THE CBEX TRAP

I can recall it vividly as if it were yesterday. It was exactly 6 p.m. when I rounded off my morning devotion. I copied a motivational daily verse and uploaded it to my WhatsApp status. A few seconds later, I received lots of reactions and responses from friends, but I decided to reply to my cousin's first. He said he wanted to talk to me about something, so I put him on a video call.

"AHH! Bros! This one you're smiling like this this early morning. What's up?" I said.

"Omor! It's oil money o," he replied, grinning from ear to ear, his white teeth sparkling on his dark-skinned face.

"Oya, share the update with your girl," I said. His smile was very infectious, so I was grinning along with him.

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"Have you heard of CBEX?" he asked. I told him I hadn't, so he went on to tell me about it. CBEX stands for China Beijing Equity Exchange. According to him, it's a crypto trading project where all you have to do is invest your money, then certain bots will handle the trading. All you have to do next is to log in at a specific time and activate the bot.

He sounded so confident, but I still had doubts. How can multiplying money be that easy?

"So have you made any withdrawal?" I asked.

"Of course. Give me a few seconds, let me send you the screenshots," he said. A moment later, I received the screenshots of his transactions. When I checked the capital and the profit, I realized he’d made more than triple his capital in just a few months.

I was awestruck.

"So how much is the minimum investment?" I asked.

"$100. But I'd prefer you start with $300, the profit is juicier when the capital is big," he said, licking his lips.

"That’s a lot of money o, Jay," I said as I reached for my flask to take a sip of water. He agreed it was a lot, but went on to explain why I needed to join the project.

"Who knows, this might be the next Bitcoin," he said.

"Hmmm," I wasn’t totally convinced. Even with the evidence of successful transactions, something in me said, this sounds too good. But the mention of Bitcoin had triggered the investor in me. I began to think deeply about it, staring into empty space while he watched me through the screen.

I really wanted to believe him. But I smelled a rat.

At the time, I was seriously looking for a way to multiply the little money I had. And this was coming from someone I trusted—my cousin, who had been in and out of crypto projects, somehow always managing to earn something. So I started my own research. I asked some crypto-savvy friends, and they said they were aware of the project and already into it.

I also asked my brother, and I was surprised when he told me he’d been benefiting from the project since last year.
And he didn’t think to tell me? I was mad.

"You request money almost all the time, how was I supposed to know you had $300 to gamble?" he said, in a very critical tone.

"You could’ve just told me. And how is this gambling?" I asked.

He went on to explain that the project was a Ponzi scheme. According to him, there’s no legit investment that can double your money in two weeks. He said it would crash; no one knows when, but it will. So at that moment, everyone involved was just gambling.

"If you’re not ready to lose the money, I advise you to forget about CBEX," he said.

Part of me believed him. But another part believed my cousin, and others, including what I was seeing on social media.

A few days later, I made up my mind to take the risk. I registered for the project and had my cousin walk me through it. After all the tutorials, I told him to give me until after Easter, that I needed to think it through. He became pissed and started asking why I procrastinate so much.

"Everything is about risk, Phyna. If you don’t take risks, you might never blow in this life," he said.

"Alright. I’ll put the money," I said.

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Throughout that day, my mind was troubled. Several questions and doubts roamed my thoughts.

What if I miss out again? What if this really is the next big thing and I sit it out like I’ve done with others in the past?

For a second, I thought I was being too paranoid. Maybe I was overthinking it, letting fear win again. But something deep down just didn’t sit right. It felt like my spirit was raising a red flag, even when logic and peer pressure said otherwise.

After a few weeks of stalling and rejecting the project, I received three calls; from a friend, my cousin, and my brother.
Each of them asked the same question with urgency in their voices:
"Did you invest your money?!"
"I can’t withdraw my money anymore," my cousin said.
"It has crashed," my brother added.

I was happy. Genuinely relieved that for once, I’d passed the test of avoiding a huge financial mistake. But I also felt sad, for them. They must have had high hopes for that money, only to be crushed in the end.

"I’m actually very happy you didn’t join the project.You wouldn’t have withdrawn a dime, not even your capital" both my cousin and brother told me.

I explained that I had actually planned to join, but only after Easter. My intuition had come up with a rough calculation. Based on other Ponzi schemes, I figured if it didn’t crash before Easter, it would crash before Christmas. So my plan was to join after Easter and withdraw before November.

After their calls, I started seeing bloggers post about it. A project that was once only known to a few had now become the talk of the internet. Videos and photos of crying investors flooded timelines. Some had used their life savings. Some had borrowed to invest.

It was heartbreaking to watch.

You know? I’ve battled procrastination since my teens, and this might be the first time it actually did me good. But no, I won’t give the credit to procrastination. I’d rather give it to my intuition; because sometimes, when something smells off, it’s simply because it is.