A question we have been pondering recently is if, as we have already established, Christen Ager- Hanssen does not make money in businesses (as he is constantly running companies to bankruptcy), just how does he make any money? We believe we may have found at least part of the answer – by illegally harvesting data via his Addreax Group advertising platform and selling it to third parties.
Addreax Group describes itself as a ‘Martech’ company (a portmanteau of marketing technology), although by visiting their website, you may be confused as to how such a hideous website could have anything to do with a marketing or technology company…
You would be right to be sceptical. As you may have already guessed, the products Addreax ran were not actually the ‘world/brain’ of Mr Ager-Hanssen (as he would put it) but were actually previously successful products of other companies the Custos/Addreax Group had acquired.
One such product, ‘StudentKortet,’ was a popular and profitable part of Metro when Mats Qviberg acquired it and was later inherited by Ager-Hanssen when he became the controlling shareholder in Custos.
In November 2019, the Swedish authorities petitioned the Stockholm District Court to put thecompany into bankruptcy over SEK 8.6 million in unpaid taxes. The landlord of the office also changed the locks on the building, as Ager-Hanssen had not been paying the rent, and advised the remaining staff who had turned up to work to take it up with Ager-Hanssen.
The company now operates the app under different names in different countries. in Norway, it is branded Alumni and in the UK as Stuk.co – all controlled by the ‘Addreax Group of companies’ which were conveniently formed in 2019 after the Swedish bankruptcy.
The company comprises three entities, Addreax Group Limited, Addreax Solutions Limited and Addreax Partners Limited and is run by Ager-Hanssen and his son, Casper, as well as the Custos gang he brought to nCHain, including David Brookes, Lars Jacob Bo and Endri Krasniqi (whom appears to use the alias ENdri Gjata in his professional profiles – one of which he deleted after we exposed his double jobbing at nChain.
Ager-Hanssen seemingly scammed nChain, by pretending Addreax was a much more successful company that it was, which would drive the volume of traffic on the BSV network and help towards obtaining 100 million users with BSV wallets by the end of 2023.
The company even ran giveaways trying to push more users into using the app: [Sidenote: The iPad appears to have been ‘won’ by a user with no followers or other presence].
What’s interesting is the reports from users of their data reportedly being made available to third parties after signing up to the various apps.
Note: These reports came before Ager-Hanssen’s nChain coup, so can not be blamed on salty BSV-ers. You can read them for yourself here.
There are literally hundreds of reviews like this for the app, all complaining about intrusive marketing and endless spam, right after installing Ager-Hanssen’s app.
It should be noted that neither Addreax or Custos are registered with ICO (the UK’s Information Commissioner’s office) so can’t even legally handle personal data.
Furthermore, several of Ager-Hanssen’s websites do not have a privacy policy, which is a clear breach of Article 13 of the UK GDPR, the fines of which can run into the millions, or 4% of turnover, which in Ager-Hannsen’s case is probably not a lot of money.
Users can complain or request more information from ICO here.
Let’s not forget that a few months before this, Ager-Hanssen was busy worming his way into Algorand, launching ‘Algo Ventures’ which was effectively what he was trying to do within nCHain, with their ‘ventures department’ Ager-Hanssen used to funnel money into Addreax projects.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Ager-Hanssen story without another bankruptcy. Addreax had acquired an influencer marketing company, Adviral, which boasted influencers such as Therese Lindgren, who ran the largest Swedish language YouTube channel in the world.
After appointing Björn Olegård as CEO [remember Björn from the FlyMe scandal? [Essentially he went to prison for six months for accounting fraud] the company ran up huge debts and eventually filed for bankruptcy, leaving 4.4 million Swedish krona in debt, most of which was owed to influencers who had not been paid for their work.
Olegård now works as the ‘director of investments’ at the Custos Group.
On the 14th of December 2023, Ager-Hanssen launched his latest failure, Chestonto. Chesconto is essentially a re-wrapped version of Stuk launched in partnership with Italian sports brand Corrieredello Sport.
How did Ager-Hanssen manage to secure such a seemingly prestigious client? Well, a now-deleted CoinGeek article reveals all. The deal came about because Ager-Hanssen’s son, Casper Ager-Hanssen, went to school with the son of the owner of the network… yes…seriously!
In the puff-piece, Ager-Hanssen boasted the deal would move him closer to his target of having one billion BSV wallets within two years. Oddly, after it launched, Ager-Hanssen responded to a user asking if it still used the BSV blockchain, stating they ‘hadn’t decided’ on one yet – which begs the question – what is the point of using a blockchain at all if not to inflate the network traffic unnecessarily? Reddit users sussed this is what he was doing with Stuk.
Almost four months into this latest venture, CheSconto has had around 100 downloads on Android.We are unable to see the data for iOS, but given the company only has 64 followers on Twitter, we’re guessing it hasn’t been a roaring success.
Investigative journalists from the UK’s Guardian Newspaper reported Ager-Hanssen had pitched a version of the app the the ruling Conservative Party.
What is also interesting is a line in the Guardian article which states: “The presentation suggested Addreax already had partnerships with brands such as Amazon, Coca-Cola and Apple. Contacted by the Guardian, none of these companies confirmed any relationship with Addreax or involvement in the True Blue project.” Which raises questions about just which brands Ager-Hanssen does have any kind of relationship with.
It’s also worth pointing out that Alibaba is a Chinese company part-owned by the ruling CCP, meaning they would also have direct access to Tory party member data, a clear national security threat, especially with recent allegations of Chinese involvement in ‘honey-trapping’ British MPs.
Serious questions must now be asked as to why senior Tories were even contemplating handing over member data to such an obvious data-harvesting scammer, with a history of failed businesses and absolutely zero regard for data protection law…
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