The Cardano Foundation has labeled Cardano Gold, a recent crypto project offering debit card functionality for crypto a “scam” and said it was “illegal” in a tweet. 

 

Cardano is a Swiss-based Proof-of-Stake blockchain that uses peer reviewed research to help navigate past the scaling issues affecting projects like Ethereum and Bitcoin. It’s created by Charles Hoskinson, one of the co-founders of Ethereum. 

Cardano Gold, by contrast, is not created by Charles Hoskinson. It offers a debit card for your cryptocurrencies, and purportedly offers something called a “smart comparison matrix” that “provides the best conversion rates” to users of its debit cards. Its native wallet app supports BTC, ETH, Litecoin, Ripple, and Dogecoin. 

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Cardano Gold is currently running a crowd sale, where one Cardano Gold Coin is worth $25.2. There are “$6,00,000 Worth of Cordano Gold Coin [sic]”. Currently, 94,00,000 [sic] Cardano Gold has been purchased, out of a total 7,75,00,000 [sic] Cardano Gold.” 

Cardano Gold’s token sale promises to put 50 percent of the proceeds into research and development, and 20 percent to the team. Cardano Gold said that it started in 2017, but the Wayback Machine traces the creation of its webpage to, well, yesterday. 

Those whom Cardano Gold lists counted as staff members have been quick to deny affiliations. “SCAM...I have no affiliation with https://cardanogold.org/# Looks like a scam listing me as advisors,” tweeted Arnab Naskar, listed as Cardano Gold’s Crowdsale Advisor.

Enrico Campagnol, supposedly “CEO and Lead Blockchain” of the project, tells Decrypt that it is, indeed, a scam. Campagnol, he insists, is the head of sales for a large software company, not Cardano Gold's chief. Campgnol has said he is planning to take further action to remedy the issue, but didn’t state if that involved legal action.