The Financial Services and Markets Authority, the regulatory body in Belgium, further added 21 websites to their already existing blacklisted websites.

Adding 21 new websites to the already existing blacklisted cryptocurrency trading platforms increases the numbers of websites showing signs of fraud to 99.

Early on Friday, the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) have made crypto related announcements, warning them against cryptocurrency fraud.

There were clear indications of fraud in all of these 21 new suspect sites.

The FSMA further elaborated stating “this list is based on observations made by the FSMA following the reports received from consumers.  Therefore, it might not include all players who may be unlawfully active in this sector.”

The 21 newly added sites are: “lacentraledescryptomonnaies.com, parel-invest.com, positiva-ad.com, afaeu.com, cryptoallday.com, cryptonetto.com, cryptosafe.tech, bk-coin.com, capital-traders.com, dca-finance.com, elos-patrimoine.com, kryptowize.com, london-exchange.net, save-coins.com, tradabank.com, trade-my-bitcoin.net, finances-markets.com, iminage.com, investissement-crypto.com, kryptonexlabs.com, and vip-brokers.com.”

The FSMA further stated that “there are no active supervisions of online platforms currently happening in the cryptocurrency sector.”

The latest warning from the FSMA has to say that the form of fraud differs ranging from the purchase of cryptocurrencies, opening savings account based on cryptocurrencies, fraud based on management agreements, ICOs, etc.”

Despite prior warnings from FSMA, cryptocurrency fraud landed up trapping a lot of victims in Belgium.

The agency further stated that most of the fraudulent schemes are based on similar promises.  He stated they are mostly based on “a very high rate of return.”  They talk about the ease of withdrawing the money.  The guarantee on the funds deposited is often at 100%. This means even when the market collapses, they will be able to recover the initial investment.  This makes the cryptocurrency investment safe.  These are the regular promises used by fraudulent companies to convince customers.

The regulator further wrote: “All these promises are worthless, however: if an offer is fraudulent, then the promises which accompany it are as well equally so.”

Investors are to be aware of the fact that being able to recover the money even when the market collapses is particularly baseless.

The Brussels Times, early in March reported that Belgian tax authorities were hunting for cryptocurrency investors. “Anyone speculating on the cryptocurrency market is to pay a tax of 33% on gains made.  They have to declare these within the section of ‘miscellaneous income’ on their tax return,”

The publication further detailed that the tax authorities are facing a lot of challenges as “the management of cryptocurrency assets is happening through impenetrable foreign trading platforms.”

The numbers of cryptocurrency ATMs are as well growing in number in Belgium.