We are short $SOS, which we believe to be an obvious China-based shell game reanimating the corpse of a former China based company that earlier imploded 90% from its highs.
We think SOS is a $0 and has significant regulatory risk.
Stocks tied to blockchain have been on the run lately, swept up in the euphoria of bitcoin breaking all-time highs.
$SOS has ridden this wave, reaching a market cap as high as $1.4b based on its claims of having pivoted into bitcoin mining and blockchain technology development.
We discovered $SOS principal office and headquarters doesn’t appear to exist. We visited the address listed in the company’s SEC filings and found it was a hotel.
A woman who worked for the hotel told us there were “no companies here”.
The company’s January 6, 2021 announcement of hiring a “Renowned Cryptocurrencies Security Expert” named Dr. Huazhong (Eric) Yan appeared to include fabrications related to Yan’s background.
apnews.com/press-release/…
$SOS claims Yan was the founder of Shenzhen eSecureChain Technologies.
Curiously, we found the eSecureChain website uses the exact same “/sosbox” theme that SOS’s website uses.
Furthermore, the eSecurechain website was set up just two days prior to $SOS announcing Yan joining the team.
On January 19th, $SOS entered into a non-binding LOI to purchase FXK, purported to be a Canadian crypto technology company.
prnewswire.com/news-releases/…
FXK looks to be an undisclosed related party shell. Its website uses photos that appear to have been stolen from a separate and legitimate Chinese crypto mining company called RHY.
Its site only has one news item, announcing the SOS deal.
fxk.com
We could find no real office for FXK, no employees on LinkedIn, no glassdoor reviews, no customer reviews, no social media presence or news articles (other than press releases about the $SOS announcement).
$SOS uses a specific theme for its website labeled Sosbx in its website’s source code.
FXK’s website also uses the exact same SOS theme on its website, indicating both sites were set up by SOS.
Additionally, $SOS’s fonts and headers match with FXK’s website.
The FXK deal was announced on January 19th. But web crawler WayBackMachine shows no evidence that the site existed prior to February 17th, almost a month later.
The most recent web capture prior to February 17th was a Chinese page saying that the domain was for sale, in May 2019.
FXK included multiple pictures of their supposed mining center on their website.
A reverse image search of those pictures reveals the mining operation is not FXK’s, instead the pictures are lifted off a legitimate Chinese mining company called RHY.
Our investigator contacted RHY and was told that FXY was fake and copying their website
In late January, $SOS announced a deal with HY International, a purported seller of crypto mining rigs.
prnewswire.com/news-releases/…
We found that HY was formed mid last year, and is registered to the same exact address as an $SOS subsidiary.
HY claims to have a China office. We visited and found the office doesn't exist.
There is only one company situated on 13/F floor of Jiangsu Building, which is Shenzhen Rongde Culture Media Group Co., Ltd.
hyfth.com/contact.html
$SOS raised $198 million in gross proceeds through direct offerings over the last month. We think that money is gone and never coming back.
We think the company is a zero.
Update (1/3): It appears $SOS is actively attempting to remove digital traces of its suspect deals. Acquisition target FXK's website has been intermittently down.
It purports to be a Canadian company but is displaying this error message in Mandarin. fxk.com
Website esecurechain.com recently used the same ICP as $SOS, but it was removed. An ICP is a unique license to operate websites in China.
The prior source code is still available via Google cache:
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache…
Before and after pictures show the removal.
Furthermore, some have asked about the building next to the hotel relating to $SOS's claimed HQ, which we also inspected.
The small building appears to have only 5 floors, and clearly, neither match the HQ in recent $SOS PRs, which claims 10,000 sq/m.
prnewswire.com/news-releases/…
UPDATE 2: Just days after we pointed out that $SOS's claimed headquarters didn’t seem to exist, the company changed its HQ address multiple times on its website.
Before (archived) and after…
web.archive.org/web/2021022020…
After we pointed out that $SOS’s supposed Canadian acquisition target FXK seemed to have its website set up by $SOS and hosted on the same $SOS server, the company moved its server from Hong Kong to California and updated its source code to remove references to SOS.
We also showed that $SOS struck a supposed deal with HY, a company formed mid last year registered to the same address as an $SOS subsidiary.
That entity also ported over its server, masking the relationship with $SOS.
These appear to be yet more obvious signs of a cover-up.
Following our work showing that $SOS’s claimed HQ address didn’t match the HQ in its press release, the company posted the address for the first time.
We visited and found it was a match.
From the PR and our visit yesterday during working hours. A good start, however…
We examined the building and see why the address wasn’t listed in the first place.
$SOS has the ground floor, as can be seen by the SoS logo on the windows, but it appeared completely empty. We saw no people or signs of activity on the floor.
As we showed earlier, $SOS acquisition target FXK seemed to have stolen its entire website design from genuine blockchain co. RHY.
RHY posted an official statement corroborating our work and Culper's work, accusing FXK of blatantly stealing its website.
en.rhy.com/help/1146.html
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.