Bitcoin Forum

He has said, "its too bad the Bently dealership doesn't take BTC."

Gox has no reason to freeze him, his trust accounts will cover for him until Tuesday, what's stopping him?

I think, if, as I presume, he's been running a scam all along, he has already sold and withdrawn all the money he needs. The crash in the markets has been either a panic reaction from others or an intentional trick by Pirate to take everyone's attention away from what he's really (been) doing.

Perhaps so.  Just be ready to apologize if you're wrong.

The price move could also be a result of him taking advantage of his own announcement. Otherwise it would be a missed opportunity; with the guaranteed panic, he could have easily sold at 14-13 on average and bought 11-12 on average, making 10% in a few hours. Even, rinse and repeat. I didn't follow though, whether the sell-off started before or after the announcement.

Though like mp420 said, if it's a scam, he should have moved his money to other instruments already. MtGox has frozen accounts for minuscule reasons compared to this one (suspicion of criminal activity is enough), so I don't buy that he could easily move his money out from the exchanges that could support his volume.

He'd still be stuck with MtGox withdrawal limits, so it's not like he could have liquid funds instantly. It's not like him dumping a lot of coins would go unnoticed.  Any large transaction this weekend will be assumed to be pirate cashing out and is likely to push the price down.  As others have said, if he intended to cut and run, it would have made sense for him to have sold the majority of the BTC he was holding before now and retained only enough to pay people interest until he shut down.

There's never been anything stopping him or any other HYIP shutting shop and not paying back.  Everyone who participates in HYIPs should be aware of that risk by now.  The thing to hope for is that you'll earn enough in interest during the life of the HYIP to make a profit even if the operator does make off with everyone's capital.  

It's possible to close down an HYIP and pay everyone out.  Everyone's just going to have to wait and see what happens Monday.

people are so stupid, giving money to someone like that...

why , if you ask your self, there is no way to get those returns, at least not sustainably

gimme some btc, I'll make it rain, a bunch of goons,
just let the suckers suck it

Why don't you think my explanation fits, with or without him being a ponzi operator?

There is no such thing as selling tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of coins for a million dollars in a weekend on MtGox and withdrawing it through a bank without getting noticed. Never mind that the bank knows every personal detail about you.

Makes sense, it is not some revelation, however. Obvious is obvious. If it is a fraud which it almost certainly is, the pirate has cashed out his booty long ago. Now let's see how suckers will react on realisation that their net worth is much smaller than they still think/hope/pray it is.

It is so funny to see how suckers and shills celebrate here: "Hooray Pirate sez he will return all the money soon!. It is now proven to be not ponzi..." What a bunch of dumb idiots!

We need shares of popcorn trading on GLBSE.

Why would pirate cash out for himself in the first place?

The communication was probably done over 7 proxies the whole time... guy probably has a 500k brainwallet and orders cash over silkroad when he needs it.

Sure, that's a possibility.

It is just my best guess that he was cashing out to USD on ongoing basis some portion of incoming funds and it was even possibly the reason for unnatural bitcoin stability around 5$ mark.

Even if everything was a ponzi scheme why would he even make an announcement on the forums. Wouldn't it be easier just to go to a country with no extradition treaty with the US? I am not going to lie, its not like pirate is someone mysterious hiding in the shadows. People know his name and I am pretty sure what he looks like. Violence is always an option.  

If it is a ponzi, which is a fraud, which is a process of liberating money from victims by deception, would one more lie make any difference? It does pacify the mob for one more week or so, however, and opens possibility for hacks, fires, scratched cd's, lost cold wallets, heart attacks, car accidents, whatever else.

The good thing is that we all likely will know rather soon.

In best case scenario I've been completely wrong about all of this all the time, I sincerely hope to be wrong, however unlikely that is.

I'm glad you've said that because the amount of vitriol that has been spread on this forum recently has suggested that some people actually want this to be a ponzi - if only to be right.

Many people have been called shills, liars and even criminals - they are surely owed an apology by some people if Pirate does pay everything owed.

Utter nonsense.

Real world doesn't work that way.


Why would they bother indeed...  ::)

They do.  A lot of people have shown their true colours throughout all this.   Sorry excuses for human beings, and they can go jump as far as I'm concerned.

I, too, will be pushing pretty hard for some public apologies from these people should Pirate come through (not to me, I couldn't care less what these pricks think, but to pirate first and foremost and then everyone else they've been complete shits to for the past months).

Now what you need to do is start pointing that anger to the right place. :)

The $64,000 question is "What was pirate doing with the bitcoins he borrowed?"

Buying several new cars  ::)

Buying several new car dealerships...  ;D

So I take it you'll be making an apology if it turns out we were right all along?

Perhaps, not just apology but disgorgement of illegally/unethically obtained funds as well?

I have made my passthrough lenders whole shortly after the announcement.  If pirate defaults I will lose more, but I will have no unethically obtained funds.  I may, however, apologize for defending pirate so fiercely, but I strongly believe it won't come to that.  If I'm wrong, oh well, the loss will be hard, but I can take it.

Maybe he already did.  Last time I heard countries without extradition treaties are part of the intertubes.  Some of them even have nice beaches

Stealing is a crime.  Period.  Most countries don't define what can or can't be stolen.  


If you steal a potato it is a crime.  If you steal a beanie baby it is a crime.  If you seal a sack of aluminum cans heading to the recycling center it is a crime.

Please point out a statute that lists by item which can be stolen without it being a crime.   

The law doesn't work that way, it never has.  Imagine how stupid it would be if the the law did work that way.  
"Buddy I got a gun; give me your cellphone.  No not your wallet.  You think I am stupid?   I am not going down for robbery.  Just the cellphone.  Stealing a cellphone isn't a crime (yet)".

Potato

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdqbi66oNuI

Exchange money for money or make money with money is an abrasive process, you can't possible get any revenue when nothing is being created or added to the economy... who the hell still believes in Ponzi scams?! If you felt for it, I've to say "too bad!".

I actually have a little amount in BTCmax :-*

But I actually appreciate that BST is shut down, a major ?Sign can be cut out of the equation. And this happens just one month before the mysterious "major Bitcoin Announcement in September" (although does not need to be connected). We might face a more clear and accepted future for Bitcoin. Maybe I will see the 20$/BTC mark this year.

This..

Because everyone is panicing.  Talk to any of the lenders that aren't pirate passthroughs.  Everyone wants to withdraw their money and are apparently selling on the market.

If pirate really weren't going to pay back, why would he say anything?  If he wasn't going to pay back and intended to just dump everything, he'd keep it as quiet as possible and let people support the dumping unknowingly, right?

I think people were moving USD into bitcoin, more so than they normally would, to take advantage of pirate's rates.  This effectively pushed us up to a year high.  Now that the rates aren't available, you have people moving the USD back out of bitcoin.

You are exactly correct.  Go read about Elliot Wave Theory.  This is panic selling.  All of these people think that Bitcoin is going to go to $2 and they want to get their money out now.  Once they see the real demand rebound the price they are going to panic buy on the market and shoot bitcoin up 3-5x times the stable price of $5. 

Well, to certain people, perhaps.  That said, I never once professed to understanding what Pirate has been doing, and I've never said "it's not a ponzi", nor have I attempted to get anyone else to invest with Pirate (as I've always said, what a person does with their own money is their own choice).

My issue throughout all this is the absolutely disgusting way your lot have gone about their little crusade.   It wasn't enough to simply state that you thought investing with Pirate was a bad idea, instead it was just thread after thread after thread, all spouting the same crap, and getting very hostile with people who disagreed with you.   To those people, and it's the majority, no I won't be apologising.  Those people are on ignore, and will stay that way as they're not worth my time.

To the very few who were civil and normal about all this, I'll happily apologise to if they so desire (even considering my first sentence above).  That does NOT include Vlad, Micon, hgmichcahh (whatever), Vandroiy. smoothie and I'm sure plenty more I can't think of right now.  Those people are pretty disgusting excuses for human beings.

Wow so you want an apology if we are wrong but if you are wrong you refuse to apologize.

Looks like you outed yourself as a "pretty disgusting excuse for a human being"

Cry more bitch... lol ;D ;D ;D

Translation: I'm a fucking cry baby that can't accept that others disagree with me and have their own opinions concerning pirate's operation. I want an apology from you fucks if I'm right and if i'm wrong I won't apologize to certain people. Wah wah wah!

By and large, I've merely asked questions, and have, in return, had a vast number of personal attacks directed my way by the BS&T fan-club.

At this point, if people lost money, it's their own fault - they had all the information there available to them, but they didn't pay any attention to it.
If by some miracle BS&T investors get all their money back, they got lucky and should be glad of that.

smoothie you need to find something fucking better to do that sit around on the forums and talk about what supposedly bad investments others have made. Why does it even concern you? Great if you were right about it being a ponzi does it make you penis larger? If you are wrong you still will sound like you have a stick up you ass. Calm down and go do something productive in real life.  

Much like fundamental christians trying to stop people going to hell Id imagine.

Oh now we have someone thinking that they can tell me what you do with my time.

Ricepicker go pick some rice. Or go and fulfill your fantasy with large penises. Seems you like them big given you bring them up.

 I'll continue on being smooth.

 ;D ;D ;D

I had a thought.... what if unthinkable happens, miracle of sorts. That anonymous guy who holds right now reportedly 500k BTC of sucker's money will somehow give to those suckers ~600k BTC indeed. Hypothetically speaking. Would I need to apologize? I thought and thought and pondered this unlikely eventuality... and no I will not apologize.

Well maybe, just maybe, I would apologize to some specific person if I really said something real wrong...

Otherwise, hell no! Whatever will happen to the pirates op, tomorrow another anonymous personage starts another ponzi looking op, I will say the same thing again. I have nothing to apologize for in either case, and it is not my mission to please anyone here.

And that has always been the case, but it didn't stop you lot rabbiting on about it all day everyday, did it.

Cry harder it suits you and is very entertaining to me.  :D

I'm gonna go ahead and repost this here because it's fantastic:

What makes your proof of identity any better than Pirate's?  His name, face, birthdate, and location are all known by me and others who invested.  I know you are a Russian in the UK named Vladimir and that is it.  Don't give me any shit about being well known because pirate is too, just by a different clique.  I don't know any of your contacts.  But I didn't insult your business until I gave you money and was disappointed.

At this point deposits are closed, so you're not saving anyone anymore.

Meh, don't waste your time with him.   One positive thing to come out of all this is that now lot's of people know what sort of person Vlad is, and to never do business with him.   I'm pretty happy with that outcome :)

Translation: Vladimir you suck. Pirate is my friend...my boyfriend. Also my ppt/whatever is closed too.  :-*

Well then you've not put much effort into looking up Vlad, he's not exactly been secretive about who he is or what his business interests are:

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/vladimirmarchenko
https://plus.google.com/100956912600586230755/about

tl;dr: He offered a lot of mining contracts early on in the life of bitcoin - I nearly bought one back when a 1Gh/s contract for a year was expected to yield about 8000 BTC  :D

This has been said like 8 times already, but a scammer says things like this to buy time. He stopped paying back principal: don't want everyone on your tail at hour zero. Natural part of the HYIP life cycle.

But like Vlad, I hope I'm wrong, even though the apparent shills have been jerks to me. Every once in a while, a miracle would be nice. Good luck!

I do agree that the drop is due to widespread panic as opposed to Pirate himself selling. If it is a scam, he's likely converted most of his coins long ago (at least any coins he didn't squirrel away). Many people are simply cashing out.

I feel like buying!

lol this is quite a kerchinkle

I know all about his mining contacts, pirate also does mining.  There are also similar links for Trendon Shavers that are simple to find, but he couldn't be bothered to do any research before slinging accusations, so why should I bother?

Not at all...

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