Uncovering the dark side of cryptocurrency | 60 Minutes Australia

with a paper fortune of twenty million dollars Chris O'Shea could own this super yacht what would you call this boat if you bought it Rene Rene but right now Chris has better things to spend his millions on buying more of the cryptocurrency that's turned this former pub manager from Mount Druitt in Sydney's western suburbs into the richest young man he knows and he certainly got the attitude to match what do you say to the skeptics who claim that this is all a bubble and heading for doom I mean go [ __ ] yourselves [Laughter] Stephen Leno Qi is another Bitcoin wannabe Bondi Beach boy pulling three grand a week from a crypto currency investment he doesn't quite seem to understand what happens if it all goes bust all guys basts yeah I don't know I haven't really thought about that and then there's Sam keratosis life in a Bentley man come on it's pretty good yeah if he's Bentley and his mr. Bitcoin number plates don't give it away then the tattoos on his knuckles will he's launched his very own cryptocurrency odds coin what does coin coin is the future of currency in Australia three players in a cryptocurrency game that will have many losers including what's possibly an 18 million dollar scam can you explain why people who have been critical of Oz coin have been subjected to threats and intimidation and the threats that come from trying to expose it essentially Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies like buying shares in nothing each is issued by a company pretty much hoping that you'll bid on them and by their crypto coins the value is then determined solely by speculation lots of people buying in drives the value up a sell off makes it plummet but the money and it is real money being generated by all of this speculation ends up providing start-up funding for plenty of legitimate companies sum up cryptocurrency for me in 20 seconds cryptocurrency is like the new Internet full-stop Craig Colbert's an old-fashioned trader who studied market trends for decades and is convinced the space to be in right now is cryptocurrency he's taken to this emerging market with evangelical zeal so when you say it's the new Internet what do you mean by that well think of it this way right can we live without the internet now probably not when the internet came out what was it everyone's saying it won't take off no one will be connected the computers nothing will work it won't do this it won't do that but when it did catch on the whole world adopted it BAM Craig says it's a lot like the dot-com boom and bust of the 1990s hyper our new technology drove worthless companies into the stratosphere millions lost their money though when it all came crashing down but from the dot-com ruins rosed the Titans of today's global economy like Amazon eBay and Google and so he says it will go with cryptocurrency Bitcoin and cryptocurrency has given us an investment tool where a thousand bucks can be a hundred thousand bucks in a year but that's a reality it's happened it's happening and it will happen again so it's giving power back to the younger generation and it's we're all sick of it old people making decisions that we have to live with well now we're making those decisions and I think would take us from that power back to the disbelief of his family Chris O'Shea sank $10,000 into Bitcoin in 2013 he's now turned it into twenty million dollars when you told your parents you are taking Bitcoin seriously did they just shake their head and say pretty much the family all the family friends even like what are you doing with this internet currency like it's it's wasting your money on this crap for and I was like okay you've had the last laugh on them they sure have now Chris studied the market and got out of Bitcoin when the masses were buying in then he started investing in other cryptocurrencies worth a fraction of a fraction of a cent with names like ripple aetherium and cysteine then the crypto world exploded just literally started skyrocketing and then I was in the hotel with my girlfriend and I just saying you know the value of it going up at 10 10 grand by 20 grand by 30 about 50 grand and I was like I jumped into the shower and I was like tell me when it's at like a hundred thousand dollars 23 Chris has cashed out a few hundred thousand at this stage putting some of his real-world profits into funding a burger bar with his girlfriend Renee the general public have the right to know what's going on right now because it is life changing if you allow it to be we're changing the world okay there are things that are occurring that will make things different for everyone forever I want people to start to understand that now is their chance cryptocurrency is a roller coaster and the industry wants you to hear all about the highs tempting potential investors to get on board it's the classic get-rich-quick script but as is so often the case if it sounds too good to be true it probably is a year ago Stephen Leno Qi was a construction worker these days he promotes himself as a Bitcoin guru yeah I flipped my job never looked back really yeah I read an article saying you're gonna be a millionaire by the end of the year yeah that's well it's the I feel I feel as true that article I feel it's on the way yeah I feel I feel nothing could stop me at this point the trouble for Stephen is that he's speaking to his thousands of followers that they should sign up with him to a Bitcoin scheme called USI tech you know it's a Ponzi scam and in a pyramid scheme yeah you know I don't know what a Ponzi scheme is sadly for Stephen the authorities do u.s. and Canadian regulators have pulled no punches in slamming us i-tech recently issuing cease and desist orders against the company for being a pyramid scheme which we have now passed on to Stephen so you profit directly from encouraging other people to invest in u.s. i-tech yeah it's a pretty good reason for you to ignore the fact that it's a pyramid scheme isn't it yeah I guess yeah you could call their parents came but I could they could the US authorities the Canadian authorities yeah you know worried no I'm not worried well you're you're directly profiting from funneling people into a pyramid scheme yeah but okay so if it goes both ways then that they get into getting to us our tech whoever they sign up under them though profit as well that's a pyramid scheme yeah yeah not a pyramid scheme yeah all right now race and we'll move on from that the end so kudos but it gets plenty worse than this coming up the new cryptocurrency trying to get eighty million dollars out of ossie investors can you explain why people who've been critical of Oz coin have been subjected to threats and intimidation we reveal the dubious dealings of Oz coin Sam keratosis isn't afraid to flaunt his wealth as we discovered when we first began filming with him and he told us this is just the tip of the iceberg because he was about to launch his very own cryptocurrency Oz coin what does coin Osbourne is the future of currency in Australia zebb hope sauce coin will rape him an eye-watering 18 million dollars from mum and dad investors trouble is as you'll see the only value was coin has his blind faith as Sam almost accidentally revealed to us so you buy the coin then when it goes up and you're happy with your return yeah you have to sell it but when you talk about the appreciation on it yeah that's assuming that it will appreciate yes but what if it depreciates doesn't laugh it was Sam's assumption that I was coin would skyrocket in value that made us dig deeper into whether it's actually one of the many crypto currencies out there that investors should be wary of people hype it up and say you can't lose but the point I'm making is you can lose and some people will lose and lose big lose big lose very big state Worthington from Swinburne University says the frenzy to make easy money is fertile ground for scammers targeting ordinary investors who've got next to no idea how cryptocurrency actually works I feel like I said Ponzi scheme in too many ways where people are encouraged to put money in and those at the top who know what they're doing will take that money away at the top of the pile and leave everybody else scrambling around Sam and his associates have been delivering the hard sell around the country to potential investors on how they could strike it rich with those coin no I'll check like coins I'm checking all of them and hit like 2 or 300 bucks corns entire business plan is based on establishing a network of 1200 crypto currency ATMs around the country oz coin is set to roll out 1,200 ATMs throughout the Australian and Asian Pacific region it's an astonishing claim given that there are only 2000 of these specialist machines in the entire world our investigation uncovered that Oscar name is a lie we track down their ATM supplier Genesis coin whose CEO Evan rose told a sauce coin has purchased just 34 machines from him a fraction of what they promised their investors we don't have any pending orders for 1,200 machines we simply do not have the capacity to handle that size of order we've sold a little over 1,200 in five years I add Tom's time from 60 minutes so wait confronted Sam along with his odds coin partner Michael Slovak at their most recent investor information night in Perth and the truth quickly came out you have a deal signed for 1200 ATM definitely not definitely not that's your big sell to everyone tonight well no hold on what I've tried to communicate to people is the vision of where we're going now if we can do 40 we can definitely do 1200 his admission to us is a massive back down from the grandiose promises they've made to investors we currently already have a purchase order pending for the remaining 80 ms wads coins management have feared their money grab his unraveling for some weeks now and have taken to intimidation to try to stop them being exposed this is a phone call from oz Cointreau on Harris to Anne Osborne critic there have also been threats delivered via text message to those who criticized oz coin kiss your ass good-bye homeboy ya little [ __ ] can you explain why people who've been critical of Oz coin have been subjected to threats and intimidation and why you've offered to pay people off to stop investigating [ __ ] coin there has been yeah there's been a scenario where I've been extremely threatened I've had people I might even let the man guys please well let him speak is entitled ask his question and these people are wanting to invest money so they're important questions there were no answers that made sense that naughty but while they remained silent there are plenty of others who aren't pulling their punches what do you make of Oz coin I'm not gonna say it's a scam or if it isn't a scam /i it's a scam what I mean it's it's a money grab and at the end of the day like you know he gives it gives crypto a bad name [Music] I think it's ever to be going to end in a bust as many of the previous bubbles have around the world and I think for many people it will end in tears [Music] but despite conceding that the crypto bubble will probably burst at some stage in the short term and take the bad players with it many still believe a new dawn of investment and potential riches is upon us people haven't missed the boat absolutely not then this is a very exciting time to be alive we've all got a chance a lot of space on the boat there's a lot of space on the boat the boats getting bigger welcome aboard hello I'm Tara Brown thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes Australia make sure you subscribe to our channel you can also download the 9 now app for full episodes and other exclusive 60 minutes content

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 987,949

Rating: 4.4377604 out of 5

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, Peter Overton, Karl Stefanovic, Peter Stefanovic, Jana Wendt, Jennifer Byrne, Mike Munro, Tracey Curro, Paul Barry, Peter Harvey, Michael Usher, Ross Coulthart, Ian Leslie, Gerald Stone, Sarah Abo, bitcoin, cryptocurrency, auscoin, bitcoin scandal, bitcoin millionaires

Id: 1PUceq7Vzmc

Length: 16min 25sec (985 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 28 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/anothertimewaster]

60 minutes has proven an unreliable source of news time and time again. I stopped watching them after they rigged gas tanks to explode.

[u/ThredHead]

Oh well.

[u/localethereumMichael]

60 minutes AU is trash, as is this "documentary".

Also, the Auscoin ICO scam folded not long after this was aired, and Sam Kazz (the guy with the Bentley) went to jail after it was discovered his bitcoin trading was just a drug trafficking front. The other Auscoin founder (not in this video) was sentenced to a prison term as well.

[u/phillipsjk]

Are you talking about timestamp 2:16? The are talking about Auscoin at the point, so the image does not make sense anyway.

If I want to be paranoid about it: they are trying to associate Bitcoin with scams at that point in the video.

Edit: 2:54 has an animated green 'B'

[u/polsymtas]

This is 2 years old.

[u/btc_ideas]

Honey badger keeps moving : )