Savedroid — The latest PR Fail in the Blockchain Industry.
After this PR stunt, even a superhuman robot would struggle to explain what the Savedroid team were thinking when they approved this PR disaster.
As if the blockchain industry and its community needed anymore reminders that their investments are, at best ambitious and at worst reckless, Savedroid, a German based ICO thought it was clever to pull an ‘Exit Scam’ prank to promote its new ICO advisory services.
You would of thought that opening up the latest articles on CoinDesk and reading about the latest exit scam would of been enough to put the jitters into an already paranoid community. Apparently though, this wasn’t enough and the need to pull down their website, become unresponsive on their Telegram and have their CEO tweet “over and out” was all for a ‘good cause’. I mean, who wouldn't want to employ the Savedroid team to advise on their ICO now?
Now, one of my biggest goals in my profession, is to build the credibility and trust around, not only individual projects, but the blockchain industry as a whole. There are many journalists that I have spoken too who are afraid to write about a blockchain startup because they are worried about the damage to their reputation if the project turns out to be a scam, and who can blame them?
Stunts like this make my job harder, most mainstream business/finance journalists dip in and out of crypto news, they see the big headlines and then remind themselves why they shouldn't be covering crypto when they see stories like this.
The words ‘Savedroid’ and ‘Scam’ are now forever going to be associated with one another in the unforgiving memory of Google. A simple search of Savedroid right now has articles from TechCrunch and Coin Telegraph with the associated headlines:
TechCrunch — Another day, another $50 million ICO exit scam
Coin Telegraph — In Apparent Exit Scam CEO Of German Startup Is ‘Over And Out’ After $50 Mln ICO
We need this industry to get more professional. It’s any wonder how legitimate projects with technology that could change the world get any positive press when they are competing for attention with imposters like this?
Running away and leaving behind a South Park meme with the words‘ and its gone.. ’on their website is childish and downright as stupid as many of the stunts that Eric Cartmen himself pulled off on the TV show. Sorry Eric, its time to call time on your acting career, your replacement nailed the casting, see below for the video:
Whats even worse, is that the Savedroid team were so happy with their stunt they decided to release a ‘behind the scenes’ video of this ludicrous idea and clearly still think that it was a clever thing to do. They even included people so irate that they were threatening to murder the Savedroid CEO over Twitter.
Some investors put their life savings into new projects such as Savedroid, and whilst this isn’t recommended, the investors must have gone through a range of emotions which could have caused serious consequences.
Preying on investors biggest fears who took the leap of faith to believe in your team is a very foolish thing to do. This is the modern day equivalent of feigning a bank robbery, and there are even reports that prosecutors from Frankfurt are considering legal action against Savedroid.
Whilst there is certainly something in the term ‘ all news in good news’, in this instance, that very clearly isn't the case. Savedroid face an uphill struggle to keep their community on their side and any business is surely going to think twice before partnering with the project.
