PlatinCoin (PLC)

PlatinCoin (PLC) was a cryptocurrency project launched in 2017 under the umbrella of PLC Group AG, a company registered in Liechtenstein. The project was co-founded by Alex Reinhardt and Joseph Heinrich and was marketed primarily to German-speaking communities across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. PlatinCoin operated on its own proprietary blockchain and issued a fixed maximum supply of approximately 600 million PLC tokens. Participants could acquire PLC through tiered minting packages, a structure that attracted significant attention from financial regulators.

The project operated under a multi-level marketing model in which participants earned rewards for recruiting new members as well as for their own package purchases. Germany’s financial regulator, BaFin, issued warnings related to PlatinCoin and PLC Group AG between 2018 and 2020, citing concerns about unauthorized financial services. Switzerland’s FINMA also flagged the project during the same period. Despite these regulatory warnings, the project continued operating and maintained an active community, particularly via German-language Telegram channels and social media. At its peak, PlatinCoin was promoted as a hybrid between a payment network and an investment vehicle, with the PLC token positioned as a store of value.

PlatinCoin official website at platincoin.site went offline on April 27, 2025. As of that date, the project ceased active public operations. The circulating supply at that point stood at approximately 5 million PLC, a small fraction of the 600 million maximum supply, reflecting the gap between tokens distributed to participants and those ever reaching open markets. No successor project or migration announcement was made publicly available. PlatinCoin now serves as a historical reference for an MLM-structured cryptocurrency project that operated from 2017 to 2025.