But your bet with Matthew will lose you no money if he skips out on paying, you'll still have the money you "risked", just not the amount he promised you.
That's simply not true. If you relied on the bet and suffered a loss due to that reliance, then the bet lost you money. |
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What if Pirate has one-sidedly decided to NOT pay any PPTs
Then under the pooling agreement you are entitled to nothing so no-one is defrauded if Hashking gives out some ones info
To be clear, I have no BTC in Hashkin's passthrough, but I do have BTC with BitcoinMax and we have the same problem there
If he's not going to pay out anything, why give him info? And there's no way Hashking can know this. |
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No that was because the spending was based on debt and the currency was based on debt. Not true. The spending was not based on debt, the spending was based on expected future revenue from selling a house. That would exist in any economy. Don't ever apply the idiocracies of the fiat economy to anything else except itself.  I try not to. If you can show why that makes a difference, please do. Spending is not inherently good, more spending can change the type of goods an economy produces such that it's producing short-term consumed goods rather than long-term investment goods. That can be bad. |
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I want to put this to rest, and I will do it by showing a proof of work. I will be running a similar program and at the end of a solid 30day period I will be releasing my entire transaction history with a rather lengthy write up appropriately titled “Pirate investment strategies” ... I'm going to predict who will win the next election. I'll release my results and a lengthy explanation of how I did it a few weeks after the election. |
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So he pays you $636 and he has settled, in full.
U.S. dollars must be accepted for all debts, public and private.
If you would like that as 58.7 BTC ($636 paid out at today's exchange rate) I'm sure that it would be acceptable for you to request that as your payment method.
I don't think would happen primarily because it's inequitable. That would allow anyone who had a debt denominated in something that could change in value to defer payment until sued and then make a profit from their default if the price dropped. Courts have inherent powers to avoid inequitable results and to avoid people who default from profiting from their default. For example, say I put $50,000 worth of gold in someone's vault and pay them to keep it secure for me. If five years later it's worth $200,000, I don't think any court is going to allow them to default on returning my gold and pay me the $50,000 it was worth when I deposited it. Legal tender laws don't specify the number of dollars that must be accepted to settle the debt. That's up to the contract. |
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You simply can't get the same amount of production with less spending. Modern production is exclusively driven by demand, overproduction more or less is a thing of the past.
If you can make a car efficiently enough to sell it for $15,000, you can make that same car and sell it for $30,000. The reverse is, of course, not always true. But it's not always false either. The concern is not "overproduction" but insane production. For example, just prior to the mortgage crisis, the economy was insanely overproducing luxury goods. This was largely because the overvaluation of homes was stimulating spending. This spending was bad spending and the economy still hasn't recovered from the harm this overspending did. The economy should not have diverted scarce resources to producing luxury goods that people incorrectly believed they could afford. The amount of spending doesn't so much determine how much production takes place in terms of how much human effort is expended. People who need jobs will work whether they're making 100" plasma TVs or running a soup kitchen. We can increase spending dramatically by paying people a million dollars a day to dig trenches with teaspoons. But we only want to encourage *sensible* spending. |
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Even if he doesn't pay, no money is lost. None is gained, but that's not a loss. Nobody's actually risking anything here. (Except their reputations)
You are incorrect. Money will be lost. There are people who made financial decisions based on Matthew's bet acting as a hedge against their possible Pirate losses. For example, say someone had a 100 BTC Pirate account. They had the option of selling it for 30 BTC. But instead, they bet 100 BTC with Matthew. Now, consider what happens if Pirate defaults and Matthew does not pay: 1) With Matthew's bet: Thee 100 BTC Pirate account is worth zero. They get 0 BTC from Matthew. They wind up with 0 BTC. 2) Without Matthew's bet: They have to 30 BTC they got from selling their Pirate account. So in this case (which is not atypical) Matthew's failure to pay off the bet would cost this person 30 BTC. If he loses but does not pay, money will be lost. ObLegal: Promissory estoppel, detrimental reliance, favete linguis. Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre? |
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Well if it is immaterial - then he is profiting from selling worthless bonds, while promising to deposit them into BS&T and buy them back at 1.0 + interests if Pirate would pay out. But in reality there is still an actual possibility that Pirate will pay out. And if so: where is he going to get the extra money from, since he's selling the bonds now at 0.1, without even depositing this fraction into BS&T? The obvious answer: he won't have the money to cover his obligations, if Pirate does pay out. Either way - he violates the contract, which is completely unacceptable and it's just a clear, outrageous fraud - nothing else! But you people are so happy with this that I just don't even want to ruin your fun... So please pardon my "trolling" and just keep letting him doing what he does, since I'm dying to see how this will end up  The only way I can see this being acceptable is if he has already deposited funds with Pirate and is selling a claim on them should they be fully paid off. So long as his personal balance with Pirate is more than the face value of the bonds and he deducts the face value from his tracking of his personal balance, I don't see any fraud. Otherwise, I agree with you. He can't pay the face value to Pirate if he sells the bond for less than face. |
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Here is the fundamental flaw of bitcoins economic model in one sentence:
Spending because of a need is fundamentally less than because of a want.
(I would be surprised if this gets any insightful answers)
It doesn't matter, it's production that builds the economy, not spending. If we can get the same production with less spending, that's better. So just encouraging spending is not what you want. |
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It doesn't matter how many coins there are on an address. Nobody will 'guess' or 'hack' the corresponding private key, not within a million billion trillion years.
Not quite. Only until somebody builds a quantum computer...  Indeed. We probably have at least 50 years before it's practical. And we'll probably be able to see it coming at least 10 years in advance. http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0301141v2.pdf |
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If the price of BTC doubles, his whale customers care not. Pirate's obligation to them is in dollars - and at 70 cents on their dollar. He just buys/sells half the amount of coin with their money. He still earns 30% USD in the process.
On the depositor side, pirate's 7% BTC interest obligation simply costs him 2X the USD it would if the BTC/USD price remained stable. His 30% cut of the whale money easily covers this exposure. If pirate's depositors make no withdrawals after the price doubling, his cash flow is unaffected. He simply records a liability on his books...a liability that disappears if BTC prices drop to their previous level.
This model for Pirate has already been refuted. If this was his model, his number one priority would be getting rid of his high-interest debt. Since he was actually acquiring such debt as quickly as he could, this translates into another version of, "Pirate has some secret business strategy that makes so much money, he can afford to give tons of it away, and he just happens to like giving money away to people whose investment strategy is picking things that look exactly like Ponzi schemes." |
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Is there any proof yet that this is a pure ponzi?
It depends what you mean by "pure ponzi". I can think of a few possible (though frankly, not very likely) scenarios that might not be considered a "pure" Ponzi. For example, Pirate might have operated as a Ponzi scheme to build up investment thinking that once he had enough coins, he could make enough money by manipulating the market to pay everyone back. Or Pirate might have operated as a Ponzi scheme while selling all excess Bitcoins for USD figuring he could continue operation until a "BTC crash" where he could use the USD to buy everyone's Bitcoins back. Some people might not consider these "pure" Ponzi schemes since the operator had an expectation the scheme would make a profit or because some legitimate investment were made in addition to the classic Ponzi mechanism. But the evidence is all but conclusive at this point that the primary mechanism of the scheme was to pay off previous investors with funds deposited by new investors. Likely Pirate was also trying to make money with the funds he had at the same time, possibly to only enrich himself or possibly with the unrealistic fantasy that he'd make some huge killing that would let him pay everyone back. |
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It still hasn't been conclusively shown to be a Ponzi, despite the accusations.
Can you conclusively show that it still hasn't been conclusively shown to be a Ponzi? Have you read every forum post? Checked every other piece of evidence? Traveled the world to ensure you didn't miss one shred of conceivable evidence? Maybe it has been conclusively shown that Pirate is a Ponzi. (My point, of course, is that this "conclusively shown" bit is a red herring. People only bring out absurd standards like that when they don't like where the actual evidence leads.) |
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Fine, I will agree with you, "IF" they knew it was a ponzi.
However you do not even know it is a ponzi at this point. You like Theymos just assumed.
We all know it's a Ponzi. Some of us are honest about it and some are not. I understand that it's impossible to get a person to see something when his livelihood and reputation depends on him not seeing it. Perfect certainty is not required for knowledge. |
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Pirate's debt is denominated in BTC and his interest obligations are denominated in BTC. I don't see how an "unstable currency" is a problem, as long as you make certain assumptions. Say the price of BTC doubles. Now, Pirate's customers need half as much BTC as they did before. why? Because half as many coins do whatever it is they need to do. Whether they're buying drugs or laundering money, they now need half as much BTC to do it. that assumes their investment was denominated in USD. No, it doesn't. It's independent of what denomination is used to measure the value of investments. as with my 1800 BTC shakaru debt, the value of the coins in USD was irrelevant. To me the debt was always 1800 BTC.
whether USD/BTC triples or halves... i just want the coins.
You may think it doesn't affect you because you loan to someone a number of bitcoins and just expect a number of bitcoins back. And they may think it doesn't affect them because they deal with others in bitcoin amounts. But somewhere at the bottom there will be someone who cares what bitcoins are worth. There just isn't any enterprise that can operate in terms not connected to an amount of value either directly or indirectly other than by pure hoarding. And there's nothing you can hoard that will give you a significant net positive return over bitcoins. Value fluctuations ripple through the chain with bitcoins just as they do with dollars. And right now, bitcoin is much more volatile. |
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Pirate's debt is denominated in BTC and his interest obligations are denominated in BTC. I don't see how an "unstable currency" is a problem, as long as you make certain assumptions. Say the price of BTC doubles. Now, Pirate's customers need half as much BTC as they did before. Yet Pirate still has to pay the same amount of interest. Does he now double his customer base? |
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Anyway giving PPT operators scammers tags is like giving master card a scammers tag when someone buys lotto tickets with them...
Interesting how you compare a situation with no fraud involved to a situation involving massive fraud. If a PPT operator knew it was a Ponzi scheme, then weren't they paying Pirate to run the Ponzi scheme and transfer some of the proceeds to them? You and Theymos assume it is a ponzi. I said, "If a PPT operator knew it was a Ponzi scheme". If you're going to pretend to reply to me, please address the argument I actually made in the post you're purporting to reply to. I do not, I have asked for evidence and you can give none. And proof? Oh lol! You are like an evolution denier who, no matter how much evidence he is given, insists that he has none until he gets precisely the specific type of evidence he knows does not exist. The evidence is overwhelming, you just choose to stick your fingers in your ears. For example, here's the SEC's list of signs of a Ponzi scheme. See what matches Pirate: High investment returns with little or no risk. Every investment carries some degree of risk, and investments yielding higher returns typically involve more risk. Be highly suspicious of any “guaranteed” investment opportunity.
Overly consistent returns. Investments tend to go up and down over time, especially those seeking high returns. Be suspect of an investment that continues to generate regular, positive returns regardless of overall market conditions.
Unregistered investments. Ponzi schemes typically involve investments that have not been registered with the SEC or with state regulators. Registration is important because it provides investors with access to key information about the company’s management, products, services, and finances.
Unlicensed sellers. Federal and state securities laws require investment professionals and their firms to be licensed or registered. Most Ponzi schemes involve unlicensed individuals or unregistered firms.
Secretive and/or complex strategies. Avoiding investments you don’t understand or for which you can’t get complete information is a good rule of thumb.
Issues with paperwork. Ignore excuses regarding why you can’t review information about an investment in writing, and always read an investment’s prospectus or disclosure statement carefully before you invest. Also, account statement errors may be a sign that funds are not being invested as promised.
Difficulty receiving payments. Be suspicious if you don’t receive a payment or have difficulty cashing out your investment. Keep in mind that Ponzi scheme promoters sometimes encourage participants to “roll over” promised payments by offering even higher investment returns.
http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm#RedFlagsThis is a 100% perfect match. |
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Anyway giving PPT operators scammers tags is like giving master card a scammers tag when someone buys lotto tickets with them...
Interesting how you compare a situation with no fraud involved to a situation involving massive fraud. If a PPT operator knew it was a Ponzi scheme, then weren't they paying Pirate to run the Ponzi scheme and transfer some of the proceeds to them? |
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The deadline for submitting the PPT information requested will be Thursday 10pm CDT. Thanks.
Umm, what happens if you miss the deadline? |
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So should you be able to sue your stockbroker if the stock you told him to buy on your behalf tanks when all of the information you needed to assess the risk of that stock has been freely available to you?
You're missing the point. The claim is not that PPT operators breached their agreement with their bondholders. The claim is that PPT operators knowingly paid pirate to make them the recipients of fraudulent transfers. (Those of them on record as saying they knew or suspected Pirate was running a Ponzi scheme.) The liability is like that of a fence who buys property he suspects is likely stolen and then sells it to someone else who also suspects it's stolen. It's not like thieves say to their fences, "You know this property is stolen, right?" The fence just has to suspect it's likely stolen and not look to closely at the fact that the circumstances strongly suggest it's stolen. If a "stockbroker" helps a woman find a hitman to kill her husband and brokers the deal, he's as guilty of the murder as the hitman is. Yes, even if he kept his deal with the woman by finding a reliable hitman and paying him. |
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