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Less than a week ago, the influential legacy markets day trader Dave Portnoy, had a meeting with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss – the founders of Gemini and well-known Bitcoin proponents.
Even though he supposedly bought Bitcoin during their meeting, his enthusiasm for the primary cryptocurrency was shortlived.
Now, Portnoy openly solicits cryptocurrency pump and dump schemes, shilling low-cap altcoin to his 1.7 million followers. Industry experts were quick to observe the similarities between him and what John McAfee was doing back in the ICO boom of 2017 and 2018.
Dave Portnoy Openly Solicits Pump and Dump Schemes
The poster child for legacy market day trading, Dave Portnoy, who recently met the Winklevii to discuss Bitcoin, is now well over it.
Apparently, his new passion lies within low-cap altcoins such as Orchid (OXT). The cryptocurrency has a total market capitalization of less than $40 million. Despite being relatively unknown in the space, Portnoy is supposedly investing in it.
“I’m now in on the shitcoin OXT. Orchids never die.” – He tweeted today.
And while this might not sound much of an alarm, the video he shared with the tweet certainly is. Portnoy openly solicited pump and dump schemes, going so far as to say that he won’t disclose what cryptocurrency he buys before he does so that it doesn’t pump beforehand.
“I got a new crypto that I’m interested in. I’m not going to say what crypto I’m interested in, until I’ve cryptonized it because I don’t want people to buy it before I do.
The thing I like about pump and dumps in crypto is that it’s encouraged. I don’t do that on the stock market because there’s the “little SEC guys” … In crypto, you can pump and dump all day long.”
In other words, Portnoy told all of his followers that he intends to dump his bags of whatever altcoin he might buy on them. And he did so as directly as he could.
Understandably, industry experts such as the prominent analyst Satoshi Flipper took immediate notice of this, urging people to be extremely careful when buying “his shills.”
Portnoy is going to get many followers rekt who blindly buy his shills. The guy doesn’t know anything about crypto. He just has a ton of followers.
Just be VERY careful and understand what you’re getting yourself into.
— Satoshi Flipper (@SatoshiFlipper) August 17, 2020
Max Keiser Draws a Comparison
Bitcoin Pioneer and frequent commentator, Max Keiser, also commented on the matter. He drew a comparison between what Portnoy’s currently doing and what John McAfee did back in the ICO boom.
As predicted last week ADD victim Dave would forget about #BTC within minutes and immediately become a shitcoiner. @officialmcafee came very close to being jailed for this ‘coin of the day’ scam. Might still be. https://t.co/QN03vl2LaH
— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) August 17, 2020
Back in late 2017 and the beginning of 2018, initial coin offerings (ICO) were popping every day. New altcoins flooded the market, and a lot of investors lost money, blindly following the advice of self-proclaimed cryptocurrency influencers.
Back then, John McAfee started a series called “Coin of the Day,” where he would regularly shill an altcoin to his followers. The result was almost always a quick pump and dump, leaving many people with serious losses.
Whether or not Portnoy will continue pumping small-cap altcoins is something we have yet to see, but there’s certainly a 2017-like vibe within the industry with the ongoing DeFi craze.
It remains absolutely essential to do proper research on any cryptocurrency users invest in and never allocate more money than what they can afford to lose.
Featured images courtesy of Time and Variety