Breaking News: Centric ($CNS) is a scam! or is it? I do my own research to find out

7 min readNov 5, 2020

Apparently Centric is a scam, according to this Twitter user: https://twitter.com/centricisascam

This user posted an article at this link here: https://mokty33.medium.com/centric-cash-is-a-scam-564110e6f0d6

I thought this was interesting. The article outlines these 10 claims about Centric (see below) and I wanted to know if they were true or not. So, I did my own research. In Crypto, it is VERY important to “DYOR”.

Allegedy, according to @centricisascam also known as Medium user Mokty, they claim the following:

They market to third world countries becuase no first world country takes them seriously.

2. Their (operating) team (mark, john stuart, who are real people using fake names) is FULLY anonymous, “just incase” something goes wrong.

3. They refuse to back up their “patent pending status” with evidence.

4. They CENSOR their telegram groups like natzis.

5. They pump and dump on unsuspecting investors (as shown on the cns price chart)

6. They refuse to pay earlier UPSTAKE edge investors back.

7. They have been CALLED A SCAM by the Filipino sec (upstake has tried to market to the Filipino community, with immense failure).

8. They take no responsibility for their failures. For example, they call all people with valid questions “paid fudders” or “airdroppers”.

9. They promise immense wealth, promising a 1 dollar CNS, eventually. That’s like claiming that bitcoin will be 1 million dollars, eventually.

10. They dont have partnerships with other companies/cryptos, only cliche psudo partnerships with their own groups, such as moolah, greenhouse staking. This shows the inability of others to work with their pathethic selves.

The first thing I did was visit Centric’s website. Joincentric.com, from there I found the following links for information on the project.

The only one these seemed to answer is Point “9. They promise immense wealth, promising a 1 dollar CNS, eventually. That’s like claiming that bitcoin will be 1 million dollars, eventually.”

From what I read, there were no promises made anywhere in any of the documentation. None of the actual information says anything about guaranteeing their CNS currency to reach $1. I did see in the whitepaper talking about a target price of $1.

I took some more time out to really dig into this project. I talked to a few of the admins in private message to hash out some of the more extreme claims. I will address them below with the information that I received from the multitude of admins and individual investors who seemed to understand the project completely. After hours and hours of chatting, we came to these understandings below. I will address each claim individually.

Claim: “They market to third world countries becuase no first world country takes them seriously.”

Research shows: There seems to be many investors from the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada who have invested in Centric. Most of these investors found Centric through an advertisement in their respective first world country.

Claim Status: FALSE

Claim: Their (operating) team (mark, john stuart, who are real people using fake names) is FULLY anonymous, “just incase” something goes wrong.

Research shows: The Centric Foundation clearly indicates exactly who their team is on their website. I didn’t see anyone on the team named Mark or John Stuart (Isn’t John Stuart a television host? Anyway..) Where did these names come from?

Claim Status: FALSE

Claim: They refuse to back up their “patent pending status” with evidence.

Research shows: Well, I didn’t really get enough information on this to verify the validity of it. I will continue to try and get an answer on this as soon as I can.

Claim Status: Pending

Claim: “They CENSOR their telegram groups like natzis [Nazis]”

Research shows: What kind of Censoring? The only sort of banning or whatnot that they do on their Telegram is not following the chat rules outlined below:

“▫️Please refrain from using foul/unpleasant language and be kind to community members.
▫️Do not spread FUD.
▫️Do not post inappropriate content or personal links of interest.
▫️No shilling will be permitted.
▫️This is an English only chat, so please use English.
▫️Avoid discussion of illegal activities.
▫️CNS price talk is not allowed.
▫️Do not harass Community Managers. They are provided as a courtesy to the Centric community.

🤦‍♂️ Violation of chat rules will result in restrictions without warning.

🙏 We strive for a friendly and positive chat experience!

I asked a few admins separately and they all told me along the lines of the same thing: “We mute or ban for rule breaking, most of which break first two and the CNS price talk rule.”

Claim status: FALSE

Claim: “They (the team?) pump and dump on unsuspecting investors (as shown on the cns price chart)”

Research shows: There has never been any evidence to show that any team member pumps or dumps on anyone. If this ever surfaces, I would love to see it and will retract my claim status. But for now…

Claim status: FALSE

Claim: They refuse to pay earlier UPSTAKE edge investors back.

Research shows: Just like their Moolah site, Edge was a partnership with Upstake. I’m told that Edge will be its own thing still and you will still have access. Apparently, the Edge program was never part of the Upstake decentralized exchange. If Edge is a separate entity from Upstake exchange, it was never that team’s place to pay anyone back for them. From what I gather, the user would purchase and Edge contract and be responsible for the selling of it. Users who purchased and Edge contract should have been aware of this.

Upstake has since closed their doors after the Hardfork from the UPDC token to the Centric Rise & Centric Cash token in January 2020. The hardfork also resulted in the protocol being improved and the dual token economy established. This hardfork happened due to the tragic accident of former Upstake CEO Logan Schaurer (sp?). Would Centric fake a tragic accident? Not sure if that’s the case. There was even a GoFundMe for Logan due to the sheer damage it had done to him. From what I read, Logan isn’t fully aware like he previously was. I wish the former CEO of Upstake the best as this is tragic for any human being, regardless of status in a company.

With Logan “gone” essentially, what would they do? I’m sure Logan had access to a lot of stuff that they did not. I think they made a smart and bold move with the Hardfork. The spirit of UPDC (formerly UPS token) and the Rise idea was there, but it was made to be much better in my opinion.

Claim status: FALSE

Claim: “They have been CALLED A SCAM by the Filipino sec (upstake has tried to market to the Filipino community, with immense failure).”

Research shows: This is clearly demonstrated to be false. Centric’s lawyer (https://ndvlaw.com/) put out a formal legal opinions on the PH SEC’s advisory. A lawyer doesn’t just put out public opinions about everything. They only put out public opinions when they know the truth about a matter. You can read both of them here:
https://www.joincentric.com/docs/Doing%20Business%20Legal%20Opinion.pdf
https://www.joincentric.com/docs/Securities%20Legal%20Opinion.pdf

and Centric’s reply as well here: https://www.joincentric.com/response-to-phsec/

Apparently this case is still in litigation and they are filing motions to get the SEC to remove their advisory.

Claim status: Absurdly FALSE

Claim: “They take no responsibility for their failures. For example, they call all people with valid questions “paid fudders” or “airdroppers”.”

Research shows: I’ve seen them call people paid fudders and airdroppers in the chat. Going deeper into it, it’s revealed that a group of former Admins for Centric are taking “revenge” on Centric by spreading FUD and blatant lies like the ones outlined in this article. The claim weighs heavy on the words “valid questions”. Asking questions like, “Will CNS ever go up again?” or “Why is price SO LOW (when they don’t understand volatility) isn’t considered asking valid questions. They are in the realm of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt which is clearly stated in the rules…this isn’t allowed.

Claim status: FALSE

Claim: “They promise immense wealth, promising a 1 dollar CNS, eventually. That’s like claiming that bitcoin will be 1 million dollars, eventually.”

I already addressed this one above.

Claim status: FALSE

Claim: “They dont have partnerships with other companies/cryptos, only cliche psudo partnerships with their own groups, such as moolah, greenhouse staking. This shows the inability of others to work with their pathethic selves.”

Research shows: Moolah.bet and Green House Staking are separate entities apart from Centric. No one from the Centric Team are part of either one of these partnerships.

Claim status: FALSE

In Crypto, it is VERY important to DYOR. I have since done my own research into these claims and we have 9 FALSE claims and only 1 that’s unsure.

Nothing said by these guys have been even close to true. I would deem these statements as FUD statements which there are no evidences for to back up the claims they are making.

To the claimnant Mokty, you claim They refuse to back up their “patent pending status” with evidence. So, I say to you, if you can provide clear and compelling evidences to support your claims, I will delete this article and I will join you in spreading FUD about Centric. Otherwise…

They refuse to back up their any of their claims with evidence…

…Which seems to be the entire theme of the FUD brigade. Believe what you want to believe, DYOR, and don’t give into things that aren’t true.

I have a burning feeling that the evidence will never come, though.

Cheers!

Breaking News: Centric ($CNS) is a scam! or is it? I do my own research to find out

Written by Erik Dekker