Bee Network is an anonymously managed clone of Pi Network in '24
Cem DilmeganiBee Network may be viewed as an investment (users are investing time to receive monetary rewards in the future) so a disclaimer is necessary:
All investment strategies and investments involve risk of loss. Nothing contained in this website should be construed as investment advice. Any reference to an investment’s past or potential performance is not, and should not be construed as, a recommendation or as a guarantee of any specific outcome or profit.
If the data on your phone, including your contacts and location, have zero value to you and you do not mind the risk of getting your mobile phone infected with potential malware, you can consider installing Bee Network. What you get for this is a possibility that Bee Network, which provides no data on its team, will build a blockchain with valuable coins and allow you to trade them.
Why am I writing about the Bee Network?
Because I am angry to see an app that looks like a personal data collection operation gain millions of users.
I wrote about other projects like Pi Network because I suspected they would not provide financial value to their users. However, I also noted that the Pi project at least had founders with academic credentials and a team that was working on something. Then, I got comments about bee network from users advertising it as similar to the Pi Network. From what I see online, Bee Network is a clone of the Pi Network idea by an anonymous team which makes it even less likely to be a valuable network.
Then, I saw that the app is not collecting data on the iPhone but is asking for significant user data on Android including users’:
- Location
- Contacts and your callers
- Apps that you use
All permissions requested by the app are listed on Exodus’ analysis and it is the most comprehensive list of permissions we have ever seen on any crypto network app. Another worrying sign was the inclusion of Aurora Mobile’s JPush SDK which collects significant user data and transmits them with non-standard and potentially unsafe encryption mechanisms. Aurora Mobile is based in China and storing EU users’ personal data (e.g. IMEI) with a third party’s servers in China without their explicit consent is against GDPR.
Users can change their own data permission settings for potentially dangerous permissions (e.g. contact information or location collection) for any Android app. Users claim to be able to use the app on Android without any of Android’s dangerous permissions for which user consent is required.
So it is an app built by an anonymous team that attempts to collect significant user information on Android and is unlikely to be of any value to users. So you would expect not anyone to use it right? You would be wrong:
Similar to Pi Network, Bee has a referral marketing model and provides higher digital coins to initial users creating MLM like incentives for users. Based on our qualitative assessment of online comments, people seem to be driven by the desire to make money with very limited effort and are not concerned about their privacy since they already freely provide their data to other companies such as Facebook.
How did it grow so fast?
As a new network offering a free coin that will be monetizable one day, it could be attracting users that didn’t join other such networks (e.g. Pi network) early on. It seems that some people are really into maximizing their virtual currency holding.
Should you be concerned about data privacy if you are already a Facebook/Google user?
Of course. Google and Facebook are legal entities that are bound by laws and user backlash. However, Bee Network is an app that doesn’t even provide an address or the name of a legal entity or person as of Feb/2021 in its terms or privacy policy.
Just because you pay taxes to your government, does not mean that you should also pay taxes when someone asks for it. Just like the more taxes you pay, the poorer you become, the more you give away your data, the more it will fall into hands you do not want. As a result, you will get increasingly targeted marketing offers or potentially scams which may cost your time or money.
So even if you are very excited to gain more virtual currency, we recommend you to ensure that the app does not have any permissions on your phone.
Why am I worried?
This can be another case of mass data harvesting and we have seen such activities disrupt elections and threaten democracies. It has been proven that personal location data collected by apps have been used for military intelligence subcontractors. So when I noticed this network, I couldn’t stand idle as anonymous parties take hold of millions of users’ personal information.
Proponents can claim to know the founding team and claim to have good reasons on why they can’t disclose themselves etc. We can assume for a minute that they are good people, working towards a utopian goal. Even then, we notice that they did not even write a proper title for their website that describes what they are doing. Their current title is “BEE-nuxt” which seems to refer to a a github project for developing websites. This is possibly a default setting in the code base they used to build their website. Would we expect them to protect user data?
After looking more into the network and reading some of the comments, I see that users claim to be able to use the app without sharing their data. If that is the case with you, I am not concerned. The only thing you are risking is your time which I wouldn’t recommend using on a virtual currency launched by an anonymous team but your time is your choice of course.
What are typical arguments by proponents of Bee?
- Claiming that I haven’t read the whitepaper. The whitepaper is a few paragraphs of high level description which makes Pi Networks’ whitepaper (which I criticized for being high level) look like a masterpiece.
- Reminding that bitcoin also had its detractors. Bitcoin was an innovative open source project. Bee is a clone with nothing to show for its technology or benefits. Just because some people were wrong about bitcoin does not mean that every crypto will become a success. There were hundreds of crypto scams including the One Coin.
What is next?
We are considering launching a joke coin just like Doge with the same concept as Pi and Bee Networks:
- Referrers will earn worthless virtual currency
- Early adopters will earn more worthless virtual currency
- The app will try to collect data from users and sell it to the highest bidders under absolute secrecy
- There won’t be any mining. As these apps show us, there is no need to put effort into building a crypto network when people are ready to download your app without one.
This could be a cool experiment to see who is paying for these users data but the experiment would probably be hijacked by scammers and people would end up losing real money like it happened to Dogecoin.
So what should you do?
We explained this in detail on another article but we recommend you to stop chasing promises of free money and do something more productive with your life.
How you can contribute to this discussion?
Please leave a comment, we are open to all viewpoints as long as they are clear and avoid inappropriate or immature language.
Though we don’t write much about cryptocurrencies, if you are interested you can also follow our Linkedin page where we cover impact of AI on businesses and individuals or our twitter account.
Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month.
Cem's work has been cited by leading global publications including Business Insider, Forbes, Washington Post, global firms like Deloitte, HPE, NGOs like World Economic Forum and supranational organizations like European Commission. You can see more reputable companies and media that referenced AIMultiple.
Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.
He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.
Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.
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If they are real, why not come out openly. Why hide their identities? If people that do show faces can scam, then I wonder what anonymous will do. Total waste of time. Thanks CEM
Thank you Emmanuel
Hello cem, I tried to login my bee network account with my number, and they said I should wait for verification code, which I have been trying but no code have been send to me please help me out
We have absolutely no connection to the individual or individuals behind that project. Please reach out to them. Or you can stop trying to collect fake money and spend your time on more productive activities.
Hi, in the case of Pi Network, we know who its founders are. Could this be a good reliability benchmark?
It is better than nothing. We looked into pi network here: https://research.aimultiple.com/pi-network
I personally agree with the research done here and view point on this app. That said, for all of those who say they’re is no such thing as free lunch, you are lying to yourselves.
Bitcoin was given out for free back in the day, and now it is valued at 50K approx. That is not just free lunch, it is a free lifetime supply. I say this because that success is the same reason why apps like bee catch the attention of the public: we all dream of 1000x or money without moving a finger. Not common for this scenario to play out but still possible. Same could be said about winning the lottery.
There is absolutely no chance that Bee is a clone of Pi!
The ONLY similarities between the two are the user based halving schedule and the invitation only entry model.
Pi hasn’t released its source code. It’s not open source yet and cannot be viewed. Pi’s blockchain is a total secret until its mainet launch.
Therefore Bee cannot be a clone of Pi!
You misunderstood us. We didn’t mean that Bee is a clone of Pi’s code. Bee is a clone of the concept that Pi put forward.
Please Cem I am perplexed. Please can you list out all mining apps that are not wastes of time?
Haven’t found one. There’s no free lunch.
Please when will bee network pay me
There ain’t no free lunch
I wanna mention this is also just someone’s opinion and not fact as their was no evidence just assumptions. They told many folks they were fools to go west for gold. How does one waste time click a button 🤔 once every 24hrs. Also they already track your preferences through numerous methods including technology for advertising 🙄
I have learned a lot from your articles. Please can you cover unicoin network.
there is no such thing as getting something for nothing. ever
You still haven’t explained how Pi or Bee is a scam. What does the person lose? What does the maker of the app gain? Scant information about you? Facebook and Instagram ask for more info than these ‘mining’ apps do. Plus you post pics of your family and yourself on social media.
The user loses time. Developer gains advertising revenues.
did you know that in my country “Cem” means hundred? just a fun fact
Hello Cem,
Do you have any understanding of how these apps have been created?
Im an entrepreneur in the tech space and often build apps and websites that arent your typical sites.
For example Epiphini Ltd was built and is founded by me. It is an Education Portal, Gaming Portal, Business Portal, Life Portal, basically a homepage for all your web things. Epiphini has a crypto currency, that I want to utilise, but hope to have my members mine it, via smart phone in a similar way to Pi, Bee, Eagle etc…
Would you have any contacts that could help me in this journey?
Thank you for such an interesting read.
Best Wishes,
Daniel Denham-Trew
Thank you, had to remove the url as per our comment rules.
As per these apps, I don’t want to be a discouragement but I know about 10 of them. I think the world has enough of them.
hope you are not biased already? Because we are looking forward for the 11th, and 12th, and 20th and 100th “As per these apps”. Sorry, what I actually want to ask you is does it really matter if the world is full of good apps?
Very factual and excellent review. The only problem I have with your review is your concluding statement where you are recommending people to delete the bee app which to me wasn’t necessary.
You have done your review, allow readers to take their decision as whether to stop or continue using the app.
What if your analyses are wrong?
For all you know, bee can pull a surprise someday somehow.
We simply don’t trust handing over data to anonymously run projects. Please don’t mention bitcoin as a counter example. Bitcoin was run by a group, not only by anonymous characters. And it didn’t collect any personal data.
I can’t imagine the amount of data that has been collected on Google, Apple, FB, Instavinetubeogram, and the like. How can you possibly care about giving you demographics to “an anonymous” developer. Target knows more about you than your mother. You and most others have given it away for nothing for years and now you care? Don’t speak about govt regulations in response. How many time has the “company” that collected your data sold or given or been hacked away. Enjoy your Bee tokens everyone. If it makes you happy, do it.
Being very honest I have bee network, alpha network, spotter, pht, ant network, time stoope, and eagle. I have those projects because in my mind if they do not cost anything it is worth having them. Who knows? Maybe one of them will be worth $100 but I obviously do not think I will make a significant amount of money. Being very honest I would not be able to sleep at night if I did not download these apps.
Thanks for the honest perspective. Then, try not to research other projects, there are quite a few more unfortunately.
Thanks for your advice,
But don’t you think it’s too late for one who already have been mining for months.
Why should it be? You can just stop clicking it daily, keep your coins and hope that someday they become valuable.
Hi i am using Bee. How can i know how much i have earned and how can i use it?
You can’t use it in any way yet. You are most probably wasting your time with that app.
Can you please write something about Eagle Mining network… Is it also a scam ???
Then which one is real??
Thank you for your comment, we’ll cover it
Bee network is probably owned by Meitu. If you check the domain records and the wayback machine for bee.com, there’s no evidence it’s changed hands since obvious meitu content was hosted on the domain.
Hi,
Do you have idea about Q initiative coin. Which is apparently said founded by the paypal founders.
Regards
Yes, we’ll be writing about it this month. It is a lot more interesting project than this Bee Network
Frankly speaking I do not see Q initiative better than BEE!
What’s your view on Initiative Q. Some people said it’s app is acting as a data fisher
And what about the Gramfree website?
I applaud your due diligence research. Informing the community of potential scams. Keep up the great work. I will be reading more of your articles. 👍
Thanks!
What of eagle network what is your opinion on it
Hello, please how about Eagle network?
I install the app three days ago by mere curiosity. Now that I read this, I immediately uninstalled it. Thanks!
Great but I will be thankful when you analyze phenoum (PHT), thanks
I used Bee for a while, and someone said the same that it was just a clone, tracking your data, and Bee depends on Pi success.
I just removed it and stuck with Pi, but I wonder when we would be able to get our money on Pi!
Please i will like you to write about Medion and Spotter
Thanks, we already covered spotter: https://research.aimultiple.com/spotter-network/
What about Initiative Q? Does it fall in the same realm as Bee and Pi? There are some founders tagged to the project.
I wouldn’t compare it to Bee. Bee is one of the worst projects that we have ever seen in terms of transparency. Project Q is more transparent and collects limited data (i.e. email addresses & IPs)
Sorry but it seems like this article was writen by someone who is extremly paranoid with mental illness.
There is no way they have this just to collect some data from users. You don’t enter in Bee with KYC. Your friends, contacts and your email do not have any value for anybody.
10 years ago nobody believed Bitcoin, 5 years ago nobody believed that Doge would have some price and now where are these paranoid non-believers? They are lacking with money and looking, regretting things their whole life.
What am I trying to say by this comment? Mining bee will take you 5 seconds a day – just open app every 24hours and click on Bee. If it will even have price in 5 years like 0,01$ it will be worth for everyone. If not, you wont regret it because it is only 5 secs a day…
Thanks for the comment. Removed the all caps section, we don’t allow that in comments.
https://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Exploit-Challenge-ebook/dp/B0036S4B2G
What if I told you that there were at least 2 apps out there ready to give you virtual coins for another 5 sec a day? Why don’t you also install them? You can find them here:
https://research.aimultiple.com/pi-network and
https://research.aimultiple.com/timestope/
What if tomorrow there will be five more of these? Will you install all of them, too?
Hello Mr Dilmegani,
Could you write about Timestope and Spotter?
Thank you
Thanks for the heads up Sang Saka!
Timestope: “Now you are the master of the world.” Looks like humility does not sell in the world of (pseudo-)crypto. We found timestope to be no better than Bee: https://research.aimultiple.com/timestope/
Is that a fact?
I was very cautious, but decided to give it a try, because I never granted/had to grant permissions for it. And my Phone settings says “no permissions granted”.
In Playstore it says “This app MIGHT ask permission for the following:”
So it seems for me, Google Playstore is saying what is the maximum permissions the app might ask for, while my phone settings tell me the current situation.
So is the App able to use more permissions, without me granting them or my phone realizing?
I’m working with IT companies and when you launch Apps in the Playstore, you have to go through massive security checks. So i cannot imagine, that the App is actually spying?
Reading all the stuff above makes me slightly nervous tho 🙂
Thanks for the comment. There are theoretical cases of apps using vulnerabilities to collect more information than they were permitted to: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10664-020-09879-8
However, we have no evidence of such a behavior with the Pi Network. So most probably, if your device is not compromised, your app has no permissions.
Thanks for this article,
why are they just collecting data from Android users?
Is it just a technique to hide their scam?
I have a Samsung phone and I declined all the permissions and the app still works. If I go check my app setting it also has no permissions granted so I think it’s not an Iphone only think
Thank you for this great contribution, I find it very interesting and well thought out and put together. I hope to read your work in the future.
Thanks.
Many questions arise:
Who are the people behind Bee network? where are there headquarters located?
under what jurisdiction do they operate?
i confirm, the only known founder is a very young looking doctor “Jonathan Chou”, not even close to IT profilw! Obviously just a face ready to take blame. And why would the currency gain any value if the users aren’t doing any investment. If you try to understand how it works, you will see that for bitcoin for example, the more people put their money in it the more it is worth because there is a controlled amount of units or “coins” out there. The point is that, if you want to play with crypto currency, at least use the most known ones or even easier, inform yourself about the matter. Hope i got the message across to at least one person, Thank you for reading.
Thanks, one correction on the name you mentioned, he is affiliated with another crypto project with the name bee in it. His project is already dead: https://coinformant.com/beetoken-merges-with-coinformant/
Thankyou for this great analysis .
When i try to invite somebody, they ask me for permission to use my contacts. I did not allow it, and it worked normal after that. I denied many other permission and have not had problems. So i think that bee is just copy of pi network, just not that good organised. And i do not think that they are a scam. That is just my opinion, maybe i am wrong, but in time of writing, bee has more than 6 million active users.
Thanks!
when you open the app in android studio it contains an sdk called jiguang https://ibb.co/LgvZdRc
this sdk has scary security implications.
https://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/pubs/privacy/TR-20-001.pdf
Thank you, this is quite interesting. But the image link did not work for me. Would be great if you repost.
Thank you for the article ,
did you check their privacy policy page !!
https://bee.com/en/privacy
i think they are clearly saying that they are collecting user data
Thanks for pointing out!
Btw, their English privacy policy includes some minor errors like using plural when they should be using the singular form. Does not look like it is written by a lawyer or someone fluent in English.
I saw I recently saw calls to download the app spread frighteningly among the Arab community on Facebook and Twitter.
Thank you for the article and I think we share the same opinion regarding the new network.
I translated the article into Arabic if you do not mind, as the volume of demand for the application is really frightening among Arabs.
Sure, I had add a link to this article and mention that the translated article is translation for this article. I will keep with updates.
Thank you.
Sure but please provide a link to this article from the translation, we are always updating this.
There is no permission in Bee network not even contacts, I just checked it right now.
Did you invite anyone? Then, it should ask for access to contacts. Users, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
I found out that when you start the app, it connects to different cities in China and once to Turkey (Istanbul).
Apple regulates the access to the app. With the same accesses that the app currently has on Android (version 1.2.1), Apple would not allow it into the App store.
Practically speaking, the app is allowed to access and modify everything under Android. Why the app can access and change my phonebook is beyond me. Worse and therefore a cardinal error in IT, in the current version 1.2.1, the app is allowed to lay over other apps and tap data, theoretically the tapping of passwords would be possible. “draw over other apps”. In the current version 1.2.1 the app only has access to my phonebook. Nowadays apps are constantly updated, the future will show if these permissions will be exploited. Currently it only uses the permissions to access my contacts, but it could theoretically do much more as described.
What the app is allowed to do on an Android phone is very scary if you believe the google playstore when you look at the permissions. Therefore, this app would never be allowed in the Apple Store with these permissions, which explains the discrepancy of the app permission here. I’m not trying to infer from this if this app is a scam, but you should check after each update to see what permission the app currently has. Unfortunately, I can not see the source code, so I just assume that the connections to China arise from the fact that you have to press the button every 24 hours and this connects to the database of the server located in China which then enters that user x,y,z has 24 hours to press the button again. But this is an unconfirmed assumption.
Running it on my Poco X3. In settings/app/bee/permissions there are no permissions allowed. Not even contacts.
I have another take on this, the “bee” you earn can be taken into multiple values.
So far I have “mined” the amount 330.0475, and if I convert that to the US dollar from this source: https://www.coinlore.com/convert/bee-bee-token/usd that converts into 17,532.12 USD, but if I insert the “.” Between the amount, it now converts into 1.75 USD.
The users have no idea if they are mining for thousands of (potential) dollars or almost nothing (1.75)
Thanks but the bee token that you are referring to is another coin. Bee token had an ICO after which the company shared no news or updates. Though what happened is unclear, bee token was probably a scam. For more info on bee token, you can check out this page that includes their team and explains what the project was about: https://coinformant.com/beetoken-merges-with-coinformant/
But bee token was an unrelated scam to the bee network mentioned in the article.
Let’s see how many bee named crypto scams there will be.
Many people point out that they can remain anonymous with the app, but they haven’t looked at the timeline. After the next halving, the app will open up a verification process. This is where you will link your mobile number (for 2FA?) and/or Facebook account (Federated SSO?). Apparently this is also required in order to receive Bee tokens
I have downloaded the app and installed it, the only permission it asked for was when i wanted to invite someone. It asked permission to my contacts. Is it bad for it to access my contacts or personal data?. If it is bad, what should i do?
Your data your decisions
Which should I choose the very 1st thing app asked after finished downloading: 1) continue with Facebook … Or 2) with phone number ?
(I checked, Android app has no permissions allowed)
Thank you for this article. I recently got invited by a friend to join his mining crew. I couldn’t find any neutral articles about bee Token. I first found your article about the pi network. And came here.
I think, after reading all this, that this is more questionable than the pi network. Coming seemingly from China and from an anonymous group.
I think I will stay clear from this. So thanks.
Welcome!
When I installed the application I had the “where’s the scam” mindset. I couldn’t find any so I decided that “I have nothing to lose” (on iPhone they only ask for the permission to send notifications and that’s about it.).
Your theory about the github repo checks out:
bee.com/README.md Vs github.com/securibee/bee-nuxt/tree/master/static
Thanks, good catch about the repo. However, bee.com/README.md address did not work for me.
And I also didn’t notice permissions on the app Store: apps.apple.com/us/app/bee-network-phone-based-asset/id1529988919
Strange that they request different permissions in different operating systems.
No permissions asked when I installed the app, I would have not installed the app if it asked for all those permissions listed in play store, and i double checked permissions after reading this, only one permission is there for notifications, no other permissions allowed.
Hi,
My phone also says that all permissions are denied to the app!
I can show you a screenshot if you would like.
Also, I don’t know if its a coincidence but I have received more spam/scam text messages recently than I have previously. I’m not yet sure if there’s a correlation to this and Bee Network yet, so I am still using the app currently
I had previously asked for a screenshot but it seems that many users are using the app without any permissions turned on so no need to bother with that.
However, it seems strange that even though the app works without any permissions, those permissions are listed in the app store.
Bee network is a copy of Pi Network w ithout any technical details.
The website is located behind cloudflare.
There’s a clue in the terms that the creator is located in hong kong.
The original site bee.app is not hidden behind cloudflare and is hosted in hong kong
The original site was in chinese
https://web.archive.org/web/20210111121918/https://bee.app/
Bee acquired bee.com which sold for around $2.5m in 2018
https://domaininvesting.com/daily-poll-did-bee-com-sell-for-7-figures/
It was previously owned by https://www.meitu.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20200601000000*/bee.com
The domain was live on Meitu Aug 2018 – July 2020
The live on bee Dec 12 2020
The Bee Network app sends various encoded information to accounts on jpush.cn when you start the app before a mining session occurs.
It uses mopub for ads. I’ve seen crypto.com ads which probably pay for referrals.
Apart from this when the mining is occuring there’s very little traffic.
Thanks! Awesome analysis. Can you turn off the ads?
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