As the entire cryptocurrency industry faces uncertainty following regulatory action by The Reserve Bank of India, some players are taking the fight to courts. In a bid to revive the industry as well as their business, these players are keeping the interest of investors as their top-most priority. Flintstones Technologies is one such company which has sought judicial intervention to protect investor interest of its customers who are dealing in company’s cryptocurrency – Money Trade Coin. Excerpts from an interaction with Mr. Amit M Lakhanpal, CEO of Money Trade Coin Group:
Q) Dr Amit Lakhanpal is it a tough time for Money Trade Coin community as people are facing problems in converting their crypto currencies into fiat currency or other crypto currencies?
A) Well the fact is every coin has two sides. There was a time when money trade coin was seeing bull-run during mid-January 2018. People made millions as profit by trading in MTCX. But all of a sudden we received letter from a financial institution that the transactions which were happening in our bank account were not legitimate! Because of that letter we stopped the withdrawals and decided not to sell more coins. We were forced to migrate to trading platforms where the rate of the coin depends on buyer and seller. This marked the beginning of tough times for us.
Q) Do you think this is the only reason behind the tough times that MTCX is witnessing?
A) Well it was one amongst the many reasons. At one point our coin got hacked when it was trending on live coin. IO & Nova are both public exchanges. But we managed to overcome the losses and made sure that the clients remained un-affected. Another factor which hurt our company very badly were the ill-intentioned negative videos which were spread on various social media platforms. To make matters worse, some females with malafide intent, who are not even our customers, began to spread negativities about our company amongst customers. They piggy-backed on the growing popularity of the company and sabotaged the image of the company as well as its directors which is me and Komal Shirsat.
Q) There are allegations that you had promised customers that they will get their money back at the rate of 3 USD after certain lock in period. What do you have to say about that? Also what is CDR, CZ and Banque?
A) As far as guarantee is concerned we made it very clear from day one that we have taken a SBLC from market on lease which mentioned two conditions. Firstly MTC will get listed on any of the exchange public or private on 17th September and secondly when it is listed it will be listed at base rate of 3 USD. There after its price will be determined basis market demand and supply.
Separately we promised to come up with our own exclusive exchange or white label in which general public will not be allowed to put their bid for less than 3 USD. But there again the trading price will be determined basis demand and supply in which it was clear that only if we have a buyer then sellers’ coins will be redeemed and they can take withdrawals.
CDR was a product which was marketed by us and also a third party under the name of Banque. People were supposed to purchase coins and keep it as coin deposit with the company for a lock in period of minimum six months. A specific percentage of additional coins were committed to them not limited to any of the fixed returns in fiat currency. That means whatever would be the live rate, people can sell their purchased coins along with additional bonus coins. Moreover, if we check the total sale of Money Trade Coin around 65% coins have been distributed free of cost as promotional tokens and another 15% is additional bonus that people have got. So in short only 20% of total coins are “purchased” coins.
CryptoZania was also a third party company which used Money Trade coin as payment method. The company was into training people for crypto currency trading and used to give specific additional crypto currency to people. The additional currency was for practical training of cruptocurrency trading. With negativity spreading around the entire business, people started demanding their currency as a lump-sum. At no point has the company or MTC promised any returns in form of Fiat Currency. We will settle all claims of MTC on CryptoZania by 15th June 2018 by disbursing the promised Money Trade Coins.
To get Money Trade Coin back on track we are listing our coin on more than three exchanges in due course from our JV exchange that is coin trading platform. Besides that, livecoin.io has already started the process of listing.
Q) Considering the doldrums that the entire industry is in, what is the state of mind of your customers?
A) Well we are facing a lot of undue resentment mentally, physically and psychologically. People are stooping to the level of making life threats against me, my wife, my family and my two years old child! People are spreading rumours that our customers are committing suicide which are blatant lies to turn public opinion against us.
We made all disclaimers very clear from day one and repeatedly issued warnings in all our media interactions and seminars that investment in crypto-currencies has risks attached and company will not take risk as per fiat currency. We have never lured any individual or corporate entity for purchasing MTC.
Having said that, people have made millions of rupees by investing in our company when the market was seeing a rally. Being a responsible business house, we have submitted a list of these people to the income tax department.
Q) What are the options that you are willing to give your coin holders?
A) We have started with a diamond purchasing platform in which we have given 3 options i.e. – IGI certified diamonds, GIA certified diamonds and normal certified diamonds. People can redeem their MTC for purchases to a limit of maximum 49% of each product and rest 51% has to be paid in Fiat currency. But over here also we are facing hurdles as people are challenging the prices! Since diamond does not have any fixed value it is hard to determine its actual value which is why we are offering certified product option.
