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Chinese Investor Sues Israeli Blockchain Market Prediction Firm for Fraud

| 01-Th2-2019
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Chinese Investor Sues Israeli Blockchain Market Prediction Firm for Fraud

An investor from China is suing Stox – an Israeli blockchain market prediction platform – and its founder Moshe Hogeg in a Tel Aviv court for over $4.6 million in alleged fraud.

According to The Times of Israel (Jan 25), the Chinese investor Hu Zhewen filed a lawsuit alleging that Hogeg had misappropriated some of the funds that had been publicly invested in the platform. The former CFO of Hogeg’s venture capital firm Singulariteam, Yaron Shalem, was also named in the suit.

Hu claims he had decided to invest in the Stox platform after its white paper promised that if the company could raise at least $30 million, all of it would be invested in developing the platform and boosting the value of its tokens. Hu then invested about $3.8 million worth in Ether.

After Stox held an ICO that surpassed the target to raise a total of $34 million in August last year, Hu believes Hogeg only invested $5 million of the investments raised in the platform, with the rest diverted to other ICOs and businesses. The suit also alleges that Hogeg had cashed out his Stox tokens before the date he committed to holding them to. Hogeg has reportedly denied the allegations.

Hogeg is also involved with many other businesses. He is a co-founder of Sirin Labs which created a blockchain smartphone. He is also the chairman of LeadCoin, a blockchain-based sharing network for business leads. However, he might be more noted for his purchase of Beitar Jerusalem Football Club last August for roughly $7 million.

This is also not the first time Hogeg has had a brush with the courts. In another lawsuit in November 2017, 17 former shareholders of another blockchain company accused Hogeg of stripping the company’s assets, leaving it insolvent. The shareholders had asked the court to wind up the company, to which Hogeg then countersued.

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