Brian Li, Japanese-based blockchain enthusiast, recently took a deep dive into the ICO of Substratum, an open-source network that wants to give people the ability to share/rent computing resources in a decentralized manner. Li compared the numbers reported by the Substratum whitepaper to the actual blockchain data for every cryptocurrency that was given to the project during the ICO and he discovered some major discrepancies between the two.
Substratum accepted BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, and LTC during the ICO which lasted from August 14th to September 17th of 2017. Li analyzed the contribution addresses that were given to ICO investors and found that the numbers cited in the project’s funding statistics given in the wallpaper aren’t accurate. He cites the BCH contribution as the most obvious example of the discrepancy between what was contributed and what was reported by Substratum:
“…the most obvious example is the difference between the reported and actual BCH contribution amounts. Substratum claims it received 602.1433 BCH during its ICO. However, the given BCH wallet address shows that 1304.26123096 were received in total. In other words, approximately 54% of Substratum’s BCH went unreported and unaccounted for,” explains Li.
Li reports that at the time of Substratum’s ICO, the “lost” 702.11793096 BCH was worth approximately $295.000. At the height of the bull market, the same amount of BCH was worth over $2.7 million.
Substratum community has since reacted to the calls for explanations, with Substratum community moderator 707bwolf707 addressing the missing 702.11793096 BCH mentioned above. Li responded to the explanation and cited several reasons why it did nothing to suggest the funds weren’t fraudulently reported. Other Substratum community members were less reasonable and didn’t even bother to entertain Li’s claims, deciding to hold on to their bags rather than trusting the immutable blockchain data.
Li’s deconstruction offers a much deeper insight into the issue, as he ultimately concludes that there are 2.5 BTC, 702 BCH, 1142 ETH, and 35 LTC missing from the funds reported by the Substratum whitepaper. Wondering what method/timeframe were used to calculate the total funding, Li points out the fact that Substratum CEO purchased a $400,000 house and several other expensive “toys” just around the time the ICO funds disappeared from the contributing wallets. Li also promised to deliver further updates so you can follow his Twitter thread or official blog post on the issue to learn more.
