A while ago, an ICO for a new cannabis company known as Paragon Coin came out. Our team and many others few years ago predicted it would be a coin in the likes of BitConnect, and suggested to our colleagues and clients it is not worth investing. Few years later however, many people outside of our circle have been investing in Paragon Coin's ICO.

They promised things such as a crypto to revolutionize the cannabis industry, a startup accelerator, and ventures supporting cannabis entrepreneurs, ties to the entertainment industry, etc. The whole business model seemed unorganized and like a mess. It was ran by a former beauty queen who spoke at the LA Blockchain Summit, along with other people promoting cryptos with no technological use case or utility.

Paragon's github seems to only have had an ERC20 Token contract and a PHP "Supply Chain" Demo. The demo is something that can be coded in the matter of few days, and likely if was actually used would need to be tied to a regulatory framework. It also seems like they know very basic web development like Cake PHP, Vue.Js, Laravel Frameworks, etc. Databases and main functions seem to be tied to a third party or some micro-service, and not that high level of code seems to be put into place. Considering what they were building, $70 million seemed like a ludicrous amount of money in the beginning w/ barely any track record.

Nowadays, people try creating ERC20 tokens in few minutes and forming large ICOs taking advantage of how ridiculously easy it is to get funding. Some companies get funding in the likes of what too Amazon years to get in the 90s, in a matter of days. Don't get me wrong, there is no problem we have with ICOs. We do however have a problem with fake gurus, influencers, etc. going out of their way to promote something that doesn't have a technological use case, unique value proposition and seems to be a get rich scheme only for the ones running it.

Many cryptocurrencies for years seem to have their peek value being during the ICO time than it crashes. It seems like the cryptographic equivalent of a pump and dump. How can tens of millions of dollars become few hundreds? You also have in our opinion, so called "list for fees" exchanges that collaborate with ICO owners to create fake illusions of liquidity and demand once so called token is listed on their exchange.

We believe in true cryptocurrencies and true decentralization. Many people have hindered the mission statement of the original Satoshi Nakamoto, cryptographic researchers, and pioneers and turned this market into a marketing scheme. While many people aren't fans of government regulations, in a world where government regulation exists, it is better to punish the guilty than harm the innocent.

The main founders behind Paragon Coin have seemed to have entirely disappeared. Courts couldn't find them anywhere and victims who invested in this have not been able to fully request their refunds. That is why we are asking Interpol to step in and are calling a petition for an investigation to be made.