What is PLC Ultima (PLCU)?

We’ve seen an increase in interest in PLC Ultima (PLCU), a crypto coin that a lot of people are talking about. So, naturally we did some digging to find out what it is. What we found are a few red flags.

Some red flags about PLC Ultima (PLCU) are the following features of the project:

1. Privately mined/staking blockchain 
2. Pay to mint packages
3. Extremely high commission MLM scheme 
4. Extravagant lifestyle marketing
5. Little to no use cases for the token

Let’s take a closer look at each and why you may also want to be on the lookout for any of these red flags. 

Privately owned blockchain

PLCU offers paid packages to be able to mint tokens. These packages currently range anywhere from 110 Euro to 550,000 Euro. It is unknown how the blockchain (if it is a blockchain) works behind the scenes. It looks like you are paying the company behind PLCU for the rights to mint new tokens.

This is not how blockchains operate. Blockchains are validated publicly by anyone through nodes (individual computers in a network). The fact that anyone is able to partake in validation means that the blockchain can never be manipulated or controlled by a single entity, corporation, or government.

The PLCU blockchain is said to be based on the Litecoin blockchain. Yet we have not been able to find any proof of its operations, or instructions on how to operate a  PLCU network node. Its decentralised aspect is not easy to prove or verify.

Pay to mint packages

Never in our experience within the crypto industry have we seen a system in place where you pay a company to have rights to mint new tokens. 

What about proof of stake blockchains? Don’t I need to ‘stake’ (deposit) some crypto in order to mint new cryptos?

On proof of stake blockchains, network participants deposit their crypto into a smart contract. A smart contract is a special type of wallet (crypto account) that works automatically and follows the blockchain’s protocol without human intervention. This ensures that your staked crypto funds are safe and available to you if you ever need to withdraw them. 

In the case with PLC Ultima, you are paying a company to earn the rights to mint new tokens. Not only can you not verify that this fund is used for anything beneficial to the blockchain (i.e. converted into staked crypto), you’re also trusting a single entity to do this for you.

Remember: Blockchains are essentially trustless — you don’t have to trust anyone to be honest actors, instead you verify that they are honest and obey network protocol. 

MLM bonuses

From our research, the biggest winners from PLCU are not people minting PLCU in large quantities. It’s those who actually refer large amounts of new users that invest into the minting packages (see above). Highest level referrers can receive bonuses over 10 million Euro.

When a package for minting PLCU tokens is purchased, up to 45% of that purchase is paid to the upline above you of referrers.

This generally results in a strong “selling culture” where users are heavily incentivised to sign up new investors. Where the remainder value of purchase goes outside of referral, commission is unknown.

PLCU has multiple different bonus schemes for users who refer to huge amounts of new customers and investing volume. Videos on the PLCU YouTube channel of users celebrating in corporate events with catering and luxury vehicles can be seen. 

This seems like a successful operation to the eye of anyone at first glance. However, diving deeper into how this is being funded starts to point back to the selling of minting licences.

Users refer new users to buy minting packages, a portion of the purchase goes to the upline of referrers and the remaining goes to the company behind PLCU.

Extravagant lifestyle and spending image

PLCU seems to be marketed as a never ending money tree for those who take part in its minting system. With large conferences held globally, audiences dressed in high end clothing, supercars, massive bonuses and premium debit cards, the selling of financial dreams is strong.

Once again though, where is this money being sourced from? Where does the funding for extravagant events and luxury supercars, 10m+ MLM bonuses come from?

This is a major concern surrounding PLCU that we have identified. Although users can purchase packages to mint PLCU, the revenue source of this entire ecosystem is referring more users to invest and receiving a commission of their investment. 

Little to no use cases for the token

Apart from buying PLCU to then freeze it to mint more PLCU, there seems to be no other main use cases for demand for this coin. This is reliant on new investors buying minting packages and then buying PLCU to freeze and mint more tokens.

For example, I buy 0.1 PLCU at $7000 a coin, so $700 to freeze and mint new PLCU. After a year, that 0.1 PLCU I froze could be worth far less or more depending on how many people are buying vs selling PLCU, but I have also minted PLCU in this time resulting in me having more than the 0.1 PLCU that I purchased. This means that overtime there is more PLCU in the hands of people likely to sell it, trying to find new investors to sell it onto. 

Over time as fewer and fewer people join PLCU, this model will start to slow down. The system is reliant on new investors joining to keep the value of the PLCU token alive.

Minting of PLCU adds more to the supply making the token less and less scarce, needing more buyers for its value to increase.

Meanwhile both referrers and the company behind PLCU are making money from selling minting packages and are not really reliant on the price of PLCU to make money.

Takeaways

Based on our research, we have strong evidence that PLC Ultima is running a kind of pyramid scheme, whereby profits generated by the company rely on new members that buy rights to mint PLC token.

The way the PLC Ultima is portrayed on social media is eerily similar to Bitconnect, a proven multi-level marketing fraud that halted operations in 2018.

This gives us reasons to warn investors to beware of PLC Ultima. If you’re still interested in this cryptocurrency, we highly suggest that you do further research on its protocol implementation, and to read through other technical documentations less the whitepaper, if any is provided.

Disclaimer:

Information is current as at the date of publication.  This is information only and not intended to be advice.  Please do your own research.