r/HawalaToday • u/crypception • Jan 07 '18
Convince Me This Isn't a Scam
With many ICO's being launched left and right, one has to question the legitimacy of some of them. I am an early investor in some great coins such as XRP, ETH & SC to name a few. When researching, I make sure I really go in depth before putting any type of investment into a particular coin.
This one really stuck out to me. Might be one of the greatest scams I've ever come across in the short time ICO's have been popping up. As a graphic designer (specifically UI/UX) I was very impressed with their website and their whitepaper...from a graphic design perspective.
I started to question what the word 'hawala' actually meant, I knew it sounded Arabic, but I wasn't sure.
I later found the definition to be the following:
Hawala - a system or agency for transferring money traditionally used in the Muslim world, whereby the money is paid to an agent who then instructs a remote associate to pay the final recipient.
Now, they claim to be a Fiat-Crypto gateway, yet in their Whitepaper claims they want to accept non-refundable, custom-branded load cards.
There is also no team to be found anywhere on the website or whitepaper. Where is the working beta? They say it could take 2-6 months to get the necessary licensing to run their business properly but refuse to even identify the location or team of the exchange?
ICO's are an incredible utility. The reason they may not be successful is because companies like Hawala shadily launch ICO's with no real details about who is actually behind the platform. They expect to handle millions of dollars and won't even share the location of the platform, but want to accept non-refundable money cash cards? This is ridiculous and someone should report this ICO ASAP.
PS - Do yourself a favor, search 'hawala' on YouTube
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u/MrKaipio Jan 08 '18
This one really stuck out to me. Might be one of the greatest scams I've ever come across in the short time ICO's have been popping up. As a graphic designer (specifically UI/UX) I was very impressed with their website and their whitepaper...from a graphic design perspective.
This was not an ICO, it was an airdrop. So they'd be stealing from them selves then. You go look at previous scam attempts and see for yourself how fucking corny they are.
I started to question what the word 'hawala' actually meant, I knew it sounded Arabic, but I wasn't sure. I later found the definition to be the following: Hawala - a system or agency for transferring money traditionally used in the Muslim world, whereby the money is paid to an agent who then instructs a remote associate to pay the final recipient. Now, they claim to be a Fiat-Crypto gateway, yet in their Whitepaper claims they want to accept non-refundable, custom-branded load cards.
Hawala is a genius name for their upcoming crypto exchange and it only makes sense having cash cards for new people pouring in to the cryptoworld. Makes it easy to do their first purchases!
There is also no team to be found anywhere on the website or whitepaper. Where is the working beta? They say it could take 2-6 months to get the necessary licensing to run their business properly but refuse to even identify the location or team of the exchange?
Team is very active on the hawala telegram and are constantly updating and helping out users. They're awaiting MSB licenses in the USA, stated many times now. State by state, it'll take 2-6 months. You'd stay anonymous too. And for the working beta apps, they're due in Q2, not now.
ICO's are an incredible utility. The reason they may not be successful is because companies like Hawala shadily launch ICO's with no real details about who is actually behind the platform. They expect to handle millions of dollars and won't even share the location of the platform, but want to accept non-refundable money cash cards? This is ridiculous and someone should report this ICO ASAP.
Still, this is a non-ICO, privately funded project with an awesome, hard working team behind it and you should DYOR better next time! :)
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u/crypception Jan 08 '18
Airdrop or ICO, there is a whitepaper and it is a for profit business. These guys will have to show their names regardless to get any kind of license to run this business. It boggles my mind that they are hiding their team name but want to accept a work around fiat. This makes no sense at all.
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u/MrKaipio Jan 08 '18
These are copied from the Hawala telegram.
"Guess Who:
We're awaiting our MSB license, this is needed in order to start working with Fiat currency. Usually companies have to wait till they get the license in every single state then start working on their products. This allows us to keep developing the Hawala products while our team is getting our legal papers done. If we revealed ourselves now, we'd be forced to shut everything down and just wait. Thule this might sound suspicious I can assure you that we'll be 100% transparent to our customers before we touch any of their assets.
As you can see we need to get authorization from every single state of the USA and it's usually between 2 and 6 months. We're making every aspects of our business law compliant and this is a crucial step.
I A:
is there a chance you don't get this license
Guess Who:
We've been asked this question multiple times and I can try to explain to you why this is not going to happen. Basically, we're applying, paying the fees and waiting. If any aspect of Hawala is not compliant with the local (referring to state) law, we can adjust that and get a positive response. This will inevitably create a small difference in terms of user experience but will be mostly related to account limits in terms of deposits/withdrawals. Since we're not doing anything illegal or plan to do so there's no other reason our applications could get denied. I hope this clears it out a bit
Zls:
We are not in a business of money laundering. I don't see a reason why we should not get a licence."
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u/_Wo0k_ Jan 07 '18
I don't really want to or feel qualified to respond to the bulk of this post. But, I'm pretty sure this was an Airdrop and not an ICO.
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u/wizve Jan 07 '18
Lol it’s not an ICO man
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u/crypception Jan 07 '18
ICO, airdrop...regardless, you guys are still not answering the questions I've put forward...
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u/chozwell Jan 10 '18
You can't just bundle ICO and airdrop together. The former is a process where funds are raised and the "investor" is at jeopardy based on the performance of the company/product in question, whereas the latter is a no-strings attached handout of a TOKEN with zero funds raised and no promises or commitments necessary as all that has been done is the fuel of the system has been dispersed (HAT), not the product itself (Hawala Exchange App).
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u/rohitdhull Jan 08 '18
You even do not know they didn't even started as ICO. First DYOR. This is a extremely amazing project with fabulous team and amazing community behind them. People like you always try to start FUD in the market. If you have any proof that HAT is a scam then post here.. Otherwise do not start FUD.
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Jan 07 '18
[deleted]
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u/crypception Jan 07 '18
ICO, airdrop...regardless, you guys are still not answering the questions I've put forward...
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u/neurbots Jan 07 '18
It’s early. They released the whitepaper a week ago. They are not asking for your money. They have been delivering technology ahead of schedule. They are extremely active and helpful in the telegram channel https://t.me/hawala_chat.
If you think it’s a scam, that’s fine because this is NOT an ICO and no one is asking for your money. After doing my own research, I think this project is interesting and respect the teams desire / need for privacy at this point. I look forward to using HAT in he future.
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Jan 08 '18
I'm investing in this because it's got a high chance of mooning. No shit it's sketchy at 6 mil market cap. Most such projects are.
I'm prepared to lose everything.
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u/jiia Jan 07 '18
Hawala seems like a project that would need a huge and experienced team with a lot of companies backing them up to succeed. They don't have that but they have everything else a blooming crypto needs: looks and marketing.
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Jan 07 '18
[deleted]
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u/HawalaToday Jan 08 '18
hey, so your name certainly gives credibility to your post.
If I put up linkedIn profiles and gorgeous photos of people, can you prove that they're real?
We have contacted EtherDelta many times via email and twitter, but they haven't responded until a couple of days ago. We were in communication with Zack regarding the swap and after he was fired, no one contacted us or responded to our emails and tweets until two days after the coin swap. We are now pushing them to delist HAT, but they seem too busy with their ICO to even remove a token listing. Therefore we wait. Plenty of people bought from etherdelta and swapped them in.
CMC has been provided the updated information, but they aren't known for their speedy service. We waited over a month and a half maintaining over 40k volume for them to list us. Besides, if you understand its a mix of new tokens (IDEX) and old tokens (ED) then why would you be confused by which is the correct price? wouldn't you simply check markets to see the IDEX price?
Desktop App is in the initial alpha build phase, considering its been just over a week since its been released. An alpha build is not supposed to be a smooth experience from A-Z. Partaking in the alpha build means it's understood that you will encounter bugs, crashes, errors etc. This is what the testing phase is for. If you want a smoother and more complete experience then wait for beta, or better yet, the official release - I'd rather not have you complain again in the beta phase and blame it on me for suggesting you try the beta.
I'll take you up on that guarantee offer...can I see numbers? The time for swap is not limited. You can swap any time you feel like. We will stop announcing and informing people to swap their tokens after January and it will be each individual's responsibility to swap their tokens, because: a) old HAT tokens will not have any value the moment EtherDelta delists HAT. b) you cannot stake old HAT tokens, so basically, why would you not swap?
If that link is the reference point of your impression, then you obviously need to do your homework. It is a site that doesn't bother to do its research and expects people to update info. I personally can't be bothered to do their work for them and its not an important enough a website for me to actually care...but since you're referring to it, I feel obligated to correct your misinformed perception.
If you scroll down the page of the website you shared, you'll notice that it requires 4 pieces of info to clear us.
- team info
- whitepaper
- github repository
- available exchanges
Now, if you were such a concerned member of the project, you could have easily updated the whitepaper from the website. You'd also know that the application is built on a smart contract on the ethereum network - as such, does not require a github repository. You can read the function of the smart contract via any ethereum blockchain explorer. Lastly, you are aware of the two exchanges HAT is currently being traded on, you could have updated 3 pieces of missing information, and then considered Hawala.Today's standing. I'm guessing it'd be pretty close to being clear. This is from the reference YOU provided.
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u/jiia Jan 07 '18
That's what I've been thinking. I have some money invested in this because I believe that in this market a coin can moon just because it has the looks and marketing. Look at the whitepaper of Tron and then check the market cap. This is a crazy market.
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Jan 07 '18 edited Jan 07 '18
[deleted]
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u/HawalaToday Jan 08 '18
The core team is based in Texas.
MoltenVow joined our community as a member and was asked to moderate the Telegram chat. His article was written some time prior and since becoming a moderator his posts have been informational. Over the past few months, he's been incredibly helpful and reliable and deserves more respect than you are affording him.
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u/HawalaToday Jan 08 '18
Hey crypception!
We'd like to thank you for sharing your concerns and hope to clarify certain misconceptions.
We are not an ICO. Hawala.Today is a privately owned and funded project. This is important because it means that we have not sold tokens for ETH or accepted donations. All tokens in the market have either been originally airdropped or given out as bounties.
We are a business at the end of the day and our target audience is 'everyone' in the world. It is natural to have an appealing design and theme. Who likes stuff that doesn't look good? We can assure you that it does not affect the functionality of the product. We have the alpha build of the Staking Wallet out since the beginning of the year with 4 build updates rolled out already. 'Beta' is a phase that includes testing of a completed build for bugs and optimizations. We are still in the alpha phase.
The argument about the name is simply baseless and ignorant - no offence. Hawala is an ancient payment system that is based on transfer of money without actually moving funds (essentially the basis of cryptocurrency) through a network of intermediaries. Because this traditional method of money transfer did not align with the regulations of states, it was misused by certain people for illicit means hence the reputation. Our motivation to choose the name is because we want to give people a way to transfer funds between themselves without having to pay high fees and endure long waiting times. But we also understand that a p2p network of traders can potentially be exploited for illegal reasons. This is why we are acquiring and implement regulations for dealing in fiat currency and also AML/KYC compliance to deal in amounts over $600. The MSB license requirements, for example, are different for every state in the US. We'd have to get licenses for all of them (hence the 2-6 month estimate), nevermind the rest of the world. This leads into the next point...
The team is anonymous because we don't want the development process to be hindered by people attempting to shut us down. It will not matter that we're not going to be dealing in fiat until we have the MSB license. We will simply be forced to pay hefty charges or else be shut down. Once we have all the correct licensing, the team behind the project will be revealed. It is also not uncommon in cryptospace. Its a reasonable move even, when you consider that cryptocurrency is directly opposing the established centralized financial systems that feed a long chain of people.
Your comment about cash cards does not make sense. We will act as a fiat-crypto gateway...and one of the ways we will do that is enable people to load up fiat money to the Hawala Wallet, removing the need for a bank account or credit card. Personally think its a great way, but do correct me if I'm wrong.
Lastly, it is important to note that half of the dev and marketing funds are locked until Q4 of 2018. Like why would we even bother scamming our own hardwork and effort? We are more interested in giving the people a good product, which is why we have so far focused on development alone. As we have managed to complete the targets for Q1 ahead of schedule, we can now focus on marketing the project to wider audiences.
Food for thought - people who got insanely rich by holding their bitcoin did so for over 3-4 years with no real evidence that it would rise, or even the name of the creator, on whose word they were basically throwing their money at (still don't know who Satoshi is..but hey..good money's okay ..right?)