Billionaire Mike Novogratz criticized himself for failing to sell Litecoin on fake Walmart news.
On September 13, the price of Litecoin sharply increased by almost 30%, namely from $ 183 to $ 233. Investors were buying on rumors that Litecoin had signed a partnership with the retail giant Walmart. The immediate reaction was a response to a fake press release that the scammers managed to temporarily publish on GlobeNewswire.
Mike Novogratz, a former hedge fund trader at Fortress Investment Group, said at a recent Salt conference that he assumed from the very beginning that something was wrong, thinking that there was no one to buy Litecoin now. However, he did not react quickly enough to sell the cryptocurrency. Litecoin reversed within a few minutes.
"It didn't make sense to me. But I didn't react quickly enough to close part of the position," Novogratz replied.
It wasn't just the billionaires who made a mistake.
Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz didn't have much time to act. Before the cryptocurrency industry dealt with the fraud, there were only a few minutes left. The partnership between Walmart and Litecoin was a lie. Obviously, the Litecoin Foundation quickly refutes the rumors, and Walmart denies accepting the 15th largest cryptocurrency.
Ed Moya, a senior market analyst at OANDA Corp, recently said that scammers probably chose the less popular Litecoin, rather than well-known cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin, because they were trying to buy time. Any highly professional cryptocurrency that makes a deal with a name like Walmart will immediately cause alarm. Litecoin was used for trading among the top 10 cryptocurrencies but became less relevant after the growth of the bull market in 2017 when founder Charlie Lee sold his assets.
Novograd added that fraud can occur in any industry as popular as cryptocurrency, and hopes that the attackers will be held accountable.
