Topic: PBmining - legit? - page 6. (Read 67909 times)

You did a great job with your posts, problem is that people listen but don't hear. Don't give up man

i just wonder how much "interest" these guys can really earn.....

I only have about 0.1 BTC to go before I break even.  So I'm at least not on the hook for a significant amount, and I have sworn off buying more contracts.  However this thread definitely did help to open my eyes about bitcoin mining schemes in general, and contribute to making me more cautious and skeptical.  The idea of paying a lump sum for a cloud mining contract, with the eventual outcome that you perhaps (hopefully) earn back the same amount of BTC, makes it similar to a mail in rebate.  You pay money up front for an item and the promotional gimmick from the company that made the product is that they will mail you a portion of the money you paid up front at a later time.  During that interval of time they can earn interest on that money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebate_(marketing)

I made this thread and then they've still made millions of dollars, so I didn't do much good. Wait til they 404 on everyone and then you'll see what I really know.

I just like to stop people getting scammed. If you look through my post history I've stopped a few scammers in their tracks, but even when I have given a detailed explanation of some scams (like that Escalade guy) people invested $5000 with him. ffs.

You literally cannot help some people.

I know how you feel! You deserve credit for pulling back the blanket on pbmining, without your posts in this thread or the pbmining service thread, a lot of the information we have now on pbmining would have never come to light. A tip of the hat sir...

So the only way they can continue right now is if they are in fact a ponzi.

Interesting...

I know about the electric cost and how it technically wouldn't work....

I am just saying if it is a ponzi, now they are bringing in MORE money then they are sending out, which is great for a ponzi.

I am slightly confused by that, so now they are making actually 38.58 BTC per day, while only paying out 37.39?  I wouldn't call that a fire, I would say *IF* it was a ponzi, that they would be able to continue for awhile then...

this one is interesting
if BTC in are way too small compare than BTC out, we will see something interesting later
So, it's close. I will keep monitoring.

haha I don't go looking for challenges on purpose, this one just nearly scammed me and I took it personally 

It remains to be seen if the GAW Hashlets are a scam or not.   At this point GAW isn't claiming the Hashlets are actual mining.   In any case it isn't a simple Ponzi like PBMining.   Even PBMining likely has some mining going on, probably just not enough real mining.   

I wouldn't be shocked to see an announcement from them soon that "given the recent developments in the bitcoin ecosystem, blah blah blah.... we've made the difficult decision to blah blah blah" and the whole thing goes 404.  If Mr. Piggles is looking for a new challenge, there's another wacky ponzi (alleged) starting up over GAW, more stubborn newbies, a payout campaign full of shills and sock puppets, mysterious payouts, mining farms that actually warehouse photos, you name it.

My latest calculations show that incoming money is fairly close to commissions they need to pay out. I'm not trying to yell "fire" in a crowded theater here (and since there's no effective way to sell contracts anyway, it doesn't really matter), but I think we will know fairly soon if the jig is up.

Recent data:


So, it's close. I will keep monitoring.

"They", to be honest I think it's just "he", did say a few things about it:


I find it hard to believe that a photo of their operations would violate sales agreements. Sure they might not be allowed to disclose a cheaper price if they get the hardware discounted, but just a photo..?

How about giving a list of BTC payment addresses from the pools they use, instead of the mixed ones. I can't imagine how that affects their security, identity, sales agreements or anything?

They have many times.  PBMining refuses to answer. 

Why exactly don't the PB-Mining "investors" ask the company for more information???  I am perplexed by this.

People who got in early probably made their money back.  Beginning of june I was getting .02 return on my 60Ghs, July it was .013 and this week it was .009.    My original 4 month prediction is now looking a lot longer. 

So this China mining operation is good for "perhaps 5%" = ~10PH (so probably bit less?): http://www.thecoinsman.com/2014/08/bitcoin/inside-one-worlds-largest-bitcoin-mines/ That is pretty big, for example, they pay 1 million dollar a month for electricity.

PBmining has 1/5th of that. That is still a very serious big operation. Why can't we get any photos?

Does anyone has a source of the claim they are "now" operating in Iceland? I am unable to find that in any of PBmining's posts. If that is true, I find it very hard to believe they can easily move an operation that big to another country across the ocean. If PBmining is really the one that claimed they moved to Iceland, I am assuming it's a lie (if they are really mining.)

I am also wondering what the source was of that Eligius payout address. Because if they did get 300 BTC from mining on Eligius, they obviously do have some kind of serious mining going on.

I was able to do a background check on the owner and I do see he was legit in selling some relatively smaller stuff including miners, his internet history goes back 15 years too, so doesn't look too bad. But this is a much bigger operation obviously. Even though I cannot find any proof of PBmining being a ponzi, there are still many things that raise questions.

edit: or look at this China mining operation, good for "only" 575 Th/s (PBmining is 4x bigger than this): http://www.thecoinsman.com/2014/08/bitcoin/inside-chinese-bitcoin-mine/

If this is not a Ponzi, this is basically a bet on the difficulty. At today's 0.0033 (I don't see the .0029 on the site), about 8.9% difficulty increases are break-even, and it will take over a year to recover even 50% of your initial "investment" (hint: this is not an investment. Investments can be sold. This is a purchase, as there is no way to sell contracts that I can see, unless there is a private market I don't know about.).

Also, if their "statistics" page is accurate, they have 4,979 customers totaling 1,966 TH. I find it difficult to believe they have 1% of the total network hash rate. Where is all that mining power pointing? I don't think they are solo mining, as the variance would prevent them from such smooth payouts. So which pool? Why is none of that published? Wouldn't they want to assure customers that they have that 1966 TH to back the contracts? I would want to know that...

I don't know what the average purchase price per GHs was, but I would have to wager that it was significantly higher in past months than .0033/GHs, but even at that price, the site has taken in at least 6500 BTC, or a tad over $3M US. The average price may be even 100% higher, so I'd estimate they've taken in $4-$6M US.

If it is a Ponzi, the most likely place to end it would be on the down side of the bell curve--e.g. when their payouts start to exceed the new money coming in. Given the information they post, this could be somewhat predictable...perhaps I will try to do the math on this.

    You are right.

    I did do some math, and I calculated that it will take just under 6 months to break even. I could be off with my estimates, but that is what I came up with.