Fantasy Market created hype and lured porn enthusiasts.

They promised to facilitate “meaningful, interactive, client-controlled performances," with the slogan: ‘control the show.’

“Governed by Ethereum smart-contracts, clients decide what the performers say and do during the show. If you have ever played a video game where you can control your character’s decisions, then you are already familiar with the Fantasy Market experience.” Source

Last week, Fantasy Market ICO Investors claimed that its shadowy CEO had “disappeared with their money.”

The project's goal was to raise $25 M to build a community of webcam models and their clients, with payments made in the form of FMtokens. The currency would be used to pay for viewing live porn videos, their white paper said.

Now that the CEO can't be contacted, the apparent inability of investors to sell-off the Fantasy Market tokens, or FMtokens, could be taken as a warning to all investors in the buzzing cryptocurrency market.

It must have attracted a large number of investors, though it is not easy to determine how much exactly was raised by the ICO. After several months with no token and no refunds issued, suspicions began to mount.

Jonathan Lucas (which turned out to be a pseudonym according to an investor), the brains behind FMtokens, was aiming to raise as much as $US25 million ($A32 million) last year, according to the investment plan in their white paper.

TEAM PROFILES WERE “STOCK PHOTOS”

In fact, doubts had long simmered that the ICO might have been hiding something. Even team members shown on the website were suspected of being stock photos. in September, the founder addressed the issue in a Reddit post. He claimed that these were pseudonyms and that the team was working anonymously until success had been ensured.

Though initially, no one from Fantasy Market has made a public statement about the refund policy, the company’s website is now asking all investors who have yet to be refunded to reach out directly via email as the following post indicates:

“Any remaining investors who have not received their refund should contact [email protected],” the Fantasy Market website displays. “Those who contributed from an exchange address should provide the specific TX of their contribution, so the appropriate refund can be issued.” Source

Even though they say they there will be refunds, some investors are expected to remain dissatisfied since the refunds will be based on ETH’s value at the time of investment. - Not on its current value. Since the coin has more than tripled in value since last year, they will essentially keep the profit, stealing money from investors. Hence, we can expect to see more irate investors.

The venture started to tumble in November after The Post interviewed Lucas for about an hour on how his ICO would turn out and about some statements published in their white paper. He did not have direct answers and just hit dead ends.

In the offering, Lucas claimed he was offered a National Security Agency-funded full scholarship to the prestigious Stevens Institute of Technology for a degree in Cyber Warfare. When Lucas was told Stevens does not offer such a major, he at first insisted: “I am sure that I did not falsify my bio.” Minutes later, Lucas admitted that Fantasy Market had raised less than the $2 million it says it will need — and then said he decided “in the past 48 hours” that he will return funds to investors. Source

“Jonathan Lucas (most likely an alias) has scammed us and run off with the cryptocurrency,” one irate investor fumed to The Post, more than two months after investing in Fantasy Market. Source

It’s impossible to determine how much of the $25M capital goal they got. He told a reporter in November that they had raised no more than $2M. In contrary, he boasted in private chats seen by The Post that they were just 13% away from raising $5M which equates to about $4.4M.

On its website on Sunday, the company appeared to be trying to refund investors, asking them to initiate contact within 90 days.

Compared to other ICOs that turned out to be downright scams, some FMToken investors were fortunate to receive anything, which doesn't mean the actions described above were legit. What happened to Fantasy Market must serve as a classic example to teach everyone in the ICO, crypto, and altcoin spaces.

It's not the First time it happened, definitely not the last one either. A clear sign was the project’s lack of specific details about their future plans. Flowery language is appealing to victims. Skip it. Go to the staff, the members of the team. If there are so many people with first names only, that’s not a good sign. If their excuse for not publishing authentic/detailed developer identity includes blabbering about no one knowing who Satoshi was either, shy away immediately. -Trust completely no one.

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