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Topic: Bryan Micon's List of BTC Ponzi Schemes that should not be listed as "Lending" - page 32. (Read 119654 times)

legendary
Activity: 1316
Merit: 1005
This "no freedom of choice" remark is absolutely false. Look at OP: this is simply about not endorsing fraud on the forum.

No one has said that the threads should be deleted, not allowed, etc. We're talking about not labeling them "lending" and stickying them. Sheesh!

Your last remark convinces me that you're not the naive defender I initially took you for; you seem to be complicit in the fraud.

The first sentence from the OP:

Micon's list of obvious ponzi schemes you should never send BTC to and get back all you can if you already did:

Where is there any suggestion for an individual to use his own judgement, that the decision belongs to the individual? The above is not an objective stance. The majority of team Ponzi posts make unequivocal claims that are unverifiable from either direction, and proceed to tell people what to do with their own assets. Apparently, there's no such thing as buyer beware in their collective vernacular.

The whole concern about changing the tags appears to be secondary to the crusade, especially when considering the repetitious and emotionally-charged assertions devoid of proof. That's colloquially known as a witch hunt or smear campaign. Team Ponzi is more fraudulent and inciteful than any of the accused as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, in a sense I am "complicit" in some of the investments listed - shock of shocks: I'm invested in a few of them. Why? Because the risk/reward is not dictated by baseless accusations from short-sighted individuals whom have demonstrated their inability and/or unwillingness to explore alternative possibilities that are fully viable in the unregulated Bitcoin environment.

If they can't agree to disagree in the face of logic and lack of evidence, then there's an apparent lack of emotional and intellectual maturity on their part.
full member
Activity: 180
Merit: 100
Just so I understand, Micon simply wants the thread regarding Pirate's operation to be out of the lending forum? If thats the case then he's already won since the thread about BS&T is not in the lending forum and hasn't been for months.
full member
Activity: 206
Merit: 100
So what I'm gathering from this thread, I should not have sent 15k worth of BTC to pirate?  Doh!

That's what team Ponzi want - no freedom of choice for anyone. They don't offer recommendations, but demands.

If you did plunk down 15k, it's your money, your decision, and your ass iff things go awry.

Just pull the principal after ~11 weeks and let the rest ride. Then there's no more risk.

Hey team Ponzi: ignorance is expensive, especially in the form of lost profit!

This "no freedom of choice" remark is absolutely false. Look at OP: this is simply about not endorsing fraud on the forum.

No one has said that the threads should be deleted, not allowed, etc. We're talking about not labeling them "lending" and stickying them. Sheesh!

Your last remark convinces me that you're not the naive defender I initially took you for; you seem to be complicit in the fraud.
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
I can't wait to see Vandroiy be $60,000 richer.

Yea me too, thats why I invited him to join bitcoinmax, its about the only way he will make back his money

kind regards
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
I can't wait to see Vandroiy be $60,000 richer.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250

[tide of raw sewage]


Tide's coming back in... you can almost set your watch by the sets of comments.
newbie
Activity: 24
Merit: 0

Just pull the principal after ~11 weeks and let the rest ride. Then there's no more risk.


Well, I don't know if I'd have any hair left after 11 weeks.  With everything that's said on this thread, you'd think that BS&T is going to go down every day.  11 weeks would probably give me like 10 ulcers!  But really, to double to 30k BTC would be nice...
legendary
Activity: 1316
Merit: 1005
So what I'm gathering from this thread, I should not have sent 15k worth of BTC to pirate?  Doh!

That's what team Ponzi want - no freedom of choice for anyone. They don't offer recommendations, but demands.

If you did plunk down 15k, it's your money, your decision, and your ass iff things go awry.

Just pull the principal after ~11 weeks and let the rest ride. Then there's no more risk.

Hey team Ponzi: ignorance is expensive, especially in the form of lost profit!
newbie
Activity: 24
Merit: 0
So what I'm gathering from this thread, I should not have sent 15k worth of BTC to pirate?  Doh!
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
For anyone who thinks Pirate is legit, swing by talkgold.com

you mean the "Bitcoins was a scam"-thread: http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r340544-.html?

Quote
Yep, it was a pump and dump scam. Which is why it plummeted. Sorry for those who got suckered into this.

I think you'd have to point us more specifically or give us some sort of a hint as to how this forum tells us pirate is not legit. Do you think pirate sells the BTC and invests them into these high risk investment programs presented there?

Hey, sorry. Post edited. bitcoin.me mentioned the HYIP scams at talkgold.com in another thread, so I went and checked it out (I had never heard of talkgold before then). I clicked on the HYIP board. Lots and lots of ~1% a day scams. I was stunned. Lots of scammers there are doing the same thing as Pirate. (one notable difference is that Pirate established quite a rep here).

In the future, there will be new bitcoin HYIP schemes cropping up regularly. Members will come to realize that these are all scams. Stepping over the steamy piles of Ponzi will become a daily routine on this forum, just as it has on talkgold.

Pirate was smart to cash in on the rampant naivety here, myself included. Please, get out while you still can.

Thanks for the clarification. Lol @ the bolded part. Someone able should draw a picture of dudes navigating steaming piles of Ponzi pyramids. Cracks me up.
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
For anyone who thinks Pirate is legit, swing by talkgold.com

you mean the "Bitcoins was a scam"-thread: http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r340544-.html?

Quote
Yep, it was a pump and dump scam. Which is why it plummeted. Sorry for those who got suckered into this.

I think you'd have to point us more specifically or give us some sort of a hint as to how this forum tells us pirate is not legit. Do you think pirate sells the BTC and invests them into these high risk investment programs presented there?

Hey, sorry. Post edited. bitcoin.me mentioned the HYIP scams at talkgold.com in another thread, so I went and checked it out (I had never heard of talkgold before then). I clicked on the HYIP board. Lots and lots of ~1% a day scams. I was stunned. Lots of scammers there are doing the same thing as Pirate. (one notable difference is that Pirate established quite a rep here).

In the future, there will be new bitcoin HYIP schemes cropping up regularly. Members will come to realize that these are all scams. Stepping over the steamy piles of Ponzi will become a daily routine on this forum, just as it has on talkgold.

Pirate was smart to cash in on the rampant naivety here, myself included. Please, get out while you still can.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
Stephen Gornick, you are correct on all points.

Given the likely fallout, it is certainly possible that this recent scourge of ponzi schemes is a deliberate and concerted effort to undermine bitcoin.

On a related note, I think these questions are worth cross-posting:

Theymos and other admins/moderators/etc.,

In the interest of transparency and since you are de facto gatekeepers here, would you each care to describe your individual positions on profiting from (via ads) and facilitating the promotion of manifest frauds?

Are you comfortable accepting responsibility for your roles and will you accept the blame for providing a venue for con-artists and not taking due diligence in protecting bitcoin newcomers? Will you be pleased to explain your current choices, actions, and non-actions once this superstructure of fraud collapses?

Finally, do you believe that your current choices, actions, and non-actions will help or hurt bitcoin in the long-term? Please justify your response.

Given the facts of the currently unfolding situation, these questions seem quite reasonable and are salient to the stakeholders in the bitcoin community.

I should also note that your actions to date imply much about the above, but your individual responses or non-responses may be illuminating, nonetheless.
legendary
Activity: 1855
Merit: 1016
Seems those who cant able to shutdown Bitcoin, now using ponzi's to cheat people, so that Bitcoin itself will become a ponzi or scam & die.

If you cant attack in front, attack from behind.
legendary
Activity: 2506
Merit: 1010

Except that the entire value of losses in that currintrading scam totaled about $50K USD.  This is between one to two orders of magnitude greater.

Also, scams were allowed in that virtual world and there was almost no legitimacy in anything.  EVE players involved were just thrill seekers, essentially.

That currintrading post-mortem is great reading though.  It gives great insight into the mind of the ponzi master.


Really, there is much in common with this document:
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm


One thing that doesn't get enough consideration is that there are people who do not want Bitcoin to be successful.  Perhaps Austrian economics drives a stake through their belief system or for others it is the fear that Bitcoin will displace their gold and silver where Bitcoin threatens the value of the wealth they've accumulated over the years.

For whatever reason, there are people who would like nothing more than for a ponzi scheme to suck up hundreds of thousands of bitcoins from those who willingly handed them over and to some day read headlines about a several million dollar ponzi that will further sully the Bitcoin brand.

Even without being invested themselves, these ponzi-promoters will argue endlessly to support the ponzi as to them the end justifies the means.

So, the operator of a ponzi and the feeder funds are in it for the profit.  There is then a vocal minority that will defend it.  There is also the ponzi investor base that are either sheep being led to slaughter or are aware of the risks and continue on believing the collapse to be far enough out that the potential to snag profit exists yet.  Few of the victims can claim innocence when later making pleas for mercy to get their money back.

Seeing growth in not just the number of "investors" but in the amounts involved is something both entertaining and satisfying to those who want to see maximum pain inflicted to Bitcoin.  The longer this goes, the bigger their smile.
legendary
Activity: 1855
Merit: 1016
I see most posts which says its good & legit , seems to have posted very less posts, mostly 2 digit numbers.
Seems new members have more knowledge & experience than old ones.
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
For anyone who thinks Pirate is legit, swing by talkgold.com

you mean the "Bitcoins was a scam"-thread: http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r340544-.html?

Quote
Yep, it was a pump and dump scam. Which is why it plummeted. Sorry for those who got suckered into this.

I think you'd have to point us more specifically or give us some sort of a hint as to how this forum tells us pirate is not legit. Do you think pirate sells the BTC and invests them into these high risk investment programs presented there?
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
For anyone who thinks Pirate is legit, swing by talkgold.com's HYIP scams.

Ponzi schemes were inevitable for bitcoin.

We will see many more of them.
sr. member
Activity: 434
Merit: 251
Note that payb.tc is citing emotional distress as the reason for the deletions.  Cry

Clearly, making around 10k$ a week is really tough emotionally, nobody realize how bad it feels...

Quote from: gene

This read was an eye-opener to me, convinced me that the pattern was far too similar to invest anything in pirate & friends.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
Note that payb.tc is citing emotional distress as the reason for the deletions.  Cry

More likely is that he and his ilk feel that they can no longer control the message in here and are consolidating and shutting up. This follows pirate's pattern and incidentally closely matches prior ponzi operator behavior.

http://web.archive.org/web/20091026234156/http://geocities.com/currintrading/

Some approaches (to be used in phases or in combination):

Quote
I decided not to respond on the forums. I knew that I would quickly be asked for proof of CT's legitimacy, and I knew that I would have no investors to defend me. Instead, I decided to let the forum thread die.

Quote
If I was going to use the forums for my own advantage, I would need to find a way of neutralizing the forum skeptics. For the foregoing reasons, it would not be possible to win them over, but if I could shut them up for a long enough period, I might be able to persuade ordinary readers of the forums to invest.

Quote
Using the pretext of a lottery, I could draft all of my investors into an army and unleash them upon the forums--or at least one forum thread. Once again, my phantom team proved useful.

On threat-flooding:
Quote
The skeptics were soon suffocated. Investors poured into the thread constantly. Even when one skeptic showed up to make a particularly thorough and blistering denunciation of my pyramid scheme, it was futile. His post was buried by all of the positive ones, and his post was lost among the several pages of replies that soon stacked up. My army and I were triumphant.

And much, much more.

Really, there is much in common with this document:
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
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