It looks like Haven Protocol might have pulled one of the first exit scams of 2019, with both anonymous developers missing in action and a team member announcing the project ‘dead’ on its Discord channel.
Haven Protocol is a hard fork of popular privacy coin Monero that marketed itself as an “offshore bank in your pocket”. It claims to be an untraceable cryptocurrency and uses smart contracts to facilitate the storage of large amounts of easily accessible fiat currency offshore. Its intention is to provide a way by which users can keep money ‘hidden’ while also having instant access to markets and the ability to avoid volatile fluctuations.
After it’s launch early last year the coin proved popular, gaining a token price of over $6 and a market cap of $11 million. But as the prolonged bear market decimated the crypto industry, the projects value slowly decreased, only to shoot up again in late November to an almost $20 million. However, after a Twitter storm yesterday revealing problems with management and the alleged disappearance of the core devs, the price has now plummeted to $0.32 and a $2 million valuation.
Twitter user @crypto_blkbeard posted a screenshot that Haven team member news.cutter wrote on the official Discord channel:
“I’ll be honest here. Consider this project dead unless some devs take it over.”
He continued by explaining that the lead developer @Havendev, who is the only person with access to the Github code repository, has been uncontactable for weeks. For what has been touted as a ‘community-based project’ with no ICO or corporate leadership, it seems odd that only one person would have access to the repository.
Yesterday, the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex announced it will be delisting the XHV token from its platform within 48 hours, citing regular complaints about the coin being a scam. With the price in freefall and all team members seemingly have jumped ship, it would certainly seem like a possible contender for one of the earliest and biggest exit scams of 2019.
