Topic: Bitcoin Savings and Trust | Home | Closed - page 8. (Read 802116 times)

We've already hashed this out as well.  There's a currency risk.  By him always taking his profit as USD, he reduces the risk to himself and passes it on to the depositors.

Interesting, no takers so far.

The last of my coins in my account have been withdrawn by me.

I consider it my duty to put forward my thoughts on this, which have changed, since I don't want to be judged on earlier posts on this matter, even though I hate to be "that" FUD guy, and even though I wanted to hold off on it in public.

My assessment of the probability that it is no ponzi has shrunk from >50% to <1% within the course of 4 months, and particularly now, for many reasons:

First off, the debt seems to have tremendously grown especially with the start of the first passthroughs on the GLBSE. My estimate is it is very well in the 6 BTC digits, and even with only 100k BTC, the payouts generated are a multiple of what MtGox, the largest exchange, earns in a typical trading week (~2x more). Growing debt makes no sense for anything I know of but a ponzi scheme. It seems that the volume continues to grow since nobody has yet publically complained about being pushed out of the system, at least not significant sums, and not one from the passthrough-schemes.

Then we have the consistency of payouts, never do the rates spontaneously vary or vary at all until they are changed as planned.

Furthermore, the tiered system of higher interest rates for higher deposits. The explanation given for this was that small accounts are a hassle, but then it makes no sense to change to a new system where people can create as many accounts as they want without referral (although with lower interest). It also makes no sense that the interest rates remain 7% at the top end of the new tier, which probably will require tons of BTC deposits (big incentive not to withdraw), turning it into a sort of pyramid scheme where the "Trust" accounts have to refer new people to grow their interest rate.

In combination with growing volume and incredible consistency, the continuosly high interest rate of 7% over so many months makes absolutely no sense to me for anything but a ponzi as well.

Lastly, there is some sort of Pirate fan club going on here, where everyone else is bashed in a sort of group thinking, or alternatively sarcastic "jokes" are spammed to hide/annoy any critics. Reminds me of May/June 2011.

It’s impossible for me not to act on my conviction at this point and come out with this. I will personally apologize to Pirate if my assessment turns out to be wrong, and I will do it right in this thread.

I know most people are already aware of all of this, but there is a chance that it will help someone. Everyone should act as is his conviction.

If it is a ponzi, you just have to pull out before it goes under and come out ahead.

If it isn't, then you probably lost some potential profit, but you still came out ahead.

Either way, everyone understands it is potentially a ponzi and none of the investors care at this point.

Just tease Pirate himself - make him to bet in... he is the only person who has some interest to bet against you at betsofbitco.in
I mean: he knows if he can win and if he does, he also wins a satisfaction as a bonus...
All the other people who'd vote to trust him, prefer to deposit the bet directly in BS&T

bernard madoff was not a stupid dude.  after holding the position of chairman of nasdaq stock market, he had passed up big opportunities and instead ran a ponzi.

the psychology of fraud explains these things: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/01/151764534

What would be a fair way to go short/long on BTCST? The betsofbitco.in ones don't make a lot of sense. Those who are long have funds in BTCST, and won't withdraw them before the bet deadline .

AFAIK, they used to have it, but this was abandoned long time ago.

Boom! I'd like to see ponzi "investor" apologist try and defend against this one.. Why does pirate still share his profits? Charity? 

Brunic:

No matter how you tune the numbers, Pirateat40 would quickly be able to trade with more and more of his own funds, kicking out investors and claiming the profits for himself. As soon as he has over 10k coins himself, it takes him 34 weeks to obtain one million BTC without the help of investors.

Forget it. Any theory without money laundering is a joke, and for that he lacks a supply path for fresh coins: too much re-investment.

In fact, just forget it period. There exists no explanation why anyone in the right mind would "share" returns like that over such a long time.

Do sub-account holders get their own login on btcst.com to view their balance and transactions?

You can even put buy order for 21M coins at $0.00001 with merely $210.
I know because I have done it

Yeah, that's what I meant. I didn't realize that MtGox apparently exposes the whole orderbook, now, instead of just the orders close to the trading range.

Oh ok, that makes sense then.  Thanks!

Someone with $1000 on MtGox can put an order for 100,000 BTC @ $0.01. Doesn't mean that will ever be able to execute. The better estimate would be to take the total USD amount of $1.32M, and see that it corresponds to about 200k BTC at current market price of $6.5.

Well.. if that means there's still reliable payouts forthcoming, then a lot of people are going to stay in it.

How is that even possible?  That's higher than the 21M soft-cap.

It doesn't ever since the hack last year AFAIK

A smart one does to avoid the whale problem in order to last longer and get bigger..

I already suggested blockchain analysis, but never even got a single deposit address of pirate (via PM or publicly), so I put that on hold as long as my exposure to him is low enough.

Why should I invest a lot of time and effort only to save someone's ass who invested thousands more BTC with him? Maybe I'll still do the investigation but charge a hefty fee (people here seem to be comfortable with putting up 500 BTC just to be allowed to deposit more money) for the results...