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Blackmoon crypto due diligence

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Agoroplevra Palikari

The document provides a critical analysis of the Blackmoon Crypto ICO from an investment research group called "The Buy-Sidekicks". Some of the key points made in the summary include: - Blackmoon Financial has only existed as a registered company since 2016, not the 3 years that the founder claims. - The document casts doubt on Blackmoon Financial's investment track record due to it being unaudited. - The founder has limited venture capital experience outside of Russia and his experience has been exaggerated. - Questions are raised about the past claims and activities of Flint Capital, where the founder previously worked. - Concerns are expressed that Blackmoon's whitepaper is more of

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Blackmoon Crypto Be Careful, Your Capital Is At Risk Why we think BMC could be a fraud. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
Who We Are We are a small group of investment professionals working in London on the buy-side. We have been particularly taken aback by the recent euphoria surrounding ICOs which we have concluded many are fraudulent. Blackmoon Crypto is particularly interesting because: 1. Their investment case is predicated on the belief that investment managers the buy-side will want or need their services. We doubt this very much and believe there is much scope for Blackmoon to mislead in this regard because they are marketing to people with no knowledge or understanding of investment management and the buy-side i.e. they are marketing to unqualified investors. 2. Their marketing is very professional and as such we believe they have strong backing and we believe this is a deliberate attempt to mislead. We do not wish to see the reputation of the ICO market further tarnished. Please note, where we have used screenshots participants have shared with us from the Blackmoon Crypto Telegram group. We have blanked out usernames to maintain anonymity of people posting apart from the Blackmoon team. We are keen observers of multiple ICO telegram groups and will be releasing similar work in the future. Please refer to us as, The Buy-Sidekicks
Summary We make a number of statements, and provide verifiable evidence to back these up in this document: Blackmoon Financial has only existed as a registered company since June 2016, not 3 years and 2 months like the founder claims. We are highly sceptical of Blackmoon Financials track record of investment management owing to their unaudited track record which is used in their marketing of Blackmoon crypto. The founder of Blackmoon has no strong VC or Private Equity experience outside of Russia and his experience has been extremely hyped up. At best we can tell he was a management consultant. Flint Capital, where Oleg Seydak worked at in the past, made false claims regarding its size and scale. We believe Flint Capital has mislead with respect to its claim to have invested in LendingClub. Who is Dmitry Smirnov and what was his role at Finam Global? Blackmoons whitepaper is not a whitepaper it is a marketing document. As such, there is nothing special regarding Blackmoon. We welcome clarifying statements with evidence to these allegations from the Blackmoon team.
BLACKMOON FINANCIAL HAS ONLY EXISTED FOR 2 YEARS, NOT 3 YEARS LIKE THE FOUNDER CLAIMS. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
https://search.cro.ie/company/CompanyDetail s.aspx?id=583698&type=C Blackmoon Financial was incorporated in 2016 how can it have a track record from 2014?
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20150417191532/https://blackmoonfg.com Using web.archive.org we show that Blackmoon Financial https://blackmoonfg.com/ was actually called BFG Capital earliest record is April 17th 2015: Amazing yet unsubstantiated claims
WE ARE HIGHLY SCEPTICAL OF BLACKMOON FINANCIALS TRACK RECORD AND OF INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
https://blackmooncrypto.com/bmc_whitepaper_170911_v1.18.pdf From the BMC Whitepaper, BFG has no proven track record of delivering solid double digit returns as this track record is unaudited. That is rule #1 when looking at investment performancethe track record needs to be audited and GIPS compliant. No proven investment track record
This is a spurious claim no investment manager would pay 2% for fund administration. Hedge funds pay MUCH less e.g. 0.20% pa. of assets under management would be considered high https://blackmooncrypto.com/bmc_whitepaper_170911_v1.18.pdf page 17 We doubt Blackmoon understand their own business modelor the sector the claim to want to service
THE FOUNDER OF BLACKMOON HAS NO STRONG VC OR PRIVATE EQUITY EXPERIENCE OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA THIS HAS BEEN EXTREMELY HYPED. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
From Oleg Seydaks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olegseydak/ On Telegram he said he left Flint Capital in 2015, why is he still there on LinkedIn? We know this was incorporated in Ireland in 2016 and was a loan financing company in Eastern Europe Oleg makes it look like he was working on BMC for 3 years
From Oleg Seydaks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olegseydak/ It looks like Oleg has never worked at any single firm for more 2 years apart from Blackmoon Financial (which we have shown previously was incorporated in Ireland in 2016) and Flint Capitalbut he claims he doesnt actually work for Flint, rather he was a Non Executive Co-founding Partner However according to Flint Capitals website, 2 years ago Oleg was a partner (next slide). Being non-executive means he would not have actually been working for Flint, sourcing deals etc. rather played an advisory role. All 1 year All 1 year, 4 months 1 year, 4 months 1 year, 7 months How does one go from a Client Relationship Manager (sales job) to a Senior Consultant in Managemnet consulting company which is a spurious company name? This is all part of working at Finam, see slide 14.
Oleg was a Partner at Flint just 2 years ago. Flint was much smaller back then We would like to understand Flint Capitals source of funding?
From Oleg Seydaks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olegseydak/ A participant asked Oleg, What kind of Venture Capital Track Record do you have? Oleg worked at Finam for 1 yeardoubtful he managed many deals in 1 year as he was busy advising.
Olegs profile on flintcap.com from September 2014 explains he has considerable experience in banking and consulting sectors. Managing positions in VC funds since 2011 but how can he have considerable experience considering he did not run any VC funds himself . He most likely performed management consulting.
Flint Capital website in 2014
FLINT CAPITAL, WHERE OLEG SEYDAK WORKED AT IN THE PAST, MADE FALSE CLAIMS REGARDING ITS SIZE AND SCALE. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
On Flint Capitals current website, http://www.flintcap.com/ they state it was founded in 2013 with $30m in committed capital, but back in 2013, they claimed to have $50m committed capital:
They also claimed to have $1.2bn in projects and 20 years experience.difficult to verify20 years between Dmitry and Oleg? Look at their linkedin profiles.
Flint Capital in 2014 Please note, this project list does not include LendingClubnote the dates on these is 28 September 2014
On August 27, 2014, Lending Club filed for an IPO with the SEC https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1409970/000119312514323136/d766811ds1.htm 17 December 2014: LendingClub appears as their project: Wow!!
From Flint Capitals website as of 11 September 2017 LendingClub IPO! Unless Flint Capital bought the IPO when LendingClub was listedwhich anyone could have, we cannot find any evidence from SEC filings they participated in the actual listing of the stock.
WHO IS DMITRY SMIRNOV AND HIS ROLE AT FINAM GLOBAL? ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
Who is Dmitry Smirnov? This is the Russian entrepreneur and politician, Dmirty Smirnov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Smirnov_(entrepreneur) - its very easy for people to confuse the 2. They are not the same person. Here is VC Dmitrys linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitrysmirnov2/?ppe=1 The company he was CEO of for 6 years from Aug 2007 to Sept 2013 (and Oleg worked there for a year) was Finam Global Investments, which is no longer operational: http://www.finamglobal.com/error/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_fla gship3_company%3BPEAO2igEQ3GHaMl0yBCwPw%3D%3D Finam Global (https://www.linkedin.com/company/2576763/ ), is not the same as Finam Investment Bank (https://www.linkedin.com/company/44102/ ) or Finam Capital. Finam Global has 15 employees on linkedin, Finam Investment Bank has 410 employees on Linkedin.
Finam Global company structure source: Factset Finam Global, where Dmitry was CEO Finam Technology Fund ETF (great track record with Badoo)
Finam Capital was the entity within Finam Global that ran their Technology VC funds. Fortunately, we can see who the management team of Finam Capital were: No mention of Dmitry or Oleg??!!
Finam Capital had 3 investment pools; 1) Direct 2) Technology Fund 1 ETF and 3) Technology Fund II L.P, an offshore vehicle.
The ETF was successful, but theres no way we can be sure who worked on whatall we know is that the ETF launched in 2005 and had its big success in 2008. Dmitry was CEO of Finam Global from August 2007, so doubtful he had a significant impact on the early deals...
WE VISITED FLINT CAPITAL IN LONDON ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
We visited Flint Capitals London Office Theyre in a We Work centre costs 贈400 a month for a desknot what you would expect from a successful Venture Capital firm managing to raise $100m+ Petr Zhegin is the only Flint Capital employee on the roster. https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter- zhegin-526a993/?ppe=1 Hes got 3 years work experience (2 at Flint) and hes running their London Office? Not bad... Why is Flint Capital so desperate to hype up their image? Perhaps because they need to for the ICO?
BLACKMOONS WHITEPAPER & WEBSITE ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
Whitepaper & Website Contains no technical text just diagrams of structures which are meaningless. Has great images of astronauts (like Gemini Exchange?), Owles, Rockets all made to look fractal and techy. Theres even a wall-street bull! Deloittes logo is being used we wonder if they realise that? At least they explain on page 31, 20% of the tokens issued are going straight to the Team & advisers Financial projections on page 33 are far too precisethis is a red flag. https://youtu.be/DaEaAqJQGJY great video of Oleg speaking to a fake audience with a robotic voice
What is special about Blackmoon? We found the questions of one user particularly pertinent: Im trying to understand what is exclusive to Blackmoon Crypto? We found the responses interesting and we provide our commentary in red: #1: Speaking of big players, they are more likely to buy companies, rather than create something from scratch Sergey trying to hype up BCM by intimating that Blackmoon could be bought by a bigger player #2 the participant was not happy with the response received, Oleg responded because they want it and cant do it themselves this is a big assumption (they want it) and doesnt answer the question asked. #3: question asked again, the response is again without foundation or evidence. Olegs statement about tokenization being 10 times cheaper is completely unfounded, he provides no facts to back this up. #1 #2 #3 #4 Oleg: There is no things that can not be replicated i.e. Nothing is unique to BMC Oleg: Perhaps we just believe in our vision and do our best i.e. every man for himself once weve collected 50% of the ICO proceeds.
Summary By investing in the Blackmoon ICO, you are: Giving 20% of the money you commit to the project to the founders and their advisors immediately, upfront. The other 30% goes to the company, which could pay it to the employees (themselves) on day 1. Thats 50%. Buying into a team which has provided misleading information about their experience. Buying a token which is not a security (according to the founder) but somehow gives the bearer the right to the profits of the platformumm ok? Howey test anyone? Buying into a team expecting to make inroads into the buy-side asset management community with no actual experience of that community, nor the legal and regulatory framework (team is all Russian, unregulated in the USA and Europe which is where 90% of the buy-side and assets are located). Buying into zero competitive advantage in the founders own words they possess nothing that cant be copied, no patents or technology, just greed masquerading as innovation.

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Blackmoon crypto due diligence

  • 1. Blackmoon Crypto Be Careful, Your Capital Is At Risk Why we think BMC could be a fraud. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 2. Who We Are We are a small group of investment professionals working in London on the buy-side. We have been particularly taken aback by the recent euphoria surrounding ICOs which we have concluded many are fraudulent. Blackmoon Crypto is particularly interesting because: 1. Their investment case is predicated on the belief that investment managers the buy-side will want or need their services. We doubt this very much and believe there is much scope for Blackmoon to mislead in this regard because they are marketing to people with no knowledge or understanding of investment management and the buy-side i.e. they are marketing to unqualified investors. 2. Their marketing is very professional and as such we believe they have strong backing and we believe this is a deliberate attempt to mislead. We do not wish to see the reputation of the ICO market further tarnished. Please note, where we have used screenshots participants have shared with us from the Blackmoon Crypto Telegram group. We have blanked out usernames to maintain anonymity of people posting apart from the Blackmoon team. We are keen observers of multiple ICO telegram groups and will be releasing similar work in the future. Please refer to us as, The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 3. Summary We make a number of statements, and provide verifiable evidence to back these up in this document: Blackmoon Financial has only existed as a registered company since June 2016, not 3 years and 2 months like the founder claims. We are highly sceptical of Blackmoon Financials track record of investment management owing to their unaudited track record which is used in their marketing of Blackmoon crypto. The founder of Blackmoon has no strong VC or Private Equity experience outside of Russia and his experience has been extremely hyped up. At best we can tell he was a management consultant. Flint Capital, where Oleg Seydak worked at in the past, made false claims regarding its size and scale. We believe Flint Capital has mislead with respect to its claim to have invested in LendingClub. Who is Dmitry Smirnov and what was his role at Finam Global? Blackmoons whitepaper is not a whitepaper it is a marketing document. As such, there is nothing special regarding Blackmoon. We welcome clarifying statements with evidence to these allegations from the Blackmoon team.
  • 4. BLACKMOON FINANCIAL HAS ONLY EXISTED FOR 2 YEARS, NOT 3 YEARS LIKE THE FOUNDER CLAIMS. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 5. https://search.cro.ie/company/CompanyDetail s.aspx?id=583698&type=C Blackmoon Financial was incorporated in 2016 how can it have a track record from 2014?
  • 6. Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20150417191532/https://blackmoonfg.com Using web.archive.org we show that Blackmoon Financial https://blackmoonfg.com/ was actually called BFG Capital earliest record is April 17th 2015: Amazing yet unsubstantiated claims
  • 7. WE ARE HIGHLY SCEPTICAL OF BLACKMOON FINANCIALS TRACK RECORD AND OF INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 8. https://blackmooncrypto.com/bmc_whitepaper_170911_v1.18.pdf From the BMC Whitepaper, BFG has no proven track record of delivering solid double digit returns as this track record is unaudited. That is rule #1 when looking at investment performancethe track record needs to be audited and GIPS compliant. No proven investment track record
  • 9. This is a spurious claim no investment manager would pay 2% for fund administration. Hedge funds pay MUCH less e.g. 0.20% pa. of assets under management would be considered high https://blackmooncrypto.com/bmc_whitepaper_170911_v1.18.pdf page 17 We doubt Blackmoon understand their own business modelor the sector the claim to want to service
  • 10. THE FOUNDER OF BLACKMOON HAS NO STRONG VC OR PRIVATE EQUITY EXPERIENCE OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA THIS HAS BEEN EXTREMELY HYPED. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 11. From Oleg Seydaks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olegseydak/ On Telegram he said he left Flint Capital in 2015, why is he still there on LinkedIn? We know this was incorporated in Ireland in 2016 and was a loan financing company in Eastern Europe Oleg makes it look like he was working on BMC for 3 years
  • 12. From Oleg Seydaks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olegseydak/ It looks like Oleg has never worked at any single firm for more 2 years apart from Blackmoon Financial (which we have shown previously was incorporated in Ireland in 2016) and Flint Capitalbut he claims he doesnt actually work for Flint, rather he was a Non Executive Co-founding Partner However according to Flint Capitals website, 2 years ago Oleg was a partner (next slide). Being non-executive means he would not have actually been working for Flint, sourcing deals etc. rather played an advisory role. All 1 year All 1 year, 4 months 1 year, 4 months 1 year, 7 months How does one go from a Client Relationship Manager (sales job) to a Senior Consultant in Managemnet consulting company which is a spurious company name? This is all part of working at Finam, see slide 14.
  • 13. Oleg was a Partner at Flint just 2 years ago. Flint was much smaller back then We would like to understand Flint Capitals source of funding?
  • 14. From Oleg Seydaks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olegseydak/ A participant asked Oleg, What kind of Venture Capital Track Record do you have? Oleg worked at Finam for 1 yeardoubtful he managed many deals in 1 year as he was busy advising.
  • 15. Olegs profile on flintcap.com from September 2014 explains he has considerable experience in banking and consulting sectors. Managing positions in VC funds since 2011 but how can he have considerable experience considering he did not run any VC funds himself . He most likely performed management consulting.
  • 17. FLINT CAPITAL, WHERE OLEG SEYDAK WORKED AT IN THE PAST, MADE FALSE CLAIMS REGARDING ITS SIZE AND SCALE. ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 18. On Flint Capitals current website, http://www.flintcap.com/ they state it was founded in 2013 with $30m in committed capital, but back in 2013, they claimed to have $50m committed capital:
  • 19. They also claimed to have $1.2bn in projects and 20 years experience.difficult to verify20 years between Dmitry and Oleg? Look at their linkedin profiles.
  • 20. Flint Capital in 2014 Please note, this project list does not include LendingClubnote the dates on these is 28 September 2014
  • 21. On August 27, 2014, Lending Club filed for an IPO with the SEC https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1409970/000119312514323136/d766811ds1.htm 17 December 2014: LendingClub appears as their project: Wow!!
  • 22. From Flint Capitals website as of 11 September 2017 LendingClub IPO! Unless Flint Capital bought the IPO when LendingClub was listedwhich anyone could have, we cannot find any evidence from SEC filings they participated in the actual listing of the stock.
  • 23. WHO IS DMITRY SMIRNOV AND HIS ROLE AT FINAM GLOBAL? ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 24. Who is Dmitry Smirnov? This is the Russian entrepreneur and politician, Dmirty Smirnov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Smirnov_(entrepreneur) - its very easy for people to confuse the 2. They are not the same person. Here is VC Dmitrys linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitrysmirnov2/?ppe=1 The company he was CEO of for 6 years from Aug 2007 to Sept 2013 (and Oleg worked there for a year) was Finam Global Investments, which is no longer operational: http://www.finamglobal.com/error/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_fla gship3_company%3BPEAO2igEQ3GHaMl0yBCwPw%3D%3D Finam Global (https://www.linkedin.com/company/2576763/ ), is not the same as Finam Investment Bank (https://www.linkedin.com/company/44102/ ) or Finam Capital. Finam Global has 15 employees on linkedin, Finam Investment Bank has 410 employees on Linkedin.
  • 25. Finam Global company structure source: Factset Finam Global, where Dmitry was CEO Finam Technology Fund ETF (great track record with Badoo)
  • 26. Finam Capital was the entity within Finam Global that ran their Technology VC funds. Fortunately, we can see who the management team of Finam Capital were: No mention of Dmitry or Oleg??!!
  • 27. Finam Capital had 3 investment pools; 1) Direct 2) Technology Fund 1 ETF and 3) Technology Fund II L.P, an offshore vehicle.
  • 28. The ETF was successful, but theres no way we can be sure who worked on whatall we know is that the ETF launched in 2005 and had its big success in 2008. Dmitry was CEO of Finam Global from August 2007, so doubtful he had a significant impact on the early deals...
  • 29. WE VISITED FLINT CAPITAL IN LONDON ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 30. We visited Flint Capitals London Office Theyre in a We Work centre costs 贈400 a month for a desknot what you would expect from a successful Venture Capital firm managing to raise $100m+ Petr Zhegin is the only Flint Capital employee on the roster. https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter- zhegin-526a993/?ppe=1 Hes got 3 years work experience (2 at Flint) and hes running their London Office? Not bad... Why is Flint Capital so desperate to hype up their image? Perhaps because they need to for the ICO?
  • 31. BLACKMOONS WHITEPAPER & WEBSITE ICO Research from: The Buy-Sidekicks
  • 32. Whitepaper & Website Contains no technical text just diagrams of structures which are meaningless. Has great images of astronauts (like Gemini Exchange?), Owles, Rockets all made to look fractal and techy. Theres even a wall-street bull! Deloittes logo is being used we wonder if they realise that? At least they explain on page 31, 20% of the tokens issued are going straight to the Team & advisers Financial projections on page 33 are far too precisethis is a red flag. https://youtu.be/DaEaAqJQGJY great video of Oleg speaking to a fake audience with a robotic voice
  • 33. What is special about Blackmoon? We found the questions of one user particularly pertinent: Im trying to understand what is exclusive to Blackmoon Crypto? We found the responses interesting and we provide our commentary in red: #1: Speaking of big players, they are more likely to buy companies, rather than create something from scratch Sergey trying to hype up BCM by intimating that Blackmoon could be bought by a bigger player #2 the participant was not happy with the response received, Oleg responded because they want it and cant do it themselves this is a big assumption (they want it) and doesnt answer the question asked. #3: question asked again, the response is again without foundation or evidence. Olegs statement about tokenization being 10 times cheaper is completely unfounded, he provides no facts to back this up. #1 #2 #3 #4 Oleg: There is no things that can not be replicated i.e. Nothing is unique to BMC Oleg: Perhaps we just believe in our vision and do our best i.e. every man for himself once weve collected 50% of the ICO proceeds.
  • 34. Summary By investing in the Blackmoon ICO, you are: Giving 20% of the money you commit to the project to the founders and their advisors immediately, upfront. The other 30% goes to the company, which could pay it to the employees (themselves) on day 1. Thats 50%. Buying into a team which has provided misleading information about their experience. Buying a token which is not a security (according to the founder) but somehow gives the bearer the right to the profits of the platformumm ok? Howey test anyone? Buying into a team expecting to make inroads into the buy-side asset management community with no actual experience of that community, nor the legal and regulatory framework (team is all Russian, unregulated in the USA and Europe which is where 90% of the buy-side and assets are located). Buying into zero competitive advantage in the founders own words they possess nothing that cant be copied, no patents or technology, just greed masquerading as innovation.