This article is from www.blocknews.com.br and the original article can be read here in Portuguese
Ever heard of crypto pyramid? The term carries a dark shadow that haunts some cryptocurrency investors in Brazil and around the world. And not for less. Frauds still happen on a large scale in Brazil. And when it comes to investments, this is even more delicate, as it involves capital accumulated over years and the dream of many people. The Atlas Quantum case seems to be a good example of a pyramid.
After building its then strong reputation with massive marketing actions, Atlas Quantum bet on TV advertising, such as Rede Globo, and digital influencers to win new investors. The company set out to be a reference in the cryptocurrency investment market, including a supposed robot responsible for the Bitcoin arbitrage service in its system. And as it could not be different in a case like this, Atlas Quantum promised many profits to its customers.
One day, as always happens, the pyramid began to fall apart. I explain!
The Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), responsible for regulating the offering of financial securities, stated that the company negotiated collective investment agreements. However, without authorization. The next step, after winning almost 15,000 bitcoins that the company claimed to have, but never proved, and a few million dollars, was to prevent customers from making withdrawals of their respective investments from the platform.
To simplify the case, the promises of income were such – around 5% per month – that they caught the attention of the CVM. It was then that, on August 13, 2019, the municipality determined the stop order for Atlas Quantum. Thus, the company starred, that year, in the biggest scandal ever seen in the Brazilian cryptocurrency market. To this day, clients try to recover their investments, albeit without success. And that was the biggest point at issue.
How did Atlas Quantum manage to create the pyramid?
In normal operating periods, when a customer/investor requested a withdrawal on the company’s platform, the service took place within 2 days of the request. The alert was turned on when customers who requested withdrawals did not have their requests met.
Although aggressive, the question is not very complex, no. With a high investment in marketing, Atlas even disclosed that it was constantly undergoing audits by Grant Thornton. In other words, a false safe environment was created that completely involved the investor, to the point that he believed that an audit would serve as a guarantee of the company’s reputation and operations.
When withdrawals were blocked for investors, the company even accused international exchanges. Atlas Quantum reported that its cryptocurrencies had been blocked by exchanges, which was also soon denied by Gate.io and HitBTC. The company even issued an official statement on the matter, but to this day investors are still unable to access their investments.
One more fact that corroborates the crypto pyramid, according to a group of investors who are suing the company, is that the famous arbitrage robot never existed. According to one of the deceived investors, Evandro Carlos Teruel, who spoke with this columnist, Atlas Quantum customers deposited bitcoins or reais. Another option was to buy bitcoins from the companies involved in the scam, to carry out purchase and sale operations on international brokerages. Thus, they would profit from currency volatility and pay a percentage of the profit they had declared to customers.
Bitcoin pyramid: a police case
Founded in 2016, Atlas Quantum had Rodrigo Marques dos Santos as CEO of the company, which set out to be the biggest reference in cryptocurrency trading. In fact, he has disappeared since the scandal became public. According to information from those directly involved in the case, so far, he has not responded to any requests from the CVM or the lawyers of clients harmed by the company.
Atlas Quantum became a police case when the company suddenly stopped looting from the platform and the bitcoin pyramid scheme came to light. Lawyer Artêmio Picanço represents hundreds of people who sue Atlas Quantum. According to him, still in 2019, Atlas Quantum was the most sophisticated financial pyramid case in Brazil, as it is a crypto pyramid.
Teruel, one of the deceived investors, managed to gather a group of 508 people who suffered the same damage. According to him, the investigations began with the filing of a complaint with the State Public Ministry. As expected, the case was sent to the Federal Public Ministry and, consequently, already has the Federal Police at the forefront of the case again, as well as a chief of digital crimes (The PF, in 2021, concluded that Atlas Quantum had not harmed investors, who had not proven that they had suffered).
After the initiation of the investigation in question, many other injured investors began to present crime news reporting the same facts. “The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office demanded that the Federal Police place a delegate who specializes in the matter and identify the victims. We were able to collect information from about 20 employees at Altas, with very important revelations, including that the arbitration robot never existed,” he says.
Atlas tries to fight back with lawsuit against CVM
“This is a coup of approximately BRL 3 billion, an amount referring to bitcoins, and another US$ 2 million, which affected around 40,000 people from around 50 countries, applied by the CEO of the Atlas Quantum group of companies, Rodrigo Marques dos Santos”, explains Teruel.
According to the survey, several companies worked in partnership with Atlas Quantum, although, still in 2019, all had been absorbed by the group. The CVM began to warn the market that such companies, in addition to Santos, “are not authorized to publicly offer securities or collective investment contracts whose remuneration would be linked to the automated purchase and sale of crypto-assets through arbitration”. The CVM cited the definition contained in item IX of art. 2 of Law no. 6385, of December 7, 1976, in view of the fact that it is a public offering without registration (or waiver thereof) in the autarchy.
Despite all the evidence In a pyramid scheme, Atlas Quantum filed, still in 2019, an initial petition in the Federal Court of the 3rd Region asking for the reimbursement of BRL 3.167 billion to the CVM for the suspension of the business. Lawyers consulted by Blocknews said the case is “interesting” but that the company needs to prove that it had this billion-dollar damage.
According to investor Teruel, there was never a Bot (arbitration robot) called Quantum. Through the survey, it is known that the company’s CEO, Rodrigo Marques dos Santos, tried, yes, to build a robot hiring highly skilled professionals in the market. However, when it failed, it tried to acquire a robot from companies and market professionals, first acquiring Anubis Trade and its trading robot. He then acquired the Arbitror robot, from professionals TĂşlio Santigo and Raphael Lorenzeto de Abreu.
A robot called Quantum
All these attempts occurred to support the narrative of the existence of an efficient arbitrage robot that justified the income paid by the company. In fact, the proceeds were part of a financial pyramid, or an Atlas Quantum crypto pyramid.
“It is clear in the narratives of former directors and employees that there was an intention to build an efficient arbitration robot. But the robot that was built with the help of professionals like Matheus Darós Pagani gave results that were infinitely lower than the percentages paid and often caused losses”, explained Teruel. (Note from Blocknews: Matheus Darós Pagani told Blocknews that he took care of the robot until February 2018 and that until that date, the earnings were lower than those reported by the company after its departure from this operation. Pagani said he was transferred to an area of ​​the company involved in projects with Web3 technologies.)
According to the survey, Atlas’ math was simple. The company lied when reporting results and paid much higher yields than a real arbitrage robot could get. Thus, the number of customers increased and the money raised in the market flowed in a thunderous way. In this way, it allowed for uncontrolled spending and confusion between the CEO and his legal entity. From the hearings and investigation carried out by the customer community, it is suspected that several Atlas Quantum directors knew about the fraud
“On the other hand, the maintenance of the farce was carried out by CEO Rodrigo Marques dos Santos himself. He had a guarded room at the company, whose access was only via a biometric system. Everything is in the hands of Brazilian justice and we continue to wait for the best outcome for this case”, concluded Teruel.
*Mauricio Conti is: Computer Engineer, founder of Simples ID, CPO wconnect, mentor and digital influencer in the areas of web3, blockchain, tokenization and NFT.