Cryptocurrency startup vanishes with small haul of investors' cash

Almost traces of an Ethereum individual coin offering that promised to revolutionise the fruit and vegetable industry disappeared from the internet overnight, including a chunk investors' cash.

Prodeum, allegedly based out of Vilnius, Lithuania, had looked to raise cash by offering a seat on the digital currency bandwagon via its proposals to change standards in the fresh produce market.

But overnight, the supposed company's page has been removed from Token Desk, a website that promotes ICOs, and its Twitter account had been shut down. The only thing that remained was a single word on the company's website: 'penis'. Even this had been removed by Wednesday morning, however.

The cryptocurrency's unique selling point was based on a supposed plan to gather Ethereum to fund a overhaul of price look-up (PLU) codes used by the grocery industry to include a detailed history of the produce along with its pricing information, claiming it would allow the increasing number of health-conscious consumers to know more about where their produce came from.

"People want to know if the produce they are buying has been exposed to harmful pesticides or pollutants," a press release from Prodeum said, also setting out wider ambitions, including FDA approval, in a whitepaper.

"One of the biggest goals for Prodeum is to create an FDA-approved process for implementing a PLU (advanced PLU) codes onto pieces of products," the paper read.

While it is not known just how many investors were caught up in the scam, it does appear to have done minimal damage.

Prodeum's entry on ICO Watchlist shows the group only made it to 18% of its $6.5m funding target, almost $1.2m, and an address for the ICO fundraising states that there had been less than 50 total transactions made.

An individual claiming to be behind the scam wrote on a forum that Prodeum was a failure, netting the scammers just $3,000.

The supposed creator apologised before vowing to refrain from partaking in future scams.

"Remember that all ICOs are scams," the message concluded.