If you’ve been on Crypto Twitter over the past few days, you’ve likely seen the video seen below. According to the individual that shared it, the video shows a group of “farmers” being shilled Cardano and ADA.

Michael “Boxmining” Gu, a cryptocurrency Youtuber and podcaster, corroborated this. Gu added that caveat that the farmers in the video are “rich,” seemingly made evident by the Range Rovers sitting in the background of the video.

No reliable translations of the video have been produced, but an important note to add is that the individuals speaking at the front are wearing Cardano-branded t-shirts and are using an image of Charles Hoskinson.

Nearly all of Crypto Twitter has acknowledged that this is a scam with no affiliation with any official parties related to Cardano. Yet to assure that there are no confusions, Hoskinson and the Cardano Foundation have clarified.

Cardano Foundation and Charles Hoskinson respond to seeming ADA scam

The @Cardano Twitter handle, operated by the Cardano Foundation, clarified on Jul. 3 that the meetup is entirely unaffiliated with them:

“This is an unaffiliated 3rd party meetup. We’re glad to see there’s interest in Cardano all over the globe, but please beware of scams! If you’re interested in a list of approved meetups, you can always check our forums.”

Hoskinson doubled down on this in a 20-minute video response entitled “On Scams and Illegal Activity.” 

“You work five years on something, you put your heart and soul into it, you just have a giant event that 10,000 people attend. Then you see floating around Telegram, Twitter, some video — some scammers in China using my face, our company’s logo, the Cardano Foundation’s logo who have absolutely no affiliation with us.”

According to additional information shared by Michael Gu, what is actually being depicted in the video is a group called the “Asian Dragons,” also referred to as “AD.”

The crypto content creator says that the group is “known for ultra-aggressive marketing and Multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes.”

A pivotal time for Cardano

This purported unaffiliated meetup/scam comes as Cardano has been the beneficiary of a surge in adoption and the price of its native cryptocurrency, ADA.

ADA has moved above $0.10 for the first time in over a year, CryptoSlate data shows. And since the start of the year, the top altcoin has rallied by over 200 percent. This growth is tied to the launch of Cardano’s “Shelley” upgrade.

It seems that the scammers are capitalizing — or at least are attempting to capitalize — on the hype around the upgrade and around the strength in the price of the cryptocurrency.