The true story of CT (aka the greatest Telegram crypto scam)

UPDATED on Sept 19, 15:55 (find edits on bottom)

disclaimer: here you won't find any referral, any true name or nickname of the involved persona.
disclaimer two: please remember to invest only in platform you trust and never-ever-ever invest more than you can afford to lose!
one more disclaimer: my approach to this matter is quite simple, I want to make it clear even for those who are new to this world and those who are just curious. If you are interested, please take time to learn and study before anything else!

BOT on Telegram, an overview

Cryptocurrencies are kind of ermetic values nowadays, at least for the most; those are digital assets designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses strong cryptography to secure financial transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets.

Traders and crypto enthusiasts are the ones who do dig into the matter and find, create, share and use systems and supports to make crypto trading a bit more easy.
Beware: easy is not equal to easy and the value of the easiness stands in the knowledge of the user - to be more explicit: if you're new to crypto trading don't play blind, spend some time to learn, read and study.

And so, one of the newest trends is to invest via Telegram bots, where the knowledge about what's behind an investment sometimes is less interesting than the actual revenue.
You will find crypto groups offering referral links to join sort of "opportunity to grow". You just need a crypto currency base portal and Telegram on your phone. Copy that?

Let me explain with an example about my first experience: a person I know since years told me "hey, you know about crypto things? See? I invested some money into this" -- showing me his phone -- "and on Telegram my bots are chirping each time I earn.. 200euros a day, not bad."

Ouch! Not bad at all.
The system most of the time works in a pyramidal way: someone (your upline) gives you a link of a Telegram bot, you activate the bot, you deposit, you collect interest daily to reinvest in short-mid-long term investment, you become the upline of someone else by referring them and you live happy with your revenues and commissions.

This is how is supposed to be..

Different services, different earnings

Services, platforms and bots are not working in the same way.
You can find long term investments (ie: 99 days is the longest I've been running), mid term investments (ie: 30 days) and short term investments (ie: 12 days).

What is the difference then?
It all depends on the platform behind the project.
Each project needs to be funded in order to pay and funds obtained (by sponsors, by joint ventures..) and the operate in sort of high stakes investments to get a proper ROI (return on investment).

Short terms offer high percentages, I've seen 10-days-bot paying 15% a day on each investment.
And saw long term ones offering 1.4% daily with a 99 days term.

How do I earn?

You earn money investing your cryptocurrencies in these projects/investments - half way from Wall Street and Hard Trading, to get an idea.

Who pays?

This is a nice question, thanks for asking.
Your earnings are interest on capital, if you have ever opened a bank account you know what we're talking about.
So the project you invested on pays you for the investments, sort of interests sharing.

Eco-system of high %

High percentages are the most enjoyable and the type everyone want: low term, high ROI.
Have you ever thought why?
It's a rollercoaster investment, labeled High Risk.
You take the High Risk and you either win or lose High.

Low percentages are less risky, long term based, a bit more stable.
Like every trading investment.

The CT scam

Now I want to tell you a story, my story with this platform.
I've been offered a bot on CT platform, my upline invested and I trusted him.
I went on investing 4 LTC (LiteCoin) for 30 days, with a 30% interest.
My investment during 30 days was successful, I re-invested daily the generated interest and after 30 days withdrawed my initial capital plus some interests and reinvested for another 30 days loop.
Nice thing! I tried also a small investment in ETH (Ether).

Days later, in the official support channel on Telegram was announced that all the bots were stopping the payouts due to unauthorized high-withdrawals of BTC (Bitcoin).
No one was ever able to get back LTC, ETH, BTC and BCH (Bitcoin Cash).
A couple of days more all bots stopped working.

Admins of the official Telegram channels were trying to calm down people by saying it was a "momentary emergency measure" but seemed to many it was a clear scam.
The owner, known by his real name on Facebook, vanished.
Admins kicked off people from the official channel and deleted the channel itself.
This is a sign your money won't be getting back anymore.

Frustration led many people to delete their bots and go on the hunt for the smooth criminal.
In less than two hours a new group was created to help scammed people get back their money; FBI filings and police recordings were made and this case showed up in the Australian chronicles as one of the saddest crypto days ever.

The only pinned message we were seeing on the "Rescue and Aid group" was

Information from research results has been sent to security agencies.
We will release part of this information for the security of other bots and projects
If you have information about the attackers, please let us know @****.
Thanks

All lost?
Nope. A hope was lighting: reports said the owner was willing to refund at least the invested capital and soon the bots will have been granted new life.

Yesterday my bots were starting up again and I was able to withdraw a minimum cap in ETH - I won't be long in explaining this, trust me if I say it was a pain!
And some news came across the crypro community about the story behing the scam.

Wait, is really a scam?

So, the owner released a public statement and published videos and a document (find it here) where he explained how they were hacked and funds stolen.
There are evidences and proofs, moreover we all know bots are hackable and nothing is really secure - unless you drill a hole in your walls and store your money there - and the fact the bots were able to pay out a little is really a plus to the trust chain of the company.

At today we don't know if this is true or just some evil plan to put oil over troubled water.

Epilogue

Bots, as said, are paying out a little cap.
Total refund of the capital invested is a chimera at the moment, we are only allowed to take off less than what the initial investment was. And not all the bots are actually going to seed out - only ETH for.

Need to wait and see..

##EDIT (Sept, 15)
Rumors has the BTC bot and the LTC bot won't be paying at least for 48 hours more.
Blockchain has no sign of funds there and suddenly a new "statement" from the owner popped out: "We are sorry but we can't make payment at this time due to heavy traffic and security countermeasures"

More death threats to admins, ex-admins, owner and collabs are shouted.
Not that good!

##EDIT (Sept, 19)
Seems like there's a drama in the drama.
ETH bot paid out, BCH - rumor has it - paid out less than what was due, BTC bot - some more rumors - paid only a few users and LTC bots are likely not to be opened for refund.
A note is looping saying that after a whole week of refunds, company will shut down bots and delete all accounts.