passively "riding the wave of popularity".

Huijin Co., Ltd., which is regarded as the "leader of digital currency concept stocks" and has hit three consecutive daily limit increases, is one of the representatives.

On April 17, Huijin Co., Ltd. issued an announcement stating that the company’s current main business does not involve digital currency-related content, the company has no digital currency-related business income to date, and the company has not participated in the research and development of the central bank’s digital currency.

Two other digital currency concept stocks that have soared, Gaowei Technology and Gu'ao Technology, also issued announcements to distance themselves from the central bank's digital currency.

However, investors turned a blind eye to this. On the first trading day after the clarification announcement (April 20), Huijin shares once again hit the daily limit.

"If you say there is no, then there is no? I don't want to know what you think. I think if you have it, then you have it." An investor said at the forum.

There are also some companies that actively take advantage of the popularity.

Take Hanye Co., Ltd. as an example.

Public information shows that Hanye Co., Ltd. is a traditional industry company whose business scope includes the production and sales of pesticide raw materials and their products, veterinary drugs and feed additives. Due to overcapacity in its industry, it has begun to enter the fields of cultural entertainment and online games in recent years.

Why would an A-share listed company that produces veterinary drugs be classified as a digital currency concept stock?

The reason is that it responded to a message from an investor on the Interactive Yi platform in October 2019. The company said that by holding part of the shares of Bohu Fund, it indirectly invested in Canaan Creative, a manufacturer of Bitcoin mining machines.

Let’s take Chengdu, Sichuan as an example.

Sichuan Chengyu is a listed company that invests in, builds, operates and manages toll roads. Its main businesses are engineering construction, leasing of advertising locations along highways, and operation of service areas.

Sichuan Chengyu indirectly invested in the blockchain company Xi'an Zhigui Internet Technology Co., Ltd. by participating in Sichuan Trust Co., Ltd., thus getting on board the concept of digital currency.

And Oma Electric Appliances, once the "first stock to issue coin", has once again stepped on the pace of the surge in digital currency concept stocks.

In 2018, the QOS project was launched on FCoin as the first currency in the currency reform pilot zone.

The QOS white paper shows that most of its team members have backgrounds in the listed company OMA Electric Appliances, and investors investing in QOS also value its listed company background.

Unexpectedly, 4 days after QOS went online, the price of the currency plummeted by 85%, and Oma Electric Appliances was accused of issuing coins to cut leeks.

Two years later, the FCoin exchange has collapsed, but Oma Electric Appliances is still able to stand at the forefront of digital currency concept stocks.

"I'm just speculating on concepts. As long as I can make money, that's enough," said one stock investor.

Seeing the popularity of central bank digital currencies, speculators and scammers are ready to move.

Recently, some scams under the banner of DC/EP have surfaced.

Around April 18, in many cryptocurrency trading groups, an inflammatory message was repeatedly circulated.

In this message, the publisher claimed that "the central bank's digital currency has been officially launched, with limited registrations every day" and "1 billion DCEP will be issued in 7 days", and provided two download and registration links, looking like an official spokesperson.

Fake news in QQ groups

Almost at the same time, a poster with a bright red background appeared in many QQ groups.

On this poster, two lines of large white characters are very eye-catching: "Call for the internationalization of the central bank's digital currency DCEP." Below is a QR code.

The page opened by scanning the QR code is exactly the same as the page opened after opening the fake message link mentioned above: you will download an APP called "DCEP.AI".

This APP is a counterfeit product that appeared in November 2019.

At that time, the media launched a wave of coverage on the central bank's digital currency, and a batch of digital products pretending to be DC/EP began to circulate, and "DCEP.AI" was one of them.

At that time, it even claimed that it was "officially issued by the central bank."

On November 13, 2019, the central bank quickly issued a notice to refute the rumor, stating that it had not issued legal digital currency and had not authorized any asset trading platform to conduct transactions.

After that, various counterfeit products disappeared for a brief period of time.

Now, they have made a comeback with a new look.

Coincidentally, a blockchain website searched for "DCEP" on the Etherscan official website and found no less than 15 ERC20 tokens.

Their names are very similar, and some are even directly named "DCEP".

Obviously, it is impossible for the central bank to put its own digital currency on Ethereum. This is undoubtedly a hype by some developers.

Domain names related to DC/EP have long been registered.

The rush to register began on March 9, 2018. At 10 a.m. on that day, Zhou Xiaochuan, the former governor of the central bank, announced that the central bank's digital currency would be called "DC/EP" and explained that it was the abbreviation of Digital Currency Electronic Payment.

After 10 o'clock, the domain name registration website showed that all domain names starting with DCEP (including suffixes such as ".com", ".cn", ".net", and ".top") have been registered.

Now, after the news that DCEP is about to be launched, the hype about the DCEP domain name has started again.

On the Alibaba Cloud domain name query page, you can see that some domain names starting with DCEP are on sale, among which dcep.top and dcep.wang are both priced at more than 500,000.

Alibaba Cloud DCEP domain name query page

A blockchain survey found that under normal circumstances, the first-year management fee for registering a .top domain name on Alibaba Cloud is only 9 yuan. However, the price of the dcep.top domain name has reached 500,000 yuan, which is a huge profit if it is sold.

"DC/EP domain names have become popular again recently, and many people have come to me to inquire about prices," domain name investor Liu Xiaodong told Yiben Blockchain.

He is looking for buyers for more than 30 DCEP-related domain names he has.

"I hope that one day, domain names starting with DCEP will be as valuable as domain names starting with Alibaba, and then I will issue them," he said.

It is not just domain name investors who are hyping DC/EP. If you enter the keyword "DCEP download" in the Baidu search bar, you can see a large number of APP promotion information with the words "central bank digital currency" and "DCEP".

Most of these apps are fake.

Take an app called "Cherry Mall" as an example. In its promotional copy, this app claims that its "NFC tap and pay" function supports central bank digital currency payments.

However, after communicating with the publicity staff of the "Yingtao" APP, a blockchain website discovered that this APP, which claims to be a "multi-dimensional aggregation ecological platform", is no different from a pyramid scheme, and its real core business has not even been launched yet.

Not only that, "DC/EP" has also become a gimmick for promoting mining machines.

A blockchain website noticed that the so-called “DC/EP mining machines” appeared in many mining machine recommendation posts on forums.

However, as we all know, the central bank's digital currency is not based on a decentralized mining system, and there is no "DC/EP mining".

The so-called "DC/EP mining machine" is nothing more than a scam.

From digital currency concept stocks to fake tokens and Ponzi schemes, various hype methods surrounding DC/EP are emerging in an endless stream.

Even though the central bank and listed companies issued clarification announcements one after another, speculators remained indifferent.

In their eyes, it doesn’t matter what DC/EP is; what matters is that it can be hyped.

This market urgently needs to be cleaned up.

*Some of the interviewees in this article are pseudonyms.