VELTYCO AND VARKASSO – ANOTHER THRILLING TRANSACTION IN THE CRYPTO-SPACE

Binary options goes crypto

The interesting thing when operating a global financial intelligence service is that you are served with a lot of information from different people about different companies and ventures. And, sometimes you are threatened by people because of your reports. Some people alleged FinTelegram’s team to operate the site as a sort of “revenge” and blackmailed them and their families. But we think that’s all just business, nothing personal.

We have already been covering VELTYCO since our very beginning in March 2018. It’s a company that used to be heavily engaged in binary options until recently. Unfortunately, binary options are seen as an illegal and thus prohibited business by many jurisdictions (read our report here). Hence VELTYCO had to look for other business opportunities and found cryptocurrencies and crypto-trading. On the respective VELTYCO announcement the shares jumped almost 20%. Exciting, isn’t it? It was “Bitcoin Boom Time” back in December 2018 and VELYTCO understandably jumped boat.

Veltyco goes Bulgaria (again)

Consequently, VELTYCO bought 51% of a Bulgarian company called VARKASSO LTD back as of January  17, 2018, to have access to a crypto-wallet software called 8Crypt they said:

Veltyco Group plc (AIM:VLTY), the online marketing company for the gaming industry, is pleased to announce that, further to its announcement of 21 December 2017, it has entered into an agreement to acquire a 51% interest in Varkasso Limited (“Varkasso”), a company that has the exclusive rights to use 8Crypt, a software platform providing crypto wallet solutions based on blockchain technology. 8Crypt has been developed by the founder and shareholder of Varkasso, with the aim of providing end users with a broad range of services in relation to their crypto assets from one location, from which they are able to manage, trade (buy, sell, exchange) and accept both traditional and crypto currencies. Source: VELTYCO Press Release.

Actually, VELTYCO did not disclose details the owners of the Bulgarian VARKASSO, for good reasons, obviously. In the audited financial statements as of December 31, 2017, VELTYCO reports about this transaction also in its subsequent events section. In its audited report, it is also stated that the auditor realized that the company evidently has an issue with adequately identifying related party transactions. The issue probably is much bigger than realized by the auditor.  By digging just a little bit into the history of the different companies (and we just started our investigations) we found the following unreported related party transaction with regard to the 51% share acquisition of VARKASSO.

According to the Bulgarian database Bivol (an official WikiLeaks partner for Bulgaria and Balkans and a part of the network of Organized Crime and Corrupution Reporting Project), VARKASSO (Company ID 204747934) was founded by Uwe LENHOFF on Sept 1, 2017. On Feb 7, 2018, LENHOFF then sold the shares to a company called BLACKCYAN LTD (Company ID: 204904823), another Bulgarian company founded and owned by the Austrian Joachim KALCHER. KALCHER then was appointed CEO of VARKASSO. Actually this transaction was registered quite a period after the VELTYCO announcement regarding the acquisition of 51% of VARKASSO shares. Actually, BLACKCYAN sold 51% of VARKASSO to VELTYCO only in March 2018 (according to the Bulgarian commercial register).

Actually, it looks as if VELTYCO bought the shares indirectly from Uwe LENHOFF via BLACKCYAN LTD for a total consideration of €300,000. At the time of the announcement of the intended transaction Uwe LENHOFF was still the owner of VARKASSO and at the same time, he was the COO of VELTYCO and member of the board which provides an odd picture. In our opinion, this transaction definitely qualifies as related party transaction, even if there was a separate agreement between Joachim KALCHER and Uwe LENHOFF. The lack of transparency around the transaction gives quite a big room for speculation:

Veltyco has agreed to acquire a 51% interest in Varkasso for a total consideration of €300,000 (approximately £265,000) to be satisfied through the issue of 100,000 new Ordinary Shares in Veltyco (“Consideration Shares”) and a cash consideration of €200,000 (approximately £177,000). Source: VELTYCO Press Release.

The Canadian BitRush Connection

Joachim KALCHER, the manager of VARKASSO is actually involved in legal proceedings around “his” software. In November 2017, the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, Canada, issued a decision that KALCHER’s software has been developed for the public-listed Canadian BITRUSH CORP and KALCHER had to deliver the software in exchange for shares of the company which he didn’t. In 2016, VELTYCO (back then it was named “SHELTYCO) once planned to cooperate with BITRUSH CORP and signed a respective partnership agreement:

“We as the gaming industry need to think about new ways of payment and BitRush with its ANOON cryptographic payment system and its integration into existing FIAT networks like VISA and MasterCard offer new perspectives for Sheltyco and the global gaming industry” said Uwe Lenhoff, CEO of Sheltyco. Source: BITRUSH Press Release

Evidently, plans changed, crypto took over the world, and LENHOFF and KALCHER obviously decided to team up in a different venture. Given the complexity of the legal situation, it’s at least questionable that VARKASSO or some other companies around Joachim Kalcher (evidently there are quite a lot) have the IP rights it claims to have.

A quite interesting deal structure with a lot of quite interesting details. IFRS is quite strict on related party disclosures because related party transactions can have a quite massive impact on the financial figures and for the understanding of what is going in a company, so these disclosures have to be correct especially for a listed company.   None of the above-mentioned facts were disclosed by the company.

The thing is that VARKASSO and its 8Crypt technology are a crucial part of other Crypto-Investment schemes such aus NEXUS GLOBAL. Hence, this transaction is more than “just-a-VELTYCO” thing and may have a lasting impact on the crypto-investment and the gaming/betting space.