Fraudsters are targeting vulnerable investors to invest in a fake Bakkt fundraising round, according to a Coindesk report.
As per the report, an imposter is sending emails claiming that Bakkt is planning to raise $50 million in a second token sale round. The email was sent from a Gmail address and the contents are written in broken English - a very common theme among scammers.
The email directs the potential victims to bakktplatform.io which ask them to register their names and email addresses. After finishing the registration process, the website presents a Bitcoin address and ask the prospective investors to send their funds to the address and also ask to provide their wallet address to receive profits in the future.
A spokesperson from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Bakkt’s parent company, confirmed that the website is fake, as per Coindesk.
What is Bakkt?
Bakkt is a cryptocurrency platform owned by ICE, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. The platform will Leverage Microsoft cloud solutions and ICE’s expertise to create a federally regulated ecosystem along with merchant and consumer applications and will focus on Bitcoin trading and exchange against fiat currencies.
The project has attracted a lot of attention especially because of the reputation of its promoters. In December last year, Bakkt’s CEO Kelly Loeffler revealed that the company had secured $182.5 million in funding from as many as 12 investors.
Despite the deep pockets, the launch of the platform has been delayed several times with no prospective launch date for now.
Moreover, the platform is still in line to receive approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to list its futures products.
The imposters are leveraging the hype of the project to lure the potential victims into the so-called “second financing round.”
