Website Name
Hashflare.io
Website Type
Cryptocurrency Cloud Mining
Is Hashflare Fake or Real?
Likely Fake
Why is Hashflare Likely Fake?
Hashflare is a cloud mining service for mining different kinds of cryptocurrencies. Their aim is to make cryptocurrency accessible to the general public. Their services are supposed to eliminate the need to invest in expensive equipment and electricity.
Hashflare has various services available, such as Litecoin cloud mining, Bitcoin cloud mining, Ethereum cloud mining and more. At the time of writing this article, all the services are listed as ‘Out of Stock’.
Their main claim is that after making the first payment, you can start earning cryptocurrency in less than 24 hours.
At first impression, there was nothing that struck me as obviously odd. The Web of Trust Chrome extension automatically prevented me from accessing the website, as it may be unsafe. The design is mediocre and the content seems to be quite basic, but it did not ring any alarm bells. They also had a dedicated section for support, which lends some credibility. There is a testimonials section on the home page but there is no way of verifying whether these are genuine.
There is a Media section in the website where they have shared links to external articles discussing cloud mining as well as Hashflare. One of the first articles is an editorial piece on whether cryptomining is a Ponzi scheme, featuring a quote by Alex Gromov of Hashflare. While this does raise some eyebrows, it’s a good sign when a company is willing to acknowledge and refute allegations of being a scam.
There are a few more editorial pieces, a few PR articles and some broken links. This page didn’t do much to bolster my confidence as most of the articles are press releases and stories sponsored by Hashflare itself. Many of them no longer exist and one of them, SFWorks, has taken an antagonistic stand against Hashflare. The fact that this disparaging page has been linked from Hashflare’s website itself is quite a negative sign.
The above page also links to a Hashflare Reddit thread where a user has shared information on why they believe Hashflare is a Ponzi scheme.
One more thing which I found a bit odd is that the company claims to be located in Scotland on their website and the domain is also registered in Scotland, but Hashflare is mentioned as being an Estonian firm in one of the sponsored articles.
My level of confidence regarding Hashflare has significantly lowered now and going through user reviews only makes my outlook worse. Firstly, the Web of Trust rating for Hashflare is just 2.7/5 and it has been flagged as a Scam by users. The reviews are incomprehensible to me since they are mostly in Russian. Though the ratings are not overwhelmingly negative, they are definitely skewed towards the lower side.
The user reviews on TrustPilot paint a bleaker picture as the reviews have a much stronger negative lean. This could be because TrustPilot has systems in place to weed out fake positive reviews meant to balance the genuine negative ones.
The positive reviews could also be posted by users who are trying to recruit others to earn a commission as part of Hashflare’s Referral Program. While referral programs are a common marketing tactic, it does not help Hashflare look legit when they are incentivizing bringing in new users despite being bombarded with allegations of being a Ponzi scheme.
There are also plenty of reviews available by cryptocurrency review websites such as Cryptopolitan and CoinCentral analysing the profitability of Hashflare’s mining services. Their advice is to avoid purchasing the services of Hashflare as there is a high chance that you may struggle to recoup your investment, whether or not it is a Ponzi scheme.
All the signs point towards Hashflare.io not being a trustworthy website. The concept of cloud cryptocurrency mining itself is a hot topic of debate as there are concerns regarding the legitimacy and profitability of cloud mining services. As such, it would be a prudent move to avoid investing in Hashflare and similar services without due diligence.
How to Get Your Money Back from a Scam
Remember: If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If you have been a victim of an investment scam, you can take the following steps:
- Lodge a complaint at the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal
- File a complaint with the payment portal and ask whether the payment can be reversed.
- File a complaint with the Consumer Complaints Forum
- Leave a negative review on review portals such as Scamadviser and TrustPilot
- Report the website to Google using the Suspicious Site Reporter extension for Chrome
- Give a low rating to the website on Web of Trust. You can also install their extension for the same.
- If the company has a listing on Google My Business or Google Maps, file a complaint using the Business Redressal Complaint Form. Also, leave a negative review explaining what kind of experience you had.
Disclaimer: This review is intended for information only and should not be relied on when making financial or business decisions. If you are a website owner and would like to provide clarifications regarding your business and/or website, please get in touch using the Contact Form.