Bitcoin Forum

Destructive people like Vadroiy, Micon, Mage, etc must be really proud about the level of distrust they have brought to this community.
A huge lender (pirate) publicly states that he will pay back everything within a few days, and everyone and his mother start panic selling. A lender is supposed to pay back, so paying back should actually be a good thing. But people like the one mentioned above the above have already planted that much distrust, that every move is interpreted as a bad sign.
Now every community has to deal with destructive and vandalizing members, however, I think that the Bitcoin community spectacularly fails in this regard. Distrust, vandalism, blaming, insults - all those things reign freely in this very forum.

When we decide who to trust we compare them to ourselves, So I would wonder how many of team ponzi are likely to be the scamming type themselves, able only to see scams

("~If I was pirate i would have bought land and ran away by now~" and the like just makes team ponzi look worse)

The problem here is not bitcoin, per se, the problem is dealing with and putting trust in people you don't know. Using bitcoin with people you already know and trust works well. The web-of-trust method seems to be working better, from what I've heard.

I don't think so. Being pirateat40 #6 on the Web-of-Trust of Bitcoin-OTC how do you explain all the hate and distrust?
http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratings.php

I have to absolutely agree

I have to agree with the OP, from what i have seen this forum is extremely distrusting of new ventures. I hope that as bitcoin matures, its users will also mature and this attitude will pass.

Yes, one way or the other. Bitcoin as the greater structure is something that really isn't analogous to anything in human history. That's why the movement inevitably will have to go through traumas to gain new wisdom and develop traditions to help make better judgments.

The optimist in me says that the end result will be better whatever turns out to be the case; which also means the general distrust has also been a positive thing. It will be an interesting experience if the "team Ponzi" is shown to be at fault. It would be pretty dull if pirate turns out to be a scammer, but the resulting climate would be more firmly grounded.

This is a very good thing - it means that scammer have a more difficult job of ripping people off. Anything that pushes the cost/benefit ratio towards being less profitable to defraud should be encouraged.

"I have an amazing investment opportunitiy that will make you a lot of money very quickly but I can't explain the details; just give me your cash and don't ask questions" should always be regarded as a scam until proven otherwise because scammers have been using minor variations of that line for centuries. Legitimate businesses don't need to keep their business models secret and don't promise returns on investment that are mathematically impossible to sustain. Notice that several successful Bitcoin businesses like BitInstant and Bit-Pay don't get constantly accused of being Ponzi schemes. It may be related to the fact that they don't exhibit all the classic signs of one.

At the heart of all of this is a split movement in Bitcoin, both supporting it equally-- hackers and crackers. Hackers want transparency and information to be shared. They want government for it's power to change and control, but they want to be a part of the change and take away control from the evil forces. Crackers just want personal gain and are mostly against government, crave anonymity, etc.

In the Bitcoin community it is easy to see the split between those who outright refuse to give even their name (why?) and those who don't care if their name is plastered on a billboard along with their private bank transactions for 10 years. The difference is a philosophical one as best as I can tell. Some people believe the world is full of good natured people who let too many bad natured people take control of it, and that things need to be balanced. Others feel that any control is bad and chaos is beautiful, because we only live once anyway.

People who support bitcoin, support it because it enables something. What it enables for them is different from person to person, but if what it enables for you is to be able to steal from others more easily, then you will have a large majority of hackers constantly going up against you. If what it enables you is to track thieves easier, then you will have crackers constantly up against you, spreading lies and creating sock puppets.

Frankly speaking, I see no future where anonymity reigns. Then again, no one matters in the end and names and faces are just representations of initiative and intentions. Bitcoin is a tool. We use it to transfer value. GLBSE, Pirate, you name it, these are all intentions of individuals. As a diverse community of Bitcoin, we should always allow questioning of intentions from individuals, and encourage transparency. There is not a single thing I wouldn't share about my own personal life if it served a purpose of betterment. The problem is that the forces of crackers, dishonest businessmen, and chaos lovers is inherently loud in these forums given their greatest weapon is sockpuppetry and simulating public opinion in their favor.

Ask Pirate what he's doing, if he tells you he refuses to explain anything, don't put money into him, warn others in an honest manner what he said to you, nothing more. When news sources ask you your opinion on certain things, tell them the facts. We will only ever be looked at as a "bad" currency so long as the people in the community keep showing emotion where logic should be shown instead. This forum is a comedic venture and it's full of daily drama from Dank trying to convince people that he's trustworthy for a loan while refusing to explain anything, to loganschrye trying to convince people that buying popcorn should be on the first of the to-do list for starting a movie theatre with other people's money. This place is a proving ground for economics, philosophy and basically serves as an experimentation ground for ideas, horribly ill-thought out ones especially. Pirate is part of the experiment. So was Bitcoinica. So was Bitmunchies. So is SilkRoad. Everything is just an experiment and everything here is new. We're all part of this experiment. It's currently high risk just to be involved in something this new as protocols, adoption and value can change at any moment. That said, the forums are not Bitcoin. Everyone knows this. Real bitcoin business and movements happen outside the forums. The very reason it is the busiest network of bitcoiners is directly due to its nurturing moderation in favor of anonymity, deniability, etc.

I'm not convinced that's a good policy, but the best I can say is-- if you don't like it, start another one.

P.S. Sorry for the rant.

Destructive? Destructive of what exactly? I would say they are wise (to some degree), not destructive.

Now, dear aq, given this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=29031;sa=showPosts disclose your exposure to the pirate's op.


Anyway, it is too late, most likely. Just wait to find out the fate of whatever interest you had in that operation.

Your point is invalid unless he actually pays back.

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously? All the scientific discoveries, the conquests with the super-leaders, the great thinkers, they all have their name attached to their lifes-work. Dont worry about the "rant", you made a good point.




Teddy Roosevelt ( NOT FDR ) was shot during a speech once. He continued his speech.

Is this a trick question?   ;)

Who's to say how many unknowns working for the good of others rather than for fame or prestige etc., have contributed to, if not single-handedly brought about,
some of the big "world-changing" events in history?  More than we will ever know... more than we can ever know.  
  

Seems to me it's the price swing in bitcoin that was the main driver of pirate withdrawal requests. I hope this isn't the beginning of a QQ wave.

Trust is earned, not given. What did pirate do to earn trust? Do people know who he is or where he lives? Do they know how the money they give him is used to make those returns? Do they know how much of the profits he keeps for himself? Do they even know why he needs other people's money instead of just earning the 7% weekly return on his own money?

With Bitcoin, the new awesome feature is the publicly available ledger that is still pseudonomous. I would guess pirate would have had way more trust if, while staying anonymous, he explained how the investor's money was being invested, and posted his own accounting ledger online along with the Bitcoin addresses being used, so people can verify that the money is going where he says it is. No need to disclose your identity to be fully transparent when it comes to Bitcoin and the blockchain. That's actually how the Bitcoin100 works, with a publicly viewable ledger matched to all a dresses and transactions (though we're not ourselves anonymous)

I don't really follow the logical connection between "some people may have lost money to a bitcoin scam" and "it's time to panic sell!"

Why would anyone panic sell over this type of announcement? Is the assumption that pirate's was going to dump his btc holdings, causing the price to go down? If so, why would he bother announcing?

I can't talk about the others, but I've met Micon and listened to his show a few times, and I understand why he was so vocal about pirate.  With so many scams in bitcoin, and then something that seems too good to be true, 31% monthly aka 3370% annually, returns pops up and seems like obviously a scam.  But if you can convince enough people that it's legit, big money will pour in for those kinds of returns, so it behooves the scammer to really work the audience for the long play with a scam like that-- so I genuinely believe that Micon truly believed that pirate was out for a big scam and Micon was trying to protect people.

That said, I met some of the better known and respected community members as well, and those that had met pirate and talked with him about his operation and how he got the returns-- and now they know his real identity (which for a long play scam could ALSO be a fake) -- but these people who had good judgement trusted him.

So weighting all the voices around, I decided that pirate was most likely the real deal.  I would have put a lot of money with him if it wasn't already tied up.  I was actually planning to put money with him at the end of this month.  Oh well.  But the point is that all these voices that OP claims are needlessly spreading FUD are NOT evil or doing harm.  They are simply voicing reasonable concerns to the community that when something seems too good to be true, it often is.  But as a reasonable thinking person, you should be able to try and discern WHY each party says what they say and try to figure out who benefits and what the real information is.  I know why the pirate FUD spreaders were spreading FUD-- they truly felt they were trying to protect the community from a big scam.  I also know why the people who trusted him trusted him-- they met pirate and saw how the operation worked and determined that it was logical and consistent and possible to legitimately get those returns.  I weighted all the opinions and the facts I could find and made my own determination.

THAT's what everybody should be doing, always.  Making their own decisions.  There are no seeds of distrust that can overcome facts and data and logical reasoning.  As long as you think for yourself you will be able to protect yourself.

Step 1 - Publicly meet your investors/goon squad and invigorate them

Step 2 - Close shop

Step 3 - ?

LOL, what are you bitching about? If pirate was honest, you should receive lots of of money for your investment. Why would you care about some doubters here?

I think the thread starter is unhappy because he is afraid that he won't get his money back...

A great many, and also:  No. 

Take a look at Stigler's Law of Eponymy. 

For almost all of these great scientific discoveries, conquests, thinkers, whose names you are thinking of, there are others you haven't heard of who really did it first or did the grunt work. 

Yep. I don't necessarily agree that your name must be attached to some work for it to be taken seriously. We're talking about purposely hiding and masking your identity while operating in a financial marketplace. Big difference.

Not taking credit for something happens all the time. Unfortunately, so does not taking credit for thefts.

Shun the non believers!

There are only two kinds of people "invest" into ponzi:

1. Suckers, who do not get it.
2. Scammers (fraudsters), who want to "get in early" and liberate money off of suckers.

There are no other options. Now note how many of self-confessed scammers (as per above classification) are on bitcointalk.

I quit reading when I got to the word 'rant'.

+1

Nice post, Matthew.

~Bruno~

Wanting to retain the ability for private financial exchange seems reasonable to me. The history of private exchanges of wealth is about as old as money itself. Of course there has been a consistent escalation of marketing against anonymous cash transactions for at least 10 years now. The US government isn't trying to hide their demands for more and finer detailed tracing of financial transactions. Remains to be seen how it will play out over time, so far they can't even kill off the US penny.

Now taking investors money in an anonymous fashion and decrying any objections, that has less historical footing.

Member of the community, gpumax, OTC rating, etc
People are way too lazy this day. Google him. Look at his facebook page. Look at the facebook page of his wife. Look at the pictures of his sons, dogs. Hell, we know more about him, than we know about the whole dev team combined. But in sharp contrast we trust the dev team with ALL our bitcoins.
I guess sometimes the business model itself can be the trade secret. That being said, read his post on this forum and on IRC and you will get an almost clear picture about his business.
Yes, he stated to make about 10%/week and gave his lenders about 7%.
He did not have such huge funds, and those were necessary for him to make this profit.

But while all those are neat questions that can be answered easily, it still leaves the actual one unanswered:

I think DeathAndTaxes nailed it in another thread.

Awesome quote...

Awesome profile pic..  :D

Call me an eternal sucker, but the above viewpoints ring louder than any "HE MUST BE A PONZI BECAUSE _____" claims.

Disclaimer: I have never "invested" in Pirate or any derivative thereof and do not plan to as I find it highly risky and lacking much needed transparency.



That's of course true, but opening yourself up to criticisms and not caring much doesn't make you a ponzi automatically either. Wait until Monday.

His OTC rating and activity on this forum were mostly run of the mill small loans (both giving and receiving) and selling of items. I did some perusing when another forum user said they figured out what he was doing by being open minded and looking through Pirateat40's bitcointalk history. Personally, all his history told me was when he started accepting bitcoin accounts he may have been loaning out bitcoins at high interest rates in much larger volumes than he could handle personally. But the question there is how was he able to maintain such a consistent rate of return. The loan business, especially at payday loan style interest rates, isn't known for 100% payback rates.

GPUMax was introduced later than the interest bearing accounts yes? And is structured such that it could be used to "clean bitcoins"? I haven't personally researched this but I may now that I'm a bit curious. If the aforementioned questions have affirmative answers then I think it raises more questions rather than add to Pirateat40's trustworthiness.

Next few weeks should be interesting.

There was a because? I mean apart from "I DON'T KNOW SO ♪~A PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI BITCOIN BITCOIN A PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI BITCOIN BITCOIN A PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI ARGH A SCAM AHH A SCAM AHHH ITS A SCAM~♫"

It could be a trick question, but nope, it is not.

I hear the inventor of this crypto-currency thing did.

And probably more will follow. Times are a-changing.

Individuals do not deserve trust when people refuse to verify and provide no explanation of their business model. 'Trusting' someone in that situation is willful ignorance guided by the temptation of great profits and riches.

Even if Pirate pays back every single deposit with interest I will not trust him in the future (unless he provides verification and a clear and concise model of operation.)

To everyone who invested in Pirate: you are speculating (gambling) and not investing. Part of investing is weighing potential risk vs potential reward. All investments carry risk; but is up to the diligent investor to discover and acknowledge them. With a completely blind offer (by Pirate) you are weighing the temptation of 7% weekly against a complete unknown.

This can best be summarized by one of my favorite quotes found on these forums:

Not quite.  Remember, a WOT standing doesn't equal how trustworthy a person actually is.  It only shows how trustworthy a community of users who chose to do business with that person THINKS the person is, mostly based on how trustworthy a person appeared to be to those specific users for past transactions.

In short, people who never thought the guy was trustworthy at all never did business and are not in the rating.

Thank you for demonstrating to the OP that the Web-of-Trust isn't working as good as he thinks it is.
I was addressing the following quote, especially the bolded part.

Not sure why you removed the above quote when you quoted me. Also don't understand why you tell me "not quite" when I didn't make any statement for you to disagree with.
Good job at answering a rethorical question taken out of context. lol

 ;D

+1

I call BS, say what he does if you know it.

Simple. Extremely high interest rates mean there is a time in the not too distant future when the interest owed is larger than the Bitcoin supply. Clearly it can't go on forever. It's hard to reconcile the absolute finite time period the operations can continue with the desire to hold out for longer.

If all accounts are made square according to the deposit terms, I will be incredibly impressed and presume the man is a genius. If he falls short of his mark but people getost or more than their deposit, I'll be less impressed but impressed nonetheless and I wouldn't be quick to label him a scammer for missing some interest payments.

If he cuts and runs, well...

uhmmm.  excuse me.  so now, just who invented Bitcoin?

and who invented myBitcoin?

This is fun, we're watching people go through the five stages of grief  :D
Some of them are through Denial, now on to Anger "GAAH VLADIMIR MICON ETC", next it's bargaining, then depression and acceptance.

It's going to be a fun week  :D

What are the odds that bitcoin will allow some of the worst excesses of capitalism to occur with people knowing there is absolutely no way victims can get justice ?

They key to freedom is being able to say "no". Having a choice in your own future is therefore important. If people want to be anonymous like they are with fiat money, they will need to have the choice to be so. If they do not want it, again, it should be their choice.

Indeed.  Humans learn nothing from history, it's just amazing for how the same things happen over and over, in spite of accumulated knowledge.

The most infamous scam IPO of 1720, at the height of the South Sea Bubble, advertised itself as "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is".   Eerily familiar to much of the lending activity in the Bitcoin economy.

I guess the profitability of casinos and lotteries proves that there must be something in the human psyche where we don't calculate the odds of total loss vs. large reward properly.  Put a big enough prize in front of people, and greed just overwhelms any rational assessment of a negative outcome.

It makes for great entertainment, however.  I'm totally addicted to the weekly scandals and price volatility.  Much more exciting than anything in my real life.

Why are you concentating on humans only? I'm sure you've heard of the cats that were killed due to their curiosity. It is a fact of life. Most cats on this board are young and can be more cautious in their remaining six lives.

Um, ahem:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=11921

How so? His name is Satoshi.

In the game of Monopoly, they use a set amount of money. The "banker" is not allowed to print up more. Fiat money used in every day life is less honest than the game of Monopoly. Bitcoin goes up to 21 million and there will be no more.

The standard bitcoin scammer MO is to take the money and run, while promising a 50% refund to buy themselves time. Maybe they give a couple people their money back, maybe they just use sockpuppet accounts to say they did.

Allegedly.

Beautiful poem, but just a poem.

But you've probably seen the videos shot from the top floors of some hotel next to the Indian Ocean during tsunami. You've seen people approaching the receding ocean waters in curiosity. Only few of them survived, those who managed to climb and hold to the tallest palm trees.

An there also was this 5-th grade girl who recently had class about tsunamis, seen the receeding waters and told everyone in earshot to run thus saving lives of multiple people.

Same thing is happening here, except the "blood on the streets" is only proverbial. And the cool cats won't really need nine lives to appreciate the value of learning from the mistakes of the other people.

Edit: Ha, ha. I just re-checked the information from the poem. It appears that in English cats have nine lives, whereas in romance languages cats have seven lives. I didn't know that.

Edit #2: Not 5-th grade but 3-rd or 4-th. I found the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_Smith

Say what?

Fiat money is exactly like Monopoly money in every way. Be sure to tell this astounding fact to everyone you know. :)

Monopoly is inflating money supply every round.

No, I wont... there is only a set amount available for the whole game. I will be sure to tell that to everyone I know. :)

Got the rulebook?

Although only $15,140 is included in a standard set, the rules explicitly allow for more money to be issued if the initial supply runs out. Go get out your monopoly set, find the booklet that says "Rules" and read it. The only things with a fixed supply in Monopoly are properties, houses, and hotels. Money in Monopoly is unlimited.

Figured I would hammer the point in...






But!



When the game is played normally you can actually RUN OUT of money. But theoretically... yes you can print  up money and play like the "Big Boys". :)


I was not talking theoretically.

Well no, even your quote says as much can be printed "the players must make do with other markers, or calculate on paper."

There's nothing "theoretical" about it: the official rules specifically state that you are allowed to do this. This is the normal way of playing. The bank cannot run out of money when playing using the official rules. Please read the rules rather than quoting Wikipedia out of context.

No! Hows that?

... wow... just wow

How's this: you're wrong, and everyone who has a copy of the Official Monopoly Rules can clearly see that you're wrong. The correct thing to do in a situation like this is either admit that you're wrong or explain why you still think that you're right. Both of these options allow you to appear to be an intelligent individual who just happened to be mistaken about one particular detail. But just saying "No!" makes you instead look like a complete idiot. You don't want to look like a complete idiot, do you?

Yes! Hows that?

LOL ... If all I did was worry about how I looked in front of people I would have a worse problem than I appear to have this thread now wouldnt I? Honest people will see the word "theoretical" and realize what is going on.