Mike Tyson's upcoming Bitcoin ATM in Las Vegas may turn out to be a scam, as it is connected to two shady companies.
The famous/ infamous Mike Tyson has been in the news for various things over the past 25 years and most recently he's making headlines due to his Bitcoin endeavors.
Mike Tyson's Bitcoin ATM venture will launch on Aug. 30, aiming to be the fastest way to convert cash to digital money. More specifically, the Bitcoin ATM will allegedly turn cash into bitcoin in less than 20 seconds. Tyson just promoted his venture to his nearly five million Twitter followers, touting the upcoming Bitcoin ATM in a tweet over the weekend.
Coming soon... https://t.co/Blf592VtUW... Changing the way we get change.
— Mike Tyson (@MikeTyson) July 25, 2015
The venture's connection to two companies, however, is raising concerns that it may all be a scam. SiliconANGLE dug a little deeper into the matter and points out some intriguing details.
First of all, the owner of the site domain is Peter Klamka, while Bitcoin Direct LLC is the partner for the project. SiliconANGLE highlights that Klamka has a bit of a shady history with his Bitcoin Brands Inc. firm, which doesn't seem to deliver the services it lists.
"Bitcoin Brands is listed as an over the counter (OTC) stock, so if they actually were providing these services you'd expect that to reflect in their share price and market cap," notes the report.
"Their current share price is $0.0001 per share with a market cap of $6,780. That's not millions, that's six thousand, seven hundred and eighty dollars."
"So a company worth $6,870 has done a legitimate deal with Mike Tyson to provide Mike Tyson Bitcoin ATM's."
According to the publication, this raises a big red flag and suggests that Tyson may have been fooled into entering this scam. SiliconANGLE further speculates that a "fast talker" could have lured Tyson into the business with the promise of a significant payout if he agrees to lend his name and endorse the enterprise.
Another possibility, meanwhile, could be that Tyson actually invested some of his own money into the service, teaming up with Klamka as a business partner. This, in turn, would signal a rather poor business decision from Tyson's part, especially considering that a simple internet search raises suspicions in regards to Bitcoin Brands and its alleged services.
The other connection, meanwhile, is Bitcoin Direct LLC, but it doesn't make things look more legitimate. On the contrary, all that is known about the company comes from some press materials, but with no actual evidence of the alleged Bitcoin ATM establishments. As SiliconANGLE points out, a Bitcoin ATM launch should include a plausible local news report, photos of people at the opening, or others such, but it's not the case. This, in turn, could suggest that the press releases are fictional. The company doesn't even have an Internet home page for such services, which further raises some red flags. Lastly, Bitcoin Direct's origin is somewhat shady as well, as Nevada records show that the firm filed just four months ago, back in April 2015.
It all remains rather unclear at this point and it remains to be seen whether SiliconANGLE is indeed on to something, but the report does make some good points in questioning the legitimacy of Mike Tyson's Bitcoim ATM venture.
