The Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR), commonly known as the Vatican Bank, has denied any connection to a fake cryptocurrency project.
The scam token, dubbed Vatican Chamber Token (VCT), was promoted on an online phishing website claiming affiliation with the “Vatican Chamber of Trade,” presenting a “formal invitation to join one of the world’s most exclusive economic institutions.”
Vatican Chamber of Trade scam token exposed
The fake token’s website prominently displayed the actual number of the Vatican Bank, but a Vatican Bank representative confirmed “it is a scam” via a Cointelegraph investigation.
In a further sign of its deceptive nature, a vandals created a link on the Vatican Bank’s Wikipedia page claiming its founding date was 1950; the edit is highlighted in red, noting lack of source.
Cointelegraph found no entity identified as “Vatican Chamber of Trade” registered in the Vatican San Marino Business Register, rendering its operations fictional.
The project promised presale access and benefits including private investor introductions, custodial services, tokenized asset offerings, exclusive events, and “recognition and credibility.” A claim of “Sharia ethical” priorities was pushed by an exec to a similar Web3 project.
Eligibility criteria raise red flags
The site listed strict criteria for membership, requiring formal registration of a company or project with minimum revenue thresholds (€100,000 for traditional businesses or crypto projects; €300,000 TVL/€500,000 trading volume). Ethical alignment was mandating transparency, stewardship, financial inclusion, and sustainability.
Interestingly, the project cited blockchain as ideal for Sharia ethics. A separate case involved a crypto scammer who reportedly reneged on a €3.4M debt deal and now faces up to a 12-year sentence.
The VCT token has a 10 million maximum supply at €0.25 ($0.29) per unit. A 3 million allocation to a reserve fund exceeded simple supply. The “buy” function attempted to use a renamed Coinbase subdomain, originating from destroyed pages on the vaticantrade.cb.id domain, a loophole potentially exploitible due to “automated” account creation on the domain’s ENS integration.
