Our research shows the company has failed to deliver on even the most basic aspects of its business plan, including features it claimed were completed months ago. Six months after going public, its users can’t send or receive money on its “payment” app, let alone engage in low cost, cross-border crypto currency transactions.
The vast majority of merchants appearing on HUMBL’s “Pay” platform don’t accept HUMBL Pay. Some didn’t even know they were on the platform and had never heard of HUMBL when we spoke with them.
Despite HUMBL’s claims of disrupting the payments business, HUMBL uses another payment processor, Stripe, to support the few merchants on its platform who are accepting payments.
We found that international deals announced over the last year – a key source of the company’s perceived legitimacy – never got off the ground or have quietly collapsed behind the scenes.
For example, a partnership announced more than a year ago to bring HUMBL to Africa never got beyond the press release stage, according to an executive at its planned partner.
A landmark $15.6 million deal to sell rights to HUMBL’s business in 15 countries in Oceania, including Australia and Tonga, collapsed. We found the partner for this major planned deal has no presence beyond a local entity filing, and operates out of a small residence.
A deal to expand into India has been sidelined by COVID and regulations that prevent merchants from charging for digital payments, per HUMBL’s planned deal partner.
An investment by a Singaporean company into HUMBL’s Asia business hasn’t resulted in any specific initiatives 6 months later, though directors at the company received shares valued at ~$14 million.
HUMBL’s expansion into Mexico, where HUMBL’s CEO boasted of recruiting 300 merchants in 3 days, has only 2 merchants listed as accepting payments. Even those two told us they aren’t currently accepting HUMBL payments; the business in Mexico is on hold pending changes to the platform, according to a local merchant working with the company.
Meanwhile, amidst these grand plans, HUMBL quietly issued preferred shares convertible into 5.54 billion common shares to insiders and family members, setting retail investors up for total annihilation when those shares unlock and become available for sale.
The strategy was orchestrated in part by the company’s financial advisor and a major warrant holder, George Sharp, who gaslit investors following revelations of the issuance, later saying details on corporate action were withheld so as not to create “mass panic” and to save investors from themselves.
Over the weekend, Sharp, who had made his account private days before, announced on Twitter that he was parting ways with HUMBL, leaving public shareholders little to show for these massive giveaways to insiders except ever-more grandiose plans that appear stuck at the vapor stage.
HUMBL’s CEO, Brian Foote, responded to investor backlash by tweeting that he won’t convert his personal holdings of preferred shares until at least the end of 2022. He did not, however, offer the same assurances regarding 3 billion other shares, including those held by his family’s trust.
In the past year, faith-based go-public transactions such as HUMBL have brought the investing public an endless parade of risky companies that boast of all the things they will someday revolutionize. Meanwhile, while investors are strung along by hope, and lulled into looking the other way, they face a literal reality of billions of shares becoming available to convert and sell.
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