Pirrlokk: The Serial Scammer Who (Almost) Killed the Masternode Market
Anyone who has stepped foot into cryptocurrency investment knows that the space is rife with scams and fraud. This is especially so in the Masternode market, where scammers are easily able to create new coins again and again through forking PivX. Masternode coins are cryptos that operate using a Proof of Stake algorithm with a tiered network. As such, there is no “work” or miners required for investors to receive rewards. Instead, coins must be purchased either off of an exchange or through a private presale, providing a particularly attractive route for scammers to steal BTC.
This typically happens one of two ways: either the presale money is stolen directly and projects are abandoned, or the scam dev retains a “premine” of coins, which are dumped onto the exchange at some point in time. As a result many masternode projects have dumped heavily. While many people attribute these dumps to high coin inflation rates, the purpose of this article is to suggest that there may be more at play. The information presented in the following paragraphs is a result of over one year of observation of the market, and are the opinions of the author. Please do your own research before making any investment decisions, and do not base your decisions solely on this article.
Every day, new coins appear on Masternode directories such as Masternodes.online. While some may conclude that this is simply a result of a healthy market, this could not be farther from the truth. The assertion that I am going to make is that there are serial scammers in the Masternode market that constantly create new coins, steal the presale money and/or dump premines, and repeat. The worst of these perpetrators is known on discord as Pirrlokk.
I first came into contact with Pirrlokk in June of 2018, when I first stepped into the Masternode market. After taking a beating in the crypto bear market, I wanted to set up some kind of passive income that would reward me for being a loyal holder. I researched Masternode coins, and selected one that I liked, called LightPayCoin (LPC). At first, things went great. Not only was I getting more coins through staking, but the value of the coins seemed to go up almost every day. It seemed too good to be true. Turns out, it was. I followed the project’s updates passively on my phone if I had a spare few minutes. After a couple of months, I noticed the coin developers talking about a new coin, marketed as a “sister” coin to LPC that would support its progress. This raised some alarm bells, but after watching webinar update videos, I put my concerns to rest when the developers said this would be the last coin. I could not have been more wrong.
Ignoring these warning signs was a costly mistake. After the release of LPC’s “sister” coin called “Logis Coin,” I noticed a fast and devastating dump of LPC’s price. It was almost as if people were jumping ship on LPC and getting on board of LGS. Eventually things stabilized, but it seemed as though the “LPC DEV” who also went by the username “Pirrlokk” became very quiet on the LPC channel, and focused only on LGS. The price of LPC never recovered. Maybe it was due to the bear market, but maybe not.
The promise to stop with Logis Coin was broken in November, when Pirrlokk announced on the LPC and LGS channels a third project called Liquid Regenerative Medicine (LRM) coin. The goal of this project was to match humans with 3D printed organs, which would be created in a LRM-owned bio facility. If it sounds like a far-fetched idea, it is. 3D printing organs is still in its R&D phase, and is decades away from implementation. This greatly upset the LPC/LGS communities, not only because it was a clear breach of trust, but also because now it was clear that the LPC/LGS DEV team was making promises that they never intended to keep. In response to this, the community demanded the removal of Pirrlokk as the LPC/LGS DEV. At the time, we believed his real name to be Wladyslaw Hyintsinger, as indicated from the LPC website. His profile has since been deleted.
But the scam coins did not stop there. After a little while, Pirrlokk was at it again, announcing Blacer (BLCR) coin on all of his previous channels. This announcement continued the theme, with developments and announcements ceasing on the old channels, the price of previous projects dumping, and the price of the new one pumping. I suspected that this was due to presale funds being stolen and premine being dumped, but I had no proof, as premine wallet addresses were never shared for these projects. But after a series of direct messages exchanged with LightPayCoin’s Co-Founder (who may or may not have known about these scams), it was revealed that the LPC premine had been drained.
This confirmed my suspicions, at least for LPC, but judging by the pattern of dumping old projects and pumping the new ones, it can be deduced that the pattern extends to premine dumps as well.
I have long since exited LPC, and have largely stopped following the scam coin saga, until recently a post made by Pirrlokk was brought to my attention:
The above screenshot was taken from the LRM general channel, and shows Pirrlokk himself saying that he is the Dev of “all PIVX fork coins, including BLCR, Fline, CTT, Mobi, HISC.” He also says “I think you can continue this list” — indicating that those are not the only coins. This is no longer suspicion. This is fact admitted from the scammer himself. There is no possible way that one DEV can adequately maintain at least 7 coins (and counting).
Upon further review, the pattern that followed LPC, LGS, LRM, and BLCR also held true for CTT and MOBI, which both featured initial periods of high price, high roi, a subsequent dump and abandonment of the projects. These projects all featured similarly designed websites, poorly written whitepapers, nearly identical discord channels and announcement styles, overly inflated fake volumes on Crypto Bridge that suddenly drop off when the “next project” is released, and so on. Also, the identities of the team behind these coins are all anonymous, with clearly fake profiles and names on the coin websites.
It appears that Pirrlokk is now accustomed to creating fake Discord accounts to fool investors into thinking there is a dedicated team behind the project. This is likely a change he made after seeing the backlash caused when the same team tries to run four coins, as was the case for LPC/LGS/LRM/BLCR. The list of coins that Pirrlokk is responsible for is long, and includes at least eight coins — all of which are PIVX forks, but the list is very likely much longer. He is a serial scammer that has singlehandedly damaged the reputation of the Masternode market, and scared away countless investors who lost money to his unfair premine dumps. Many of these investors will never touch crypto again, yet alone participate in a presale or ICO. New projects now face even more of an uphill battle, as the question of credibility presents a massive challenge. The Masternode market is not dead, but it certainly has been deeply wounded, and significant changes are required and must be demanded by the investors.
Demand answers. Stop settling for teams that are not transparent. Stop taking the bait and investing in unreasonably high ROI coins. Treat PIVX forked coins with an extra layer of scrutiny. Conduct due diligence and research projects thoroughly before buying. If a Whitepaper is poorly written and lacks substance, don’t trust it. If the website looks overly flashy, or appears to follow a pattern with other projects, don’t trust it. If the use-case for a project seems far-fetched and unlikely, don’t trust it. Look for coins that have been verified by services like Swyft Trust, who ensure that serial scammers like Pirrlokk are exposed and held accountable. The transparency and accountability that will save the Masternode market will only be implemented if investors demand it, and if scam projects like the ones discussed in this article are no longer supported. Contribute to the change that you want to see in the market, and do your part to spread this article across the communities of these coins.
For more info on Swyft Trust, check out this article that I wrote:
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