Moshe Hogeg, an Israeli businessman, has returned to the limelight of the cryptocurrency industry after speaking at a conference in Morocco on the “alternative internet network”, Tomi.
Speaking at the Nakamoto Forum in Marrakech on June 6, Hogeg was one of the few Tomi project leaders to speak about the privacy features of the network to a crowd of investors, representatives of cryptocurrency and blockchain companies, and members. Of the media. The businessman was arrested by the Israeli authorities in November 2021 for alleged financial fraud related to cryptocurrencies, as well as human trafficking and prostitution of minors.
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Hogeg compared himself to other industry leaders, such as Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who was targeted by US authorities in his case against the global exchange. The Israeli businessman claimed that the authorities understood the power of public opinion among members of the world of cryptocurrencies and finance, and carried out “a well-orchestrated attack” to damage his reputation.
“I see more and more key figures in the crypto industry becoming targets of the authorities,” Hogeg told Cointelegraph. “Whenever there is something like this […] They try to eliminate risks. I think something very similar happened to me in Israel.”
Hogeg said there had been no official prosecution in his case, which largely forced to be under house arrest for several months in 2021 and 2022. Apparently, received permission from an Israeli court to visit Morocco for the conference, temporarily lifting their travel restrictions between May 27 and June 13.
Several members of Tomi’s team presented the features of the project, ranging from a content creation platform to non-fungible token minting. Hogeg described himself as a “small” but “significant” part of Team Tomi amid his own controversies in his talks at the Nakamoto Forum.
As part of a demo for attendees, Hogeg and a Tomi developer showed how they encrypted Tether (USDT) to create a “fully private” token. He discussed the network’s privacy solution, which appeared to allow cryptocurrency users to send ERC-20 and Ethereum-based tokens without any trace of the transaction on the blockchain analytics platform; etherscan.
“Ethereum is great, but Ethereum is not private,” Hogeg told attendees. “Privacy is a basic, fundamental right. So developing technology that allows you to transact billions of dollars without putting your privacy at risk is groundbreaking.”
With the addition of Hogeg to the team, Tomi has recently raised $10 million for the project, in addition to a $40 million funding round that the company advertisement in March. The price of the network’s tomiNET (TOMI) token reached an all-time high of $6.59 on June 6 at the Nakamoto Forum, but has since fallen to $4.70 at press time.
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