Cambodia has become the latest country to formally confirm the launch of its own state cryptocurrency, and in doing so has finally cast the memory of the Entapay farce into the dustbin of crypto history.
Enter Entapay
Entapay was a Chinese-founded payment system that launched in 2017, around the time that Cambodia started seriously looking into a national cryptocurrency. It wasn’t much of a surprise therefore when, in March 2018, the company posted a press release in which they announced a deal with the Cambodian government to operate a state cryptocurrency on their behalf. Given that Venezuela had announced their own state crypto, the Petro just weeks before, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Crypto news sites published the story, and it was soon making its way into mainstream media outlets worldwide.
There was only one problem – it wasn’t true.
Entapay Takes to the Stage…to Lie Again
Cambodian officials flatly denied anything to do with Entapay, who countered by announcing during a presentation at the Asean-Blockchain Summit in Cambodia’s capital city of Phnom Penh that it had the backing of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF). This claim was swiftly discovered to be another lie, with officials from the military stating that some members of the military may have met with Entapay representatives, but it never got further than this.
Welcome to watch the clip during Asean Blockchain Summit, Entapay Leadership Team visit the Cambodia Military Command. https://t.co/rcjMnHEU1M #Entapay #AseanBlockchainSummit #blockchain #btc #eth #cryptocurrency #Crypto #Cambodia #MilitaryCommand
— Entapay (@Entapay) March 15, 2018
Officials from the National Bank of Cambodia, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia, and the Ministry of Economy and Finance all denounced Entapay’s attempts to associate themselves with the country’s government, showing that the entire episode was nothing but a fabrication by the company.
End of the Road for Entapay
This appears to have been the final nail in Entapay’s coffin. Their Twitter account has lain dormant since the time of the fateful presentation, the company website is unreachable and, according to other reports, the offices were abandoned not long after the disaster.
The bizarre episode, which one can only imagine was done out of a misguided attempt at garnering attention for the project, shows that there is such a thing as bad publicity…especially if you’re telling bare faced lies that are easily able to be disproved.
