Update (July 2, 2018, 3.20pm):
Surprise, just a few minutes after we published our report, Nikolay SHKILEV re-opened his LinkedIn account. The profile has been “enhanced” with several disclaimers regarding investment advice. Nikolay purports that he did not provide ICO investment advices and that he always did KYC and AML checks before promoting ICOs. Well, his Tweets, videos, and postings very obviously tell a different story. Hence, we, again, will reach out to him to have some questions answered.
ICO Advisor- a lucrative job
FinTelegram announced last week that we would dedicate ourselves to the topic of ICO advisors. These ICO advisors have played a crucial role in the ICO hype and because of trusted ICO advisors naive investors have invested in ICOs without further examination of their own (DYOR) . We regard the irresponsible work of self-proclaimed ICO experts as a major reason for the ICO’s bad reputation. Meanwhile, regulators stepped in and started already to crack down on ICO advisors to protect investors.
Until a few weeks ago, the job of an ICO advisor(consultant was a very lucrative one with money (or crypto’s), amenities and social prestige. ICO consultants have populated the many ICO & Blockchain events around the world. The ICO summits from San Francisco to New York, London, Berlin, Beijing, and Tokyo were something like the traveling ICO circus. You always saw the same people at those events building their networks, boosting their consulting business and their social media reputation. Hence, it’s no surprise that ICO teams and investors alike showed them impressed.
Nikolay SHKILEV – A Russian ICO Artist
One of the most active ICO advisors and a very active artist of the ICO circus was – and maybe still is – the Russian Nikolay SHKILEV. This guy is still ranked in the top 10 ICO experts on the ICObench.com platform. On his profile page on ICObench, you learn that SHKILEV has been involved in almost 50 ICO’s as a consultant. Impressive, isn’t it? Until recently you could read on the SHKILEV‘s LinkedIn profile that you should only contact him if you are willing to pay for his great services. The LinkedIn profile was really impressive when you like grand-scale presentation without content. Since SHKILEV comes from Russia and acquired most of the alleged professional references there, it was difficult to verify his bio. Recently he has been criticized on LinkedIn by some real blockchain experts for his sometimes bizarre postings. Once he asked his LinkedIn friends, for example, which luxury car ICO people should buy. Ridiculous, isn’t it?
SHKILEV was also the operator of the TOP ICO ADVISOR where he gave himself a great interview. Apparently, however, many ICO operators were impressed by the Russian’s talent for portrayal and hired him. With a very mixed result, actually. In an initial analysis of the ICO’s in which SHKILEV has been involved, a “shit coin” pattern shows up.
Vanished and wanted for answers
Evidently during the last days Nikolay SHKILEV has deleted his LinkedIn profile. He disappeared from LinkedIn without any trace. He hasn’t responded to our request on Twitter. His Twitter timeline almost exclusively contains ReTweets and most of them – not surprisingly – are connected to ICOs. You hardly find any original tweet or thought. The Twitter channel was only opened in January 2018. Also, his YouTube videos, with which he brutally markets ICO’s, have no contents except encouraging calls after the motto – “don’t ask, buy tokens”. Speaking mainly Russian in the videos, he seems to have focused on the target group of Russian ICO investors.
Now Nikolay SHKILEV is gone. And neither was he the first nor will he be the last artist leaving the ICO circus arena. At least on LinkedIn where he advertised massively for ICO’s. Who will repair the damage he has done to the ICO industry, ICO’s and ICO investors? Can he be held accountable? Do the ICO operators have his data? Hopefully, because many ICO investors will have questions. If anyone can provide information about Nikolay SHKILOV, we would be very grateful for any information about our whistleblower system.
