Beware! Crypto Engine is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.
RECOMMENDED FOREX BROKERS
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.
Crypto Engine is one of the many crypto robots spawned by the ascent of Bitcoin and by its structure immediately reminds us of these websites, whose only purpose is to amass personal information from unsuspecting users. The first thing we see on their homepage is the promise of quick rewards: “Trade bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and earn real profits in the following 24 hours”, followed by a short video designed in a breaking news format in which famous businessmen and entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson, talk about the opportunities Bitcoin presents. Although it does not contain any deceitful information, the purpose is clear – to convince the users to sign up on the website and provide their personal details.
As expected, the registration process required First and Last Name, Email address and Phone number, and while they did not send a confirmation email in our mailbox, as any self-respecting online entity will do, they displayed a message that your account is opened and all you need to do is deposit the minimum amount of $250 to start trading.
No name, no address, no number
Below the fold, the homepage continues with the big promises of becoming “one of the next wave of Bitcoin millionaires” using excerpts from media, statements of wealthy and influential people and some sort of ticker table trying to convince you that every three to five seconds there is a new user, or online trader, registering on their website.
Trying to find any information about the company itself, however, we hit a wall. There is no physical address or phone number anywhere on the site, and the only means of contacting them is via a Contact Form. The Terms of Use are quite vague, as they also do not say anything regarding company registration, but simply lets you know that by accessing and/or registering on the website, you have entered into an Agreement with an entity conveniently named “TheSoftware”. Of course, trying to find further information about such entity using only a common word (TheSoftware) and no other data, proved fruitless.
The Terms of Use also state that you may discontinue receipt of the “Subscription Content” using an email address at another domain. In hope of shedding more light on their enterprise, we attempted to access that domain – fxrevenge.net – but as expected, the Site could not be reached.
No working platform or verified track record
Despite our first impression being that this website’s only product is cheap traffic and is forged only to collect personal information, we decided to explore its trading area further – something we would not really advise. We explored the funding option in order to “Activate software”, but that yielded no results as no payment processing functionality was working. After going through several stages of “Deposit” via a credit card, we were presented with a broken page:
Furthermore, we have no assurances of Crypto Engine’s promises to “make a fortune” by using their “Cutting Edge Technology”. Established social trading platforms, such as Zulutrade or Etoro, allow you to check the trader profiles and their results – how much they are winning or losing – before deciding to invest with them. Though this is certainly not removing the risks, it gives you a lot in terms of transparency and confidence. With websites such as Crypto Engine you only get empty statements, while their underlying intentions are actually hidden in the Exceptions and Limitations section of their Privacy Policy: “The Software reserves the right to sell or transfer your information (including, but not limited to name, address information, and other information you provided to The Software) to a third party.”
This became even more obvious when it turned out that in Crypto Engine’s trading area we have been automatically logged into the system of another scam brokerage, Mercuryo. Crypto Engine has transferred our credentials to this broker without asking permission or even telling us.
No regulatory supervision
As we noted above, there is absolutely no information regarding company registration and regulatory oversight for the website and its product. This basically means that they can do as they wish, and if you’re tricked to invest funds with them, there is no guarantee you will ever see anything back.
In the Forex trading world there are reputable and trustworthy watchdog agencies, such as the FCA or CySEC, that license and regulate the companies investors have entrusted with their money. They impose strict rules that guarantee the safety and security of traders’ funds. Among these are “segregation of accounts”, which assures that client money and broker money are kept in separate accounts, and financial reimbursement schemes that cover traders’ losses up to a certain amount in case of broker insolvency.
Considering everything above, we deem Crypto Engine to be a standard scam operation which does not offer any legitimate product, but only collects personal information and sells it to interested parties for a fee. We would not advise fueling such business model by registering with them.
Rudy
What trusted crypto currency brokers do you recommend?