CoinMD - Another Cryptocurrency Ponzi Scheme from the Creators of One Coin

Recently, I've been getting requests to look at several different alt-coins and offer my opinions about them. Normally, I am hesitant to do so for several reasons. One being that there are well-over a thousand alt-coins out there and new ICOs are appearing every day. Secondly, it is not a good investing practice to simply base your investment choices on the advice or opinion of one person if you haven't done your own due-diligence first.

Investigating a cryptocurrency requires discipline and knowledge of at least the basics in how cryptocurrencies work and a good working knowledge of the fundamentals of investing is definitely recommended as well.

Back some time ago, a new "cryptocurrency" was launched and several people asked me about it. A red flag immediately went off in my head, when I saw that the only way to acquire One Coin was to join their Multi-Level Marketing business, called "One Life". It had heavy religious/Christian overtones, which gave it a cult-like feel.

Further investigation revealed that their blockchain was fake and that blockchain explorer website consisted of a looping video designed to make it look like transactions were being made.

Not one single exchange supported the currency, so it would be very difficult (or impossible) to sell your One Coin tokens for any other currency or fiat.

Several governments around the world have declared One Coin a Ponzi scheme and have issued arrest warrants for the operators of OneCoin/One Life.

More recently, I was asked to look into a "cryptocurrency" called CoinMD, which is supposedly a currency that allows you to earn tokens for making healthy choices in life and these tokens are spendable at participating medical establishments.

My initial search found no references to any sites naming to be fraudulent, so it looked like it might be legitimate. The home page is a marketing campaign designed to get you to buy-in to their Multi-Level Marketing business. While there is nothing wrong with MLM businesses (I happen to be a fan and believer in the concept), due-diligence must be adhered to. My first question is "Why does a currency need an MLM business?". I began my investigation by searching for an exchange that trades the CoinMD token. There are none.

I did find a link to the CoinMD whitepaper which was published in August 2017. I clicked it, and it took me to a 20 page marketing brochure in PDF format (not a whitepaper).

Legitimate cryptocurrency whitepapers provide technical details such as type (proof of stake/work/burn, etc), encryption algorithm used, block time, block size, wallet information, etc. This paper provides none of that information. You can view the "whitepaper" here.

I then decided to search for their blockchain and found a press release that announced the mining of the Genesis Block of their blockchain. It stated that the people in attendance got to see the distribution of the first tokens to be mined into the wallets of the primary players in the business. Searching for the CoinMD blockchain took me to their Facebook page, which had a link with the title "So you wanna see our blockchain?". The link takes you to the CoinMD blockchain explorer which is just subdomain of the CoinMD website and that is suspicious. It is this page that proves beyond the shadow of any doubt that this is a fake cryptocurrency and a scam.

When I first looked at the CoinMD Blockchain Explorer I noticed that there is no transaction information. The Search box only allows you to search by block number - currently, there are 73,945 blocks mined according to the site. To get to the most recent block, I typed in 74,000 and it took me to 73,945 (If you are new to blockchain explorers, you may view the Bitcoin Blockchain Explorer here for contrast. Notice the transactions being posted in real time).

So naturally, I decided to take a look at the website's code. The OneCoin scammers were sophisticated enough to use a looping video to make it look like transactions were happening in real time. These guys are not as sophisticated. As you can see, the block number, hash, block date, block time, mining difficulty, block reward are all merely static text entries in a table using poorly-written basic HTML code.
. Not one single script is used in this website. No Java, JavaScript, MySQL, or PHP... nothing but static HTML that could have been better-written by my 10 year old.

Don't take my word for it. Click on the Blockchain Explorer link above and view the source code yourself (right-click on website/View Page Source).

Lastly, I'll talk about the person behind the CoinMD company. The CEO is listed as being Tom McMurrain. This is the same Tom McMurrain who is affiliated with OneCoin and is still out there defending it as being a legitimate cryptocurrency (it's not).

In 2005, Tom McCurrain was sentenced to 7.5 years in Federal Prison for defrauding investors out of $7.5 million USD using his Emergency One Cash Card business.

In summary the CoinMD blockchain does not exist, there is no 3rd-party support, no developer support or APIs, no wallets, and no support from any exchanges. The fake Blockchain explorer clearly illustrates an intent to defraud the reader.

It is therefore my opinion that CoinMD is a Ponzi scheme that will take your money and give you literally nothing in return and should be avoided at all costs.

Further Reading:
One Coin Ponzi Scheme: Wikipedia
CoinMD mines Genesis Block at Public Event
Tom McMurrain Sentenced to Prison
Tom McMurrain Facebook Page