ADK: Exposed

Aidos Kuneen (aidoskuneen.com) will probably gain some popularity after people read the article on CoinTelegraph about their founder claiming that ICOs and token crowdsales are unnecessary. I decided to do some research:

Background

Aidos Kuneen (ADK) "is an open source project that focuses on privacy, decentralization and scalability" according to their website. It will allow its users "to spend their tokens freely without any fear of being tracked or tainted", and "will also be ready to be used with and plugged into the Internet of Things, enabling participation in an ecosystem of billions of devices". The website claims that ADK is "basically the best" because of three features: no fees, anonymity, and the technology being open source.

The founder is Ricardo Badoer, who appears to have a background in finance and banking. According to his LinkedIn profile he lives in Madrid, Spain, and has a few corporations that appear to be registered in Panama.

Given this information (and the fact that it seems a little too much like IOTA), I looked further.

Part 1: Badoer's background is shady

Because I'm not on LinkedIn, I couldn't find a significant amount of information on his LinkedIn page. I googled him and found this page that lists the other companies he's worked in. A quick Google search yields nothing for the company SwedeCoins, and searching for Caixarico shows a website that seems to have been archived by an indexing service. The site shows information for caixarico.com here. It appears to be a bank "registered in Panama with license for handling third party funds and also offering other financial services worldwide,offline and online". It is now a gambling site. I'm not sure what happened there. Sounds shady? Let's look closer.

Remember the Panama Papers? They were a group of documents leaked in 2015 that showed the existence of shell corporations in Panama that were used for fraud and tax evasion. Panama is known for its lack of transparency and regulations in the finance industry. According to Wikipedia, Panama (along with Vanatu and Lebanon) follows none of the following guidelines set by the OECD for international banking cooperation:

• information exchange on request
• a signed multilateral agreement on information standards
• a commitment to implement automated information exchange in 2017 or 2018

As a result Panama may be blacklisted by the EU and/or G20. So what? Remember that Badoer's corporations are registered in Panama. This could be because setting up shell corporations is very easy there, and the lack of transparency provides secrecy for those involved. Judging by the lack of information shown online about these corporations, it's likely that they're shell corporations. I won't speculate on what they may have been/are being used for. 

Part 2: ADK itself does not appear to be legit

I'd first like to disclose that I am an investor in the IOTA token and an involved member of their Slack group. I have tried to maintain a neutral stance in this article, but some bias may slip out.

ADK's code can be considered plagiarised from IOTA's code. They are beyond similar, so I decided to create a guide on how to create ADK or your own IOTA copycat:

1. Clone IOTA's code
2. Use find and replace to replace every mention of IOTA with your own name
3. Upload it to GitHub and claim it as your own

And that's precisely what ADK has done. While IOTA is open source, ADK has not given credit to IOTA and has therefore violated the terms of the GPL license that IOTA gives with their code. They claim that an IOTA developer is now working with them, but when I asked them in Slack they said the developer (and most of the team) wanted to remain anonymous.

ADK also does not have a real whitepaper. I asked in their Slack group where the whitepaper was, and they linked me here. First, this is not a real whitepaper. IOTA's whitepaper is much more detailed in the description of the Tangle technology and its benefits over the blockchain. ADK's whitepaper is very sparse. If you've used IOTA, the technology sounds too familiar. Similarities aside, there are fundamental issues with the whitepaper. They claim that the total supply of tokens is 25 million, with no premining and no mining. I'm not sure where these tokens are coming from then, since coinmarketcap.com cites ADK with a circulating supply of ~8.9 million tokens. Where are the other 16.1 million? The existence of the coin becomes even shadier: their only exchange is Aidos Market, an exchange run by the ADK Foundation but appears to not have a real address or location. Sounds even shadier.

I and a few others asked the users in the Slack a few questions:

How is ADK different from IOTA?

"CEO, logo, name, CEO's experience, no ICO"

"IOTA is fucking gay, that's what"

"diffrents:  25,000,000 ADK supply, ADK is made for Humans and not mixers, toasters and ovens, AKshuffle / tor /i2p that makes Aidos even more anon "

 Ok, so the technology is the same then? 

 "yes, both are same tech ( DAG ) "

 And what's this about not being made for mixers, toasters, and ovens? 

 "well, It is bit of a joke. As IOTA says they are the future and they are part of Iot and thir vision is to have mixers, toasters etc to send others tokens "

 "Not going into it as I do not want to bad mouth them "

Another user typed up a quick overview:

 "What is so great about Aidos Kuneen (ADK)? 

There is a fixed supply of 25 million tokens (no more will ever exist) 

Versus IOTA with a supply of over a quadrillion (there are enough tokens for the entire world to have at least 300k IOTA tokens each. 

There are over 7 billion people on the planet 

This is an anonymous token which uses DAG technology, it is untraceable and hence there is no rich list. Furthermore additional layers of anonymity will be added to make this token the most secure token in existence. 

Another protocol called AK Shuffle will be implemented as an additional layer of anonymity ADK will have it’s own casino which you can use to mix the tokens and further anonymize it A network of offshore banks owned by ADK Foundation will be used to house your ADK value. The Aidos foundation will have a network of offshore banks which will accept ADK tokens, and will be able to convert them to fiat on demand. 

You will be issued an Aidos Kuneen Debit card which you can then use to purchase anything you wish. The true balance of your wealth will never be known since you only convert to fiat what you wish. The founder of Aidos Kuneen is Mr. Ricardo Badoer, he is an offshore banker for over 20 years and is an early BTC investor. He is not in this for the money, it is more about legacy and creating something that will truly change the world. Aidos Kuneen already has a working product, whereas other projects raise funds first and then attempt to make true to their promise. "

Who is the coder that worked with IOTA before?

" team told cannot say name. you know it. IOTA gonna say bad about their 'batrayer' "

 "i'll go out and say it. The coder is named Hamato Yoshi " (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles apparently)

 And what are the plans for ADK to get regulatory approval to run an exchange? 

" team has licence. founder has financial company in panama so buyer can buy adk with usd "

 "you do know it is a decenteralized coin right? "

 It can't be decentralized if the ADK Foundation is holding the tokens as you said before.  And isn't Aidos market run by ADK? 

" I said is deceneralized tech! "

"  it's only in their hands until it's fully distributed "

 Does ADK have the approval to issue debit cards? Or will they end up like Monaco?  And what exchanges is ADK on?

" team gonna buy a bank with full license. and they can issue debit cards "

" Aidos will be accepted by real fully licensed bank!  so this is not an issue "

 So there are no exchanges?  

 "at the moment aidosmarket.com is the only exchange "

Do you know which bank?

" I do not know the name of the bank . It will not be a big well known name for sure.  Ricardo the founder is going to buy small banks that are fully licensed and put them all together to make big network of banks in Africa, Europe and Asia "

 So how is ADK decentralized if the only exchange is run by ADK? 

" its decentralized 'tech' bro,  everyone can use adk code. its open,  they can make better code if they want or can"

I'm having trouble understanding how to get ADK if there's no other way besides through Aidos market 

 "other exchange will add adk,  they already keep watching ADK.  many of them already got contact with team "

 So which exchanges then? 

" cryptopia livecoin bittrex kraken "

Do you have any screenshots or links?

" cryptopia has schedule lated cuz they dont know how to implant dag wallet founder told. you can ask screenshot with him,  but i think he wont give you screenshot before adk got listed on those exchange.  cuz those screenshot will make needless hype. and its unhealthy "

Analysis

Based on what I've seen and heard, this is a coin with a shady background. 

• The founder and other users have no proof about exchanges
• The only exchange is the Aidos Market, run by the ADK Foundation
• There is no apparent roadmap anywhere
• It is a direct IOTA copycat
• The community has made up lies about IOTA and IoT itself (mixers, toasters, ovens)
• The users claim that ADK is not for IoT, but for humans, directly contradicting the ADK website that says that it will support IoT
• The founder has bashed other cryptocurrencies that have no working product, despite ADK not having a working product (or even a whitepaper) itself
• The cryptocurrency screams centralization by having bank involvement (not to mention the banks are owned by the foundation) and only one exchange (also owned by the foundation)

Conclusion

Aidos Kuneen is at best an attempt at a cryptocurrency that has tried to use IOTA's code to get started while its own roadmap does not appear to be well thought out and is just trying to get off the ground. At worst, it may be a get rich quick scheme by the founder, judging by the lack of a clear roadmap, whitepaper, and transparency of operations within the foundation.