Netflix’s newly released documentary film ‘Bitconned’ is now streaming on Netflix. The film is around 100 minutes long, and it tells us the story of a company called Centra Tech. The company was formed in 2017, and it raised more than 27 million dollars in the name of a cryptocurrency exchange company. Here, we are going to tell you more about the Centra Tech website and the current status of the company.
The company was started by Ray Tripani and another guy named Sam Sharma. The company was started back in 2017 with a simple website and domain name ‘Centra.tech’. As per the company profile, the company claims to work as a bridge between cryptocurrencies and the e-commerce market. Centra Tech promises to offer a credit card through which users can directly shop and buy products, and the money will be debited from the crypto wallet.
The idea of the company was unique, but the company was completely fraudulent. The profiles were complete fraud, and the company owner’s degree was also a lie. Centra Tech posted on the website that they are tied up with VISA to make cards, and they promise their users that their cards will be delivered by December 2017. Few crypto expert YouTubers also fell into this trap, and they promoted the company on their YouTube channel and vlog, and very soon Centra Tech started gaining attention from the general public.
More than 10 million dollars were raised by the general public in ICO, and the general public had no idea about the scam. It was the New York Times news reporter Nathaniel Popper who suspected that this company might turn out to be a fraud. When he started investigating the issue, he was shocked to know that VISA had not made any deal with Centra Tech. Upon further investigation, he came to know that the CEO of Centra Tech is also fake, and all the degrees and achievements of its core team were also lies.
In all these allegations and everything, Centra Tech continued to work, and they received funding of more than 15 million dollars from a South Korea-based company. When the demands of the general public started rising, the FBI got involved in the case, and they arrested all three founders of the company.
Now, many of you may ask me a question about what happened to Centra Tech, what was its original website, and what happened to the website and company after that.
The company was declared a scam by the government, and its founders were given jail for fraud and online scam. Sam Sharma was given 8 years of prison, while Ray Tripani was acquitted with a short imprisonment for cooperating with the government and officials. The company was shut down in 2018, and the domain and website were also discontinued.
The domain Centra.tech is registered with GoDaddy, and there is no active website on it. The website was also shut down back in 2018.
Hope you got a clear idea about what happened to Centra Tech’s website and company. What are your takes on this? Please let us know in the comments.