A Crypto Project That Raised $20 Million Is Caught Faking Its Founding Team

In particular, CoinDesk has found that images said to represent two BHB team members have been lifted from unaffiliated university professors, who are now publicly denying any association with the project.

In responses to CoinDesk inquiries, both professors denied any association with the scheme and both stated they had no prior knowledge of the BHB project.

Adding to concerns is the mechanism for how BHB tokens are issued and promoted at a single exchange, XBTC.CX, whose business appears tied to the BHB project.

While the veracity of the advertised team may be in question, WeChat groups have linked both BHB and XBTC.CX to at least one real person - Renbing Li, the 24-year-old founder of the Hangzhou-based venture firm MoCapital.

In a WeChat response to CoinDesk, Li denied allegations BHB is a pyramid scheme and said it's rather a project to "Liberalize communities." He did not respond to further questions.

According to photos and video clips from a BHB project gala held on Jan. 25, obtained by BHB users and reviewed by CoinDesk, Li appeared onstage at the Azure Qiantang luxury hotel in Hangzhou where he referred to himself as the founder of BHB. The gala featured lucky draws meant to reward winners with Rolls-Royce and Bentley luxury cars, as well as 3 million yuan in cash.

Only XBTC.CX users with more than 10,000 BHB and who signed up more than 10 other users to the exchange - each holding more than 700 BHB - were eligible to attend.

From XBTC shows $21 million in BHB is now changing hands daily for USDT. Following the initial listing, XBTC had been publishing daily updates on dividend payouts, touting how many users had received a dividend each day.

With a minimum reward threshold of 700 BHB, the project's exchange-based referral program would have attracted those 25,000 investors to purchase at least 18 million of the tokens.

Further, while trading for BHB against USDT is still enabled on XBTC, users in BHB's WeChat groups have been complaining that since early February the project has also frozen BHB investors' withdrawal requests for USDT. The project has made no announcements on the issue.