Official website, Hunan Provincial Local Financial Supervision Administration, showed that as early as March this year, Wenyuan Police Station in Tianxin District of Changsha City had investigated and dealt with the local "PlusToken Blockchain Wallet" propaganda dens. The police said that the "PlusToken blockchain wallet" has the typical characteristics of pyramid schemes by charging threshold fees, developing offline and rewarding at different levels in the name of blockchain.And a platform called "Bitter Dog" packages the pyramid scheme into a blockchain entertainment pet platform. According to the platform, "Bitdog" is a blockchain entertainment pet platform jointly developed by dogecoin development team, game development company and American Bitdog Games Foundation. According to the platform data, the "Bitter Dog" experience version has exceeded 20,000 participants in less than one month since it was launched on June 5, adding more than 2,000 people every day.Its operation mode is also inseparable from "pulling people’s heads". The "Pit Dog" platform stipulates that participants need to be recommended by referees to register as ordinary members. Ordinary members who want to make money by feeding pit bulls need to set up a pit bull account through referees and pay 99 yuan to adopt a pit bull. Then buy a feeding package to feed Bitter Dog. In the process of feeding, Bitter Dog can generate BTGS virtual currency by mining every day.The reporter found that the most striking feature of many platforms is to encourage players to develop offline through layers of reward mechanisms."Because there is no actual business in this kind of project, if you want to make the plate bigger, you must constantly circle money. Part of the money coming in is used to pay the high rebate in the early stage, in order to attract more people to enter the game, and the other part is cashed out by the’ owner’. Once the treasury board doesn’t have enough funds to pay for cash withdrawal, it will basically collapse, "Zhang Lei said.Lawyer Wang Deyi said that in the course of business operation, some capital plates promote their business by developing offline and double-entry payment, but these capital plates are not supported by real projects or products.Xiao Lei, a financial commentator, believes that the capital plate is actually a variant of pyramid scheme. Because many targets are standardized and convenient to trade, the capital plate can attract more funds in a short time, which is more harmful than the previous way of raising funds by attracting people. There are many legal definitions of pyramid schemes, such as more than three-level rebate system, etc. But at present, the capital plate is often more concealed, but it can achieve the effect of pyramid schemes. Because of the pulling of the plate, people who entered in the early stage are more likely to make profits. In order to attract more people, these people will use the way of pulling people’s heads to conduct pyramid marketing, which is consistent with the essential logic of pyramid schemes."Do you know that these projects are pyramid schemes?" In the face of a reporter’s question, Zhang Lei didn’t seem to mind. "At present, many blockchain funds are like this. You can think that it is a pyramid scheme, but I think there will be projects that are really doing things, and I can make money.""In fact, this kind of project, like pass the parcel, you never know when it will collapse. However, the only thing that is certain is that the later you enter the game, the greater the risk, "Wang Bo said.Hundreds of thousands can design a gold plate, and who can run fast?Qian Hao (pseudonym) is a bitcoin OTC trader, who was swept away by more than 2 million in a previous "non-smoking case". Recently, he told reporters that he began to consider participating in the fund plate, and pulled a WeChat group of 100 people to prepare for the promotion project."I have known a person who intends to be a’ disc owner’ to operate the fund disc. I intend to invest as an early participant and help him get ahead." Qian Hao said.According to him, the release of a virtual digital currency means sitting in the village. At present, some "outsourcers" provide mining machines, which can produce coins every day. At the same time, they also provide services for the development of the gold plate APP, which can help dealers design trading systems. The system can rent a foreign server and store both the APP and the website abroad."In fact, it’s very simple. Generally, about 100,000 yuan can be used by an outsourcer to help you design a wealth management disk, which is generally packaged into wealth management products. Recently, there are many such (wealth management)," Qian Hao said.Qian Hao said that when the owner can not only charge transaction fees, he can also hoard coins in the early stage and sell them to earn the difference after the price rises. And early investors like them will also hoard money with the bookmakers and then take the initiative to promote the group. In response to how to raise the price of virtual currency, he said, "It is still necessary to give people a feeling that the project is very promising and the supply is in short supply, and the price will rise."Will you worry about the project running away? Qian Hao said that even if the project ran away later, he would not lose money. In his view, he is an early member of "playing the world" with the dealer, and he has to hoard coins with the dealer until the high point is sold. Therefore, the interests are the same in the short term. "The dealer feels that he has earned enough, and the project may indeed go offline, but at that time I had already quit. This kind of project is gambling, and it is to compete with the owner to run faster," he said.When the reporter asked about the name of the project, he said he didn’t want to disclose it, but he had prepared a white paper and was about to go online.Simomo (a pseudonym), an investor in blockchain, said that the operation routines of the capital market are actually very similar. In the early stage of launching a new market, they will not only sell a high amount of virtual currency to the market, but also give investors in the early stage dozens of times of returns, so that they can "taste the sweetness". In this way, more people will invest in the market and circle more funds. However, when the owner feels that he has earned enough, this fund will become a "dead plate" and investors will not be able to withdraw cash and will be locked up."What’s more, the owner may open a new offer, so that some of the funds of the investors who were’ locked in’ by the previous investment offer can be invested in the new offer and then start operation. At this time, some investors may even be overjoyed because the money is’ alive again’, and may invest again with the mentality of recovering losses, "Simomo said.According to the reporter’s investigation, there are still many projects with pyramid schemes in operation.It is difficult for investors to defend their rights.Introduced by friends and relatives, in a dilemma.The reporter observed in a number of rights groups in PlusToken and Bochang Super Community that, similar to most pyramid schemes, many participants were introduced by relatives and friends. As a result, when the project was running, many people said that if they called the police, they "felt sorry for their relatives and friends, fearing that they would be fined and even face jail." However, if you don’t call the police and want to recover the principal, you are in a dilemma.Some players will also publicly advise in the group: "Have you ever thought about the difference between taking the initiative to report a case to assist in the investigation and covering up a crime, and that reporting a case can recover your own funds through pyramid schemes and illegal fund-raising? Report the case early, recover it early and control the team leader. " Some investors decided to report the case.In fact, as early as September 2017, seven departments, including the Central Bank, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, issued the Announcement on Preventing the Financing Risks of Token Issuance. The announcement clearly stated that any token financing trading platform shall not engage in the exchange business between legal tender and token and virtual currency, and shall not buy or sell, and shall not provide pricing, information intermediary and other services for token or virtual currency.The announcement also pointed out that tokens are essentially an unauthorized illegal public financing act, which is suspected of illegal selling of tokens, illegal issuance of securities, illegal fund-raising, financial fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities.Xiao Sa, a partner of a well-known law firm, publicly suggested that investors should collect evidence. For the follow-up road of rights protection, the most realistic thing is to collect all the relationships between yourself and the platform, such as platform recharge, screenshots of investment details, and bank running water with official seals. Secondly, because this kind of case belongs to the case of stakeholders, the problems encountered by a single investor may not represent anything, but if many people have similar situations, then a rights group can be established to exchange information and share information, and it is also convenient to go to the public security bureau to handle cases and attract attention.In view of what charges such cases will be filed, Wang Deyi, a lawyer of Xunzhen Law Firm, said that according to the provisions of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security on the standards for filing and prosecuting criminal cases under the jurisdiction of public security organs (II), [fund-raising fraud (Article 192 of the Criminal Law)] for the purpose of illegal possession, if it is suspected of one of the following circumstances, it should be filed for prosecution: (1) individual fund-raising fraud with an amount of more than 100,000 yuan. (two) unit fund-raising fraud, the amount of more than five hundred thousand yuan.According to the network of judgment documents, there are 139 judgment documents concerning the criminal cause of "capital plate", among which the crime of organizing and leading pyramid schemes generally involves the largest number of cases, reaching 86; There are 12 crimes of illegally absorbing public deposits and fund-raising fraud, and the rest are other types of crimes.Wang Deyi said that at present, many projects that use blockchain technology to make capital plates have collapsed and run away, and it is difficult for investors to recover losses. In this case, it is difficult for investors to safeguard their rights and interests through civil litigation, and they can only request the public security organs to file a criminal case. The "victims" of such cases are distributed all over the world, and the behind-the-scenes controllers of these funds may be overseas or hide their true identities. The funds or tokens invested by investors are likely to be transferred by the other party through technical means. Therefore, even if the public security organs file a case for investigation, the handling of related cases is likely to be very long.Beijing News reporter Zhang Shuxin Chen Peng editor Li Weijia proofreads Fan Jinchun.