Bitcoin Forum

BitClub Network claims 1% of the entire Bitcoin mining capacity.

BitClub Network are promising 1000% increase in value of their 'memberships' within six months.

BitClub Network are promising Bitcoin networked ATM's and Bitcoin debit cards.

Wow Great, you say, a real professional cloud mining operation at last!
Then you read about the $99 'membership' fee.
Then you see the 1000 day roi.
Then you read about their "cutting edge referral based pay plan".
Then you read about Clubcoin, their PoS marvellous innovation, coming soon.

It's all here, have a read

https://bitclubnetwork.com/compensation.html

http://behindmlm.com/companies/bitclub-network-review-zeek-ponzi-veterans-at-it-again/

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=762075.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1128258.0

http://behindmlm.com/companies/bitclub-network-out-of-funds-clubcoin-announced/

Wow, lots of reading, you say, gimme the tl:dr.
OK, let's start at the beginning, their website. Take any one of the many many addresses they use, they all lead to this

http://bitclub.io/mining/mining

https://i.imgur.com/OOXzacs.png

That's what we like to see, full of information and testimonials from real life customers!
Well, not much information, but look, real life customers!
There's Amy from Romania

https://i.imgur.com/VGaz3io.png

Who could be Monica from Rome
http://jericko.net/index.php/monica
or just be a very pretty, Romanian bitcoin enthusiast who's looking for a boyfriend
http://dating-en-relatie.com/Romanian-women.html

Then there's Mike Jones from California

https://i.imgur.com/rfAcX2N.png

Who looks a bit like Mike Jones from Cape Town

https://plus.google.com/107168767283731452906/about

And the chap in the screenshot above, Victor Diaz from Chaco, Brazil according to BitClub.
They even quote him in Spanish (I thought Brazilians spoke Portuguese, but no matter)
"Thank you thank you thank you! BitClub has been very good for me. I really need passive income and gave himself for me BitClub"

The only problem is that Victor from Brazil, the Bitclub investor, is in fact, Ali Ansari a rapist from India.

https://i.imgur.com/EtIDWuT.png

I can recently remember at least three "cloudmining investments" companies who used fake pictures of clients or management in their publicity. They all protested that it was an innocent error by a third party. They all turned out to be liars and scammers.

This just the tip of the iceberg, much more to follow.....

Looks like you found a good cause to replace your now defunct cloudminr sig :)

There are so many things that can be said about this, sadly most of them will just give the obviously stupid scammers tips for the next scheme, so I'll have to consider what to post.

The clubcoin is right out of the fibonnaci (sp?) and gaw playbooks, not only will they take your bitcoins you'll also end up being bagholders for their shitcoin.

The only thing that is 1000 about this is the chance of it being legit, 1000-1

Oh I can't wait to hear how they will try and spin Ali Ansari as the 'happy investor', that is an epic fail on an unparalleled magnitude.

just to make this fancy collection complete, I have to add link to their promo "fiverr based" video:

source of video: https://www.fiverr.com/cwiney/create-an-amazing-whiteboard-animation-video

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2BLhSdHJeI

and this is best part of video:

https://i.imgur.com/NHRVU0K.png

ahh and for ONLY 99 USD you can get LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP. what a deal.)

Its just like those Indian phone scams where they ask to repair your computer for 90 then its instantly 1000 for the actual repair.

Stay WELL away from this bullshit, the "victor diaz" is actually a picture taken from a news site for goodness sake!

Yeah, but like most honest, legit, above board cloudminers, they don't want you to only reinvest 30% of the make believe earnings that you didn't really earn anyway, they want you to "re-invest" everything.
So, they very kindly make it simple for you.
Just dial it up to 100% and watch those magic numbers grow....

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img538/512/5Zaflg.jpg

Yeah, there's always "exciting stuff" happening 'soon' with these MLM deals....like Clubcoin, let's have a close look at that "exciting stuff" next...

Oh, surprise, surprise, our totally legitimate friends at BCN seem to have noticed that their happy customers aren't so totally legitimate....

https://i.imgur.com/sgG4ZEs.png

Time for a
1) weasel worded lie about web page designers
2) ad hominem attack
3) "If we're a scam what about the blockchain?" strawman

Take your pick....

I'm still seeing this at their http://bitclub.io/mining/mining address

http://i57.tinypic.com/29zf051.png

Hopefully nobody has fallen for this scam.

On the contrary, I should think many hundreds of people have people have drunk the MLM Kool Aid and parted with lump sums under varying degrees of pressure and remorseless salesmanship.
Look through the presentations and webinars and referral targets on the BCN websites: this is what MLM does, it takes a credible idea and remorselessly hypes it up and up to unsuspecting civilians who know nothing about the core subject.
This type of marketing is done to friends, family or strangers; anyone who can be persuaded to part with money and start the referrals cranking in is fair game to Multi level marketers.

These are highly organised, well financed operations undertaken by serial scam promoters and relentlessly pushed by their marketing foot soldiers, all dreaming of getting to the top of the pyramid and milking it before it collapses under its own weight.

I just read the whole thread when someone I don't know came up in the chatbox of vip.bitcoin.co.id (Indonesia Biggest Exchanger) claiming that there will be a roadshow seminar around Indonesia about Bitcoin. After a word or two, he claimed that he's promoting www.bitclubindonesia.com 'A real investment'. Now, I have to warn everybody.

well what a news.. I'll help you.. ^_^

Upon clicking this thread, I found the rapist within 60 seconds, coming back here to read further to see if I would be the first to present such. I wonder if Leroy Fodor is connected to this site in any fashion. I know, it'll be a stretch given that Leroy hasn't, doesn't nor will ever lie.

Let me guess: Leroy Fodor's StakeMiners in the Philippines is sponsoring the roadshow.

scammers are creative nowadays. they will even invest in a website just to scam people. for those who are new with bitcoins most likely will fall to this scheme.

I don't really know, Bruno. But I'll update it when it comes to my city because he said he'll bring a Bitcoin expert from the United States.

The video is the most retarded fiverr video ever, its worse than the cloudthink one. I think even the guy paid £5.00 for the video was stuttering a bit on the 1000 for 1 share, etc etc.

http://tarotalia.es/consultas/tarotista.php?id=9
http://jericko.net/index.php/monica
http://dating-en-relatie.com/Romanian-women.html
Same Picture

I know it only seems like a small thing, these false pictures and non existent customers: "Hey, everyone does it, it's just marketing, doesn't mean anything!" but I don't see it like that. Once someone is established as a liar, then exactly how much of what else that they say can be trusted?

I know people who work in boiler room scams, confidence tricks and the MLM industry: in order to do the job properly they have to have the right psychological approach to the clients victims.
In order to avoid any compassion or sympathy as they hassle people night and day to part with whatever money they have in order to hit their targets, they effectively dehumanise the marks, treat them with contempt and laugh at them.
Some actually place bets on how absurd a pitch they can make and still be successful.

This is where the picture of the rapist/client comes in.
It's reasonable to assume that whoever used that picture of Ansari and gave him the ID of a fictional Brazilian client of BitClub Network, knew where the picture came from and who he was, what crime he had committed. This is the contempt I refer to, "Hey, these people are so fucking stupid, let's show them a picture of a rapist and say he's a client, I bet they don't even fucking notice!"

But someone's had their ass kicked, and the picture's been changed.
A real pro job they've made of it too....

https://i.imgur.com/17HaL9o.png

They must have them on a different rotation somehow, the rapist is still listed in that group of 'satisfied investors' when I load it up.

Quite likely, there are various different addresses which are run by MLMer's high up the food chain, you'll see at the bottom of the page which member is "sponsoring" the version you are looking at. On this page he's vanished completely, (only three dots representing "Members who love us")
One huge red flag for anyone undecided is that you cannot sign up for the BitClub Network without a referral, just as a customer off the street, so to speak.
You MUST use a referral page, otherwise you get this:-

https://i.imgur.com/T6tojYN.png

Think about that.
If you've read that absurdly complicated page of their referral commission structure, you won't be surprised to learn that over 30% of all new 'investment' goes solely on maintaining the referral payments.
https://bitclubnetwork.com/compensation.html

Q: Why would a legitimate company only take investments through third parties at a cost of 30+% commission, rather than allow direct investment and receive 100% of the money?
A: They wouldn't.

They have removed that guys picture completely now, and the story too. It shows these people are nothing but a scam.

Cross posted from here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1128258.0

"...send all the Bitcoin back to us and we will re-activate your account and pretend this didn't happen."

What legit business would say that to a client they accused of stealing 20BTC from them??

the most funny thing is they're too dumb to use a decent translation software. the German used in the testimonial is broken to the bone.

Scammers getting more sloppy <3

Meanwhile, BCN continue their attempt at global domination with another lie, this time with their mining pool


https://i.imgur.com/XYmvUsE.png

As I have circled, they use the word "Free" three times in respect of cost to miners of using their pool.
This is an outright falsehood, they keep the Tx fees that miners would normally receive for transactions ::)

Despite being asked a number of times to correct their advertising in this thread, they still continue to claim that it's "free" to mine with them.
But it's not.
Neither are there any details of how they'll pay miners for their work....Paycoin maybe?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1148668.0

Have they given any response to this information yet?

I doubt they will it should not take to long to post information unless it`s a SCAM!

Can anyone track this btc address down, give a general location?

1D4RC3FGNX3mx5RvNwBqHZtKiwog7a39Rj

1FDcTCX7azfHuYgtwoXAWkfQBrmubJgLQj

1JefaDwtSEr7RmA4dBdmZYJ5EAcKyD7a6Q

The scammers claim that I took btc using such address, I did not!

Most of the blocks discovered by this pool are fake, only 5 are actually blocks they have discovered.

What do you mean "fake?" Like they were orphaned, or? They were on Blockchain, IIRC...

Here make an account and check for yourselves, I got in because where I live the senator was doing the presentations with a bunch of financial advisers,bankers, etc rich old people.

My mom go invited because they thought she was assumed to be a financial adviser I think, but im just a regular teenage guy, but when my mother told me it was bitclub related i was like wtf.

So when I checked it out I technically snuck in early im assuming.

Also most of those people know something is going on in September and have insider information about bitcoin, those people in that meeting are not ones to be fucked with.

They claim to have mined over 50 blocks.
Checking blockchain.info shows the actual amount. https://blockchain.info/blocks/BitClub%20Network

Sure, sounds legit.

Pleased to meet you, I'm the CEO of Bitcoin.

Yeah, was about to say the same. You can't use a link that shows just 3 days and claim that encapsulates their entire history (especially when their claims were MORE THAN 3 days ago).

Just while waiting for another shoe to drop, especially in the bizarre fraud accusation against EndtheFed https://bitclubnetwork.com/fraud/1/lerdbaron.html , I thought I'd crunch a few numbers in my spare time.

These worldwide MLM/Ponzi schemes can be huge, tens and hundreds of millions of dollars is quite common.
For example, the original promoters of BitClubNetwork came to the notice of the anti scammers over at http://behindmlm.com/companies/bitclub-network-review-zeek-ponzi-veterans-at-it-again/  because they were associated with the promotion of Zeek Rewards, a huge Ponzi with a MLM referral scheme attached.

The Zeek receiver has so far clawed back and redistributed $246,000,000 !!
http://www.zeekrewardsreceivership.com/

This money has been reclaimed from "Net Winners" through the US legal system, so the absolute attraction of anonymous Bitcoin for these sort of scammers is obvious, despite the fact that, according to one of their die hard shills, BitClub Network in actually based in Romania.

 https://i.imgur.com/ag5WaeE.png

http://www.moneymakergroup.com/Bitclub-Network-Bitclub-t478335.html

This is according to SecondsOld, a serial MLM pumper who actually dabbles in altcoins on here and has the only BitClub Network signature I have seen.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=251793

He is currently pumping BitClub and BitBillions GBBG, famous on here as the AussieStriker echo chamber, and for its incredibly anally complicated methods of creating money out of nothing.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=147613.0

He was actually paying new mugs investors $100 cashback to mire themselves in the BitClub web grasp the opportunity of a lifetime and sign up on his downline.

BitClub is the greatest passive opportunity that I have
ever seen in my 15 years of networking, and it pays every single day
like clockwork.
For that reason, I'd love to help you get started earning daily income.

If you join me by becoming an active member of BitClub and
purchase at least one pool share, I will send you $100 via your
choice of Paypal, SolidTrustPay, or Bitcoin to make your membership
FREE!

http://archive.aweber.com/secondsold/9W_5H/h/SecondsOld_com_OFFER_100_.htm

We know that MLM companies make hundreds of millions of dollars (mainly) throughout the world. One of the ways that has been developed to define whether a scheme is legally legit in the States is quite logical: does their income derive from business activity and is the referral scheme an adjunct to that legitimate activity, or is it the reason for the existence of the business in the first place?

Anyway, a bit of number crunching.
For BitClub (or any other investment) to be sustainable and not a Ponzi, it must earn more than it pays out, or it will have to use new incoming investments to pay earlier ones.

So, how much does BCN pay out, and how much does it have coming in?

Because everything is secret and these people tend to make stuff up to suit the situation, these will be called "fag packet" calculations, as in not claiming to be 100% accurate, but, like something jotted on the back of a cigarette packet, hopefully giving an oversight into the situation.

How many investors need paying, and how much?

According to Thomas Morrison on FaceBook, (he probably doesn't exist, but there are a number of other references to similar amounts), BitClub Network has  6000 Bitcoin Educators (sic) earning Bitcoin daily

https://i.imgur.com/tJheWtY.png

6000.
Ok, in order to qualify as an "educator", you have to be bought in. Let's assume they count everyone who has paid in, even non referral marks like our EndtheFed in that 6,000.

That's $99 each, plus between $500 minimum and $3500 for all three mining schemes.
Let's ignore the $99 (a handy $600,000 bit of change) and concentrate on the repayments to those 6,000 investors.

All these schemes have important sounding names for levels within them and BCN is no exception, with its "Founders".
A Founder, according to a tweet last november, buys all three of the mining programs for $3500 and 500 Founders had already been found, with another 500 being lined up.
http://patrickpretty.com/2014/11/18/bitclub-network-now-wants-500-new-suckers-participants-exhorted-to-be-patient-because-purported-mining-community-venture-is-like-building-a-home-made-space-ship-to-explore-outer-space/

Let's say for the sake of our fag packet, that they found them.
Let's say, conservatively, that the 6,000 'educators' consist of 1,000 @ $3500 each and the other 5,000 at an average of $1000 each. That would be a good number of $1000's, plus quite a few more all-ins balancing out a few $500's.
With these sort of people, you would be hounded non stop to increase your basic investment (and your sponsor's affiliate earnings). Once you're in and you believe/have convinced yourself/been convinced, the only way is to max out.

That's about $9,000,000. A lot of money to you and me, but small beer in the world of MLM cons. And plenty enough to buy a farm and have big change.

But, in order for it to be legitimate, BCN have to service that debt from exterior i.e. mining profit, not from new investors or they will be a Ponzi..
How much do they need to find?

They have mandatory reinvestment % on the different account values. These % are NOT mining costs, despite BCN halfheartedly once trying to imply that, they are re-investments in extra shares created for the benefit of the investor. They can't be both, if they are sold as a share they cannot be used to pay the bills. Double counting is a MLM speciality.

Let's have a look at LERDBARON aka EndtheFed's account:

 https://i.imgur.com/a7rnojb.png

Ignore the cummulative totals, let's just look at "last 24 hours"... 0.00585 BTC earned on 1.2954 shares.
That's a basic unit of 0.0045 BTC per $500 share per day, but of course 50% minimum of that is mandatorily reinvested, so the actual cash out available to the lowest tier 'miner' is pretty much around their 1000 day implied ROI, or ~0.0022 BTC per day.
The re-investments are totally meaningless until they provide a tangible income, or have a resaleable value. IOU's backed by nothing.

For the sake of this, let's say that each group of 'miners' has stayed at default re-investment %'s, despite being urged to crank it up to the max and re-invest EVERYTHING.
Cash paid per day:
On 2000 x $500 accounts that's 9  BTC @ 50/50%, 4.5  BTC paid out.
On 4000 x $1000  -         -      36 BTC @ 60/40% 21.6 BTC paid out.
On 2000 x $2000  -         -      36 BTC @ 70/30% 25.2 BTC paid out.

A total of 51.2 BTC paid out daily, plus future liability of 28.8 BTC compounded re-investment, added daily. Hold that thought....



So, how much are they earning, then? As in mining income, they have no other source of revenue.

They were trumpeting about having over 2 PH/s and roaring up the mining leader board a while back. Since they have been advertizing their pool, they have recently been showing 4.2 PH/s on their mining stats here
https://bitclubpool.com/index.php?p=stats

But, of the 60 blocks mined since 07/29, 18 of them have been attributed to non BitClub mining interests happyorange and holyscott

https://i.imgur.com/1GiBO14.png

which gives BCN about 1.5 blocks per day to themselves, or 37.5 BTC maximum.
That's a gross figure, without any deductions for capital investment, electricity, staff etc. etc. and certainly none for the estimated 30%+ cost of the huge referral system.

They claim to be mining in Iceland. There was an interesting video about Genesis Mining recently, where the CEO shed a bit of light on the cost of producing a Bitcoin in a modern farm in Iceland.

http://uk.businessinsider.com/photos-iceland-bitcoin-mine-genesis-mining-cloud-2015-8

Streng says one Bitcoin costs them $60 in electricity, $130 in fixed costs and leaves about $50 profit for dividend payments to investors @ a price of $240/BTC. Any decrease in price comes straight out of that $50 profit, the other costs are fixed.
In other words, about 20% profit before dividend and tax.

Assuming Streng isn't lying, then the same maths apply to our BCN friends.

A gross revenue of 37.5 BTC per day becomes a nett distributable profit of 7.5 BTC per day after costs. Hold that one too....



LIABILTIES

Cash payments to investors 51.2
Future liabilities                 28.8
Mining Overhead                30.0

INCOME

Gross mining revenue        37.5        



Even if you said all of the re-investment went to paying the existing overheads and infrastructure costs and thus that future shares would be worthless, the conclusion is still inescapable




Minor edit for grammar.








 

Great write up. I have filed a complaint with the SEC regarding Bitclub.

the mumbai raper picture is fantastic LOL  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

 :o

Scammers do not have shame! Posting picture of rapist is sick! .. It's too much!

Thanks for describing everything!

https://i.imgur.com/T6tojYN.png

Hey wait, that's not Mike Schmidt, it's some Dr. in Qatar named Carsten Heinrich (https://www.linkedin.com/pub/carsten-heinrich/85/a39/73b?trk=pub-pbmap)  ::)

OMFG i`m felling of my fucking chair of laughting, my belly hurts already from laughting :D

They put a fucking indian rapist mugshot as their front cover testimonial guy. They are fucking geniuses  :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Also there are other clues, there is no such name as "Zara", WTF man


Then this whole phrase is full of grammar errors, probably translated with google translate, they didnt even took the time to find a proper translator.


I know this because I took 3 years of German in high school, especially grammar. This phrase is just full of grammar errors.


Then the Mike Jones name is very common, almost screaming to be fake. And the other women "Amy Albescu" I don't know but I thought the name Amy is an english name, not very common in Eastern europe.

So it smells totally fake at first look.

Heck atleast they took the rapist photo off lol  :D :D

I just hope nobody is falling for this crap!

Unfortunately they are, or have been, in substantial numbers, especially in developing countries.
I'm putting together another effort post as soon as I receive some inside information I've been waiting for, especially to do with this scam coin they will shortly be pushing on their members, for when the BTC runs out.

Stay tuned, as they say.

 :)

Hell, I don't think even Josh Ganza could do any worse a job here, it is pretty laughable!

How on earth are they going to fool people into thinking there coin is worth the same amount as a BTC? That's worrying, I can imagine people falling for this though.

Many bitcoin newbies are falling for this scam due to
their advertisements on Twitter... poor them :( if only
twitter knew what they're allowing to be promoted...

Twitter and Facebook know full well what they're being used for, and you could measure the fucks they give on the fingers of one hand.
An example of a professional Facebook MLM and Bitcoin Network pumper shill is J Ryan Conley, who has made himself "CEO" of Team Extreme Worldwide.
He lives the Ponzi scammer dream, into crap MLM like Jeunesse and ZenBodi, a true parasite.
Check him out, troll away  ;)
https://www.facebook.com/Team-Extreme-Worldwide-270229806368428/timeline/

This is the sort of crap he churns out every day

https://i.imgur.com/Fulprlx.png



That's MLMspeak for "the flow of mugs is slowing down, time to crank up the rake off".

People are too stupid, and they will fall for it unfortunately, people never do due diligence and they pay for it...

I find you an inspiration good work :) If only we could tell it to non crypto people

I've just noticed those fuckers.
I loved the "We opened a new Icelandic farm, it's the best place for mining !". They must have been getting inspiration from Genesis Mining.

A good example of mega MLM shill J. Ryan Conley's real motivation for pushing BitClub Network.
It's got nothing to do with the dust (1,000 day ROI) payments he gets from the mining pools (1, 2 and 3), but that $3500 he paid for the full package was a very good investment for the referral commissions that an MLM pumper like him will get from a scheme like this.

The biggest item on this snap of Mr. Parasite's FaceBook post?
Something called a "Binary Tree Cycle Commission for 1 cycle" ? Sure as hell, got jack shit to do with mining Bitcoin.

https://i.imgur.com/eJsErTe.jpg

What a fucking tool that guy is. Using his little kids to promote a scam. Sick bastard.

And here we go.....it's ClubCoin Time!!!


Check out the math at the end of this

https://youtu.be/QDHerK49lcA  (https://youtu.be/QDHerK49lcA)

and hurry, you might miss the discount!
 :D


In other news, the Mining Pool potters along around 3.2 P/hs in total, down from over 4 P/hs, but also less and less of that mining is being done for BitClub's own investors.
Of the 22 blocks mined in the last 17 days, 13 belonged to third parties.
That's ~1/2 a block a day to share amongst Bitcoin Network's thousands of mugs investors: over 60% less than two months ago...

"Hey, have some ClubCoins instead! It's all crypto, Right...?"

https://i.imgur.com/lGorosg.png

is it just me, or does this sound like gaw 2.0?

OMGGG I'm still laughing about the Indian rapist on their website.  Wow what a great testimonial lmfao.

LMFAO. Check out this guy. unreal. (He's on rotation on http://bitclub.io/mining/mining now).

https://www.facebook.com/sadik.dgreat

ya they just launched the Clubcoin wallet and such now (or i just noticed it).
the worst part of these scammers is there gonna walk away with 15% of the network hashpower, boughten from investors money ;(

no they aren't. Why would they waste money on miners and electricity when they can just walk away with the money people are handing them?

Cranking up the hype in Seoul, our fearless pumpers pose for a photo. Would you buy a used car from these guys?

https://i.imgur.com/aD972AC.png

Check out that MLM 101 text, let's parse it....

Immediately take the higher ground with a factoid which implies you're different. Not fake.
Buzzword usage. Good.
Not quite, there are two sponsors and BCN isn't either. They are listed as one of 36 exhibitors, nothing more. http://insidebitcoins.com/seoul/2015/sponsors
Good use of word 'major'. Ver is speaking too. Must be a must be there for every slimeball  networker in the industry.
Just like at the Auto Shows when you were a kid, right?
Another excellent misuse of a buzzword. They are crowdfunded like a pickpocket is crowdfunded.

How true, Another aspect of who you are is a bunch of professional con artists building a global scam.
"To the world": Just what the world needs. Also, get your denial in first.
Just lulz at this one.
Standard RahRah "exciting" speak. Everything is exciting in MLMland!Classic implication: if you don't give us your money, you don't care about your family.
Mustn't forget the link to pumping vids. (Misspelt). 'What, for referral commission?' "Hey man, no, I just want to help you."


The recent rise in the price of Bitcoin is helping a lot of scams, but it's a bit of a double edged sword when outgoings, i.e. commission and "mining earnings" are made in BTC, but income (sale of contracts) is denominated in fiat.
Or it would be if it wasn't for the fantasy factor.

#Clubcon

great breakdown on their bullshit posting... LOL  ;D

I got this bit wrong. It appears they weren't even an exhibitor, although it's difficult to get info because our hero J. Ryan screwed up his flight and missed the whole thing. So he says. Hahahaha.

It's a shame if they didn't exhibit, they could have used their marketing genius to explain to the geeks like Ver how Bitcoin really works, with some handy graphix, essential aides for mining like "Generation Bonuses", "Infinity Overrides" and "Enrollment Tree Legs (not Binary Legs)".

https://i.imgur.com/hyrW1g3.png

https://i.imgur.com/lO9VD4D.png

BCN were:


http://insidebitcoins.com/seoul/2015/become-sponsor

It appears that the major event didn't exactly inspire sponsorship, out of ten possible ways to give the organizers money only four were taken up and there were only twelve exhibitors.
Did anyone go?

#ClubCon

---

Anyone remember BitcoinTrader.biz and their "Sponsored Road Trip around America" in a leased car with a sticker on the fender? Reminds me...

The thing is... there's no Chaco region in Brazil, and in Brazil they talk Portuguese and not Spanish like you see in the picture from Victor Diaz. I really don't know what to think about that site... they are growing everyday. I believe that everyone has been following the news about BitclubNetwork, does someone knows it is a real scam or have some different information?

I think what people need to also point out here that rapist conviction picture they used as a person named "Victor Diaz" is directly ripped from news websites, it was a chuckle reading each review these "customers" gave.
Fake fake fake fake fake.
I think we have seen enough from them to prove this is yet another bullshit company.

That is one of the funniest things I have even seen in a scam:

The Spanish-speaking Brazilian customer who is really a rapist from India.

Reminds me of the "Smiling Guy" stock dentist photo that Allen Shinners pilfered for his BitLend scam site.

Lol I saw this thread months ago and laughed.  See it again today and laughed again.  These fuckers come out of the woodwork in the land of bitcoin, don't they?

But...but...but...the guy in the video said that when BTC hits $30,000 each, (in the "very near future,") we'll all be multi-millionaires!!!   ;D

Thank you tmfp for this thread!!  It is so true how scammers try to slide in to people wallets..

But this rapist picture is really too much!!!  ;D

Just a little socmed update from our MLM pumpers on the dreaded Facebook.
Great celebrations for BitClub pool mining their 200th block, but as usual, not quite the whole story.
(There's that "crowd funded" buzz phrase again  ::) )

https://i.imgur.com/3GY8av4.png

Although I am far from a mining pool expert, I understand there is a direct relationship between hashrate/participant's share/payout on PPLNS pools like BCN's.
Since they started in July with 0% fees, they have attracted a number of 3rd party users and, including their own contribution, their total pool hashrate has climbed to over 6 PH/s. Even with many third party miners, this is a million miles from their stated goal of becoming a
at <1% currently.

Also the share of that (and payment for blocks discovered) to pay BitClub Network members has stayed pretty stationary in absolute terms and declined as a percentage of the total.

Some more "fag packet" numbers. Feel free to criticize/correct

From 07/18 to date, of those 200 blocks, 118, i.e. 59% (declining) were attributed to BCN's own mining.
The BTC average price in that period is $290.
118 x 25 x 290 = $855,500 Gross.
855,500 / 165 days = $5,184 per day total gross income.

As I previously estimated in an above post, from their own propaganda, BitClub Network has so far received in the region of $9,000,000 (and rising) upfront from wannabe miners, expecting to ROI in 1000 days.

9,000,000 / 1000 = $9,000 per day total liability to clients.

Of course, this takes no account of the actual cost of running/leasing the mining operation itself, or the parasite referral factor, the amazingly complex and expensive MLM structure which is the real reason for BitClub Network's existence.

The final word on which I will leave to the man with many, J.R. himself.
In two successive FB daily posts (note "mining income" itself, from his $3500 expenditure which was necessary to gain him access to the MLM structure, is static), just this one of many hundreds of shills/pumpers for this crap, in 48 hours made nearly $1,400 in referral commission

https://i.imgur.com/M4icnRj.png

https://i.imgur.com/GdpkmRD.png

Try not to throw up at the Praise be to the Lord references.

I'm not so sure about that, I've researched them fairly thoroughly and don't recall gold being part of the sales pitch.
Are you thinking maybe about that appalling Bulgarian OneCoin MLM thing and its Aurum nonsense, run by Miss Piggy here?

https://i.imgur.com/Kepstre.jpg

Yes it is quite a common feature of these "We're all gonna get rich!!1!1!!!!1!!" scam ops, but then not particularly surprising because it filters out the critical thinkers and encourages the credulous to believe that not only does this 'Business' want them to be rich, an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent 'Creator of the Universe' deity clearly does, too, as long as you throw out a few hallelujahs in his direction.

Josh Garza and most of the GAW/Hashlet/Paycoin collaborators loved themselves lots of gawd, as well.

Example #126 in the series "God told me to do it", or how to become rich by Celestial Intervention

https://i.imgur.com/MEPeamt.png

QUITE right!

Aurumcoin, ugh!!

So many scams, my head is spinning!!!!

I am just waiting for the day it completely collapses and trys to hide away like it never existed.

Just staggering past the computer in search of more champagne, I saw this:



Whoever wrote that salad of bullshit, nonsense and outright lies was obviously more drunk than I am at the moment. Or maybe working on the principle that bullshit baffles brains: if they were mining that instead of Bitcoin, BCN would indeed be a world leader.

I'll be back after some party recovery time to rip this exit strategy preparation to fucking shreds.
 ;D

Off on vacation  for a couple of weeks so I don't have the time to go thru that shit ^^^ and point out the many obvious contradictions, lies and distortions in it.
Basically, the meaningless "adjustment" from 1000 days of dust to 600 days of dust is a time worn tactic to increase reinvestment levels for existing Kool Aid drinkers and FOMO panic waverers to get with the program, as JR makes clear in his unsubtle way here

  https://i.imgur.com/xnrgWtf.png

Please see this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1148668.msg13552340#msg13552340

What is there to see?



The "angle" is simple, a few P/hs either bought or leased in mining capacity, then hugely oversold by high pressure marketing to greedy/gullible/stupid people thru an aggressive MLM structure and its parasitical downline.
BCN is a ponzi, in as far as it meets the classic definition: an enterprise that pays more out than it earns by using new investors money to meet old obligations.

That's the "angle", pure fraud.
Credit cards, ATM's etc. etc. are irrelevancies, just a bit of bling to dazzle the suckers, as you say, to add credibility.
 
As soon as the thousands of suckers are locked in with repayment of their "mining investment" completely at the discretion of BCN (now), the promoters and their MLM foot soldiers cram their snouts in the trough and start changing the rules. The 'investors' will be pressured more and more to reinvest their dividends into more and more shares, or accept Clubcoin in place of (relatively) real repayments in BTC.

Then one day, hey presto, it will be gone and the circus will move on to the next scam.

Their size as a pool is meaningless because it's a gross figure including 3rd parties, attracted by the zero fees deal and wanted by BCN so their shills can send impressive "We are the 2%" type bulletins out to their downlines.


This is one of the more obvious bare faced lies in their last "news", as a quick look at their pool will show how it is dominated by 3rd parties, the % allocated to rewarding their "investors" declines all the time.

https://i.imgur.com/AbpnDQa.png

Compare today's ratio (above) of non BCN investor mining (16 to 1!) to that only just over four months ago
The main 3rd party miner then was known as "holyscott" with a couple of accounts. Remember BCN makes absolutely nothing in direct profit from accounts like this.
AAMOI, "holyscott" is http://holybitcoin.com/, a large US retailer of pre-owned mining hardware who obviously doesn't like to see machines sat on shelves doing nothing (and quite right too).

https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F1GiBO14.png&t=560&c=sVvwGcHjyIeDEw

Yes. It is clear to me. 
 

Hey Gleb, your avatar is facebook-famous today! (https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetofmoney/permalink/937048123017664/)! :P

They could NOT have picked a better.....um.......what is that, anyway?

Beware dude!  Facebook is notorious for collecting facial images!

Update on our friends from BitClub Network, those altruists who have taken it on their shoulders to mainstream Bitcoin.


"Mainstream" as in sell contracts in their MLM to anyone who will listen, as the way to riches, Bentleys and early retirement.
This is pretty much second nature to these guys, a cross between the Dirty Dozen and the Sopranos, with a wealth of experience at selling Ponzis, "Great new food/drink opportunites" and other MLMs for years. (Joby [life hack] Weeks's the one with veneered teeth.)

Anyway, today's progress report features a "webinar", an interesting genre of internet communication, usually consisting of a hard sell of screenshots voiced over with a rough script.
This one's no different, presented by Russ Medlin on the subject of Clubcoin, BitClub's PoS future path to riches.
Russ is one of the Dirty Dozen, a larger than life Vegas motormouth poker player with a history of failed ponzis and MLM pumps. Sort of Telly Savalas character.
(You have to be very careful Googling Russ Medlin, as there's another one (http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/NV1000532927/Albert-Medlin-Russ.html), very similar looking, with form for CP and stuff)


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-LecBe2l4Og/hqdefault.jpg

Here, he explains, in a mix of obsession with details "You gotta make sure your clock is right, you gotta..." and a classic extrapolation fantasy where he expects that Clubcoin will, because discounts on pizza, hit a market cap of


Here ya go, knock yourself out, you can register with a throwaway. I suggest limiting yourself to about 5 minute segments, any longer you may find disorientation setting in.

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/2200090154334116865


While Clubcoin is taking over the world, BitClub Pool has ~doubled its hash power since Jan 22 and is now hitting 22 PH/s.

Things are a bit volatile at the moment in hashrateland, as big players seem to be positioning themselves for the halving with the other eye on the imminent arrival of 16nm gear, but this equates to about 2.5% of total hash power. (Despite certain shills claiming 6% and pumpers claiming 10/15% 'soon').

That's a lot of hash power; all that is clear is that it is going thru the free of fees BCPpool, it certainly doesn't mean that all of it is being done in the interests of BCN mining contract purchasers.
As I pointed out in a previous post, the majority of blocks found recently by BCPool have been in the name of recognizable third parties: hashangel, btcbilly, holyscott, stevenbtc and so on. Block discovery by bitclub referenced mining has been steadily declining, despite appearances.
 
There is no direct benefit whatsoever to BitClub Network investors from this activity, it is purely padding for stats to look far more impressive than they really are, to someone who doesn't know what they're looking at (i.e. the majority of BCN's MLM recruited 'investors').
BitClub Pool hash rate is not BitClub Network hash rate.
The latest increase has coincided with blocks being attributed to "bitclubfury940" for the first time. What this means I know not, although I could hazard a guess.
Even if this additional hashing were being done on investors' behalf, a stat from Russ's webinar comes to mind: BCN are now claiming 40,000 subscribers: at a conservative average of $1500 each, that's $60 million in investment to be serviced.
 
When you think that most (probably 60% historically) of that $60m never got a chance to actually be put to work to earn its living, it just gets poured into the matrix and split up amongst the Dirty Dozen and friends, the huge funding gap previously referenced continues to grow, roughly proportional to the volume of the shilling.

A few things seem to be pointing towards a climax coming up:
The pumping of Clubcon
The "great things happening soon" volume increase
The reduction in BCN payout period from 100 to 60 days (and subsequent FOMO increase in punters)
The increase in "hater" abuse from BCN pumpers
The likely short term lease of extra hash power, similar goal to the Chinese pre NY increase, to max out the next few months till the halving?

And that's when they are in danger of the shit hitting the fan, the halving.
Too small to ride out a possible fall in BTC value, they may have low electric cost for whatever they may mine in Iceland, but they have the huge MLM overhead to service instead.
Fail.

Thank you tmfp for all your investigations and bringing this to light

Thanks for update.
In most Ponzis before the planned profit realization is coming pump and promotional campaign.
I can already hear the snare drum before the explosion. It seems that the BitClub pump should soon reach its peak and collapse.

Thanks for keeping us up to date with whats going on! I am not at all surprised, give it a few more months and they will vanish like a lot of these other scams.

with their $99 signup fee. its already a big turn down..only few risk takers can afford it

I'm a member of their closed group.  I know it's sh*t, but I'm just kinda quietly watching.  Anything I can do?

i would suggest that if you see a user about to take the plunge you anon message them and point to some of these scam threads, especially this one.
It makes me think of the user that had already gone in, then got accused of scamming THEM , (and he was about to go in deeper)
if they don't believe you or hate on you w.e, you did your part ;)

I was going to post about the Dirty Dozen, the leading motormouths in the MLM industry who are flocking to BitClub Network like flies around shit.
But I saw this when I visited the behindMLM site, and I just can't stop laughing, it sums up the BCN perfectly

https://i.imgur.com/F0IvMWE.png


Humble people helping others become millionaires....

That is just insanely messed up, good job keeping this bumped! ;)

I'm just goin' leave this here: https://www.facebook.com/andreas.cerny

I'll see your Andreas Cerny and raise you a https://www.facebook.com/austin.zulauf

 :P

A traditional way of promoting something is "success by association".
 
It's tried and tested and, like most things, has its roots in a valid idea, that may involve endorsement of the product or service by a successful, well known person.
But it gets bent out of shape in social media these days, where a story about a global figure, or even just an image of them, is attached to the product that is being promoted without any real world association between the two.

It's especially common in BitClub Network's social media shilling and even more especially in the feeds originating from J Ryan Conley, a BCN "founder" and seasoned MLM pumper with a record as long as your arm (last stop Onecoin).

Stories about Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Starbucks etc. are tagged with one liners so that the average BCN social media follower associates these mega names with the BitClub Network that they gave their money to, and reinforces the hype they also bought which implies than BCN is the only real way into Bitcoin. Which of course, it isn't.
But what BCN offer the man in the street is not just a lousy investment, it's help with setting up a wallet (for a commission of course) and being made to feel part of a community. Hence the "down with the hood" image that our Ryan beats to death with a stick. Subtle, he ain't, but a professional promoter he is.

Anyway, so he name drops like hell: "success by association".

Now, I know that Roger Ver may not be the most popular person around here for various reasons, but he is a big name in Bitcoinland, so J Ryan decided to up his cred a bit more and imply that the Bitcoin Jesus is a pal of his....

 https://i.imgur.com/QeLyvbc.png


Mr. Ver, he not impressed.

https://i.imgur.com/km2yzk1.png


J Ryan obviously got a slap up the side of the head from other members of the BCN Dirty Dozen, because a half hearted apology was soon on social media (but I bet he had his fingers crossed behind his back)

https://i.imgur.com/txwYFdT.png

Apart from the crazed garbage about dominating shit, it's interesting that he tags #bitfury on the original post. The hashtag leads to a disused facebook page with a picture of super CEO Val.
https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bitfury
(The tag line on the year old pic is funny... "We're Not a Bitcoin ‪‎Mining‬ Company".)

But what is slightly more interesting is, why would JR tag Bitfury? Why for that matter, would  BitClub's mining pool (https://bitclubpool.com/index.php?p=stats) have expanded recently by about 10 P/hs with the reference 'bitclubfury'?
Especially when they've been buying S7's....

You might be interested in this:

"As we come live from Anarchapulco Roger Ver and Joby Weeks face off on Bitclub."

https://soundcloud.com/heryptohow/roger-ver-vs-joby-weeks-sasha-daygame-juan-galt-jeff-berwick

Hey, thanks for that.

So, what's going on?
As I outlined in the last post, a BitClub Network promoter called J. Ryan Conley has been plastering social media with posts highly insinuating that he and Roger Ver are best buddies and that, by extension, Roger is a BCN fan.
Roger has got pissed about the use of his name like this, and made it clear that he has severe misgivings about BCN, its business plan and its ability to service its ongoing commitment to pay the investors in its mining operation, especially because of the cost of maintaining the MLM matrix referral structure.
MLM's are pyramids, structured so that money flows to the top, in BCN's case to the "Founders" who buy $3500 deals, not for the small residual Bitcoin mining payments, but for the matrix commission structure and its 'legs', which mean ongoing payments to them from their downline.

So, who is Joby Weeks?

According to Google, Weeks has self described in many ways:

'a nutraceutical wellness consultant'
'lifestyle coach'
'avid adventurer, world traveler, social entreprenuer sic, author and libertarian political activist!'
'millionaire'

in the audio, he says he is also an earlyish adopter of Bitcoin, but more of that later.

He 'lives outside the box', leads what used to be described as a "jetset" lifestyle and posts pics of himself in hot tubs on Richard Branson's rental island, stuff like that.
This is Joby Weeks (you may recognize the other person, more of that later)

https://yt3.ggpht.com/-XZ9inCxkLi8/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/Sb8Lzu_psdQ/s100-c-k-no/photo.jpg

and this is J. Ryan Conley

https://i.imgur.com/WhweP0J.jpg

Mr. Weeks claim to have "been promoting bitcoin for three years" bears inspection. For someone as adept at "blowing their own trumpet" as Weeks is, there is no trace of anything on any of his social media to verify that. Until his 2015 BitClub involvment....nothing, nada, zilch.
His only Bitcoin tweet is one doing exactly what Conley has been doing, dragging Roger Ver into his name dropping circle.

https://i.imgur.com/LJb8wzi.png

Weeks rose to prominence in 2008 as


 :D
Mannatech is worth a Google if you want more laughs.

At that time, the time of Ron Paul's Presidential campaign, Weeks also set up RonPaulLimo.com and piggybacked on that, MyRonPaulRewards.com.



The above is taken from Ron Paul's dailypaul site after originally being posted by Jeff Rense. Make of it what you will.
http://archive.dailypaul.com/25719#comment-828039


Anyway, Google Joby Weeks yourself to get a flavor of the man.

---

Parsing the conversation linked above, the relevant bit starts around 43.40.

Straight in, Weeks sets his tone, loud, laughing and disingenuous.
He apologises for his 'friend' Conley, over whom he has no control, for #ing Ver (just like Weeks does himself), even tho Conley was "Roger and I"ing in text.
Weeks refers to it laughingly as "harassing", a common misattribution technique: to ridicule by exaggeration.

He name drops ferociously, a "founder of Google" (who knew nothing about bitcoin until enlightened by Weeks?) , "throwing a million dollars", 30 day cruises etc. Weeks is the Real Deal.
He refers to The "Inside Bitcoin" Seoul schmooze that "we sponsored". Well they did, the tote bags anyway.
Oh, and he hasn't seen any of the YouTube vids that link BCN to Ver and just about anyone else with a pulse and a name.

Weeks also makes it clear from the get go that BitClub Network wouldn't be, without him. It's all "I" and "we". There is no indication of Weeks' position within BCN, their site makes a big play of no bosses, no main man


The next bit is important.
It is important because regulatory authorities like the SEC (boo hiss) do NOT like people selling unregistered securities.
Also, MLM regs make it very clear that in order to be legal, the product must be the reason for the existence of the MLM, not the matrix structure itself.

Weeks gets his denial in straight away.
BCN are not selling "securities", i.e. a financial proposition, they are selling a product: physical bitcoin mining machines. The spiel goes that when you give BCN $500 or whatever, you are buying an ASIC, not an investment product. In their small print, they do offer the choice of taking delivery of your very own ASIC at any time, to maintain this fallacy.
As Weeks himself states, 99% of BCN investors have no prior knowledge of Bitcoin, so it would be safe to assume that the take up rate on having your ASIC disconnected and shipped from Iceland is vanishingly small.

(Around this time of the chat, naughty boy Conley is commenting online "Just to clarify, BitClub Network is not a scam." Thanks for that JR)

Weeks is off and running now.
At 51.19 he reveals that
"I've got the new (Bitfury) 16nm tech chips". Later he states "BCN are the only people in the world with Bitfury chips, buying all they can produce." I'll have to ask punin about that, because it flatly contradicts what Bitfury are saying.

He goes on, comparing BCN with Visa, bringing up his unprovable "promoting Bitcoin for three years" assertion and making it clear his vision is of an army (uses that several times) of Bitcoin/BCN promoters quitting their day jobs (Classic MLM dream) as Bitcoin goes to $10,000. See you in the hot tub, guys.

He then refers to BCN investors as shareholders (previously insisting they are miners) and when pressed about ROI, immediately cites a for instance which is optimistic by a factor of at least 2. $500 contracts do not return $4 per day, split 50/50, it's less than $1.


Yup, he said it.

At 56.00 he reveals


another one that I'll have to ask punin about.
Then it's magnetic motors, mining on ships, more "shareholders" in 80 countries and I even get a h/t reference along the lines of

(See my early posts).

More bad math, 330 blocks mined = "$4m". That's an average price of $484.

Back to another Bitfury reference, he's buying $17million of Bitfury containers at $3m a piece and pays Bitmain $100 for an S7....

And that's about it really, some guy comes on at the end and says he's getting 8-15% ROI on his $3500 "Founders" mining deal, which is about right.
Weeks had blustered and talked over people, standard MLM salesman.
Job done, all off for tequila slammers and mega schmoozing.
Weeks will be signing up left, right and center no doubt, among the PUA's and other cutting edge folk in the hot tub, JR will be round the back signing up the maids and chauffeurs.
Dream Team.

Minor grammar edits.

Got a reply back from punin, Bitfury's Head of Product Development, regarding Weeks' claims about mining with 16nm chips


Also Roger Ver has decided that, in the big battles, you need all the "friend" you can get. This is what Bitcoin is all about, integrity. lol....bro.

https://i.imgur.com/DdoQh40.png

Fuck me. The depths some people will stoop to.

Shame on Roger Ver! He knows damn well he's talking to scammers, but simply because they have a no-fee mining pool that draws miners to it he wants to throw a little, "Maybe I was wrong about you", solely to buy support for his bitcoin-version of choice.

Just. Fuck. SMH.

[edit] I've just emailed Coindesk about this. Hopefully they'll run a piece on this, erm, 'piece'.

No, he does not know it for sure. He has not looked in depth into Bitclub. I was there in Acapulco when he was talking to Joby, who seems to be a very nice and cool guy who truly believes in what he says. I had never heard of Joby before, but it was my honest impression when I met him. Roger is sceptical and would not encourage anyone putting money in it, but he is too honest to call it a scam before being 100% sure.
So am I, I`m here to do in depth research on that project, because I also don`t think it can work and I`ve told Joby so, but he has charisma that makes you doubt (and I might be naive, but I still think it is possible he actually believes it).

Charisma? Odd way to spell, "bullshit promises of easy riches".

I hear you. I was just giving you my honest impression. Again, after having read the thread here, the whole thing smells even more fishy to me. But I still give Joby the benefit of the doubt. Again, I might be naive, but he seemed genuinely enthusiastic about it and maybe honestly mistaken himself. We will see.

I think it's the sign of a good salesman that they have the ability/gift to believe their own pitch and come across as sincere, and the best are undoubtedly charismatic. In the end however, hyperbole is just hyperbole.

My view is that the leeching effect of the MLM structure makes BCN investment

1) unattractive for mining returns only, without any referral add ons. Weeks may say that all mined Bitcoins are paid out to members, but the proportion of that which goes to the top of the pyramid in referrals leaves a cash daily return on purely mining at about 0.1%.

2) highly vulnerable when their grand investment plans are scuppered, if their reduction in income because of the halving isn't compensated for by a doubling in the BTC price. Where exactly is the $17m coming from if current income is already fully allocated, essentially servicing existing debt?

3) high risk, because of lack of exit strategy. The mandatory reinvestment is of no value unless expansion continues exponentially. Future shares only have a value whilst they can be serviced by cash returns. The only 'value' in a share is the clause which allows investors to physically claim an ASIC, the type of which is solely dictated by BCN. What is John Doe going to do with a parcel of unprofitable mining equipment?

4) dependent on non core schemes like Clubcoin, ATM's, merchant platform succeeding quickly. There is no sign that BCN have the ability to pull this off. Hyperbole, "Great things in the pipeline", classic MLM stuff.

Overall, it looks to me like a poor value bet on the assumption that the BTC price continues to rise, with most of the interim mining income leaving the scheme and going into the wallets of Weeks & co.

To quote a happy fan


Sums it up for me.

Dodnt even go for the Public mining pool either, they steel the mined BTC.
They owe me payout around 2 BTC for 2 days mining and I have tried to contact them many times and got NO response what so ever.
The frankly just stole my hash for 2 days.

Scammer network with a scammer public pool.

You might want to share that with PPOC (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1148668.msg14088901) .

Thanks, I just did so.

Strange happenings over at our favorite "crowdfunded" MLM BitClub Network, maybe it's a delayed April Fools joke.

First of all, their loudest shill J Ryan Conley puts together a barely comprehensible vid (http://vid.staged.com/g5qs) announcing that


(He's already been told by his boss Joby Weeks to 'stop promoting MMM Global alongside BitClub dude', but it doesn't appear to have had any effect).

Why, if true, should that be? And only in the USA?
The obvious answer is that it's a very tried and tested motivational tool to get people to do something: simply by telling them that they won't be able to soon. So maybe that. But that would be only logical globally.
Of course, a legit business with shareholder funding would set a cap on the capital size to stop dilution...again, would only apply if all further investment was capped, not just one country.

The possibility that remains is that, despite the small print and despite Weeks' pretence that when you send BCN money you are actually buying hardware, not a security, that a regulatory body in the US has looked at the BitClub Network model and thinks that it, just might, resemble an unlicenced security sale.
The MLM industry runs into regulatory problems all the time in the US. When Ponzis funded this way collapse, a receiver is appointed and claws back investors money from the admins and returns it to the victims. Leading admin figures are also prosecuted.
This is happening to the tune of $300 million at the moment in the case of Zeek Rewards, an MLM Ponzi that was pumped by the leading figures now behind BitClub Network, before it crashed in flames.

We shall soon see.

The other strange happening is in the mining department.
Since Weeks and punin from BitFury disagreed rather basically about exactly what BitFury equipment was being used by BCN, especially in the 16nm chip world, BitFury's hashpower has gone into sharp decline, whereas BCN's has increased and BitClubPool had some good luck recently.

It was therefore a bit of a surprise to see this today, on BCPool's stats page...
BTC Hashrate: 0 GH/s

 https://i.imgur.com/BbpztVE.png

I'm sure it's just a maintenance thing and will be fine in the morning....BitClub Network couldn't just disappear overnight, could it?...............I mean, could it?

Shame? I don't think he knows the definition of that word.

Are you really shocked that a convicted felon who vouched for Gox when they were broke would lie in bed with scumbags?

Dang tmfp, that is some great research here !
I have been warning about Bitclub on my website (http://investbitcoinguide.com/scam-alert-the-bitclub-network/) but I'm not as good as you to deeply analyse those scams. Bitclub is notably very interesting and dangerous as it could be very tempting for beginners who try to enter the "Bitcoin land".
Great job !

A few quotes from the latest BitClub Network members update:


The bolded part makes no sense. How is there any difference whatsoever in the cost of servicing a US based contract and a non US based one? Lawyers?

The italicized bit, even less so. They are either running a profitable mining operation or not.



This confirms for me that their withdrawal from the US is down to some sort of regulatory intervention. Maybe along the lines of "Stop taking new punters until we decide what to do about you."


This is to reinforce the idea that they are selling hardware and hosting it, not unregistered securities.
Virtually none of the 'investors' that I have looked at show any signs of being interested in anything but BCN's great MLM selling point, "passive" income. Setting up a piece of unspecified ASIC in your basement does not qualify as passive. That would be like asking the Avon Lady to start making lipstick in her bath.


The stats of BitClubPool rougly confirm the mining figures but, according to references, about 20 of those blocks were mined by third party miners because zero fees (and, in the past, block finding bounty), so no benefit to BCN members from those. That's only ~$200,000 difference, chump change.
What is unconfirmed is
1) any blockchain connection between newly mined BCP coins and BCN payments.
2) any proof of an overhead structure <$40/kW.
Fwiw, Genesis commented a while back on the cost of  running an Iceland based mining operation (http://uk.businessinsider.com/photos-iceland-bitcoin-mine-genesis-mining-cloud-2015-8). Allowing for change in difficulty, the figure Streng quoted then of ~$188 cost per bitcoin mined is now in the region of $250 per coin. BCN's figures imply their total costs are ~$105 per coin mined, which is less than Genesis' overhead without electricity...


"We are not a Ponzi".
So, all mining income is disbursed between mining contracts and referral pimps. The "amazing" bit is that statement, the implication that not only can they pay very impressive roi and huge matrix commissions, they can also make a re-investable profit by selling old ASICs and buying new. This is presumably linked to Weeks' statement that Yoshi (Bitmain) sells S7's to BCN for "$100".


Look forward to them....

Our friends at BCN are in the news.
They were the accidental recipients, so the story goes, of the biggest mining fee ever paid (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1452685.0), 291.2409BTC to send 0.0001.....  :D

This was reported with varying degrees of similarity by Coindesk (http://www.coindesk.com/accidental-136000-bitcoin-mining-pool/), Gizmodo (http://gizmodo.com/if-youre-missing-132-0000-in-bitcoins-please-contact-u-1773337279), motherboard@vice (http://motherboard.vice.com/read/someone-tried-to-pay-5-in-bitcoin-sent-137k-instead) and probably others.

The story was essentially the same, this transaction

https://i.imgur.com/IsDXXKZ.png

ended up with $136,000 worth of coin in Bitclub Network's hands. Being the good guys they are, they are saying that they will send it back, although this may be a little difficult, as pointed out here (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4gmuk4/lost_136000_in_bitcoin_this_mining_pool_is/).


I suppose it's not uncommon for people to press the wrong buttons when sending money. How often it is returned is anyone's guess, although under these circumstances it would be impossible to conceal or justify keeping it.

I remember another "cloud mining" company returning money accidentally oversent, although not quite the same situation. Cloudmining.website returned 20 BTC sent in error, I remember. They're still EXECUTING THEIR MODEL too.

I'm not a miner, but having followed reddit/r/bitcoin for the past two years, in most cases, the mining pool usually always pays back the sender, assuming they can prove ownership of the address with a signed message. I've not read your post about why it may be "difficult" for them to do that, but I suspect they just don't want to instead - anyhow, on to reading that now,

1 week? How gracious of them. ::)

Thanks again TMFP. :)

I wonder if this publicity is worth more than 300 btc?

right? a way to make them look legit, so they sent the tx?
cause i mean WHO WOULDN'T claim it back from a pool?
these guys are so shifty i wouldn't put it past them
is there any way to guarantee your pool recieves a tx?
like can u choose what block or merkle hash to include the tx in, and one that your pool is mining?
no hey? ;p

The pool can choose which transactions to include or work on, based on fee's, which based on that transaction I bet every pool would have included that transaction in their work.

From the past a large amount of the transaction that included huge fees were users using API's which did not work properly or that they signed the transaction themselves without providing a change address, if you don't spend all your BTC in the transaction any leftovers are considered a miners fee.

Some people might either not realize they sent it if it was done automatically, or as BTC is irreversible may have said to themselves "Well I screwed up it was my fault, I probably won't get it back so no use crying about it".

Great Job!
With Victor you absolute win!

" if you don't spend all your BTC in the transaction any leftovers are considered a miners fee. "
ahh see that i was unaware of, likely what happened.
dank, is all i can say ;D

He could look at the rapist testimonial, there seems to be no doubt that BitClub Network is a scam.

Scammers....  ::)

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-foundation-donation-mining-pool/

And it's time for an update for the Numero Uno Crowd Funded Cloud Mining MLM Network in the World ^tm

There are three aspects to this operation, they would have you believe

1) BitClubPool mining and "passive income"
2) ClubCoin, the PoS offshoot
3) Merchant platform for ClubCoin.

1) ain't looking too clever. Any cloudmining outfit will be making ROI payments to its investors, based on their profitability/shared by the number of stakeholders.
BCPool have mined 785 blocks in the near year they've been going. Take out around 130 as mined by third parties (not BitClub Network) and average out the price and you get best part of $5,000,000 gross income. Big Number.
Depending on who you believe in an environment where "no-one" is the sensible answer, the net profit on that after regular overhead and electricity, could be anywhere between $1m and $2.5m, still a chunk of change.
So yeah, BCPool makes a net operating profit, that's a reasonable assumption.
But then it's got to be shared out.
There are two main places for that money to go, to the "miners" as ROI and to the networkers as commission. The more miners recruited by networkers, the more those two demands grow. If a stage is reached where those commitments exceed the income, then the only way those payments can continue is
A) Reducing the ROI to the basic investors
B) Paying out from another source, other than mining income. There are no others, apart from new investors lump sums coming in. When you use that money to make up the difference to service existing commitments, you become a Ponzi.
C) Both.

The way to avoid that is obviously not to just keep selling and selling and selling "mining" contracts beyond a level serviceable by your operating profit.
MLM operations are sales driven. Google "BitclubNetwork" and you will find everyone and their uncle sell, sell, selling mining contracts on hundreds of different websites, social media platforms, webinars and seminars.
At the moment, Master Builder Abel, self elected BCN public spokesman Weeks and many others are hitting Asia for all its worth.
If their numbers are to be believed, ONE seminar in Seoul recently attracted 6,000! potential suckers investors.
These guys have energy and drive, give them that.
Every sign on the line is $$$ for ever (how long it lasts) direct to them personally. (See previous posts for the ratio between mining income and referral income for these salesmen. Part of the game is to buy the biggest packages in order to access bigger and bigger downline building opportunities (http://bitclubnetworknews.com/bitclub-network-compensation-plan/). The $3500 max mining entry ticket is peanuts, and so is the relative income from mining.)

Anyway, you know this probably.
More investors, more ROI to pay, more referrals to pay.
That's OK, just so long as the income from mining keeps pace.
OOPS.

 https://i.imgur.com/c6lQ3QN.png

That's BitClubPool's hashrate stats for the last six months. An increase at the beginning of the year on the back of their big marketing push to keep pace (just) with the general arms race increase, but compare it now with the total network hashrate....

https://i.imgur.com/WGSxDgK.png

Combination of the two, ever increasing contract sales+declining mining earnings=dilution=very unhappy investors

https://i.imgur.com/eBJhcJu.jpg

MLM operations, especially bad actors, keep everything "in house", usually communicating directly thru dashboards. There is also a vested interest on the side of the investor not to rock the boat, because most realize that these things can snowball pretty damn quick and create a situation which is what they are personally trying to avoid. The equivalent to a run on the bank: they are only too aware their investment asset is only worth something while the doors stay open.

Weeks is quick to jump in (just an aside, Weeks, Abel and many others are U.S. citizens, it must be strange for them travelling the world first class selling something that can't be bought in their home country...) anyway Weeks comes up with the classic, "Be patient, great things happening soon"
line


September?
Errr, Joby, heard of a thing called the Halving? I'm sure your pretty meagre income is going to be probably slashed in half before September. (http://swedishstartupspace.com/2016/05/27/knc-miner-declares-bankruptcy-chinese-competition-too-tough/)
Well, not your personal income. That's based on what you sell, not what it earns...

I wonder what happened to



and what he's doing with them because, as sure as f*ck, he's not mining with them.


Nearly there....

https://i.imgur.com/hMBlcuC.png

---

So, onto
2)ClubCoin, the PoS offshoot

Not a lot happening that is immediately visible. Github (https://github.com/BitClubDev/ClubCoin/tree/master/src) is dead, as is their promising da Moon thread on here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1292870.0). The devs haven't even logged in for a couple of months. Maybe they and the rest of the Oompah Loompahs are too busy in the Chocolate Factory.

Doesn't look to healthy pricewise either, flatlining around 20c with no volume

https://i.imgur.com/oId0p1U.png

and even at that price proving very hard and frustrating to dump.
Cue more unhappy punters...

---

3) Merchant platform for ClubCoin.

Even quieter on this leg of the BitClub Network Master Plan.
Despite being floating as the Next Big Thing as long ago as November 2015, nada, zilch, nothing.
Apart from Mr. Rent-A-Quote Weeks that is


OK.


Edited to include KNC bankruptcy-because-of-the-halving link.

 

Imitiation is the greatest form of flattery they say, and there's MLM/Cyptocurrencies crawling out of the woodwork these days, so it's not a surprise to see



turn up, word for word here (https://www.bitcloudacademy.com/index.php)


The "Academy" bit refers to another hot MLM scam favorite, that of selling an education package of useless, plagiarised cut and paste with some motivational memes thrown in.

https://i.imgur.com/YQwjimg.png

Most blatant at this is OneCoin, a figment of Bulgarian Mobsters' imagination, which was the "coin" of choice of many of the BitClub Networkers before they realized it was too absurd even for them.

BCA is run by Mike Lavoie and Todd Hirsch.
Lavoie is the man behind SkyCoinlab (does it mine? doesn't it mine? No,it doesn't) in Canada and also Bitcoin Cycler. Hirsch just pumps any old crap.

So, the moral is, in the MLM world there's shitty scams and copies of shitty scams, take your pick.

---

Checking to see that the "team of" quote was word for word, I also noticed BCN's old


Well, I guess that's true, but a slight abuse of "one of" as a description of an outfit that's bumping along around 2% of network hash.

This is the pool that BCN 'miners' are paid out of, and BCN's sole source of income apart from new investors' money. Looking at Bitcoin, how are they doing with their quest to be?

So, let's accept that they are mining, probably with some Bitfury product and S7's as Weeks, their self appointed spokesman and negotiator with suppliers, maintains.
Trouble is with Weeks, you can't exactly trust what comes out of his mouth.
Not saying he's a liar, but...

Anyway, I get the feeling that BitClubNetwork were hoping to buy some of Bitfury's 16nm machines. Weeks mouthed off to the effect that they already had, but then he has pretty zero cred and it's commonplace in the MLM industry to be shouting about "Exciting times ahead".

On March 1st, Punin from Bitfury confirmed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1291890.msg14065344) that BCN were customers, a pretty easy conclusion to come to by looking at the pool references.
Punin was confident too, to the extent of having a bet on the imminent availability of these chips, then..........

It all went dark. Possibly blamed on damage to the chip manufacturer's plant in Taiwan, TSMC predicted at least a 50 day delay in delivery, knocking back Bitfury's projected 1st April (how apt) to late May.
And now Weeks is palming off disgruntled customers with "September". Already ROI's have been slashed to nothing and the only thing good going for BCN is the $100 rise in the price, but their outgoings against contract are priced in BTC so that's of limited help to a hugely top heavy overhead structure.

An interesting screenshot this morning shows Bitfury completely absent from pool data and BCN having a little increase, which seems to indicate some symbiosis between the two.

https://i.imgur.com/42OduPL.png

Both Spondoolies and KNC have recently gone to the wall attempting to compete with the Chinese. Anyone who thinks that Bitfury are invulnerable because what? to the same fate is probably drinking the wrong Koolaid.
Probably Weeks piss flavored KoolAid, because the halving's only a month away and it looks like he's backed the wrong horse.

Crunchtime.

That BitClub Network has collected a large amount of money, there is no doubt.
Unverified, self released claims of numbers of subscribers should be treated with the utmost skepticism (the OneCoin pyramid is laughably claimed to be currently over 2 million and rising exponentially), but it's fair to say that the MLM pitch of "getting involved in the Next Big Thing" and "passive income" has attracted a large number of get rich quick merchants, as well as professional pimps shilling for their affiliate commissions.
The combination of these lures + remorseless and built in encouragement to reinvest profit, makes BCN a Cash Cow.

Who's milking it?
Where does the cash go?
The vast majority percolates ever upward thru the pyramid to the elite level, the "Founders". These are serial MLM scheme promoters with a past of failed "opportunities" and a present of globe trotting activity, reflecting the lifestyle that the bottom of the pyramid aspires to.

Some of the raised funds go into the Front business, to show that "We are a real company, with a real product" when challenged.
BitClub Network has two mining pools, one in BTC and one in ETH, which do mine the respective coins. Shares in these activities are sold (illegally in the U.S. as an unregistered security, hence their official lack of activity there) and stats are available of the gross income.
This in itself, proves nothing about the ability of BCN to provide "passive income" in large enough amounts to satisfy investors from their only real income mining, but the large cash mountain they have built up can be used to top that up.
This is called a Ponzi Scheme if new investors money is being used, even partially, to repay commitments and returns to earlier subscribers.

Human nature being what it is, the Founder level affiliates will want to maximize the percentage of income that goes to them, and minimize the investment in the Front.

THE FRONT

BitClubPool is the front.
It mines, or has access to mining, at a healthy level of around 45 Ph/s atm and is discovering blocks at the rate of around 4 per day, giving a top line gross income of 50BTC.
This is obviously ~50% down on the pre halving gross, but even then investors were moaning about dust payments and belatedly realizing that moaning is all they could do, as there were no contractual terms whatsoever specifying a fixed return (just massive implied figures used in the hard sell) and no exit strategy apart from receiving the actual (obsolete) mining equipment based solely on BCN's valuation.
BitClub Network has no Terms and Conditions stated anywhere. Unusual practice for even a scam business.

Anyway I digress.
Where does the BitClubPool mining equipment come from?
There are two ways to gain access to any productive asset, purchase it or rent it.
For an asset holder, leasing out is very attractive because it offers a fixed income + probable upfront key money cash payment, as well as a pledgable security against finance to purchase further assets, which can be leased out and so on.
One such asset which would be idea for this would be a Bitcoin mining farm, essentially the theory behind cloud mining on a macro level.

So, when an MLM operation has had a successful launch and the capital is flowing in, the one thing Founders will want to do is Keep It.
They need to make the Front believable, but instead of setting up their own mining operation (a complex field in which none of them has any prior experience and draining the funds which they want to spend on Bentleys and toys), what would they do?
Rent it from an existing supplier.....
This becomes more likely when you look at the terminology in a recent BCN news update (http://bitclub.com/big-update-lots-info/)


These are rental terms, not capital.

So, the MLMer's go looking for a potential supplier, an existing tech savvy operation with a good reputation.

That existing tech savvy operation (hereafter TSO) would welcome a cash injection plus ongoing payments, enabling them to build their own business further.
The MLMers would be happy, no large capital outflow or overhead, just fixed payments serviced by new investor income.
As OneCoin pimps say, "Don't worry about the technicals, just keep selling."
 
Part of this deal would be that the TSO takes care of everything, including setting up a new mining pool and pointing the rented gear at it.
Job done.

This was pure speculation on my behalf, but as I read about Joby Weeks (http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=22418.0) and Russ Medlin (http://www.homefacts.com/offender-detail/NV100053292720160225/Russ-Albert-Medlin.html) (BCN Founders) making wild claims about how BCN was going to expand and invest in cutting edge equipment (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1291890.msg14059620#msg14059620), I thought it was strange for them to be making specific promises and claims which were easily disproved.
Part of the MO of MLM is to make claims believable, based on an indeterminate time frame and vague promises. But here they were, claiming specific mining upgrades which didn't happen.
I thought, "What if they're just passing on bullshit, optimistic claims from their suppliers of hashrate?"
BCN investors are hurting, no doubt not continuing downlines and minmizing re-investment because their "passive income" has reduced to virtually nothing, and they are having grave doubts.
BCN are saying to the TSO, "WTF happened to our %'s, our return custom and referrals are flatlining?"
What if the TSO is keeping the Founders happy, bullshitting  and promising 16nm gear because it may be coming to them and BCN are doing the same with their customers?

Who could the TSO be?
Who could be renting out their Icelandic Mining operation to BCN, allowing, as part of the deal, BCN banners to be draped over their racking and videos to be made, even visits for interested Pro/Master Builders (MLMspeak)?

The GENESIS MINING CONNEXION

Genesis Mining publically claim to have an Icelandic mining farm, amongst others. Both Genesis and BCN reference the Verne Global setup.
Genesis Mining give no details of their mining pools.
Genesis Mining, since Spondoolies bit the dust, give no details of what mining equipment they use.
Genesis Mining are getting heavy criticism for reducing cloudmining payments to dust.

Where and to whom would Genesis go to replace their Spondoolies scrap?
There aren't many choices of miner manufacturer, especially if you are seen as a competitor to operations controlled by the same company. Think Hashnest/Bitmain.
But there's Bitfury....the same Bitfury that Weeks claimed to be supplying BCN, the same Bitfury that may have been intending to market 16nm gear more widely until the TSMC chip manufacturing delay threw everything out the window. The same Bitfury that was promising Genesis first call on the new gear.....possibly?

What pool would they mine to?
They may split their hashrate, they may avoid Chinese pools because of vulnerability, they may set up a pool in third party's name..

Pure speculation of course, There's no public link between BitClub Network and Genesis Mining.
Or is there?

https://i.imgur.com/lcNfbzz.png

This screenshot comes from a Staged video (http://vid.staged.com/6YUs), voiced over by an Irish MLM pimp Paul McCarthy, an erstwhile Banners Broker scam promoter (http://clubmlm.yolasite.com/about-us.php).
It is on J Ryan Conley's channel. Conley is the serial MLM pimp of serial MLM pimps.
His auspicious MLM history includes:

Isagenix, Viewtrakr, Staged, Buzztrakr, Kannaway, Brain Abundance, Ingreso Cybernetico, Wake Up Now, YOBSN, Jeunesse, IQKonnect, TSU, Elevate Solar, Solavei, OneCoin, MMM Global, BitClub Network and Future Net.
Plus Steemit, just started.


You don't just walk up to an existing company and say "Hey, got any good trading bots I can promote and pay you $millions for out of my downline's money?"
You would most likely have an existing relationship, like that with the TSO mentioned above. Money is the pure motivator here, and each company gets what they want.
Genesis get regular income plus upfront lump sum for their hashrate and BitClub Network get a plausible Front at low capital cost.
Same with this bot project.
As usual, BitClub Network investors pick up the tab, providing capital with no protection or guaranteed returns; that small % of the capital that doesn't get swallowed up by the parasitical Pyramid commission structure.

Marco Kron is Chief Finance Officer of Genesis Mining.
Marco Kron is quite happy to chat with Conley on YT about his bot brainchild. The CFO of a supposedly respectable operation doesn't just go on camera with some stranger.

https://i.imgur.com/tw7gxhH.png

Anyway, I'll have a look at this "Arbitrage" front running trading bot proposal later, with its $25k "passive income" opportunity (offering, but not guaranteeing 10% a month, remind you of anything?), but for the moment I'd say that all indications are that Genesis and BitClub Network are old pals.
From the mining industry.

Note: I could hammer various references herein with relevant proof/links, but wanted to give an overview. Also many links come from scammer's websites and I don't want to give them extra traffic. Anyone requiring context, please ask.

Minor edits for gramma.

 






 

https://99bitcoins.com/anatomy-bitcoin-scam-bitclub-network-analyzed

o that's funny.    he also calls it "Bitcum Mining"   at 1:25   lmao

what a sham.


wow OP you have done your research, thx man for keeping us updated!  as a simple post history check can tell you, i am not a fan of Genesis Mining, and i tell you your THEORY FITS. the reduced payments, the refusal of techincal info on miners or pools... geeeez....
 i tell ya Satoshi gave us a double edge sword, it really brought out the professional scumbags  ;/

if anyone can post any btc addresses from Genesis , I would appreciate it. thanks! :)

this is my last tx from them.   noticed 2 sender addys*, but looks like they (of course) mix the coins ;/, tx's just go back and back dust loops. course im not a pro in btc analytics ;p
https://tradeblock.com/bitcoin/tx/b67f3dc83e8d7056b3fd8155dce76c4e74aee7b5bd1055ee12ad83d1886db373


*1ERAsjBQXMd2hx1JpKPxJfaUpBQv8KTiVh
*1PeMXzkiz1qQpWwNvpccgYp8SpuJAGjPNR


edit;  some one of their doge wallets DCPbGvoVJfhENVb8aUkBvZktHgZ4z5SXN6
                         DB5vZAu7i9nbNyxvfFPrs59GXUzH9rx4eh

again, look heavily mixed ;/

Thanks for the link mate. It's an interesting summary of points that BitClub Network continue to avoid answering, but it's also brought a very important aspect of BCN out into the open thru the comments made.

BitClub don't operate in the U.S. (officially) and haven't done since May 1st this year.
The U.S. is a huge market for Bitcoin schemes and is totally addicted to MLM.
Many of BitClub's major movers and shakers hold American citizenship. But they have to scour the world for new suckers, as BCN does not authorize new members to join if they are obviously U.S. based. (This is easily circumvented and affiliate marketeers are passively encouraging prospects to do so by using overseas registration).
BitClub hint at the reasons for doing this in various member news updates


Why do you need to talk to lawyers if you're a legit business?


The cost to do business..... what cost? How is the origin of investor money in anyway a variable?
It could jeopardize everything.....how?

The answer is law.
You know, that fascist establishment control method that enslaves us all that people rant about. And then run to when they need protection.
I'm not going there with this, suffice to say there is a lot of validity in the expression "My enemy's enemy is my friend." (which cuts both ways.)
Anyhow, the law exists. If you break it, there are consequences.

There is a regulatory framework in the U.S. which governs investment, investment "advice".
It gives consumers basic rights of redress, as well as laying down rules by which anyone looking for money to finance their scheme has to abide.
There's probably thousand upon thousand of pages of sub clauses, precedents and guidelines in this area, but the very basic one regarding money changing hands in the hope of reward is called the Howey Test (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_v._W._J._Howey_Co.). It's a pretty simple working definition of what constitutes an "investment contract".
It basically defines it as

(i) the investment of money; (ii) in a common enterprise; (iii) with the expectation of profits to come solely from the efforts of others.

If you are doing that, then you are selling investment contracts. You are required, among other things, to provide

A description of the company's properties and business purpose
A description of the security being offered
Information about the company's management
Financial statements about the company, certified by independent accountants

Scammers hate this with a passion.
What does a scammer do when confronted with an obstacle such as the law? Squirm and turn, deny obvious facts and twist definitions, usually aided by aided by specialist niche lawyers who have a massive vested interest. Or bite the bullet, withdraw from that market and go look for victims in less regulated places?

That's why BitClub Network withdrew from the U.S.
To avoid giving basic information about who is behind it, or any consumer rights or protection to their investors, .

Also, when a scheme implodes, under certain circumstances a receiver can operate a "clawback", which involves taking illegally acquired profits from net gainers (usually upline affiliate marketers) and returning them to the vast majority who lost money, because of the illegal means by which it was taken.
This can run into hundreds of millions of dollars as seen in Zeek Rewards (https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/banking/b/banking-finance/archive/2015/02/26/international-clawbacks-start-in-zeekrewards-receivership.aspx?Redirected=true), another huge "passive income" scam, where net gainers thruout the world are being sued for their scam rewards.
U.S. based BitClub Network affiliate marketers would be in the frame for this.

In a recent series of court cases in Germany on this subject, BitClub Network's name pops up.
There is a law firm in Germany called Schulenbeg and Schenk. They are basically attack dogs for the OneCoin scam.
OneCoin has been making huge changes and separating its structure to avoid being seen as an "investment provider".
According to them now, they just sell "education packages" for thousands of euros and give away points that can be used to "practice" crypto trading and investment.
They then claim they are neither revenue sharing or selling investments.
This is transparently bullshit but may help them extend the life of this huge scam for a bit longer. In order to do that, they want to maximize income in the meantime and one way of doing that is to drop competing scams in the legal shit.
Enter S&S and this recent legal judgement (http://www.netcoo.com/direct-selling/landgericht-hamburg-revshare-berater-fallen-unter-das-vermoegensanlagegesetz-auswirkungen-auch-auf-bitclub-getmyads-questra-etc-moeglich) in Hamburg, where they brought action against the Beonpush Ponzi (http://behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/beonpush-review-20-10000-investment-pack-ponzi/)
The tl,dr is that


also the Bitclub....

Still Awake?

WTF has this to do with the 99bitcons piece?
The answer is in the comments.
There are two (so far, just waiting for the brigading to start), the second one from some pseudo intellectual Aussie BCN pimp isn't even worth mentioning, but the first one from "Joby" is. Joby Weeks (https://www.voiceamerica.com/promo/episode/14003), perchance?

He makes big play of the huge txt fee "mistake" (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1452685.0) (wondered when they would use that) and how BitClub distributed it "benevolently", so they can't be scammers, can they?  ::)

He waffles on and on, no facts, figures or anything, as he and other MLM salesmen do.
Hidden in his "we're misunderstood" spiel he tries twice to make the ludicrous claim

BitClub Network don't sell mining investments, they sell mining hardware.

Yup, that's what he said. Twice. For the reasons above.


So there you have it, BitClub Network investors. You're not investors at all. You have simply bought a piece of mining hardware. That you have never seen, touched or operated yourself.

Congrats.

A mini update about the Genesis Mining tie up, with regard to this super trading bot  ::) that is going to make everyone zillionaires.
When the Irish shill made his video promising but not promising 10% per month ROI (see above) he forgot to mention a small detail, helpfully provided by Thorsten Baldes, (yet another piece of EuroTrash that's washed up in Dubai [that's why they need all those mega buildings, somewhere to store the world's scammers])


An eighteen month lock in with no repayments......... :D :D

More details about other minor changes to the "mining" side of BCN to come when I've got time, like mass early termination of contracts.

#endgame.

LOL 18months... yeah, they won't be around in 18 month for sure.

Don't be so sure. They are actively mining blocks every day. There is no reason this scam can't continue as of yet, other than this thread IMO.

This is true.
The life of a ponzi is governed by many factors.
OMG, he used the Ponzi word again!
Just to refresh the memory a Ponzi Scheme is


That's a good enough working definition, although it implies that they are "all or nothing", but there's many shades of gray..

As Bernie Madoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff) showed, the "Front" is all important, it gives investors confidence and can actually make some money (not enough) in its own right.
A Ponzi doesn't have to be a complete fabrication, the more cred the better, leading to the classic "They've paid out for a long time, so they must be legit, and look they're trading/mining/doing stuff....."

With that in mind, the latest BitClub Network news


Let's deconstruct that wall of text.....

 

This is a faulty analysis as a look at actual numbers will show.
The halving wasn't a surprise, nor was the pre halving pump and "sell the event" followup.
Are they really asking their punters to believe that the dominant Chinese operators are running at a loss? The only miners losing money at today's prices are
a) mining with obsolete equipment
b) trying to service top heavy debt/commitments out of reduced income e.g. expensive power, expensive miner leases or a big fat MLM matrix that sucks the life out any profitability for their small investors (see vids of Founders on yachts, buying Bentleys etc.)


Hmmm, another way of putting that would be "new investments have collapsed, quick, think!"


Too much of the pool?....how about "Our early contracts are now getting dust like everyone else, so if we make a big deal about them being sacrificed for the common good, then we might be able to tempt in some newbies with a bit of ROI for a while. WE NEED SOME NEW MONEY ASAP. It's no real loss to them us, just that particular trough is empty".


Yeah, it's not like we're gonna actually lose anything much, just keep skimming off the top for ever and ever and ever.


Go back to? Errrr no. BCN have never paid anyone for 1,000 days.
They promised to, then they changed that to 600 days when it became clear that 1,000 was giving too much away to the wrong people (genuine investors). In MMM, this would be called a "reset".

If you bought in on say June 1st 2015, one of then BitClub Network promised (nothing in writing, of course) to pay you till 25th February 2018.
(their capslock)

In that example, you have been shafted for over half your "contract", 542 days stolen.
If you bought in just because you bought their spiel, fancied cloudmining some coin and didn't 'earn' any MLM commission (from ya grandma, neighbours etc.) and were less than Founder level, you are fucked.


600 day shares have only been going 244 days, earning dust ROI. Maybe someone who's locked in will think "Well, 400 extra days of dust is better than no dust at all. Not like I've got any choice...."
N.B.
Ya must remember not to keep using the word "shares". It sounds a lot like an investment contract to me. According to Weeks, you don't sell them, only mining equipment.  ::)


But what happened to compulsory reinvestment?


So, you've been compulsorily deducted up to 50% to pay for upgrades, but "the machines are dead". Wot?


Lol, 10/10 for disingenuous.
Whatever happened to

? Or his legendary hardware trading deals, where he
?



...fuck off.

---

Back to the Ponzi definition:


That's what this is all about. New money. No-one already in is going to add more with virtually infinite ROI and no-one new new is going to touch it, (if they have the wits to ask for recent mining payment history proof).
The core "Founders" don't give a shit about mining income, the MLM residual is all they've ever been interested in.
Early genuine investors have just had a massive haircut. More like a decapitation, and there's nothing they can do about it.

Sorry for that useless posting, but did anybody notice that the names J Ryan Conley and Joby Weeks are anagram to "Jey Ryans Weekly ConJob"? ;D

I know the first "e" sucks a bit, but still funny. ^^


.edit:
Got a better anagram: "Yes, J Ryan! Weekly conjob!"
I know. I'm bored.

Thanks for the legendary input

 :D :D

No problem.
But after reading up on the latest events here, I'd have to drop a "Thank You!", too. Well written and explanative.
I'm really not a big fan of those guys, and I'm trying my best to warn other users who might fall prey to BCN and anything related.

So, keep up the good work. I'm confident it saves a couple of souls.


.edit:
I liked the part with the connection to Genesis Mining. When I read about BCN and all that Iceland stuff, I always had this "…Iceland… Iceland… I read this somewhere!", but couldn't really figure it out. Makes total sense to me.

Thank you for this.

So... I traced 1ERAsjBQXMd2hx1JpKPxJfaUpBQv8KTiVh  back to these addresses: https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/00436115152f383b , which appear to be coming from slushpool.com (?)

I found no trace of BCN in any tx's along the way, however, I did not pore over every one of them, it looks like it's from a valid mining pool at least?

 As for 1PeMXzkiz1qQpWwNvpccgYp8SpuJAGjPNR, same thing: https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/00436115152f383b

Strangely, looking at BCN's mining address here - https://blockchain.info/address/155fzsEBHy9Ri2bMQ8uuuR3tv1YzcDywd4 - run that through walletexplorer and you will see very few coins being paid out vs. paid in. Further, the coins that do go out, seem to either be being mixed/laundered, and/or sent to other addresses in 25/50/100/1000 BTC chunks which are still unspent outputs. It's quite strange to me, but I have not compared the outputs against a known legitimate pool either.

Thanks, this was just done in a half hour during lunch, let me know if anyone else sees anything strange there.

Those MLM pimps desperately looking for new mugs passive income seekers willing to lock in $$$$ for at least eighteen months :o to auto trade with Genesis Mining's (sound of *crickets* from them when asked a simple question (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=602022.msg16098253#msg16098253)) super fantastic arbitrage money making machine are going to be pretty pissed right now.....


WOW, Great, here's my moneeez! Make me rich!


Oh.


Double Oh.


What, you mean like not selling "mining contracts" to U.S. citizens? It's those G'damn fascists with their pesky rules and regulations again, I bet.


Isn't it a bit late in the day to be thinking of this? Maybe you should have thought about it before "dropping a few $million" on this super bot. Whose "few million" was it anyway?


The SEC does.


 :D


Well you would be if you were legit, but seeing as you aren't what about Scammer Scenario #1 from the Play Book?
1) Get money from mugs
2) Everything's going great!
3) Everything's going greater!
4) OMG we got hacked. See ya!


Very sensible.
Lucky you haven't got some pushy MLM pimp phoning and messaging you every minute asking where your deposit is.
But then of course, if people did proper due dilligence before giving you money in the first place, there wouldn't be a problem. Because y'all would still be selling energy drinks, pharmaceutical wellness, slimming coffee and other shit.


Friendly jurisdiction = no extradition treaty with U.S.


HUGE!


The only people you want to "make happy" are yourselves, the little inner cabal of MLM pimps. Everyone else is just collateral damage.


Great things happening right now! We couldn’t be more excited!^tm



Totally classic MLM speak; "haterzzz" are people who ask questions.

---

Meanwhile the small pool in a big discus fish (see what I did there  :) ) is grossing about 60BTC a day to be shared (minus of course, the lifetime affiliate payments to the People that Matter) by up to 30,000 BCN claimed investors.
That's the ones left who didn't get shafted by having their contracts cancelled and their money stolen.

They seem to be a bit slow in paying out to third party miners tho...

Yes, you are right im missing my payments. Non of the official e-mails are working any more and support@bitclubnetwork.com does not answer.
I was use to 2-3 days delay last year from Bitclubpool, but weeks is a different matter...

As time goes by and BitClub Network becomes yesterday's news for the MLM pumpers, my suspicion that the operation was only ever a Genesis Mining reseller becomes almost a certainty.

Building on this


Genesis get lots of stick on here about declining payments and Bitclub's ROI also just stretches further and further, as evidenced by users



To add further

Genesis has a contract cancellation clause allowing termination if maintenance charge exceeds mining income.
BitClub Network are more basic, they just cancel oversold contracts.
 
Then of course, there's Ethereum mining, started by Genesis at the end of 2015 and, three months later, BitClub offering ETH packages with MLM attached.

And further then, there's the Curious Case of the Super Arbitrage Bot. This of course was openly sold (not sold in the end) as an official BitClub Network/Genesis Mining joint venture, as explained above. Something happened. All of a sudden bullshit excuses from BCN about them being TOO big to operate it properly or smth. Whether or not Genesis are still using this bot on their own account, supposedly have been for three years, is something only they can answer. GLWT.

And the latest coincidence/evidence that BCN are just a Genesis reseller is ZCash mining, Genesis' latest baby. Right up behind them come Bitclub, Zcash mining

https://i.imgur.com/JNZGtTU.png


"What does it matter," you ask?
"Obviously makes your view that Bitclub are unsustainable look unlikely. If they're "backed" by Genesis, the biggest cloudminer in the world according to themselves, my money should be safe amirite?"

Well no, not really.
Firstly there's no guarantee that Genesis are bomb or market proof. In a mining arms race like we have now, only the biggest will survive and it's unlikely Genesis qualify there. Although if they are using Bitfury gear, their belated announcement that they're finally gearing up with 16nm will at least make Weeks' claims come true, albeit over six months too late.
If Genesis are paying dust to direct contract holders, what chance do investors in a reseller have of making any money, especially when the sales force of that reseller are hiving off probably a third of all new money for themselves, as "commission"?

And what a temptation it must be to keep selling and selling, irrespective if there's nothing profitable left to sell?
That what they do, welcome to MLM.

I know for a fact that they BCN opped the gear to Bitmain gear around 2 month ago since im having my farm on Iceland as well and I was asked if I wanted to buy the used BCN gear by Bitmain.  Im pretty sure you are right in your investigation, since some days ago suddenly a lot of PH appeared on KANO pool named Bitfury and LuckyAnt, and it was in the same time BCN pool had a massive drop in PH so BCN/Genesis are using KANO as backup pool.
The only thing I see you are missing is the fact that Bitmain is a part of Genesis and BCN.

yeah well, ponzi pumpers are like grass hoppers. they move on, looks one scamcoin is still going strong. forget about this shit, it's the past.

Very true, but there's still 1000's of punters locked into contracts, the only escape being if BCN decide to bin them.
Then there's the going nowhere Clubcoin PoS and, of course, the Coinpay platform that's going to take over the world. Sometime soon^tm .

Beware of user Montero82

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=917511

Looks like a fake account for BitClubNetwork (password reset) who's posting everywhere trying to get suckers to join the ponzi scam.

They're persistent, I'll give them that......

I saw multiple posts promoting Bitclub in both English and French in his post history, nothing else. Tagged him for being an obvious shill for the scam and all those posts were immediately deleted.

looks like he deleted all posts... LOL

Some rather amusing/strange/exit strategy? recent activity.....

https://i.imgur.com/jK6zIk2.png

Or even to the real one.

And then




And then (it always comes in threes), it's clone time (or, if you were really cynical, pose as clone time)...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1704438.


https://i.imgur.com/8ouCvVl.png

Have you guys seems this video of Roger deleting his BCN tweet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8W1ygDEzHA

bitclub network only ponzi site no real mining
the early launch, every member join use register fee 500 dollar, without investment
if want get return must investment again

Joby the 22 year old millionaire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Lv-TSEOb4&feature=autoshare

The damage has increased in Japan now.


https://bitclub-japan.com/
http://bitclubjapan.info/bitclub-%E3%83%9E%E3%82%A4%E3%83%8B%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E3%83%97%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB/
http://hapikachi.com/bitclub/

That still doesn't mean it's not a scam at some level. How much did you pay to be a "Member"? Seriously? :D

http://kipicommunity.org/bitclub-network-review/

Why even bother @owlcatz ................?  ::)

Meh... Why not.. Just another paid shill to "Fix" their rep on bitcointalk LOL.. We all know it's a fucking scam, so why not at least entertain the newbie troll seeking legitimacy on a long time scam? ;D

Edit - I even negged him just for that post, does that count at all? ;D

Perfect.

No good scam goes unpunished here.

 "However" is a conjunction.  Never start a sentence with "However."



or


FYFY

LOL... Scammers.... You should at least neg him as well, it's not like I'm on default trust here?

:D 

I based my conclusion on this:


Any business/organisation that uses fake testimonials including pictures of convicted rapists is quite obviously a scam. Nothing any BCN shill says can change that.

Negged.

Done.

@devonbuy BEFORE I PUT YOU ON PERMANENT IGNORE, I suggest everyone else NEG him & do the same.

Now bugger off!

Hey Geniusbuy.... WHO ACTUALLY OWNS & RUNS BITCLUB? Answer that one, please. ;D

Trick question!


"One of the largest Ponzi scheme operations, called BitClub Network (BCN) with thousands of investors worldwide, is obviously run by a gang of international criminals."

https://steemit.com/scam/@steeme/criminals-behind-bitclub-network-investment-scam (https://steemit.com/scam/@steeme/criminals-behind-bitclub-network-investment-scam)

This explains why all their stock photo spokespeople are really all RAPISTS:

"The unofficial head of BCN seems to be Russ Medlin, a U.S. citizen and known sex-offender. Medlin was convicted for attempted rape, possession of child pornography and numerous other crimes."

The sad part about these large-scale MLM scams, is that fools like this devon guy probably ACTUALLY believe it's not a scam. It's amazing how fucking dumb at least half of america is, I mean, look who is president LOL....

That said, the poor shmuck probably really believes all the bullshit he's been spoonfed because he's never actually just fuckin' mined on his own like most smart(er) people do...  ;D

Thanks for negging him btw!  8)

Oh, looky there, he was smart enough to neg us back, congrats kid, now go get scammed elsewhere, we don't tolerate MLM scams here, so stop even trying.

Thanks for the red paint btw, I will wear it with honor! ;D

I find it highly interesting that you, a 28-post newbie, knows how the trust system even works already, therefore I find it highly entertaining that you are accusing this guy of having a "terrible trust rating" (Ok, maybe you don't fully understand it yet)? :P and also of using a pseudonym or an alt account.  ::)

1. No one here is obligated to give you their full names, so kindly fuck off there devonboy.
2. You are the one reviving a half dead two-year old scam accusation thread, that, well let's face it, is still known widely as an MLM scam, no matter how you shake it
3. Why don't you post here using your real account? ::)
4. You are shilling a scam, therefore you get negged - people ganging up on you is to help protect ourselves, so again, fuck off.

Anyhow, done reading your garbage, nobody gives any fucks, you are now on ignore, so have a nice life on bitclub promoting a known scam, or at least something sketchy as fuck with known bad actors involved. ::)

Shhhhhh...... Don't tell him about PAYCOIN!!!   https://yobit.net/en/trade/XPY/BTC (https://yobit.net/en/trade/XPY/BTC)

I've been mining with Bitclub Network since 2016.... so far so good. Clubcoin hasn't done much but we were given it for free, so we can't really complain. I could go up a lot if they actually pull of what they are trying for. Let's see. End of the day, it's not a "scam" until they've run off with all of your money. Hasn't happened yet and I doubt it will at this point.

But I'd like to hear about what deffo is a scam!

S

Of course you have Mr Noob account with 6 posts...... :o :o

oh  since  there is a topic about BitClubNetwork I will post my 5c here !!!
My mom  deposited with them 500USD ( +99UDS membership fee)  in the end of march, now they promissed  she can withdraw anytime and in will be in her wallet in 48 hours,  no fee...
not true.
We have asked for a withdraw and gave it some time, after 3 days there were nothing in her wallet,  we have opened a ticket
after 2 days of opening the ticket she got paid, all in all it's about half of what she had deposited. SO really cant talk about  profit here yet.

There were also some bitcoincash  credited during the fork to her wallet to make it look legit we requested the withdraw of that too.... it never came to her wallet. and I mean NEVER and the ticket in still pending.
I will be happy if she can at least get back what she deposited, her upline told her not to withdraw but to reinvest " to get more profit" yeah right.

so.
the payments are SLOW ( 5 days and a support ticket is not fast at all )   the support is not replying, foolish members are asked to keep reinvesting and all withdrawals under 2 Bitcoin will be charged an automatic fee of 0.002 Bitcoin ( probably just to make sure you will not withdraw too soon )

I will update if I have any improvements but  this is  not a legit project  to me

Quoted for future shills to stop wasting our time. ;D

https://i.imgur.com/Hoy0H7a.png

https://i.imgur.com/skVyiyN.png

 ;D

WAT HE SAID!

Haven't you put him on *ignore* yet?

Who has time for that?

WAT!

For someone who is supposedly being ignored, it's funny to see there are people still engaged in meaningless conversations over this. Nice! LOL...  :D :D

....after he was warned by others not to invest

Classic scam scheme, avoid.

Thanks everyone for all of this good information. I went to a meetup about Bitcoin this afternoon and it turned into a BitClub Network pitch.

Most everything sounded very plausible (except the slide which claimed that the power cooling costs would be $0 because "hydro and geothermal" and "It's in Iceland", which I made a point of to the meeting organizer). In fact, the organizer was very low key overall and didn't even hard sell the MLM side of things - we actually had to ask her to explain it to us.

Bottom line.. I was really sold and had her create an account for me, with a plan to go home and do some research on this before I invested. However, she then told everyone we had to download the Opera browser for it to work. That seemed very odd. I've never used Opera on a PC before. But, okay. When I asked why, she told us it that Bitcoin Club was being "smart" - since "everything you do is watched by the US government, even your internet activity", Bitcoin Club is blocking IP addresses in the US and Opera has a built-in VPN. Ah, sure, whatever... but then were told not only did we have to use a VPN, but we also had to set it to Canada or Europe, that way we could join, otherwise, we'd get a "warning" about no longer accepting U.S. investors because of SEC regulations, etc. HUGE RED FLAG!

However, I actually went through all of these "warnings" on the website (one "warning" was that they would refund ALL of my money if they found out I was in the US - not really that scary) and was still able to log in to the site. But doing a quick Google search lead me to this forum and several other websites which have confirmed my suspicions that the reason they stopped wanting U.S. investors is because they are selling unregistered securities, and, more importantly, they aren't able to sustain payouts to investors without money from new investors, which makes it a classic MLM pyramid scheme.

So, thanks for the all of the warnings about giving away my precious Bitcoin to something like this, and even more importantly, keeping me from roping my friends and coworkers into something that won't last. Unless I get some additional information and clarification on the math that show it's more than a total scam  - I'll update everyone here if it does and ask for feedback - I will be sitting this one out!

Excellent inside report!

Many of us here have been scammed --multiple times.  We come here from time to time to warn others.

Those were all huge red flags!

If you had BTC & simply held it for the past 90 days, you doubled your value!

No MLM or any other kind of scheme can do that.

Just "HODL!"

Haha. So true. I'm at a point that even if Bitcoin was accepted everywhere that Visa was, there is no way I would spend Bitcoin on anything. HODL! (If my employer wanted to PAY me in BTC though... that would be an interesting decision...)

The number of scams among ICO projects is just off scale! Maybe it's time to put into practice the publication of audit reports? This will undoubtedly increase the transparency of all ICO projects. ;)

Um... heard of blockchains?   ::)

Quoting for our latest fanboy, Devonbuy.... ;D

Quite a long time I did not look at this thread. Has anyone proven to this scammers that they don't have enough power to cover the cost of maintaining this pyramid?

Just to be totally fair this is my update.  I finally received my payouts on November  6 and 13 !  since then I have almost x2 these money on poloniex
this has not yet cover  the invested money  and I have calculated to my mom that if she would  just go ahead and invest these dollars into bitcoin straight on she would have had x14 to her investment right now....
I do not recomend this project to anyone and I hope that at least we can get what was invested/

You Is that even legal in your country?

It’s a typical MLM scam. Nothing new. Most of investors must write good reviews to find new refs.

I have a question:

How many more fake/shill accounts are you going to use to promote this scam?

Name:    hemasaram
Posts:    4
Activity:    4
Position:    Newbie
Date Registered:    January 13, 2018, 04:05:22 AM
Last Active:    Today at 04:35:06 AM

4 posts since registering yesterday - all 4 posts defending this BitClub scam..... ::)

Give it a rest.

I did the same ;)

So, it's not a scam to you?

These BitClub noob shill accounts just don't stop coming...... ::)

Bitclub Network profits materialize excruciatingly slow (unless you recruit others MLM-style). Basic retail recruits like me "invest" dollars, and they dribble pennies back at you over an incredibly long period of time. Here's my story: In June 2017, I invested the basic $603 — i.e., $99 plus the basic mining package — in the form of 0.24 Bitcoin (the price of BTC was $2,470.10 at the time). After more than 200 days, so far I've pulled back 0.023 Bitcoin. In other words, the rate of payback is about 9.6% of my investment after about 7 months. At this rate it will take about 2,062 days, or 5.6 more years, to recoup my investment. Hope this helps someone.

Thank you for your valuable input on this ongoing scam. At first glance, I assumed you were defending it, but I see you are not. Gave you a merit for helping people learn the truth. ;)

Cheers!

If the difficulty stays the same, which it wont. Expect about 75 years......

In other words, never.

It's the BitClub dudes!

You get a BIT!

how long does it take to withdraw gpu earnings. i ve been requesting for past 5 days but still withdrawal status is pending. wtf

As the post above yours says: never.

The sad part about this is, how many of my friends now claim to be "mining bitcoin", and trying to get me to sign up under them.

They lose it when I explain to them how much I earn from my own mining rigs, and my Hashflare mining contracts. (A whole lot more than they get from similar cash "investments in Bitclub).

I know one guy though, who has so many sign-ups under him, and appears to be one of the big promoters here in South Africa, who is raking it in. Many of my friends signed up under him, cos he has convinced them that his lifestyle is the result of his mining, and not because of him getting a cut of every cent they put in.

The guy is a stay-at-home dad, who travels internationally extensively, and drives luxury cars. He sells this as proof of how much money you can make by signing up to Bitclub.

He got one of my friends to pump R10000  into this scam (about $1000). Now my friend's monthly earnings are R500, which is about a tenth of what he could have been earning if he got a rig, and started mining on nicehash, or some similar pool.

The problem is that people want to get rich quick, and are too lazy to do their own due diligence.

So you avoided this scam for another Hashcoins scam.  LULZ

A friend of mine lost his first BTC to a ponzi-type MLM scam back in 2014. He bought it for about $115.

He's really pissed now.

All you have to do is HODL!

I'm not invested in Bitclub and I would recommend everyone to do so too.

This kind of MLM System is only a money printer press for the founders. They will get parts of your profits and so you pay for them.
MLM is a bad thing for normal investors - think about it.

Hashflare had nothing to do with Hashcoin / Paycoin.

The fake XPY "mining" and "staking" was perpetuated by GAWMiners using jpeg files posing as "Hashlets."

https://i.imgur.com/fxkSExo.png

Hashcoins/Hashflare are the same entity run by the same people. Moderators recently moved the entire Hashcoins thread to the scam section because they sold miners to customers but kept them for themselves to start Hashflare, which is another ponzi cloud mining scam. Hashcoins/Hashflare were also behind the Polybius ICO scam, whose official thread was deleted by moderators.........some track record  ;)

Thanks for the insight!
Josh Garza is going to prison SOON ™️.

Completely coincidental, of course, that the long neglected premined Clubcoin is currently being converted to an ERC20 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1292870.msg47008385#msg47008385) in a frenzy of activity.

BCN stopped paying out in Bitcoin because it was "too expensive"¹, so paying out investors in the near future only in their own shitcoin would seem a logical further "cost cutting" move.

¹After they had "educated" Roger Ver about their business model..

Are you guys very familiar with Trade Coin Club? I can't seem to find any massive expose on them in this forum, but... Ryan Conley was one of their "early adopter" promoters... Its a Ponzi pretending to use trading bots that opened in January 2017 and is still taking in really dense peoples' BTC who didn't manage to do 1 second of DD.

I'm writing an article about them now, stumbled upon this thread during my research. It sure is amazing how these guys just keep going from one scam to the next without ever getting jailed or fined or ostracized or anything!

Here's a good starting place if you're interested:

https://behindmlm.com/mlm-reviews/trade-coin-club-review-cryptocurrency-exchange-ponzi-rois

Ryan even addresses some of his critics in the comments section.

When I started this thread over three years ago, crypto had had little exposure to MLM.
The MLM industry in America was busy with its staple diet of dubious products in the healthcare, diet supplements and household sectors.
It's a very conservative industry, sticks with what it knows and is organized along franchise lines.
There's either the establishment model, corporations like Amway and Vemma, or the fringe where independent high flyers with established "downlines" and relentless marketing jump from new scheme to new scheme in search of new "investors".
The founders of BCN were the latter and struck gold, in so far as they stumbled on something (Bitcoin) which allowed them to write their own rules. The lack of regulation and the mystique surrounding crypto were an MLMer's dream and they exploited it to the hilt.

MLM is quite a closed, close-knit world and soon it was flavor of the month to churn out crypto related schemes with MLM schemes attached, massively enabled by the anonymity aspect and the untraceable nature of funds.
Scammers also fall out with one another and fork off to establish copycats, and that's the environment that enabled Tradecoinclub.
The crypto world cottoned on fairly quickly to the old style sales approach of the MLM world, which is why you don't see huge threads on here regarding obvious schemes, but it still has a massive presence on the fringes of real crypto with schemes like Onecoin and Dagcoin.

Kudos to you sir. I never knew about this crap until I saw this thread. Sad world, good job saving many people's money who read this first, even if we have no idea who or anything.... Cheers!

I'm just surprised more of these people don't face any sort of jail time, and are allowed to continue from scam to scam unhindered. Here's my Trade Coin Club / AI Trades article if anybody's interested. Will probably post it in the News section eventually:

https://coinclarity.com/spotting-a-scamcoin-trade-coin-club/

There are no more mining earnings, Bitclub has become 100% pyramid scheme. Illegal in the USA yet Riccardo Ferrari shows off his new BMW sports car and brags making over $500k per month recruiting Americans in the USA. Riccardo is Joe Able's (1 of 3 partners in Bitclub and lives in Oxnard California) US point man and best friend.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216901847692032&set=a.4738523674606&type=3&theater

Riccardo is known for hustling woman with dating scams and is facing one such lawsuit in Florida. He is a real piece of work. I just recently received an email (spam) from him regarding a new victim of his, you got to be proud of your protege huh Joe Able?


Read this, Joe Able about your best friend for life. Sound like your other partner Russ?

Links to the sexual dating scam lawsuit
https://consentawareness.net/tag/ferrari/ (https://consentawareness.net/tag/ferrari/)

https://books.google.com/books?id=nV5UCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=%22riccardo+ferrari%22+scam&source=bl&ots=e7y68D0Cx_&sig=ACfU3U2FOAgSVPMvB72YPytlqRHyindI1g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirn_yyvYjgAhUjjoMKHcFVAcQQ6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22riccardo%20ferrari%22%20scam&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=nV5UCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=%22riccardo+ferrari%22+scam&source=bl&ots=e7y68D0Cx_&sig=ACfU3U2FOAgSVPMvB72YPytlqRHyindI1g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwirn_yyvYjgAhUjjoMKHcFVAcQQ6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22riccardo%20ferrari%22%20scam&f=false)

https://consentawareness.net/2016/04/17/consistency-why-catfish-laws-are-a-must/ (https://consentawareness.net/2016/04/17/consistency-why-catfish-laws-are-a-must/)

https://i.ibb.co/PD0FK1L/riccardo-sociopath.png (https://ibb.co/BnFcbTp)

I know it's an old post, but still: this is absolutely not true. There can't be any best reviews about BCN for the following reasons: those who haven't tried them obviously can only judge by what they see, thus having an incomplete image of the whole thing.

But what's even worse: those who are with them can't be trusted. Because of the MLM structure, they have a strong interest to skew the facts and lure others in, as they make money off of them. They have no incentive to criticize them; even worse: if they're operating at a loss, they'd be even more inclined to lie about it and say something good, so new members joining under them compensate their loss. They have a conflict of interest, and that's why the members are those least to be trusted when reading a review.

Edit:
This.

Website went offline ....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-10/three-men-are-charged-in-722-million-cryptocurrency-fraud





Happy Fucking Christmas, you bunch of thieving, lying cunts.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/press-release/file/1224926/download

Even with money rolling in, BTC going up and "idiots" being recruited by the thousands, these lowlifes still tried to stiff  Catalin Balaci,  (https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/romanian-bitcoin-mining-firm-to-open-35mw-facility/) the sole dev (they're his redacted replies to Goettsche, but his name is mistakenly unredacted in one charge) who was making it all possible:



The other redacted name is child molester Russ Medlin. (https://steemit.com/scam/@steeme/criminals-behind-bitclub-network-investment-scam)

 

---

Edited for clarity re Balaci, thanks to Stompix prompt.

I can't believe how long this went on for, when this thread first started it was so obviously a scam I thought it would be a few months.

Just saw a news article about the arrests and remembered your original post, 2015 wow.

Got there in the end, well done tmfp, I know a lot of people have been scammed but hopefully your excellent research saved quite a lot more.

Agreed, three years for the US Prosecutors to take action is a fine example of how slow & incompetent they are. Had they visited this thread three years ago they could have saved a lot of gullible people a lot of money.

Oh well. At least they got there in the end I suppose.

Kudos to tmfp yet again.

The last line...

https://i.imgur.com/XxupfxX.png

Step aside Godfather, we have an Oscar dialogue here....


You mentioned this Balaci guy, from that article he owns evobits
https://www.listafirme.ro/evobits-information-technology-srl-33766781/
I hope google translate isn't messing with me but it seems like they are doing 15 million in revenue and 3 million in net profit?

Might be a name coincidence but I'm getting only 5-6 hits on that name on FB, I wonder how common this name is in Romania.
But we will find out pretty soon:

Oh never mind, even the middle name is the same.

Btw it is just me or seems like this month a lot of scams are biting the dust? ;D

If you mean by arrests then it could be the fact that it's the end of the year, and the authorities want to make arrest before holidays start. There's also a risk the people they want to arrest could travel to warm and distant countries for holidays and stay there if they caught the whiff they're in trouble.

It's not that they are slow, it's that they want the win.

A lot of the time with a lot of cases you never know the outcome you have lawyers arguing both sides. When the US attorneys show up with a big fraud case you know how it ends. They go in for the kill so it takes time. A lot of time. Kind of like with GAW, everyone knew it was coming but it took a long time to get there. Now we can debate if it was a long enough prison term, but the end was never in doubt.

-Dave

They're filling up their year end quota lol.

Glad that arrests were made though it could've been a lot sooner. Now all other scammers should know that it's only a matter of time till they too bit the dust.


Dont think they will spend long though. I reckon 2- 3 years maybe less.

So glad this is finally over, I've been getting hate mail for years for writing that post about them on 99Bitcoins. Glad that finally the truth is coming out...

It's not "over" by a long way. The U.S. legal system has thrown a big rock into this cesspool, let's see where the ripples spread. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5208850.0)


You did a good job and run one of the few crypto sites that are worth reading.
https://99bitcoins.com/anatomy-bitcoin-scam-bitclub-network-analyzed/

Yes, the threats and hate mail are unfortunately part of the deal, we'll have to meet for a beer and compare notes sometime.
Good luck.

I remeber https://99bitcoins.com from the first day.. 

You both guys do a incredible work!

Anyway. Let see where it will hit.. I hope that the BitClub pool power enigma will be finally solved and everyone will finally understand that the amount of BitClub mining power was a lie from the beginning!

Depends on if they go to trial or settle.
Settle, yeah 2 or 3 years (possibly 4).
Trial, you never know. When you drag everyone through a trial you are really never know how it ends up. Could be 6 months, could be a decade.
More stuff comes out the longer you are in court and most of the time it's not good for the defendant.

-Dave

I hope they will be judged individually, but unfortunately, they will probably be tried together as one scam. I guess that only the main founders will be punished. Those who encourage others should also be punished, but they probably won't. They will take care of the new "project" and will do the same.

So, a month on from the arrests of the principal BitClub scammers, an update.

Russ Medlin is still at large, according to the Feds, and
This is Russ Medlin

https://i.imgur.com/E8aDh1c.png?1

And Jobadiah (Joby) Weeks wants out of pretrial detention. He's looking at 15 to 25 years.
This is Weeks (on the right ;) )

https://i.imgur.com/ZzTm8u4.jpg?1

Weeks' main argument for release is that he wasn't really that big a deal in BitClub, just "one of 100's" of foot soldiers kept in the dark etc.etc. and is just a Colorado home boy who poses no flight risk.
The DoJ disagreed and checked out his Colorado "home" address, asked around..


One of the disadvantages of being a run-your-mouth-off conman like Weeks is that the Internet Never Forgets. (Even when you try to scrub it like Weeks has, successfully in terms of his earlier history. When I was originally, 5 years ago, researching him there was substantial on line information about his priviledged upbringing and his early frauds, including his Ron Paul limo scam. Can't find them, didn't archive them...)


Of course, Weeks is politically motivated, not just a thieving, lying amoral fucker. He's a Libertarian...


BitClub quickly and publically stated that U.S. citizens should not try to invest with them. (Pseudo compliance).
They were making stealing enough money elsewhere around the world not to tempt fate, but Weeks the ideologue had other advice for would be U.S. based vicitims



Such a Libertarian that he wanted to "help" Liberland (and make $140m for himself/BitClub)


But his idealism was also comfortable with being a Super Grass informer for the U.S. Government.
Ironically, that approach led to him being arrested. (It will be interesting if he uses his undoubted knowledge in a Plea Bargain. There's a few people sweating around the world on that one.)


So the Feds stung him, arranging a meet in Florida


That's worth a soldering iron in any language.....

---

*All quotes marked "Pacer" used here come from the DoJ response to a motion filed by Joby Weeks, requesting his pretrial detention order be revoked.
The Pacer quotes, in turn, come from https://behindmlm.com/companies/bitconnect/bitclub-network-scammers-plead-not-guilty-weeks-want-out/ who have been calling out BitClub as a scam for as long as I have.
PACER (https://guides.library.lls.edu/c.php?g=497713&p=3407321) = Public Access to Court Electronic Records, a U.S. payg access scheme.

Somebody just sent me this


So Left to Right:
Front: Yoshi Goto (Bitmain/warranty)
Rear: ?
Russ Medlin (BitClub)
Satoshi CSW
Marco......?

Any way to find out where that comes from? I'm 100% sure I've seen the whole photo somewhere, likely in the scam accusations section here (likely in the BSV scam accusation thread), or on behindmlm.com. But that looks very familiar.

Great work, by the way. I did my part in warning people to not enter BitClub since I've heard of them (which was right after they launched). It was just such an obvious ponzi, just looking at the website was enough. The only thing which confused me was the hashrate / found  blocks they propagated to the network. Could anyone elaborate on how they faked that? My impression was that the stats on the common block explorers can be trusted. I still recall seeing many blocks found by BitClub for a while.

I have yet to read the court documents. I wonder if there's any mention of ClubCoin, the shitcoin they launched and got so many sheep to advertise. At some point, I got lots of Skype calls from people trying to convince me to buy that crap, because it's going to "pump hard really soon" (which, of course, it didn't).

It was actually posted on their Facebook page about some meeting, the page is not accessible anymore but the result is still cached by google
Here (https://i.imgur.com/4YgcaWu.jpg) is the full picture.
Probably dates from the same time as the interview roger ver took ...

Thanks.

Google Image search reveals some interesting results (https://twitter.com/bitcoin/status/1204771699356360704?lang=en). But that was clearly after shit hit the fan for BitClub.

Also, when you scroll down to the bottom of this bitclub.com page (http://teamno1-bitclub.com/%E8%B3%87%E6%96%99%E5%86%99%E7%9C%9F/), you will find a post they made containing this photo. The text translates to:
. Seems they don't know either who the fifth person is.

Nice to see Bitmain in bed with so many scammers isn't it?.....

A handful of merits for the first positive ID of the big guy.  :)
Above that bitclub.com post is this picture, in which Yoshi and NotSatoshi seem to be wearing the same clothes as in the other one. It's dated April 2017 Tokyo.

https://i.imgur.com/iAyet4a.png?1


The basic answer to that is that BitClubPool =/= BitClubNetwork in as far as BCN offered (early on) large incentives to third party miners to use the BCPool, to give the impression of high hashrate mining being done by BCN for their investors, as clearly shown here. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1152263.msg12835559#msg12835559)
Later, I believe it's likely that BCPool processed large scale mining being done by Genesis and Bitfury, and paid them for that as a cover for the actual Ponzi operation that was really going on.
Weeks bragged about buying hundreds of thousands of S9's, Bitfury mining containers, blablahblah, but the actual BCN mining operation was a relative token. "Founder" member Iceland facility junkets? They were gladhanded and filled with booze and taken to a data center, where they saw some BCNetwork signs and a couple of guys in clean BCN t shirts.

---

There's a lot of agendas floating about re: Bitmain, being stoked by so called "insider" info being claimed, mainly by this Twitter account (https://twitter.com/btcking555), and it's pretty impenetrable to me tbh.
If Bitmain are being investigated by the DoJ in relation to BitClub Network, it's not neccessarily for
which, in itself, isn't illegal.
As this article says (https://www.chainnews.com/zh-hant/articles/036390357054.htm)
Conspiring with them to deceive and defraud investors by disguising the true benficiaries of BCPool hashrate would probably be a different matter.
I think that the wannabe Jason Bourne (Weeks) will squeal like a pig to keep his priviledged ass out of jail thru plea bargaining.
Who he implicates and what topics were discussed at various documented meetings with the highest level Bitcoin movers and shakers will be interesting...

That is a tough call.
Here in the US suppliers and others are rarely targeted for investigation. Because it's a very tough sell to a jury.
Do you go after the people they rented office space from? The data center who leased them space? etc.

It's easy to say that they knew, it's difficult to prove.

-Dave

Thanks for clearing that up – must have been debunked in a period I've not been that active (the date of the linked post at least indicates so). Not gonna lie, I find it quite impressive to what lengths they went to on one hand disguise their true operation (the ponzi), while at the other hand making it blatantly obvious to anyone with at least half a brain.

This is one of the better fool filters I've seen scammers implement in their venture: keep those brain-gifted troublemakers out with an obvious ponzi site while bombarding the gullible with "undeniable proof" (the blocks, "See, we're actually mining!") to show they're "legit". Impressive in its own, dirty way.

https://i.imgur.com/3yXlmwJ.jpg?1

RD2 is Russ Medlin, Jan 2016.

I have a hard time believing that Yoshi/Bitmain didn't have a clue what was going on here TBH. As soon as Bitmain "crossed over" to the scamside I became even more suspicious of them & their motives (apart from the obvious one - money) & I stated as such on their (now locked - when did they do that?) pool thread way back in February last year:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855548.msg49826368#msg49826368

Big players read this forum including those at Bitmain & for sure they would have seen the shabby marketing of Bitclub, fake testimonials of convicted rapists & all, yet they stayed silent. If I was running a large, multi-million dollar company like Bitmain that had a partnership with such a company I would have cancelled it immediately & made an official statement to distance myself from that company as far away as possible. Bitmain done nothing & stuck with it.

Either way, for sure JW will sing like a bird from the highest treetop in an effort to avoid/reduce his time for this crime & he'll drag everyone involved down with him, like the dirty rat that he is. It'll all come out in court & I can't wait.

Is there any funds recovery program running now? If not- could anybody recommend one fund recovery office? Id like to make claim on my invested BTC in bitclub.

The only legal action currently taking place is for specific crimes committed by specific individuals. So, no.


Be very careful there. Many stage 2 scammers will crawl out of the woodwork, offering all sorts.
If you joined thru a referral, I suggest going after your upline.

When BCN was exposed on this, they merely swapped the photo with another stranger, a Dr. Carsten Heinrich:

https://qa.linkedin.com/in/carsten-heinrich-73ba3985

At least he's not a convicted rapist . . .  :-\

It seems that tmfp had BCN pegged since 2015 with his "my suspicion that the operation was only ever a Genesis Mining reseller becomes almost a certainty."

Here's the DoJ site for this case.  All defendants are still being held without bail (flight risk seems high):
https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/bitclub

Yeah, you'd have thought it couldn't be much higher, wouldn't you?
Large amounts of perfectly portable crypto likely in their possession, lifestyles of frequent ( in Weeks' case, obsessive) global travel and no real roots in the U.S.?
But that hasn't stopped Goettsche and Weeks applying (http://www.courtcasedocs.com/Case%20Files/19-CR-00877-CCC/pdf/037-0-20200203.pdf) to have their pretrial detention orders revoked, a decision on which is imminent.
Two of Weeks' exhibits supporting his attempt strike me as surreal, if not counter productive: a family photo and a link to his travel blog with the last port of call being Dubai, home to scammers from around the world and no U.S. extradition treaty.
Weeks' ego allows him to believe that he shouldn't be kept banged up with common criminals, despite being a hugely obvious flight risk and the lawyer's money's no object, so why not?
His big fat ego also saw nothing wrong with using vanity addressed wallets (http://www.courtcasedocs.com/Case%20Files/19-CR-00877-CCC/pdf/024-3-20200115.pdf) to process his thievery...

Goettsche's application cites Virgil Griffiths' successful bail attempt as a precedent (Griffiths a.k.a. Romanpoet, ETH dev, was arrested for his North Korean trip, then bailed), (https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-developer-virgil-griffith-indicted-over-north-korea-event-appearance) which is a real apples and oranges comparison on all levels.

http://www.courtcasedocs.com/Case%20Files/19-CR-00877-CCC/index.html

You've certainly been keeping abreast; good info, thanks.

Defendant Jobadiah Sinclair Weeks’ Reply in Support of  His Motion to Revoke the Pretrial Detention Order
http://www.courtcasedocs.com/Case%20Files/19-CR-00877-CCC/pdf/037-0-20200203.pdf

That JW's great-grandfather was Eisenhower's Secretary of Commerce will be the clincher.
The DoJ must be saying, "What were we thinking?"

A couple of unconfirmed reports say that Weeks' application for pre trial release was denied. I can't find any official docket update as yet, but seemed a likely outcome.
This quite comprehensive overview (https://www.westword.com/news/bitclub-network-was-too-big-to-fail-but-cost-investors-722-million-11642618) of the whole situation, (including a bit too much self mythologising by the Fat Boy being taken at face value) also gives this thread a link and h/t.  ;D

The reason Weeks was such a consumate blagger is simple: he believed his own lies.
His narcissism involved having a film maker follow him around.


Still no sign of Russ Medlin who is said to be in South East Asia, historically a part of the world that would prove attractive to a moneyed, fugitive sex offender.  >:(

https://www.westword.com/news/bitclub-network-was-too-big-to-fail-but-cost-investors-722-million-11642618

Mining Bitcoins (especially after the first halving from 25 to 12.5) is not blazingly lucrative:  providing maybe a 20% profit margin, IIRC.  It is simply not credible that Joby, or any other BCN promoter, could rationally believe that mining Bitcoins could be done at a 20% operating expense, leaving the remaining 80% of investors' money available for commissions and new equipment. 

From his own emails, Joby knew (or at least suspected) in the summer of 2017 that BCN investor capital was not paying for new mining equipment.  Did he try to correct the sham, expose it, or at least warn others?  No.  He continued to hawk BCN so he could land at Country #100+.


In fact, "recklessly, careless whether it be true or false" is probably the best synopsis of Joby Weeks' character regarding BCN. 

Worse still, this snitch-narc-rat tried to save his own reckless skin by feeding his Perpetual Traveler compatriots to the IRS:

https://www.westword.com/news/bitclub-network-was-too-big-to-fail-but-cost-investors-722-million-11642618

What is it about libertarians that seems to attract such con-men?
Jeff Berwick (Galt's Gulch (https://mcgillespie.com/the-creature-from-galts-gulch/)), Simon Black, Adam Kokesh, Joby Weeks and BCN, etc.

This shit is really getting old.

This forum had been trying since 2015 to warn you about BCN.  Maybe folks will pay a little more attention next time.
When something sounds too good to be true ("a machine that prints money"), it is.  Caveat Emptor, y'all.

Goettsche and Weeks attempted (surprise surprise) to use COVID as a reason for being released from prison, and were both denied.
There's apparently a policy in the U.S. at the moment to release "petty" offenders because of the virus.
Weeks continues to pretend that's all he was


and throws in a pre existing asthma condition for good measure.
Didn't work.


Goettsche's application was simply that the reduction in scheduled airline activity made him less of a flight risk.
The DoJ pointed out that he has huge amounts of unaccounted for money that he stole from Bitclub investors and an involved brother who is still out there.
Judge Hammer found it

Jo Abel doesn't seem to have bothered to ask for release,  Silviu Balaci is still in jail in Frankfurt awaiting U.S. extradition and Russ Medlin is still out there, no doubt indulging the tastes for which he was placed on the Nevada Sex Offenders register, and protected from arrest by liberal dispersion of bribes and payoffs.
Other B list BitClub promoters who made $$$$ thru the MLM system appear to be of no interest to law enforcement.

Thanks for case update summary, OZ. Also below. (https://behindmlm.com/companies/bitclub-network/bitclub-network-scammers-denied-covid-19-release/)

---

Fat Lawyer One Coin Scammer Mark Scott was more successful in a similar hearing, being released to one of the homes he bought with stolen money.
His bullshit health worries appeared to have convinced the judge that he's not a flight risk despite holding dual citizenship with a country which doesn't extradite to the U.S. (Germany).


He was only in prison because he broke the terms of his previous bail, by going out on the town with his bodyguards.
His buying and selling of Porsches and property doesn't seem to be considered unusual.


He is the walking embodiment of a fat, disgusting cunt. (apologies to my overweight friends)

Scumbag Russ Medlin has finally been arrested in Indonesia.

https://www.suara.com/news/2020/06/16/104728/polda-metro-tangkap-buronan-fbi-russ-medlin

The rest of the thieves aren't having it much better, either....

Despite his "I'm too cool for jail" applications, Joby Weeks remains in a Covid infested, don't drop the soap Federal jail until at least the end of next month, whilst Matthew Goettsche appears to have been ripped off to the tune of forteen million stolen Bitclub dollars, in the form of a failed investment in an Australian Little Caesars Pizza franchise (https://behindmlm.com/companies/bitclub-network/bitclub-network-millions-laundered-through-little-caesars/).

What a shame.

More details of the arrest of a/the principal actor in the BitClub scam Saga, Russ Medlin.

https://i.imgur.com/nEkUj8h.png

But not for fraud, for fucking young kids.....

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3089307/us-bitcoin-fugitive-russ-medlin-arrested-sex-charges

Hardly surprising, given his history, his cocaine habit and the large amount of money he stole.


Live in hope, die in despair I know, but just maybe some of the associated BitClub scum like J. Ryan Conley and Joby Weeks, both of whom have young daughters, might like to reflect on the way they enabled this walking piece of shit to gratify himself.

The arrest was based on his crime committed in Indonesia, pedophilia. For fraud, already alluded to in this article:
https://i.imgur.com/bltSWHQ.png
Link : https://www.msn.com/id-id/berita/nasional/fakta-fakta-penangkapan-russ-medlin-buronan-fbi-yang-ditangkap-polda-metro/ar-BB15zYfc

Although Indonesia-US doesn't have an extradition treaty, but based on previous facts, usually the fugitive after being caught by the Indonesian police. they will be returned to US. Article : https://www.merdeka.com/peristiwa/indonesia-ekstradisi-buronan-amerika-tersangka-kasus-penipuan.html

Prison is too good for him & his ilk. I hope they keep him locked up in some filthy, dirty hell hole in Indonesia for a few years before they extradite him to a "nice" prison in the States.

Rot in Hell Russ Medlin.

Thanks for the updates @tmfp.

https://coconuts.co/jakarta/news/convicted-pedophile-russ-medlin-made-sex-tapes-with-underage-victims-in-jakarta-police/

---

Sounds nice.....
His stolen money will probably come in handy.

Mr Entitled, a.k.a. Joby "Thief and Liar" Weeks is very determined to get out of his probably COVID infested remand prison, especially since the case has been declared "complex" with vast amounts of data to be processed by both sides, if this is true


His personal appeal to Trump fell on deaf ears, so he's disputing the facts behind the decision to reject his earlier bail application, running to 48 pages...

Among the disputed reasons are "his personal relationship with Russ Medlin". eewww.


This doting father Weeks (he flew his newly born daughter to all the U.S. states in 42 days. Paid for by BitClub investors) would absolutely have known about Medlin's past child sex conviction, and as his recent arrest is for that very thing, it is obvious that Medlin was an active predator on other people's daughters, whilst he flew round and round the world, signing up BitClub suckers.
That was ok with Libertarian Weeks, but when Medlin (allegedly) rips him off for some money, he becomes persona non grata.

Bitfury get a mention, as does AnarchaPulco where Weeks boasted on that infamous Soundcloud recording I parsed here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1152263.msg14059264).

Weeks is full of "we's" and "ours" and for all the world is talking about his company BitClub Network buying vast amounts of sometimes non existent mining equipment from BitFury, going to be "the biggest in the world", blahblah...


Have a listen  (https://soundcloud.com/heryptohow/roger-ver-vs-joby-weeks-sasha-daygame-juan-galt-jeff-berwick)if you're bored, and contextualise it during a very big growing pain period in Bitcoin's history, just one aspect being CloudMiningMania.
Think Genesis and the Marco's with their Iceland mining (in the early days they kept the BitClub Network banners, logos and tee's in the closet until a bunch of pissed up "Founder" MLMer's were due for their "VIP tour of BCN's" magic machines).
This is also where Roger Ver turns up and so begins the "Roger Ver and BCN saga", which I covered here. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5208850.0)
Craig Wright also turns up.
(The Genesis/BCN tie up nearly culminated in a joint passive income MLM bot trader (supposedly designed by Genesis) venture a couple of years later, but something bad happened.)

So it's a bit of a surprise to find that rapidly-slimming FatBoy Weeks maintains that he was in fact only a go-between, being paid millions by BCN to buy from BitFury in their arms race with Antminer.


That's bullshit, some sort of implausible denial that he was an integral part of BCN, front man, money and contacts man and crucial to their success?
Apparently the DoJ have responded to his rebuttal with a 46 page one of their own. And his sorry arse remains inside.

Update liberally stolen from Oz @ https://behindmlm.com/companies/bitclub-network/joby-weeks-unsealed-release-appeal/.


Today's BCN geek's photo is Weeks and his not-travelling-so-much-these-days daughter Liberty* with Ron Paul, for whom Weeks supplied a 55 foot long limo.

Jobadiah “Joby” Weeks has plead guilty to two counts of BitClub Network related fraud.
As per the terms of a plea agreement reached with the DOJ, Joby Weeks has pled guilty to conspiring to offer and sell unregistered securities and tax evasion.
I don’t recall specific figures pertaining to Weeks’ tax evasion being included in his original BitClub Network indictment.

As per the plea agreement;


One can imagine Weeks’ anti-government beliefs and use of cryptocurrency played a significant role in him dodging taxes.
The two counts of fraud Weeks has pled guilty two carry consecutive statutory prison sentences of up to five years each. A statutory monetary penalty will also be applied.

The plea agreement also requires Weeks to pay restitution to BitClub Network victims.

Pending Weeks’ satisfying the terms of the plea agreement, the DOJ will not pursue any further BitClub Network or tax fraud actions. This includes dropping the wire fraud count in Weeks’ indictment.
Week’s plea agreement was accepted by the court on November 5th.
On November 6th bond was set at $2 million dollars. To secure his release, four properties in the US belonging to Weeks and family members have been offered as surety.

Pending Weeks providing pre-trial services with a travel itinerary and a custodian arranging to travel with him from New Jersey to Colorado (presumably a family member), Weeks will be released to home incarceration with location monitoring.
Sentencing has been scheduled for March 17th, 2021.
Weeks’ guilty plea brings the number of BitClub scammers who have pled guilty to three. Programmer Silviu Catalin pled guilty in July. Promoter Joe Abel pled guilty in September.

The DOJ’s case against ringleaders Matthew Brent Goettsche and Russ Medlin continues.

Thanks to Oz @ BehindMLM
https://behindmlm.com/companies/bitclub-network/joby-weeks-pleads-guilty-to-bitclub-network-fraud/

Thanks for your update on this. I heard about the court case outcome elsewhere and logged back in specifically to see if you had written about it -- very informative summary. Please keep up the great work in exposing scammers!