The former professional American basketball player, Isaac Edward Austin, apparently involved a Ghanaian company in an alleged scam for an amount of $825,000 under the pretext of negotiating a new bitcoin auto-trading program.
According to reports, the sportsman acted as a trustee for the two companies, IEA and Tudor Trust, and seems to have led the Ghanaian company to sign a contract involving the transfer of 75BTC at an agreed strike price of $11,000 per BTC totalling $825,000.
Not following the agreement, the former NBA player appears not to have made the payment at the end of the negotiations, failing to fulfil his promise to repay the amount and pay the benefits accrued, with excuses described as “flimsy”.
Here is the story of one of its victims:
“He will take your BTC and you will never get your investment back or your returns. On the day of payment, he will tell you story after story filled with lies of issues why the BTC couldn’t be delivered on the day of payment. From him having a heart attack, to the coin being sent to the wrong wallet, to him being in a queue at the bank, to him waiting for trade to conclude, to the funds being held by the bank. Week after week after week of unresolved issues even when he has confirmed the day before that all is set 1000% to deliver and conclude the transaction. He is a fraudsters of the highest order. Stay away from him. We have all the proof – contracts, letters and messages”.
Sports and crypto are on the same team
This was a true penalty on the part of Austin, who certainly didn’t boast a sportsman’s attitude when it came to bitcoin. A situation that fortunately does not affect the entire sector, given the continuous initiatives and partnerships that continue to ensure a high level of integration between the crypto and sports worlds.
In fact, the National Basketball Association (NBA), had started working with Dapper Labs this summer to release the NBA Top Shot, a digital platform for collectables based on blockchain.
This system allows players of this blockchain game to buy, sell and exchange digital collectables as well as enable users to buy players and build their own dream team.
Not only that, but in the same month of July 2019, other excellent cases of collaboration between sport and crypto emerged, such as the partnership between Litecoin and the Miami Dolphins, or before that, AS Roma and Juventus that joined Socios, a voting platform based on blockchain.
