LunarThrust

The centralized exchange CEX.IO, now ranked ~80 in the world, back in May 2024 announced an airdrop of what would be their own token, CEXP; similar to what BNB is to Binance, minus the smart blockchain. They scheduled the airdrop to take place in Q4 of 2024. It got a lot of traction, with over 10 million concurrent users in their Telegram tap Airdrop app, within a month, and over 40 million total.

What began as a clickable, gamified promise of a native exchange token, CEXP, turned into a stretch of games, delays, side projects, broken promises, and a rebrand pivot toward something called BeCEXY, a solana meme coin, with no direct or clear relation to CEX.IO. The result: millions of hours of human time farmed, confusing mechanics, and a pre-qualification queue that feels more like a bureaucratic obstacle course than a rewards program.

What happened:

May-Q3 2024
CEX.IO launches the Power Tap game and posts a roadmap that mentions an eventual native token, CEXP, plus integration with CEDEX and other mini games. The roadmap and the Power Tap concept are official.
Then the first black mark arrived, of many to come. They announced season 2, a new game that created super inflation of their token, completely diluting the share of tokens one could have achieved playing for months the tap game. Within a few hours of playing the new cards/evolution game, you could get mare tokens.

Q4 2024
The airdrop was postponed to 2025; to get the most tokens, you had to play 2 more apps, Wigwam and CEDEX.

Early-mid 2025
They then created a stealthy, unannounced Season 3, where they added a roulette wheel, which again created token inflation, devaluing previous game hours.
The CEXP roadmap was deleted; in fact, they canceled the CEXP token (and CEDEX token), removed it from the Cex.io official app, and created a new token, BeCexy, which is like a meme coin of a Bee on solana, with no announced clear use and relation to the exchange. They never released any whitepaper, tokenomics, and we have no idea of the total max supply.
Also, TGE (Token Generation Event) was announced to have already started on two occasions, officially, which was a straight lie.

Q4 2025-2026
While the CEDEX and old CEXP apps continue to work, and make money for the CEX company, with user actions, these users will get nothing if they don’t do one “final” step, getting a special code to enter a new verification list on Becexy, limited to 1 million users, which is advancing at an extra slow pace, like 3% each week, it may not be finished by the end of 2025.
The problem is users inside the verification list are still "Pending verification" and the Becexy team has already hinted at a new future step, which will probably be the finally final last verification, possibly. That would make it season/step 5 or 6, who is counting at this point.

The core problem.

At first glance, this looked like a classic exchange native token rollout: a clicker game to onboard users, snapshots to record activity, then an airdrop and listing. That is a fair model, in theory. In practice, the organizers repeatedly modified the rules and the reward curves in ways that devalued earlier players’ efforts.

How that happened, practically:

• New mini games and “boosts” let latecomers multiply their allocation far more cheaply than early players could earn it. In other words, token inflation was engineered via gameplay mechanics rather than transparent tokenomics. CEDEX and the farming boosts explicitly advertise multipliers and invites that multiply gains.
• The roadmap timeline moved forward and then forward again; snapshots and “season” mechanics were added retroactively. Everybody who spent hours in Season 1 suddenly had their share diluted by Season 2, and the roulette style Season. Community trackers now show repeated postponements of the listing/TGE.
• Then came the pivot: social channels and the new BeCEXY portal became the “final” gate for qualification, and users were asked to verify emails, connect wallets, enter codes, and in many cases, recruit referrals to increase their position. Some of this is documented on the official portal and the exchange’s social accounts.

Transparency? Not exactly

Airdrops and token launches survive or fail on two things: clear tokenomics and predictable mechanics. What we saw instead was a steady scatter of game mechanics, marketing pushes, and gated stages. Official pages still list the roadmap and the portal, but there is a notable absence of publicly consumable, detailed tokenomics that explain max supply, allocation buckets, vesting, and concrete distribution math for CEXP or BeCEXY. Third party token explorers do show an on chain CEXP contract and supply data for some deployed tokens, which complicates claims like “there’s no supply info at all.” Still, the official narrative on distribution and the community facing mechanics did not add up for many users.

Influence marketing and amplification: cheap promotion, expensive consequences

If you’ve been swamped with long form promotional videos, hype posts, and “how to get the secret code” tutorials, there’s a reason. The project triggered a global push of small influencers in many emerging markets creating reams of often incorrect or misleading content. Those creators help the ecosystem grow numbers, while many of the videos prioritize views and referral codes over accuracy. You can find countless influencer walkthroughs and “get the code” tips across YouTube and social feeds. The net effect: enormous user growth, lots of attention, and a lot of time sunk by participants.

Is it a scam? Legal lines and the human cost

I’m going to be blunt, because the shape of this mess matters more than the word “scam.” Legally, a scam requires intent to defraud and typically some clear misrepresentation of facts for personal gain, in a way that meets jurisdictional fraud standards. This might be the biggest airdrop scam that could not qualify legally as a scam, and they might get away with it.

What it is, unambiguously:

• A system that monetizes time and attention, not only data or money. People invested hours and invites to earn an expected allocation. That time is gone whether the airdrop happens, or if the reward is diluted to near zero.
• A highly opaque reward model with frequent retroactive changes that benefit later, cheaper ways to farm allocation (boost purchases, invites, roulette spins).
• An attention funnel supported by paid influencer content that often confuses more than it clarifies.

So yes, this feels morally shady, and some people are calling it the biggest airdrop scam based on outcome: massive time wasted, unclear or vanishing payoff. But from a purely legal standpoint, courts and regulators will look for documented misrepresentation or illegally obtained funds. That’s a higher bar. Always consider both the ethical and legal dimensions.

Final take: they farmed time, not tokens

This whole project looks like a masterclass in attention harvesting. The users provided the engagement; the ecosystem sold promotion and uncertainty back to them in the form of extra games, a new portal, codes, and invitations. Whether you call it a scam or poor product design, the end result is similar: lots of human hours exchanged for a promise.

To put it less diplomatically: if you had to trade a piece of your future to get a handful of potential tokens today, the price would be the time you can never recover.

If you received 10 million dollars but could never wake up tomorrow, would you take it? That’s how valuable time is.

#airdrop #cexio #CEXP #BeCEXY

There’s a pattern unfolding that should make anyone who’s ever clicked the hourly faucet sit up: for months now a growing number of users say FreeBitco.in (the over a decade old faucet / casino / wallet combo) has been taking deposits and running promotions as usual, while failing to actually pay out withdrawals reliably. That combination , accepting money but not reliably returning it , is the canonical red flag for a rug pull or at least a catastrophic operational collapse. Here’s what I found, what’s provable, and what is still murky.

What people are reporting, in plain words

• Withdrawals stuck, no TXIDs, support silent. Multiple recent posts on the long running FreeBitco.in thread at Bitcointalk show users reporting withdrawals pending for weeks, or never seeing a TXID (transaction identifier) appear for their requested payouts. Several users say tickets get auto answered or ignored.
• Site keeps promoting big giveaways while users wait. FreeBitco.in is still advertising and running its “Win a Lambo” / Golden Ticket Round 13 and other promotions, which encourages deposits and playing even while withdrawal complaints pile up. That makes the situation worse, because promotions attract more funds into an ecosystem that users claim is not paying out
• Complaints across review and social platforms. Independent complaint threads and review pages (Trustpilot, Sikayetvar, Reddit, Facebook groups, X/Twitter) show many users reporting the same symptoms: pending withdrawals, FUN tokens not arriving, balances disappearing or being deducted, and long response times from support. These are not single isolated incidents; they are repeated, cross platform reports.

What can be proved, and what I could not verify

Proved / verifiable:

• The company keeps public facing pages for contests and deposit/interest features (the Round 13 Golden Ticket is live on the site). That’s an active front. freebitco.in
• There are many, many screenshots and forum posts of users saying their payouts are pending and that FreeBitco.in either did not provide a TXID or gave a TXID that never appeared on public block explorers (or appeared much later). You can find the complaints aggregated across Bitcointalk, Reddit and consumer complaint sites.

Not proven (but alleged repeatedly):

• A single, clear, chain verified proof that FreeBitco.in has swept user balances into one cold wallet in a single “exit” transaction and then shut off payouts. I tried to find a public, labeled FreeBitco.in address or an obvious mega transaction that moves “all user funds” to another wallet; that level of on chain attribution requires either an address publicly owned by FreeBitco.in (they don't publish a general custody address) or user posted TXIDs that can be traced. Public forum complaints say TXIDs were not provided or were not visible, which itself is a strong red flag. The absence of an easily attributable massive on chain move is not evidence the site is solvent. it's evidence we can't prove their exact on chain bookkeeping from public sources alone.
• One alleged transaction is adba98520f37b08a487c9bb9c007846b109d3c6e662bfe14c452832b7e260225, where 11.181 BTC ($1.4M) have been deposited to Binance.

How to check your own withdrawal situation (quick checklist)

• Save the entire withdrawal email / confirmation the moment you request a payout. That email should include a pending withdrawal ID or a TXID link if the site claims the payment was broadcast.
• If the site gives a TXID: paste it into a block explorer such as blockchain.com or blockstream.info and verify the transaction exists and to which address it was sent. If it does not exist, the site did not broadcast it. If it exists but has no confirmations, it may be stuck in mempool. If it exists and is confirmed, follow the on chain trail. (If you don't get a TXID, that is itself a red flag.) See an example explanation of this problem posted by users on public Q&A sites.
• Record dates and support ticket IDs: these are the paper trail you will need if you escalate to your local consumer protection agency or to an exchange you interact with.
• don't deposit more funds while your withdrawal is unresolved. Treat any promotional message as a solicitation that could increase your exposure.
• Consider formal complaints: consumer sites, platform trust pages, and, where applicable, filing a complaint with local financial authorities or cybercrime units if large sums are involved.

So, is it a scam?

Short answer: there are strong signs pointing toward a scam or an operational insolvency. Multiple independent indicators line up:

• Users reporting the exact same failure mode (pending withdrawals with no TXID or no arrival).
• The platform still running big promotions and accepting deposits while not paying users. That mismatch is what makes the situation look like an exit or fractional collapse.
• Independent review sites and dozens of forum reports corroborate the pattern across time.

That is not the same as a legally proven scam. it's evidence enough to treat the site as high risk and to act accordingly: stop depositing, document everything, and pressure for accountability.

The Lambo contest, will anyone get paid if they win?

There was a recent finish of the Golden Ticket / “Win a Lambo” Round 13. The site advertises the contest publicly. What is unclear and worrying is whether the contest winner, if selected, will be paid in practice: if the platform can't process normal withdrawals reliably, paying an outsized prize is even more questionable. Forum chatter indicates users don't expect the prize to be honored unless a verifiable on chain payment appears. In short, the promotional page is live, but the real world guarantee of the prize looks shaky.

What you should do right now if you have money there

• Stop depositing. Don't top up referrals, FUN tokens, or BTC deposits into the FreeBitco.in wallet. The site is still running marketing that will attract fresh deposits. That is the classic exit scam behavior pattern. freebitco.in
• Try to withdraw immediately and capture every confirmation, screenshot, and ticket ID. If the site provides a TXID, verify it on chain. If not, demand one.
• Escalate publicly. Post your case to Bitcointalk, post the ticket ID and dates; public shaming tends to accelerate responses in some of these cases.
• If significant funds are at risk, consider legal complaints in your jurisdiction, and report to cybercrime units. Gather all receipts, emails and timestamps.

Stay safe, and treat FreeBitco.in like a potential scam.

#FreeBitco #CryptoScam #Bitcoin #Withdrawals