Photo/Shetuwang

May 10 (NBD) – Chinese damas, which typically refers to married middle-aged Chinese women with grown-up children, waded into the cryptocurrency mining sector after proving their power in the gold and real estate markets, but some have heartbrokenly seen their dreams of piling up a wealth through the mining business shatter into pieces.   

Zhao Hong dreamed to sell her CAI tokens after she mined 10 million pieces, which she believed could bring her 20 million yuan (2.9 million U.S. dollars), but she didn't see that happen. 

A typical dama from Hebei province, Zhao had no idea of blockchain or cryptocurrency, and her first contract with mining machine was because of an old friend of hers, who is a former employee of a Henan-based technology firm referred to as Lianxin.

The mining machine sold by the company is able to mine both CAI tokens and Filecoin. Filecoin builds heavily upon the achievements of IPFS, which is an underlying Internet protocol highly recognized by many blockchain practitioners. This to some extent is convincing in the eyes of some investors. 

Cautious as she was, Zhao took a wait-and-see attitude at first, but couldn't resist the temptation when witnessing the daily price hike of CAI tokens on the AT exchange platform, where CAI-related transactions could be processed.

Zhao finally purchased 40 mining machines, expecting the future income from the sale of her CAI tokens to cover the next half of her life.  

Sharing the same dream as Zhao, Liu Jiang from Zhumadian of Henan province bought more than 110 mining machines for over 500,000 yuan (73,624.7 U.S. dollars). 

Driven by Lianxin's alluring commission policy for agents, Zhao's friend Zhang Jie, who herself acquired 70 mining machines, sold more than 200 devices to her relatives and friends. 

However, things quickly turned out to be a trap. Zhao was abruptly wakened from her dream after she found the power cutoff didn't prevent the number of CAI in her account from increasing and there were even no large-scale trading on the AT exchange platform.

Some investors discovered the close relationship between the AT exchange platform and Lianxin.

According to Lianxin, the exchange platform was founded by a foundation from Singapore, which was established by another blockchain company that has the same legal representative as Lianxin's parent company.

The truth finally came to the light. Lianxin sold the mining machine, originally costing hundreds of yuan, at up to 5,875 yuan (851.8 U.S. dollars) and manipulated the price of CAI tokens on the platform.

Local police disclosed from last October to February this year, Lianxin sold over 300,000 mining machines, raking in 2 billion yuan (294.5 million U.S. dollars).

In a field visit to the firm in late April, the company's office was found empty and sealed up, only with several boxes of name cards scattering around at the end of the corridor.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn