“Stanley Cup winner in hockey, Darwin Award winner in life". What you should know about Evgeni Malkin’s business attempts and his involvement in crypto scams.
Original article in Russian: https://teletype.in/@cryptocritique/rJ9Clz95B
Full story in Russian: https://telegra.ph/V-hokkee---bog-po-zhizni---loh-Biznes-ICO-i-vernye-druzya-Evgeniya-Malkina-za-kotoryh-on-zhe-i-budet-otvechat---ch1-10-23
Intro.
- They do everything to make jails become educational institutions.
- Now I realize how to sell educational services to actors and sportsmen. “Get an education before you face poverty or jail".
Chapter 1. Mama, I’m a businessman.
After the retirement, almost every Russian hockey player wants to become either a coach-agent-GM or a businessman. And to become an INVESTOR - so he can continue to have his «Instagram life» with luxury goods, restaurants, travel, etc.
First reason: they do it to stay in hockey because it’s scary outside of the hockey world. But you have to learn a whole new way, and for real, not like they did in some State PE University without actually attending lectures, passing exams etc. The defences of athletes' diplomas cause in most cases a feeling of burning shame. Of course, players from different teams and clubs will tell you on Instagram how hard and difficult and complicated it was to study ... But, in fact, in most cases, this is complete hypocrisy and a lie. Intelligence is often not there in the bud.
If we don't take in the account how most people get their diplomas in Russia, most Russian "sports heroes" would have only had a school certificate. And then, in advance, by promise. This is likely a misfortune of the education system than athletes. So you, as a promising prospect, have to make a choice: either get a normal education, form critical thinking and think, think, think on your own ... Or go PRO and "think only about hockey." You do the latter one, and later you discover that in addition to hockey, you do not know how to do anything at all.
Now about the business. A typical athlete is so eager to start his own business, because, first and foremost, it is prestigious. The status of "businessman" still means something in Russia, although it lags behind the status of "I am a deputy" and "I am from the FSB (KGB)." But still, this is prestige - if not in the eyes of the public, then in the eyes of their own. And among hockey friends. Moreover, in business, you can make money. Also, you can earn a little being a hockey club’s manager. For example, you can break records on bribes and kickbacks or issue millions to yourself as bonuses. And all this is utterly important because money has a habit of quickly ending at the end of a professional career.
At the same time, you can do business without straining yourself very hard as the info business tells us (all of those motivational speakers and business-coaches) - and many Russian businessmen sincerely believe in that! You rent the office, open a bank account, hire some slaves, give them salaries and then you let them carry yourself the money! Moreover, athletes sincerely believe that you can run the business without any interruption from your main career. Or you just let the partner run everything, no need to think. Just contribute a seed capital (and then again and again), and go back playing hockey. As a result, it ends up as some kind of long-running PR-event instead of an actual business. Or, sometimes it collapses dramatically with lots of debts all around.
We doubt, that Danis Zaripov and Igor Larionov want to talk about the profitability of their business attempts. The appearance of the "Professor" in the Russian Hockey Federation generally hints that he doesn't see his money in the agent or the wine business. Maxim Kondratiev gave 15 million rubles to partners without any documents and did not check what they do at all, and now he is unsuccessfully trying to open a criminal case against them. Maxim Sushinsky is proud of his St. Petersburg Mercedes dealer center - but where does Maxim get the money to build the largest car dealerships in St. Petersburg on a rapidly falling market? And is Sushinsky not a figurehead of the interests of completely different people - with his employment in business and employment in HC Avangard?
Conclusion: Russian athletes love the status "I have a business" but don't like to disclose their business indicators and structure. Suddenly, the image will deteriorate and questions from the public will appear.
It all happens, because there is a desire to earn and a belief that the money will come on their own and without any effort, but there is no desire to think and work systematically, methodically and intensively. In these cases, Russian hockey players are similar to typical Russian businessmen. They are adult-children waiting for money and miracles, simply because they wanted so.
Finally, the third reason, hockey players, soccer players, and others have a desire to invest the accumulated money and live on an interest rate. The classic scheme is to "bury" money in real estate, like most Russian citizens, with the hopes of its perpetual growth, but it is not clear for what reason in a long-falling market. Or to give money to somebody to manage, not really understanding who these people are, what they can do, what experience they have, whether they have track records, statements, client reviews, and references, what they earn and how, what motivation they have - and, having crossed himself, believe in the best. And then you just have to believe in your luck (Emperor protects!). Or you live quietly at a conservative 7-8% per annum in dollars from stocks and the stock market - according to the precepts of Dan Milshtein and Artemy Panarin. Or you save and put the saved in a reliable bank at a percentage - according to the "new rule of Sean Avery." Either you become a pauper like Jack Johnson, Sergey Fedorov or HC Spartak's hockey players. And then you have to serve the tables.
And now it's time to move on to the main character of the article, who is forced to actively learn in the process such things as the value of education, risk management and financial literacy. It’s Evgeni Vladimirovich Malkin. Hockey player, entrepreneur, TIN 744609708994.
Chapter 2. Hockey bros (boring but necessary part).
If you lend money to friends, you can lose both money and friends. If you start a business with friends, then you can lose both business and friends. If you start an initially dubious business with friends, be ready to testify against your friends and watch friends testify against you. Nevertheless, starting a business with friends is easier and more understandable - because you think you understand what you can expect from them, where they have the boundaries of morality, responsibility and competence. The key phrase is that "you think you understand."
So, Evgeni Malkin had friends not only from the nightclubs of Magnitogorsk (full details in original russian article), but also some sports connected friends. Hockey, they say, is a brotherhood. Hockey players, they say, the family.
Alexander Nikolaevich Strokatov
Date of birth: February 26, 1984. He has profiles of an amateur player on the sites NPHL ("Rostech" League) and RTHL. Also there is a profile of a professional hockey player at R-hockey. He moved to Magnitogorsk from Ust-Kamenogorsk to the Magnitogorsk school of Metallurg along with Dmitry Pestunov. He played in the 1st league for “Metallurg-2” (Magnitogorsk) and for the junior team “Metallurg-85” (Magnitogorsk) alongside with brothers Denis and Evgeni Malkin.
In addition to hockey, he is engaged in business. TIN 744604769087. Individual entrepreneur since 2008, founder of four LLCs. In two of them owns shares together with Evgeni Malkin and another hockey player Vitaly Kolesnik.
Strokatova Natalya Stepanovna
Businesswoman. TIN 772882609397. She has shares in CAPITAL-MARK LLC together with Yana Kontorovich (50% each) and in LLC MARK together with Yana Kontorovich and Anton Tikhonov (47.5%, 5% and 47.5% respectively).
Nikolai Alexandrovich Strokatov
Father of Alexander Strokatov. Individual entrepreneur, businessman, philanthropist. TIN 671404144297. Miraculously survived in 1998 in Ust-Kamenogorsk after an assassination attempt by his debtors (both so-killers received long sentences).
Anton Igorevich Tikhonov
Profiles in social networks: FB, VK. Date of birth: January 15, 1984. Player profiles on the NPHL website ("Rostech" League) and RTHL. Alumnus of the "Krylya Sovetov" (“Soviet wings”) hockey school. In the 2019-20 season, together with Alexander Strokatov, he moves to the amateur team G-71 (sounds like Geno Malkin, right?). His brother also plays for it - Tikhonov Dmitry Igorevich (+ profile on RTHL).
In addition to hockey, he is engaged in business. TIN 773172364433. General Manager of LLC "MARK" and its co-owner (47.5% share) together with his wife Yana Kontorovich and Natalya Strokatova. According to his wife, he is the author and ideologist of the MARK.MODA and MARK.SPACE projects, in which Evgeni Malkin and Alexander Strokatov invested.
Yana Vitalievna Kontorovich
Wife of Anton Tikhonov. Profiles in social networks: FB, VK, Professionals. Date of birth - April 24, 1984. Raises a son named Mark - hence the names of LLCs and MODA.MARK (MARK.MODA) and MARK.SPACE projects, which will be discussed later.
She is engaged in business, TIN 773178890658. Co-founder of LLC MARK and LLC CAPITAL-MARK together with Natalya Strokatova and her husband.
Yulia Sergeevna Trostyanskaya
As rumors say, she's a longtime friend of Anton Tikhonov. Profiles on social networks: FB. She is also engaged in business. TIN 773127281383. Founder, initially the sole owner and CEO of " Management Company MARK" LLC. On the Facebook page she identifies itself as "Founder & CEO at MARK MODA."
Nikolai Olegovich Altstein (Trotsyuk)
The most mysterious character. Date of birth: December 29, 1983 (?). Profiles in social networks: VK, FB (deleted). Until the end of 2017, he bore the name Trotsyuk (TIN remained unchanged). Also, see here.
A change of surname to Altstein may indicate preparation for emigration and / or an attempt to remove oneself from the list of debtors. It is also possible as an attempt to complicate the search when checking the counterparty (courts, criminal and administrative cases, etc.).
"Serial entrepreneur." TIN 503115664409. The head of 5 legal entities, the founder of ten LLC.
He is a business partner of Malkin, Kolesnik and Strokatov. Through a fully controlled company, Diversus Group LLC controls MPI-AKVA LLC (co-founder with Malkin, Kolesnik and Strokatov), Essential AQUA LLC (Malkin as the co-founder), Management Company DIVERSUS LLC (co-founder with Kolesnik and Strokatov), LLC TH DIVERSUS (co-founded by Malkin, Kolesnik and Strokatov). Actual owner and manager of the Diversus Group and the Trading House Diversus. Through LLC Diversus Group, he holds a patent for the production of Essential Aqua fortified water, which is represented by Malkin's face.
Altstein-Trotsyuk also actively invested in various startups and was considered a business angel. Startups themselves are listed here and here. Their condition is mostly deplorable. However, we are interested in one of them.
Parkmark is another name for the Moda.Mark / Mark.Space project, which will be discussed later. The Youtube channel of this reincarnation of the project has survived - there it is already about the "first-ever 3D social network"! In which in 2016 there was Malkin’s apartment - even before the ICO! And all this happens under the name LoftMark, and is already the 4th version of the Moda.Mark / MarkSpace project.
Having watched this video about the LoftMark functionality, you will ask exactly one question: "WHY DO IT HAVE TO BE DEVELOPED AT ALL ??". And why did you even need to finance THIS? Does Evgeni Malkin have an answer to this question - we do not know.
The "Diversus group of companies" itself on their website is depicted as a large-scale conglomerate ("international holding headquartered in Moscow"). But remembering the experience of various kinds of crypto enthusiasts and information businessmen, it is very hard to believe in this. You can even say that all this smells very bad. Smells like total lie.
But the goal as a whole is understandable: the goal is to use more words such as "group of companies", "international", "divisions" so there will be the feeling of success and scale. With that done, it is easier to sing nightingale songs (shit-talking and lying) in the ears of future investors and partners. This is classic.
Chapter 3. A typical startupper.
Evgeny Vladimirovich Malkin
Malkin is not only the center-forward of Pittsburgh Penguins and of the Russian hockey team but also a businessman, as you've already guessed it. TIN 744609708994.
Let's go over quickly about the projects of Eugene and look at their condition.
MIG LLC - MalkinTeam clothing store and clothing line. Looks abandoned.
G71 - the shop and the clothing line. Looks abandoned. Moreover, the domain is registered on Anton Tikhonov as a private person.
Essential Aqua - the production of vitamin water. It is nominally present in stores, but it was not possible to find those bottles in those actual everyday stores. Everything looks like an imitation of a business.
Tea Cuplid - also looks like an imitation of business.
We will deal with Mark.Moda and Mark.Space a bit later. In the meantime, let's talk debts.
Chapter 4. Debts and money infusions.
One of the main motivations for ICOs is debts. As they say, if you see a token sale, investment pitching and crowdfunding - look for organizers’ debts. And we found them!
Taxes' and duties’ debts. And they are due from 2018. Do you know what that means? These legal entities are already virtually dead. There is no liquidation process yet, but no one does mandatory annual reporting, and no one has paid the taxes. And there is no money in legal entities and accounts either - otherwise, the tax would have been technically squeezed directly from the bank by the Federal Tax Service. Moreover, the debts are not significant, so fiscals leaked them for the nominal recovery. There is nothing to get, these money orders hang being ballast.
Now, pay attention to exactly who is in this "tax coma". LLC "Diversus Group" and LLC "TD Diversus", as well as LLC "Tea Technologies" are. Which tells us that the tea and water business of Malkin, Trotsyuk-Altstein and Co. does not show any weak signs of life in retail for a reason. And this area of activity and business is already “dead” and marked with “money spent” sign, and nothing brought neither to the hockey player nor to his friends and partners. However, everything looks like "self-employment at the expense of the investor."
Speaking of investors. The obvious question arises - who pays for the party? After all, you can start using your own capital, or you can start using borrowed money. And you can find the "rich Pinocchio" who will not understand the process, will not understand management accounting and will not ask too detailed questions due to his own existing knowledge and education. And there will be no desire and / or resource to bury you in the forest in case of epic failure, embezzlement or theft. Who will endure and believe in the hope of a bright future where a rain of gold coins will come pouring down.
But these are very good cases for "serial entrepreneurs" ("typical startuppers"), whose main function is not to ensure the profit of the enterprise but to provide a reliable simulation of the business. Well, so that you and your friends have big salaries and bonuses. And so that money can be withdrawn for personal needs and thrown to other legal entities. When the money runs out, turn on your convincing skill, promise golden mountains and future greatness once again. They (those "serial entrepreneurs») hang noodles on the ears, counting on new investments and cash injections.
At the same time, the previous “investor”, a man who doesn't want to pay for such services anymore, may decide with the team consisting of those "serial entrepreneurs" to play “pyramiding” at the expense of the money from the new “investors” to take back their investments and maybe even earn. According to this principle, one "investment club" exists headed by one famous character from Russian real estate business, which supports and injects (or supposedly injects) 1-2 million dollars into the next crippled and wretched startup with an initially dead business model, thus campaigning “hamsters” to bring in the same amount so that, due to the number of “hamsters”, he will take not his own 2 million, but 4. And then he spends the rest of the general fees on the hustle and bustle of those “pocket” startups, stretching the process over time. After all, the startup technically collapses, because "This is the venture, what did you even expect?!" All actors stay with profit, except for those who brought the money during the second stage.
You can ask: what do Evgeni Malkin and his hockey friends have to do with it? For an answer, you will have to look into SPARK (Russian debt and taxes surveillance service) and see what happened in their legal entities. And the following happened there: infusions from the outside and the actual lack of revenue. That's called a primitive “milking” of investors.
Let's start with the legal entity behind the production and sale of Essential Aqua water, owned and co-owned by Geno (Malkin’s nickname and trademark).
What do we see? We see ridiculous revenue for 2018 and management expenses 12 times greater than it. Profit is 53 times less than expenses. The company has ONE person registered as a worker in it. But at the same time, someone brought 35.5 million rubles (about $600 000) into the project. Hmm, let me guess ... It seems his name is Evgeni, the last name begins with "M" ...
Now let's see what's inside the Tea Technology LLC, which is responsible for the sales of Cuplid tea. Their main web site is dead and even the Web Archive does not see anything (the Cuplid site is alive), but the co-owners have Strokatov Jr. and Vitaly Kolesnik with his wife. The company has THREE employees. In 2017-2018, a legal entity shows deep losses (expenses are many times more than revenue). Moreover, the company cannot pay a thousand rubles (approximately $20) to the Pension Fund. The tea business of Malkin’s friends is dead. At the same time, the company took a substantial loan (I wonder who gave it?).
LLC TD Diversus, in which Evgeni Malkin is a co-owner and already has FIVE people onboard, has a similar situation. Management expenses at times exceed not just profit, but also revenue. Besides, an outstanding loan is hanging. Typical startup ©.
And finally, Diversus Group LLC, through which Trotsyuk-Altstein controlled other LLCs. There are 6 people and, traditionally, loans, ridiculous revenue, normal expenses and total losses. If you look at the dynamics of job postings (available in SPARK and on HH.ru), it turns out that companies need about EVERYONE. I wonder who "milked" here - Malkin? Strokatova? Kolesnik? All at once?
So, you've already understood: where is Trotsyuk-Altstein - there is a financial victory. But, we consider, only his financial victory. The rest (Malkin and Co.) are forced to pay for the right to have a proud status of a "businessman".
However, we have not yet touched another hockey bro - Anton Tikhonov. But this is the most interesting! After all, Anton also loves money very much - especially if they come to him from his hockey brothers. Or from naive "hamsters" on the ICO.
Chapter 5. Megamall, PARKMARK, MODA.MARK
At the end of 2013, news appeared on the DEKOLE agency website (from which the Diversus Group website hatched) related to a new large-scale and secret e-commerce project, which should change, if not everything, then a lot. The link inside the news itself led to the employer's page on HeadHunter - now it's the Moda Mark project. But so the project will be called later, but in the original, it was called differently. Megamall.
News releases gave an enthusiastic picture of a great future.
"Thanks to the research and development made by the huge staff of coders and 3D-visualizers, Megamall represents something that could not be technically realized (until today!): a real shopping center in a virtual space."
“Megamall presents all world brands inside so that every visitor can easily find and buy any product, as well as a wide range of services that will not leave anyone indifferent.”
"Leading developers, coders and designers have used the maximum capabilities of 3D and first-class graphics to create a unique real world in the virtual space.
A chic interior and impeccable infrastructure, a variety of exceptionally recognizable brands, honed service - at Online Megamall, customers will stroll along the marble floor, communicate with each other, view collections in boutiques and make purchases.
The virtual 3D model of a real shopping centre opens up a ton of new possibilities for monetization, converting visitors into real buyers with fantastic speed. At the same time, that model, as a pump, will constantly “pump up” the system of deferred demand, allowing customers to find out about new products in advance, to study brand products in detail in a relaxed atmosphere, which stimulates them to make purchases much more often and faster.
"Megamall is a new generation of shopping tours."
"Megamall allows us to declare an unprecedentedly high conversion rate for the e-commerce market with the ability to turn up to 90% of visitors to customers."
"In addition to the exclusive venue, this is a real cultural and entertainment center in a virtual space where you can find shop friends in a branded social network, visit a real online movie theatre."
"You will find yourself in a brilliant shopping center, executed in first-class graphics and practically tangible 3D, so believable that it seems that you can touch it with your hand!"
Bold text shows what is at least doubtful. And as a maximum - it was a lie from beginning to an end. After that, there will be no news on the development of this project on the DEKOLE / Diversus sites. It was as if he had died after birth for Trotsyuk (as he was in charge at that time) or it did not even exist. But the project itself, of course, was not going to die.
If you look at the history of registration of trademarks ParkMark / Mark.Moda / LoftMark / Mark.Space (available in SPARK), you can see that the domains have been registered since 2013, and trademark applications since 2014. It was as if some kind of struggle for intellectual property was being waged within the hockey-startup community. Moreover, the trademark used by Mark.Space and Mark.Moda (in a circle) was recorded in the possession of LLC “MARK” only in July 2018. That is, the ICO was carried out even without the rights to its mark (see the logo here)
At the same time, the domain "moda-mark.ru" was registered to a private individual on October 15, 2013. The "capital-mark.ru" domain was registered to a private individual on February 21, 2014. We think that this private person is Anton. Here is this Anton.
Now with the help of Web Archive, let's see what was on those domains originally from 2013. From the earliest snapshots are on 'mall-mark.ru" for 2015. And what do we see? We see Evgeni Malkin!
Now let's delve a little into the presentation loaded then on the site. It turns out that the long-suffering ParkMark / Megamall was a whole bunch of other MARK-services. BankMark, AfishaMark and more. At the same time, they planned to use the internal currency "Mark"(poor little son of Yana Kontorovich — he is everywhere!) and to sell virtual looks and things. Almost like tokens in Mark Space. Hence, in 2017-18, almost nothing needed to be changed to conduct an ICO.
But not everything is so simple and great. To work (as a user) in a fashion studio, it was first necessary to create a 3D model of the client by digitizing the figure in the Moda Mark showrooms, and then that digital avatar would appear in the user’s account.
This is a classic bottleneck in these kinds of projects and a misunderstanding of the client’s logic. The formation of samples for a client can be remembered even under the Mi Adidas project as early as 2000, with the formation of three-dimensional foot models in Adidas stores, and based on it custom-made boots for customers were sewn later. The project was eventually abandoned for obvious reasons:
1 )There are not so many people who need customization of shoes (for example, ‘cause of different feet or their problematic form). The final price becomes either indecent for the client, or the volume of production does not cover the costs.
2) A mass client, going to the store, wants to solve the problem RIGHT NOW, and not willing to wait until his foot is measured, then some time in the future they will bring shoes. Many purchases occur spontaneously on emotions or from the need that suddenly occurred.
Accordingly, it is not difficult to conclude that a fashionable laboratory where you had to rub your legs into showrooms (you as a business owner had to have a whole lab network to cover, moreover - with expensive equipment, but did you see at least one of them?), let yourself be measured and then wait, when your 3D avatar appears in your account.
All this was doomed to failure from the very beginning.
But this was not necessary for investors to know. They needed forecasts - they drew them in a presentation in the form of rapid growth. Moreover, to fulfil promises on audience growth, an “aggressive marketing policy” and a federal advertising campaign (offline + online) were planned. Which, of course, would require money from investors. Question: who remembers the advertising campaigns of the ParkMark, Moda Mark / Mark Moda or Mall Mark projects? We do not remember too.
However, that didn’t stop anyone from pouring tens of millions of rubles into LLC MARK, LLC UK-MARK, LLC Capital-MARK, LLC MODA-MARK. Into legal entities that generated minimal revenue or even losses. Who could it be ... Malkin? Strokatov? Kolesnik? Together? One thing can be said: these people believed in the business genius of Anton Tikhonov and his wife Yana Kontorovich.
And all this investor suffering would not be of any interest, if from Megamall (after a series of transformations to Mall Mark / Park Mark / Loft Mark and Mark.Moda, where they threw away 3D-ruffles and now it looks like they just pin their faces to the finished figure) did not appear Mark.Space, hiding behind the name of a hockey star once again. Which was finalized with ICO and $10.5 million of raised capital from naive third-party investors.
Chapter 6. Mark.Space, "tothemoon" and “hamsters squeezing" for 22 million dollars.
Distributed registries, decentralization, cryptocurrencies – all that stuff had been actively discussed until 2017, but that year everything seemed to break loose. The words "crypto", "token", "blockchain", "crypto-exchange", "mining" and "ICO" were strewn almost from everywhere. Everyone smelled easy money. The rate of bitcoin grew like on steroids, price rates of tokens and other altcoins tried to keep up.
By the second half of that year, everyone was just talking about the new crypto heights and the next grand ICO, which raised millions of dollars. It got to the point that holding your ICO was considered almost a good form. How so - have you yet collected money from suckers for the emission of your shitcoins? Those who have not done yet so desperately envied and planned their own. More advanced tried to open a cryptocurrency exchange. More mundane - crypto exchange office for fiat money.
The MARK.MODA team could not watch indifferently - the money was running out, investors began to suspect something, profit was not visible in the foreseeable future. All according to the classics of “typical startups” with well-fed self-employment due to a naive uncle. What to do? Of course, arrange an ICO, issue tokens, promise the golden mountains to the public and collect a crypt for them. As a result, in the second half of 2017, a cryptobastard with the name MARK.SPACE was born from MARK.MODA in which the "next-generation Internet" and the ubiquitous blockchain at that time appeared.
Because naive investors then gave money to the word “blockchain”, but without it, they gave poorly or did not give at all. Therefore, crypto-startups with special cynicism poked the words “blockchain” and “smart contracts” wherever they could. Even if they were not needed there or it was generally a set of words without technical confirmation and implementation.
A vivid example of such an approach is another cryptobastard "UService" (in which Malkin also involved), who grew up from Uremont, in which a distributed registry was explicitly added to increase raised capital for ICOs. “Hamster squeezing” tactic was quite good - almost 24 million dollars were raised in cryptocurrency. Well, then there was a listing on three “low-end” crypto exchanges and the subsequent rapid drop in the price of the token and trading volume to about zero. This is called "clinical death". What surely “pleased” both stock speculators and those who naively decided to invest in the hope of long-term development of Uservice. Congratulations to investors from Cryptocritique! Your almost 24 million were very handy to the team of this project, led by Batu Khasikov, who is now the head of the Republic of Kalmykia. There is a suspicion that Evgeni Malkin got some of his money too.
MarkSpace got a little less ($ 10.5 million), but they had to be fought for. What did you have to do with MarkModa for this? From a three-dimensional shopping center, developers had to make a three-dimensional universe with the expectation of augmented and virtual reality (AR / VR) and taking into account the mutual settlements between users and the system using the blockchain. They wouldn’t give money for a shopping center, especially considering that it had been developed at the time of the ICO for 4 years. But under the 3D-universe concept, they could have given money. Therefore, an updated concept was born with a new name, with a different logic of the internal economics (without detail, of course) and the utility tokens that could serve as a means of trading within MarkSpace.
But, of course, with the cosmic rise of the price of bitcoin, all of the investors were less interested. The average investor was then interested in exactly one thing: catching up on the presale of tokens or at the very beginning of the token sale. Then, at the time of the public offering and the organic sharp increase in the price (it wasn’t otherwise then - everything grew exceptionally), dump everything available. The price of the token thus sagged or completely collapsed below the floor, but the first flow of investors could come out with the "X". That is, earning at times more than the initial investment.
Often, the ICO organizers themselves, despite common sense, their statements and potential criminal cases in the future for asset price manipulating, dropped tokens on exchanges. Or did an additional tokens issue for the same purpose. After all, tokens are not stocks. With them, then you could do what you want. For example, do not give out tokens to “hamsters” or give out when the course of bitcoin goes in the right direction. One could not develop the promised product and get away, having previously bought a new passport and citizenship. Or fiercely get over one another after collecting hundreds of millions and spend a whole year in a mutual squabble, showdowns, threats, and courts. Or write off the loss of money and tokens blaming unknown malicious hackers. Cryptocurrency exchanges and crypto funds especially sinned with this trick. Just a few questions from customers - and here is the answer: "We were hacked!". However, they were hacked regularly too. This was the situation in 2017-18. "Wild Crypto West".
In this atmosphere, Mark.Space with Evgeni Malkin on board decided to start Initial Coin Offering. The business smelled like millions of air and zero responsibility.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) tried to threaten the Howie test and the obligation to register token sale as a securities issue, but everyone did not give a damn. Everyone quickly renamed their tokens from virtual stock analogs to utility token (the closest analog is game currency or “air miles”) and forbade selling tokens to Americans, Chinese and residents of some countries where the cryptocurrency fell out of favor with the authorities at that time. After that they continued to collect the cash from "unsuspecting" investors and continue to engage in direct theft or imitation of activity at the expense of the money collected from the "hamsters", shoving money in their pockets. Often added to this are crazy attempts to immediately put the collected capital on the stock exchange, as well as open your venture fund or crypto fund for another round of “reaping” investors.
To a large extent, such tactics paid off. The SEC did not have enough people to cope with the rapid flow of frankly fraudulent ICOs, crypto funds, and crypto exchanges. As a result, regulators punished a very limited number of companies and characters - and then everyone realized that the Cerberus was on a leash. And the leash is short. So… Make a mess, steal, and buy Lambo – but, most importantly, do not sell tokens to Americans and do not violate Regulation S.
Still, US authorities gradually began to punish defending American citizens. They began to open administrative and criminal cases in the United States, where the size of the fines made everyone wonder much whether it was necessary to start a story with tokens in the US. But then, in the second half of 2017, the fear from the Howey Test and SEC's threatening statements quickly passed.
Crypto startuppers and other rogues were scared only by a huge price increase of marketing activities and crypto conferences, together with a huge price increase for assigning a goog rating by crypto agencies and with the rise of listing prices (tothemoon!) on more or less decent crypto exchanges. This often happens when the market overheats - if you want to collect millions, then, please, share it with all the participants in the scheme. Nevertheless, if you correctly approach the issue and correctly push the noodles onto the ears of investors, then the costs paid off with interest.
“Typical startuppers” from Mark.Space were counting on this. Because further with the decline in the rate of bitcoin and with an increase in the people’s awareness about the numerous tricks of cryptos, interest in the whole topic of cryptocurrencies collapsed. By the end of 2019, the ICO theme has completely died. The corpse is now trying to revive in the form of IEO, but the fees are far from the same. Enthusiasm disappeared, investors stopped giving money for the idea and the promise.
In 2017, crypto enthusiasm was on a fundamentally different level, and the MarkMody / Mark.Space team tried to offer the necessary set of promises and declarations to motivate investors to bring in millions. In the end, then, for the words “blockchain + 3D + VR”, for flashing eyes and fiery speeches, investors loaded looted trucks and asked for almost nothing in exchange for IPO and classic venture capital investments. Sin was not to seize the moment.
What was Mark.Space like a project? All this, in short, resembled the sale of plots on the moon. There is a virtual space, it is divided into regions, and those, in turn, are divided into units. That is, your specific piece of space, where you can sculpt from the inner space what you want. For example, there was Malkin’s residence in Mark.Space preview. And among the areas SUDDENLY turned out to be the very MODA.MARK and LOFT.MARK.
The economic model of the project, as was typical for the ICO of that time, was completely absent. It was a sale-resale of units, plus the possibility of monetization by "settlers" through external links (CPA model), plus it is possible to build in the future e-commerce module (to make purchases right inside Mark.Space). But the detail of all this was completely absent. There was just a bunch of general words and declarations of how this would work.
White Paper itself (investment memorandum of the project) took 50 pages, which immediately indicated the quality of the project design. The author of Cryptocritique at one time wrote an alpha version of WP for one of the startups, and in this White Paper, only an approximate description of the essence, audience and business model of the project took 100+ pages. Detailing all of this would draw pages to 200. 50 pages is just a set of promises and “give money”. Then it worked.
The roadmap also contained curious elements. In January 2019, the 2nd stage of "hamster squeezing" was planned (just like in Token Stars). However, such a pyramidal scheme was not something surprising then. If investors are ready for some reason to give money, then why not take it?
Now, something interesting about the declared investment in Mark.Space itself. The WP claims that they invested their own 5 million dollars before the ICO. And in the advertising of the ICO in the media on behalf of Malkin, it was generally said that he invested $ 4 million.
Now questions. First: if you dig into legal entities papers of Malkin, Tikhonov, Kontorovich, and Co. - will there be 4 million dollars of Malkin there? It seems to us that they are not visible there. And then whose remaining million? And the second: did Malkin declare these 4 million dollars as an investment in reporting to the American tax authorities (IRS)?
Well, the third question: were the tokens “frozen” to motivate the team to actively develop the project, and not immediately drain the tokens on the exchange, taking away cash? We have some doubts about this.
Nevertheless, despite the entire booth around Mark.Space and his initial doubtfulness, this project by March 2018 raised 10.65 million dollars on the token sale.
Of which, according to Vyacheslav Utushkin (he was responsible for marketing at the ICO, he is known for the thrash project Endo), they allegedly returned 1.5 million in crypto to investors who turned out to be US citizens.
In the interview, generally interesting data on the number of investors and applications from clients:
“We have 20,000 people who bought tokens, the average check is $ 500. We are doing a project that will be massively used by businesses. We have more than 100 applications per week. We are growing.”
Mr. Utushkin in the Russian crypto community is known for saying that everything he says is best divided by 2, or even 7 and 10. But if the information about the number of investors and the average check is correct, then congratulations to Mark.Space from the editorial team of Sports.ru and Cryptocritique. You have violated the laws of many countries on accredited/qualified investors. You advertised and sold tokens to a bunch of them. Not to mention the Americans.
We do not say that there are big doubts about the quality of the KYC / AML that you conducted, and that the "purity" of the ethers and bitcoins you received is in doubt. As a result, if the state regulators get their hands on you, they will call you to a variety of cabinets for intimate conversations. For celebrities, this also does not always end pleasantly: it is enough to recall the case of Floyd Mayweather.
But this is not the funniest thing in Utushkin’s interview. He needs a blockchain for rendering. Did he even read the White Paper of the project?
. . . . .
"We will have the first server blockchain in the world. Companies use 15% of the server, there is capacity. The server can perform more complex operations. We drop objects there, the servers render and receive our tokens. Greed rules the world - miners make money, and people make money "YouTube will understand me when their videos are rendered. And I suggest using the power of huge servers."
. . . . .
Moreover, it turns out that Malkin was not investing in Mark.Space, but in Moda.Mark / Loft. Mark. And what then did investors get into the publicity in advertising, in the media, and on the roadshow? And whose is such your money?
. . . . .
- How did Malkin invest 4 million and believe?
- He believed in the team. We showed something in a team of people with businesses behind. When he saw flashing eyes - he believed.
- Here you have 4 million?
- Almost it was. We did not have long negotiations. There were conceptual relationships.
- Is he in share? Or tokens?
- No, he invested in another idea - a virtual shopping center. In 2016, all this money that was received from him, they were running out, there were fears that the project would fall.
- And whose money?
- His own.
. . . . .
However, a little later, in April 2018, investors will bring another 11+ million dollars - and a total of 22 million will be raised.
Have their investments paid off? For someone, probably yes. But those who believed in the long-term development of the project were waiting for a typical picture of the life cycle of a “typical crypto startup.” "Clinical death" on cryptocurrency exchanges: a token with a price in the region of zero and scant trading volumes. The fall in prices amounted to 98.2%. And even if you want someone to sell MRK tokens for a rainy day for the current penny - it will be extremely difficult for you to find a buyer.
Chapter 7. The anger of investors and preparation for an escape from the country.
Imagine that you are the founders of a startup that has already collected a decent amount of money from enthusiastic citizens. What are you going to do? Will you finish the project to the end without guarantees of success and knowing that millions have already been collected? Or imitate the activity and spend the collected cryptocurrency on personal needs? And then, will you launch the second round of ICO to “squeeze” naive citizens for the second time?
The overwhelming majority of crypto startuppers have opted for the second option. So what if it looks like a financial pyramid - you have to live here and now! And they will send you to prison later ... If at all someone sends you. Therefore, some immediately after the gatherings wrote the word "penis" on the website and fled in an unknown direction. But most imitated activities until a certain time, and then made an exit scam according to the methodology of financial pyramids of the 90s. What it looks like - just read the materials in "Cryptocritique" (Zen, Telegram, Smart-lab).
It is easy to guess that even in MARK.SPACE, after receiving crypto-money for crypto wallets, they strongly thought about whether it was necessary to fulfill their promises. Therefore, the participants in the bounty program were the first to suffer. They promised one volume of tokens - they allocated 20 times less. In the end, the tokens were released - the tokens were taken.
Then, after the final drop in the token price and the lack of intelligible news about the development of the project, MARK.SPACE was awarded the special plate "Topic creator - fraudster" on the main Bitcointalk cryptocurrency forum. Such an award board is awarded for "exceptional merit" in investor relations.
Further discussion of MARK.SPACE takes place in CryptoScam Chat, where many interesting details come up.
For example, we were talking about an unplanned additional issue of tokens, which was quickly sold on the exchanges and, probably, someone from MARK.SPACE made good money on this. And the fact that this violates the rules of token sale nobody gives a damn.
Moreover, a person joins the dialogue by the name of Kirill (Kirill Kudryavtsev, until 2013 he was a partner of Tikhonov and Kontorovich), who called himself one of the first investors of MarkModa / ParkMark. And this Kirill called MARK.SPACE being "a scam since 2013."
Well, good info was also found on the MARK.SPACE advisor. What a project, such a project adviser.
Besides that, an article was published on Shitcoinoffering "MARK.SPACE scam three-time Stanley Cup winner for 4 million." Malkin on the title and the preview image. And with a ton of photos of Tikhonov and Kontorovich inside. And since the article was in English, this meant that the information could reach a wide range of foreign investors and regulators.
Well, in the end, the “hamsters” began to suspect something on their own ... Although you were warned that you need to sell tokens as soon as possible. And it’s better not to go into this project at all. For example, an article dated March 12, 2018, on AllCrypto. Bad VR, bad crypto.
Moreover, the fraud was revealed with a non-existent partnership with LandRover - like a cherry on a cake. In turn, we asked the Moscow representative office of Adidas for a partnership with MarkSpace - there nobody knows about the project. However, lying about partnerships is generally an ICO classic.
Publications did not go unnoticed by Yana Kontorovich and Anton Tikhonov. On August 29, 2019, they hastened to outline their vision of the situation in Cryptoscamchat. At the same time, they decided to threaten criminal prosecution for libel. Also a classic. As if you write something bad and shameful about ICO - the founders immediately begin to threaten you.
Selected quotes by Yana and Anton:
. . . . .
"Before posting an article about the investment of Eugene Malkin, they checked the information and contacted Eugene on their own to get his comments."
"The main lie of your source is that nobody cheated on him. Eugene didn’t like your article either and he is ready to personally confirm that there were no fraudulent actions against him, and the information in the article is just slander."
“We don’t run GitHub, and this is an urgent requirement of our CTO. And we never hid it. So far we are not ready to share the developments. They cost us very much.”
“There are many reasons for this: tying the price to ETH, BTC, and “crypto winter”, lack of liquidity on exchanges, mistakes in marketing and working with the community, and much more. But if you want to accuse us of selling tokens on the exchange, then this is quite unacceptable! The project did not sell a single token on the exchange after the token sale, I assure you, and we are ready to prove it if we consider it necessary. "
"About Anton. Yes, indeed, he is my husband. Yes, he originally came up with this project and worked on it. But, when we went international, he transferred control to me, because my education and knowledge of a foreign language were important for successful development. Anton became my main adviser. Yes, one of the reasons, but not the only, why we called the MARK project is the birth of a son. "
"We are doing everything in our power and are committed to 300%. If you wish, welcome to our office, get to know each other, look at our developments, maybe talk with Eugene (most likely by phone), ask any questions you may have and understand that SCAM and fraud are certainly not about us. We are open for dialogue!"
“If you don’t meet with us, we will have to make an official statement with Eugene, where your article, for the most part, will simply crumble and it turns out that we are no longer SCAM, but you because you publish unverified information ...”
“As a result, because you wrote that we were a scam, people developed thoughts even further. And they wrote about Malkin that he was dragged into the scam project. He came to our office, he’s generally shocked what they write about us and him."
“If you don’t do this, then Yana and Malkin will make an official statement that the fact that he was cheated and deceived (and the article was mostly published about this) is all lies. And then the article will smell like a very big scam. This is the first, second “We will sue you and the publication for disseminating false information.”
. . . . .
And you know what's interesting? There are still no statements. But there is an advertisement for urgent car sale.
So, there seems to be no statement. But it seems that Tikhonov and Kontorovich are fleeing from Russia.
Chapter 8. Where’s the money?
While Yana Kontorovich is wondering where to emigrate (she has already decided the question of selling Lexus), we will consider one interesting fact.
The Lexus LX570 owned by CEO MARK.SPACE was purchased at the end of March 2018. Estimated cost - 7 million rubles. One month after the end of the ICO. Lexus will be sold on September 25, 2019. Less than a month after posting in Cryptoscamchat. Interesting what coincidences.
Let's make a couple of assumptions:
1) There will be no joint statement by Malkin and Kontorovich. Yana dumps property that impedes emigration. (Did she pay off the fines of the traffic police? And then suddenly the border guards would not let her out.)
2) The money collected at the ICO went not only to the development of MARK.SPACE, but also to buy a car for Yana. However, such behavior among "typical startups" was the norm.
2a) We can assume that Yana was able to afford to buy a luxury SUV with money received outside MARK.SPACE. But, downloads from SPARK about legal entities more likely indicate that she used the money of investors. No, of course, Yana could appoint a large salary and save for herself, but this also indicates a waste.
Moreover, 9 months after the ICO, before the New Year, Anton Tikhonov will have a new black Mercedes E-class. Estimated purchase price - 3.5 million rubles. Coincidence again?
In general, it would be necessary to understand how the money was collected and how it was spent.
Firstly, let's get into how the "token sale" works.
The organizers start their special crypto wallet, then with the help of a smart contract (if in a simple way - a set of scripts) tokens are issued to “hamsters” instead of the sent bitcoins and ETHs. Then everything is fixed to whom, how much and at what price. If there are several types of tokens, then what rights are assigned to them. All this business takes place on the startup website or a special ICO web page. Various measures are hung from above to prevent fraud, hacks, arbitrary actions of the organizers and other unpleasant things. And also additional scripts for processing user data - for example, so as not to sell tokens to people who are not from the "white list". All this will traditionally contain holes, backdoors, bad code. And half of the above will also be outsourced without proper control. On the KYC / AML protocol they will close their eyes or hold it purely for show. Because there is not so much “clean” money in the crypto, but money is needed.
This was the technical part of a typical token sale in the era of the ICO boom. The question remained: who owns the wallet? And it is usually owned and/or controlled by completely specific individuals because putting a crypt on the balance of a legal entity is another attraction. Well, in the end - why? It’s one thing - the collected money is controlled by the office, and another is when you are personally. These, you know, are two big differences. Which, of course, periodically ended in scandals and showdowns over money, with subsequent vessels like in Tezos. But who is it ever stopped?
Therefore, in search of money, it would be wise to look at what happened in the foreign legal entities of MARK.SPACE: MarkSpace OU (Estonia) and Mark.Space PTE (Singapore). And who owns them at all.
According to documents valid during the ICO, the markspace.io domain was owned by a new Singaporean legal entity. Remember this. And who owned the company itself? Go to bizfile.gov.sg.
Kontorovich - 65%, Malkin - 20%, Ershov (co-founder of MARK.SPACE) - 5%, Shlyapin (technical director MARK.SPACE) - 5%. Judging by the shares, then Yana and Eugene should be responsible for everything that happened. But neither Polulyakhov nor Tikhonov is on the list. Hmm, this is kind of weird. Not only that, people are negotiating with contractors and investors, but also the domain was registered by Anton, and not by a Singapore company. It seems investors are brazenly tricked.
Meanwhile, Bizfile is unable to order the company's financial report. You can view the company profile, but the report cannot. There is simply no such active button. Let's assume why this happened. Probably because ... "the legal entity did NOT conduct commercial activities and money transactions did NOT go through it."
What further can be assumed? Probably, that ... money from the ICO did not enter the legal entity's account at all. Where did they go? Here I would very much like to ask Anton Tikhonov. About the wallet with the address 1MSkmmqcVDjSjLJFzuq8o6YaJXuQPFiJs2. And about the previous wallet, too. And what was there for almost 99 bitcoins with 1160 transactions. And why is it much less than the declared 22 million?
However, there was still an Estonian legal entity, right? But, firstly, it will appear after the ICO on June 28, 2018. And secondly ... it seems that it is also empty! Yana, what's up?! And where is the money?!
The Cryptomuzhik channel and its Cryptoscamchat also did not remain aloof from the search for the missing crypto money. And this is what they found (one, two, three).
For convenience, here are the mentioned wallets with separate links:
https://etherscan.io/address/0xe26aec623286aed41991a7257370f9a7f07b88d0
https://etherscan.io/address/0x71e4c641310bb5883a920e2f5072bc8b1bc37b95
https://www.blockchain.com/en/btc/address/351B8m4yKGqhpg1UBB9SSzrBsrUAWRKB4o
Those who wish can delve into them independently and look for patterns. And for some reason, it seems to us that all this indicates that crypto-money was used in a slightly inappropriate way. And if they came to product development, then obviously not all.
Moreover, since the collected funds seem to have passed by legal entities, we can assume that Tikhonov, Polulyakhov, Kontorovich or someone else MARK.SPACE dragged part of the received cryptocurrency to crypto exchangers in Moscow City. MARKSPACE's office is also in Moscow City. And then someone cashed everything. Because there are no obvious traces of the receipt of a sufficient amount of money for Russian legal entities from the reports in SPARK. And where is cashing in, for the state, there is usually a criminal money laundering. Indeed, when receiving cryptocurrencies, the organizers did not bother with the KYC / AML protocol. And all this, of course, as part of an organized criminal community, because more than one person was working for MARK.SPACE.
What do you say about this version, Eugene Malkin? And what do you think about your partners and the hockey brotherhood? Did your colleagues and partners share those collected money from ICO with you? And if so, how much? We have a lot of questions.
Chapter 9. Direct speech. Dmitry Shamov.
Dmitry Shamov (VK, FB). Interpreter. He maintains his own Youtube channel about Japan.
. . . . . .
Investors transferred funds to accounts and wallets of the head office, I did not contact them. The Japanese office had a different role: we organized various seminars to talk about the world of MARK.SPACE. The Japanese generally love all sorts of new developments and gadgets, so they sincerely believed in the project, as I did with Kentaro.
In January 2018, we opened an office in Tokyo. Anton didn’t sign any agreement, so we agreed frankly that the head office will be provided by the Japanese branch, and we will look for potential partners for the development of MARK.SPACE. Anton said that MARK.SPACE was registered in Singapore (it was already done at the beginning of my work), as there are certain laws on cryptocurrency in this country. The Estonian company was opened relatively recently.
As a result, funds for providing the Japanese office were not transferred to us. They explained the delay in transfers by the fact that MARK.SPACE is engaged in cryptocurrency, which is why banks do not open the necessary accounts from which the transfer will be made.
. . . . . .
We have requested many times various documents of the company, which describe the technologies, development, and the overall structure of MARK.SPACE, but they did not provide them to us.
They didn’t explain to me where the raised funds go - they only said that they spent a lot on marketing.
. . . . . .
Anton Tikhonov, in my opinion, was only interested in money, not the technical side of the project. For the funds raised in the project, there were different data - 6, 10 million dollars, and then they sent me documents prepared by the Moscow office, in one of which the figure was 22 million dollars.
I have no idea where these funds are because the Japanese office never received financial support from the head office and was in debt all the time. For our part, we can report for each purchase up to 1 yen - we have everything declared and posted through the tax. From time to time I came to Moscow, offered to conclude a contract in which conditions and regular payments would be spelled out, but Anton Tikhonov avoided answering. For all the time we were transferred about 80 thousand dollars. Where the rest of the funds went - I do not know.
. . . . . .
I have never talked with Evgeni Malkin in my life, have not called up, and I don’t know what he says about the Japanese office, and in general what place he occupies in the project. It seems that he gave money at the very beginning and received a stake in the company. It seems to me that he does not know anything about what is happening in the company.
. . . . . .
As for Yana Kontorovich, she did not discuss the development of the project, even when we were in Moscow. She generally could leave in the process of discussion.
. . . . . .
Another strange point: during a visit to Moscow, some investors bought MRK tokens directly from Anton.
. . . . . .
Tikhonov has not answered me for a long time
. I ask him: "Where is the money?" He replies: "Dima, you'd better help us." On August 24, he wrote for the last time: "Dima, I am working on a question; you are not helping me."
Chapter 10. Direct speech. Oleg Ershov.
Oleg Ershov (FB). Co-founder of Mark.Space PTE.
. . . . .
I was faced with the task of launching the project in August 2015 - I was preparing for the world premiere of the PARK.MARK project (future MARK.SPACE).
When everything was ready and the media plans were made and calculated, they called me to inform about the postponement of the launch for an indefinite period. That the project has not yet been completed, and the money is running out. A few months later, my entire department was fired, and I was asked to develop a description of the MODA.MARK project concept, all its strengths, and weaknesses, to show to investors.
Two months later, I was introduced to Nikolai Aleksandrovich Strokatov, and it turned out that before that his son, Alexander, was giving the money. But the budget was spent before the finishing of development. Now Strokatov Sr. invested his money in the project. The exact amount is unknown to me, but it seems to be somewhere around 100 million rubles.
. . . . .
My proposal to stop the development, to draw up a normal technical specification with the terms, the costs of development, and to sign a contract to have clear guarantees and protection, were met with misunderstanding and excuses … from Anton! He argued that the project was so global and complex that it was not possible to think through everything.
More than half of the developers' working time was spent on redoing what was already done. Because either “the concept has changed” or “nobody needs it, now we do something else”.
. . . . .
Not a single serious partnership in MODA.MARK was reached. There were a couple of small orders from unknown retailers for pictures of their goods, but at this point, the money ran out again. And then they invited Malkin to the meeting.
Malkin hardly understood the terms and words that Anton and Strokatov Sr. told him at the meeting. Evgeni did not ask any questions at all.
Then Malkin took a description of MODA.MARK on 80 sheets. When I saw him a month later at a meeting in the office, I asked: "Have you read the description? Any questions?" He honestly said that he tried, but did not understand anything, but Anton explained everything to him. And at the same meeting, he signed all the documents, and a month later the deal took place.
. . . . .
After numerous attempts and code variations, we concluded that this could not work in the browser. There is not enough memory, the browser simply “crashes” or freezes. Meanwhile, it was already 2017. The money ran out again.
Then in July 2017, I was invited to a meeting where Tikhonov and Polulyakhov were - there I first heard about cryptocurrencies and ICOs. The last one in the team was Yulia Trostyanskaya - Denis was her boyfriend at that time. He told how easy it would be to raise money, and that our two projects were simply created for this. And if they also take Malkin on board, then we’ll surely get millions of dollars. Naturally, we saw a great desire of people to meet with Malkin, but he said: I don’t know what to answer on the project, so let's do it without any meetings.
. . . . .
What was the problem before the start? They did not want to bring MODA.MARK to the ICO, because they considered that there wasn’t much to collect on it. And the scale was needed. Therefore, the name MARK.SPACE was invented, the domain was bought by Anton, and in August, large-scale preparations for the ICO began.
. . . . .
So that at conferences both I and Denis could be “looked solid” in the eyes of potential investors, we both wrote “Co-Founder” on business cards.
. . . . .
Tikhonov, under various pretexts, tried not to shine and was not declared as a member of the project team. But his wife Yana Kontorovich did not want to dive into the details, and as a result, failed two interviews with the banks. When we tried to open accounts in Europe, they told her that she was not a CEO, but a figurehead, she knew nothing about the project, and they would not talk to her.
. . . . .
At the end of 2017, there was an unpleasant conversation with Strokatov Sr. He is a very serious guy. Strokatov yelled at his son and Tikhonov, demanding a return on invested money. The amounts were called different but in the region of 100 million rubles. Just before the ICO, he no longer bothered us, I don’t know why. Maybe he was promised a part of the money that will be collected on the token sale.
On March 1, 2018, the sale of tokens was officially stopped, but, as it turned out later, Denis did not stop there. He made a hidden deal with Singapore-based DU Capital for $ 10 million, about which a year later I talked over the phone. To the question “Where is the money then?” Denis sent it to Anton. Anton refused to answer the question and is still silent.
. . . . .
Then Tikhonov expands the staff of the MODA.MARK project, launches advertising campaigns, sponsors events. And all this with the money collected by MARK.SPACE, since neither Anton nor Yana, have any third-party income. Naturally, no one spoke to investors after the token sale about this expenditure of funds.
. . . . .
Tikhonov refuses to sign a contract with us, saying that he doesn’t like how the development is being carried out, that everything is too long and expensive (under the agreement he pledged to pay 120,000 euros per month), and he will think. Then he transfers all the employees to Site Makers LLC to “officially pay under the contract” and problems with money begin. From May they stop paying at all.
. . . . .
Neither Anton nor Denis answer the question about the constantly increasing turnover of tokens and also dispose of them for their purposes. So, for example, here on this wallet 0x56BCCde6E510Fc65831db653C00be831a10e5542 Yana and Anton sent 100 million tokens marked “Renat” [approx. - we assume that this is one of the employees of one of the crypto-exchangers in Moscow City]. There is a suspicion that this is due to tokenomics and the MRK token pumping. Also, all 300 million tokens that were supposed to be transferred to the development team, Anton appropriated to himself.
At the moment, Anton is liquidating the MODA.MARK office on Prospekt Mira, and is transferring everyone to his place in Moscow City to pass them off as MARK.SPACE employees.
He also has a debt of 9 million rubles to the Japanese representative office of MARK.SPACE JAPAN.
Some large investors came to Russia - Anton personally took money from them, and transferred tokens to them from his personal wallet. Everything happened besides the smart contract. And these investors are very unhappy and demand a refund.
. . . . .
P.S. It seems that Anton Tikhonov directly admits to manipulating the price of the MRK token, right?
Chapter 11. No one wants to answer.
It would be strange to confine ourselves only to conversations with Machikhin, Ershov, and Shamov. Therefore, we decided to contact the other defendants and ask them accumulated questions. The result was extremely predictable.
Nikolai Trotsyuk (Altstein) could not answer the calls.
Julia Trostyanskaya could not answer the calls.
Vladislav Utushkin declined to comment.
Strokatov Sr. asked to call back in five days.
Strokatov Jr. asked to call back the next day or ask questions to the commercial director of Trading House Diversus Yevgeny Trotsyuk. We also asked him to respond in writing to the list of questions provided to him. He said that he would answer questions on his return from a SUDDEN working trip.
Denis Polulyakhov, after a request to answer a list of questions, answered that he was undergoing treatment, and now has no opportunity to answer questions.
Yana Kontorovich answered the call, offered to arrange a videoconference the next day. However, at the appointed time, neither she nor Marina Danilyuk (MARK.SPACE lawyer), who was supposed to organize the call, did not appear online. Further, Yana asked questions in writing. Questions were provided to her. Then came a response from Arina Babushkina (MARK.SPACE secretary), who said that Tikhonov and Kontorovich were on vacation and would respond as soon as possible.
Anton Tikhonov asked me to send a list of questions, looked at them, but did not answer a single one.
Evgeni Malkin asked, "Why are you asking me questions if I did not permit an interview?" and refused to answer. Moreover, even before we wrote a message to Eugene, a certain Ildar contacted us. Ildar is designated as her agent on Instagram by Anna Kasterova (Malkin’s wife).
Presumably, we are talking about Giniyatov Ildar Irekovich, marketing director of the company BRIZO, engaged in the development of CRM systems.
Well, let there be one agent for two. However, Ildar introduced himself as follows: "I am responsible both for Eugene’s PR and advise him on business projects." WTF? Then, it turns out, questions to Eugene Malkin should be automatically addressed to Ildar personally. However, we are unlikely to get any answers from him.
Because he initially asked not to publish articles related to Malkin’s business in general. Then he requested a draft version of the material, because supposedly only after that the hockey star was ready to give his comments. Then he repeated, "Eugene personally requests not to release this material without agreeing on content relating to his business interests."
In the end, we were tired of it, and a list of questions was sent to both Ildar and Malkin directly. As a result, we got this answer: "Unfortunately, Evgeni is now at a training camp and is not available." WHAT???? In mid-October, amid the NHL season, in Miami and with the injury? Evgeni, is it time for you to change the agent for a person even a little smarter?
In the end, all this looks like a guilty plea.
Chapter 12. Questions to Evgeni Malkin.
1) What was the amount of investments on your part in joint projects with Alexander Strokatov, Nikolai Trotsyuk, Anton Tikhonov and Yana Kontorovich? In what form were they made (for example, a loan agreement)?
2) Have your investments in these joint projects paid off, especially in MODA.MARK (Mark.Moda) and MARK.SPACE? We ask this, given the fact that the legal entity in which you and your partners are co-founders does not seem to demonstrate at least some significant profit. Moreover, some legal entities look abandoned.
3) Did you understand the essence of the MARK.SPACE and MODA.MARK (Mark.Moda) projects, their financial model and payback periods? Don't you think that both of these projects were originally dead?
4) Is it true that you did not control the activities and expenses of the MODA.MARK (Mark.Moda) and MARK.SPACE project teams, as well as the activities of Singapore-based legal entity MARK.SPACE PTE, where you are a co-founder? Why did it happen? Why does MARK.SPACE PTE look empty and you cannot order financial statements from it?
5) Why does the RBC interview and the ICO Mark.Space advertising material indicates that you invested $ 4 million in this project if the project team members refute this, and this does not follow from the financial statements of legal entities?
6) Is it true that you received a reward of about 200 thousand dollars from the Uservice project for participating in their ICO?
8) How much have you personally earned at ICO MARK.SPACE? If you earned it, then in what form?
9) Have you reported to the IRS (US tax administration) as an American tax resident and an American citizen about your cryptocurrency assets (tokens and cryptocurrencies) and transactions with them, including ICOs? Did you know that this report is now mandatory in the US?
10) Do you know that as a US citizen, MARK.SPACE co-founder and Mark Space PTE co-founder, you should have registered the issue of tokens with the SEC before it started in the appropriate form? Do you know about collateral liability in the USA for violation of securities laws?
Chapter 13. Afterwords.
Theo Fleury, the Olympic champion and Stanley Cup winner, once said of Joe Sakic, a member of the hockey hall of fame, that in ordinary life, Joe seemed like a complete nerd. And he did not look like a superhero. But everything changed radically when Joe put on a hockey uniform and went on the ice. Something similar is happening with Evgeni Malkin. On the ice, especially when he is in the mood, this is an unstoppable attack monster. But in ordinary life ... See the headline.
Because a professional athlete in Russia is a big child who is used to being responsible and thinking only on the game field. And the rest of the time, someone else should think and answer. After that, this bad habit is regularly manifested both in the form of numerous criminal incidents and in the form of dubious business undertakings with no less dubious partners. Which end with either a loss of money ... Or a presence in court, sometimes ending in prison.
The most unpleasant thing for Malkin is that in this case, he has two options available at once. On the one hand, money was spent on projects where, apart from the words "spent", there is nothing else. On the other hand, the MARK.SPACE project has every chance of becoming a subject of research by law enforcement agencies of various countries on the subject of a) large scale fraud b) embezzlement c) money laundering d) violation of securities laws e) violations of tax laws. And all this within the framework of an organized criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), together with Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud).
Moreover, since we now know that Malkin has US citizenship, he has every chance of being responsible for the securities fraud / investment fraud under American law. Just enough that investors lied about the history of the project and the availability of rights to the domain and technical developments. This may result in, at best, a pre-trial agreement and a large fine. And at worst - a criminal sentence.
Malkin had to think in advance. Malkin had to understand what he could risk in the future.
He was obliged to think because the legal entities from this story are on him. Even if Evgeni turns out to be a victim, who was deceived and dragged into a dubious story by friends and acquaintances, the concept of subsidiary liability remains. This is when you are responsible with your money and property for the tricks of the company and those with whom you do business. This is what, among other things, brings the status of a businessman. Business is not easy. It can’t be combined with hockey. This is not a guaranteed income. Business is something that is not only joy. And sometimes extremely expensive. Especially if you do not use your head and believe everything that your partners say and write.
Now it remains only to ask the question: will Malkin follow the famous NHL player Sergey Berezin, who in 2015 was charged with his wife in the case of insurance fraud? Or will he follow the path of the former player of the Russian national team Igor Musatov, who ended up in a pre-trial detention center for fraud with cryptocurrency? By any means, MARK.SPACE investors should have enough questions for Eugene and his business partners to finally file complaints with the courts and law enforcement agencies.
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