Topic: Bryan Micon's List of Non-BCST Ponzi's Still Running (with credit rating) - page 3. (Read 13326 times)

I think it's highly misleading for anyone in the bitcoin community to use the words bank, insured, trust account, deposit account or escrow account.  This is really aimed at rational bitcoin citizens that are accustomed to the western style reserve banking financial systems; I think a more appropriate term to describe these entities would be unregulated broker, unregulated lender, or even wholesale broker.  Bank is the word of the day, the others, I might discuss another day.  But all of these words share a common element, they are used by regulated entities to mean very specific things.

Banks can only function, when they are trusted.  Normal western style banks will fight to maintain a high level of customer service and honor all withdrawals.  You probably didn't read the real world bank deposit agreement, but In the fine print, their is usually a statement requiring prior written notification on amounts that would pose a danger to the normal operations of the real world bank.  But in practice, this is rarely enforced, because delaying or dishonoring a withdraw, will result in a loss of what they value most, trust.

A real world bank, will try to maintain that trust, even when faced with the prospect of more withdrawals than liquid cash (ie cash on hand, cash in the cash vault), they will make every effort to honor all the withdrawal the same day.  They will request the product(yes they call cash the product) from the reserve bank.  But that will never be the case for the bitcoin community, since it's virtual currency with no central banking operation.  If satoshi was an economist, he would probably cry if he saw the word bank used to describe something in the bitcoin world.  I tend to think he was a idealist coder, and didn't really understand the complexities of the finance world.

To make money, banks take short term deposits, and lend the funds out for longer terms, the interest differential is the profit.  But there is an inherit problem for banks when loans default above the anticipated default rate.  Also, when a real world bank faces the prospect of more withdrawals than available funds in liquid electronic accounts, they will take overnight loans from another bank.  When they are shut out of the interbank lending market, the real world bank will approach a discount window at the reserve bank (in secret usually).  For these reasons, a western bank usually has to earn a license, and is regulated to ensure it has the privilege of accessing the discount window.  I think we should all consider the use of the word bank to describe an entity in the bitcoin community an abusive brain teaser.

Pretty much all lending operations in the bitcoin world that pay interest on short term deposits, at any given time may face more withdrawal requests than available funds - each and every one of these lending operations should be considered by definition a ponzi scheme.   Anyone that pays a high yield on a short term deposit, in the bitcoin world needs to be labeled as a ponzi scheme - just to make folks aware of the risk.  In other words, they are taking money, and returning a fraction as interest without the backing of an interlending market and/or reserve window.  It's customers may face a situation where they can't get their money back, when they want it - not when the bank says they can have it.  If the intention of the entity was honorable but described themselves as a bank or used the word deposit in their operations; it was naive to think their customer's won't make a comparison to ponzi scheme - if they can't honor a withdrawal request.  

It's self-righteous to blame the customer, when the entity can't honor a valid withdrawal request on a short term deposit.

Not really.
If Micon spent half as much time researching as he spent making wild accusations he'd have a good picture of the financial state of every lender on here.

English, motherfucker - do you speak it?!

But... I think I see what you're getting at. I wasn't trying to make a connection between The Shit-Brush and lendees defaulting because they were covertly all-in on Pirate. As it happens, I haven't had any lendees default on me since Pirate wound down, defaulted (it's always [since April or so] been policy to forbid lendees from depositing in another deposit program, especially Pirate's since he disclosed nothing about what he was doing) - but some did experience losses beyond what they knew they had exposed to Pirate. That's not Micon's doing (I wouldn't dare give him the glee of thinking otherwise).

But - yeah, bank runs are a big problem for reasons I've already given. It ain't rocket science. If the majority of depositors leave a bank within a month - the bank's fucked, and if the bank isn't FDIC (or with CUs, NCUA) insured, remaining depositors are probably fucked, too. OTOH, as you point out, if the majority of depositors withdraw from a ponzi operation - the ponzi op's fucked (well, he'd probably just leave), and the remaining depositors are probably fucked, too. So - could indicate someone's operating a ponzi, but that's no reason for Shit-Brush to get all worked up because his ponzi predictions have almost all come true.

So, you are basically blaming Micon for the problems you get from bad loans. I guess the irony is now perfect, because this is exactly one of the issues your customers have been warned can give you problems returning their money even if it's not a ponzi. It seems to me they should be glad they pulled out their money before the losses got bigger than you could handle.

Micon, you are missing the most obvious current ponzi: OBSI.HRPT

It is within his contract though to take everyone's money whenever he wants, so I don't even know if it can be considered a scam 

Jesus, I was finally added. Micon, I've had principal and interest for loans listed -- it's been that way since I started taking deposits in March. I made loans (back in January) before I took deposits, and have been returning deposits for months, now, because I dislike the risk. My deposit amounts have been decreasing, not increasing. Most lendees have verifiable forum names. My name, phone number, and address are about as public as possible without publicly posting my ID. It doesn't really matter if people are willing to pay more for short-term loans than what you consider reasonable - that doesn't make the lender a ponzi-operator. -But, knowing that (or ignoring it because knowing what you're talking about takes too long) and still listing what I do as operating a ponzi implies you are a lazy loud-mouth troll.... or a dullard. (or both)


Now, let's look at what your actions have done. Knowing Pat on a much more personal level (we talk daily -- almost everyone in the lending cartel talks daily with each other), I can vouch for him as an honest, hard-working person - intelligent in the field he works professionally, as well as in what he does on this forum. He's basically facing a run, now. I've been put in a similar situation (not related to depositors fleeing, but bad loans leaving me starved for working capital), where I've had to call in loans (voluntarily, for them) at a loss. Pro-rating interest and then also having them asked to return the funds early would be kind of obnoxious. Generally, lendees get to keep all the interest they would've otherwise paid, and just return principal, since we're grateful they returned principal at all, given we need it *now* to pay out depositors. If any financial institution on Earth were faced with depositors fleeing at the rate we've experienced the past month, they would've all crumbled. It's not because they're ponzis, but because they (and we) rely on consumer confidence. We need that trust, and we can't have 50% of deposits jumping out the window all within a few weeks, because it requires we liquidate our assets at a loss -- a big loss. Lenders now leaving the market may indicate they operated a ponzi (and just happened to be returning deposits in all cases of people involved with the lending cartel), but, more likely, I'd imagine it indicates they're deeply annoyed by a small handful of people waltzing around with a shit-brush and smearing it on their faces every day, do not enjoy working capital starvation through the exodus of depositors, and of course, have a lot of bad loans popping up because lendees were quietly using funds to put into a Pirate account. Negative trends take away that light at the end of the tunnel -- but maybe you're just weeding out people who jump too soon - Idunno.

Keep doing what you do until you feel better about yourself, though - I'll be sticking around with ya.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1165301
EIEIO and by extension GIPPT in trouble.

Byron Micon is the Ponzi Breaker. He jacks fools.

Darn. Looks like there are completely legitimate businesses that can provide bitcoin-long-term-offer-esque returns after all:

http://www.reddit.com/r/finance/comments/zcwp9/can_someone_explain_how_someone_could_be_stupid/

Don't ask me how this is even legal.

No offence.  maybe I should try to emulate the bullies and others that are trying to save everyone from themselves.  Anyway, I think my wife has a much better character than I do.

Disregarding personal data, all you would be left with is the record of loans/investments and deposit repayments that I make.  That might not be a good thing because I ran with 1.5%/week for half a year before dropping it to 1%/week.  Note these are nominal rates, and while it is little point trying to educate people about real rates and market risk premiums, bitcoin is not comparable to USD or most OECD economies, so the rates are different.  Borrowing at 25%APR for a house is not that long ago.

Happy to be a faceless ATM for users.  Don't forget you pin number.

What? You realize that to "come off as a trustworthy guy" is the first thing most scammers have to learn to do, right? Also, there are legions of trustworthy people that do not appear to be so and that only show their value when it is truly needed.

In other words, the only way to determine the real trustworthiness of somebody is to disregard any personal data and things that can be used to buy good will like "but he donates so much to the poor children" (Sorry starfish & wife, I am only pointing something that scammers can and tend to do) and instead pay attention to the hard and cold numbers, business models, market conditions, and results. 

Also, please realize that ponzi schemes not only benefit the scammer but also the people who manage to get in and then out at the right moment. Those people are also interested in making the ponzi run for as long as possible to maximize their own personal gain. Therefore, third party testimonials need to be disregarded too unless they come -again- with plenty of cold, hard numbers to back them up. And for the record "I invested X and got paid Y as advertized" is not good enough because that's precisely how (and why) ponzi schemes work.

Actually I do agree with you, since earlier TangibleCryptography "complained" about their lack of clients. However the business model is plausible.

Actually, Tangible Cryptography sounds like more of a publicity stunt than a legitimate investment to me. You'll notice that it didn't last very long and is now fully funded. Unless TC wants to continue it as a publicity thing, they'll likely pay off all their investors very shortly, if they haven't already.

Bryan, you should add TangibleCryptography to your list of ponzis: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/funded-tangible-cryptography-llc-seeks-loc-to-expand-working-capital-99034

Clearly, 0.5 and 1% weekly, ponzi!

I wouldnt leave coins with Micon either. But hes not the one holding peoples coins for some unknown use. 

He will be updating that thread years from now probably.



If he exchanged then at today's rate he will have over 162 Quadrillion USD . Woo go Burt!! Just that pesky issue of 21m limit on btc, will have to take out some of the interest a bit early and payoff Gavin to fix that. Or just cash 21m coins every other day.

edit: math fail, fixed now.

Looks like you keep on winning.

You are both right in my book. Thieves won't steal things with no value, they only take things that are in high demand.