What happened to the original MyCoin.hk platform?
The MyCoin name was associated with a Hong Kong bitcoin investment platform that stopped allowing customers to trade or withdraw assets in late 2014. The present website at mycoin.hk is an independent cryptocurrency information site. It is not the former platform, is not connected to its operators, and does not continue any of its investment programmes.
For a concise Chinese-language chronology, Facts.hk has published 30 documented facts about the MyCoin case. The distinction between reported claims and confirmed police figures matters, because the largest number repeated in headlines was an estimate rather than a verified loss total.
The platform and the first complaints
Contemporary reports described MyCoin as a Hong Kong-based bitcoin trading and investment platform. Its own website called it a leading global bitcoin trading and application service provider and referred to a China-based research and development team. Those descriptions came from the business itself; they were not an endorsement by a regulator.
The clearest official chronology appears in a March 2015 answer to Hong Kong's Legislative Council. According to the government, complainants said they had participated in bitcoin trading through a local company from early 2014. By December 2014, their accounts no longer worked. They could neither withdraw nor trade the bitcoin shown in those accounts.
The issue became public in February 2015 when customers approached Legislative Council member Leung Yiu-chung. Around 30 people were initially reported to have sought his help. On 11 February, 43 customers filed police reports, and the number continued to rise.
Why the early HK$3 billion figure needs context
Many headlines said as much as HK$3 billion might be missing. That figure was derived from an earlier MyCoin claim that it had 3,000 customers, combined with an assumed average investment of HK$1 million each. It was not a police tally of proven losses.
By 25 March 2015, the Hong Kong government said that more than 100 people had reported the matter to police and that the amount involved in those reports totalled HK$180 million. Both figures belong in the historical record, but they describe different things: HK$3 billion was an extrapolation based on a company claim, while HK$180 million was the total attached to reports received by police at that point.
The returns and recruitment described by customers
Reuters and other outlets reported that some customers had been offered an arrangement in which HK$400,000 was said to produce HK$1 million after four months, described in some versions as 90 bitcoins at maturity. Customers also told reporters that they were encouraged to bring in new participants and that recruitment rewards could include cash or a Mercedes-Benz vehicle.
Other reported features included a lack of formal receipts, instructions to place acquired bitcoin on a separate site to earn interest, and claims that MyCoin would list on the Hong Kong stock exchange. These accounts led customers and news organisations to describe the operation as having pyramid- or Ponzi-like characteristics. They are allegations and reported descriptions, not a substitute for a court judgment.
The police investigation
The Hong Kong Police Commercial Crime Bureau took over the investigation. The government's March 2015 response said officers searched several locations and seized computers, tablets, mobile phones and account records.
By that date, two men and four women aged between 34 and 55 had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. They were released on bail pending further investigation. An arrest establishes that police suspect an offence; it does not establish guilt.
What regulators said at the time
On 11 February 2015, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said the incident might involve fraud or inducement to join a pyramid scheme, while declining to comment on the specific case. It repeated that bitcoin was not legal tender, called it a virtual commodity, and said bitcoin and similar virtual commodities were not regulated by the HKMA.
The authority also warned that bitcoin had no physical or issuer backing and was highly volatile. The government's later Legislative Council answer said that existing laws could still apply to fraud, money laundering and unlicensed money-service activity even though bitcoin itself was not treated as electronic money.
Why this history is disclosed here
Domain names can outlive the organisations that first used them. A later registrant does not inherit the former operator, customer accounts, liabilities or business. This site publishes general information about cryptocurrency networks and does not offer the old MyCoin service.
Keeping the history visible is more useful than pretending the name has no past. Readers researching the 2015 case should start with the official Hong Kong government record, distinguish estimates from reported losses, and avoid assuming that a current website is the same organisation merely because it uses the same domain.
Sources
- Hong Kong Government: regulation of bitcoin trading activities, 25 March 2015
- Hong Kong Monetary Authority risk reminder, 11 February 2015
- Reuters: Hong Kong warning amid the alleged bitcoin fraud, 9 February 2015
- CoinDesk: reports of MyCoin's closure, 9 February 2015
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