Investigation by Ernie Piper, Nick Backovic, and Tori Marland
A Logically investigation can reveal that, for the past year, two QAnon-affiliated influencers have been persuading their thousands of followers to invest in a portfolio of cryptocurrency tokens marked as fraudulent by the Stellar network — a major blockchain, alongside the better known Bitcoin and Ethereum — causing their followers to collectively lose millions of dollars, one of whom died by suicide after losing more than $100,000.
Combining conspiracizing with bad investment advice, the WhipLash347 and Quantum Stellar Initiative (which has no relationship with the Stellar network) Telegram channels coordinated to produce a weekly curated list of cryptocurrency assets, claiming that they had access to secret military intelligence and knew which assets were going to succeed. The leaders, WhipLash347 and PatriotQakes (also active in the community under her real name, Emily Tang), capitalized on distrust in both financial institutions and mainstream media to lend credence to the assets they promoted, and bombarded their tens of thousands of followers with misinformation about crypto ventures.
“I am without doubt that WhipLash347, Emily, and QSI are scam artists,” Rocky Morningside, a former admin of the QSI chats, told Logically. “[They] were promoting pump and dumps, and this appeared to be a very large and well organized Ponzi Scheme.”
