It seems to be more about moderation than scams, the site not having user moderation (vote up, vote down, mark as spam), and instead having to have moderators policing it. Someone thought newbie restrictions would be a good idea. Does it work? I don't think so, the newbie section seems no worse than the main section.
Unless you mean people trusting people based on how many posts they have, if their forum reputation is all they have to offer as collateral against scams, then a better forum reputation (measured in hours required to acquire it) takes on some meaning.
I recently granted a loan based solely on the fact that they had been online for a total of 11 days (and their account did not appear to be hacked). |
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Litecoin has, as far as I know, zero unique features. They just changed some of bitcoin's numbers around. Faster confirmation times is the main selling point, which isn't much of one.
You can say that bitcoin and litecoin both are bought by people willing to sell to bigger idiots, it's true. I do it with bitcoin (I'm a bigger "idiot" than the people who discovered bitcoin in 2009, lots of people have still never heard of bitcoin). But the whole point of bitcoin is missed whenever that argument is made.
The greatest value of bitcoin, imo, is it's revolutionary protocol. It is potentially very useful to people who do not speculate at all (in other words it can be useful to people who only plan to hold bitcoins for a few hours). It can be used for transmitting money internationally for cheap and for chargeback-proof payments, to name a couple of things. Litecoin offers NOTHING new in this regard, besides the negligible allure of the idea that if were I to buy a latte in some futuristic world with bitcoins, the coffeeshop could have waited for 75% less time if they had only used litecoins (2.5 minutes is still a long time to be standing at the front of the line at a cash register). Bitcoin has this problem (it can hardly be labeled as such, at this point) nipped in the bud with zipconf and future services.
So yes, it is a much more glaring "pyramid scheme," if you will, than bitcoin is. I realize I could be an "early adopter" of litecoin right now. But I think litecoin is utterly pointless. They have a snazzy slogan, the whole silver thing, which makes sense on the surface. But really, litecoin's allure is actually the misguided notion that by buying litecoins now "while they are cheap," you can be an "early adopter" again, since you missed the boat on bitcoin. It's just pump-and-dump bullshit, man.
It'll putter around for a while, maybe a few years. You could probably profit some on it if you time your moves right. But it's so unoriginal that it's painful.
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To the water tank poster,
That's pretty much the only idea that could possibly work for Pirate. His supporters agree with you, the naysayers call bs and just say it's a Ponzi.
Borrowing coins to do this could be profitable, in my mind. But 7% is just a gimmick. He would have the same amount of investors at 4% or 5% a week. A variable percentage rate would also be acceptable. You see, to pay 7% for this long, Pirate would have to:
1. Have the connections. This entails knowing people who are a.) filthy rich b.) willing to pour money into bitcoin c.) haven't already done so. d.) are too stupid or lazy to figure out bitcoin-OTC (just like me!)
2. have these "rich folk" lining up at his doorstep week after week after week. Pirate apparently needs more and more coins all the time. He can't sell enough of them! He keeps borrowing more and more because these hungry little birds just can't get enough of bitcoin.
3. HE WOULD HAVE TO OBTAIN THE BITCOINS TO REPAY HIS DEBTORS. He has already explicitly said that GPUmax has nothing to do with BTCST (too bad, would have been a decent explanation). This means he buys them all on OTC (very unlikely imo), or on Gox. Which defeats the whole purpose (profit) of the entire operation. This point as been brought up time and time again, but it has never been explained.
Even if the first 2 requirements are met, the 3rd just makes no damn sense to me. It never will until somebody explains it in a way other than "ooh its a secret, don't invest in something you don't understand." Still waiting.
If pirate is legit, and he is rapidly expanding the bitcoin economy under the table, then he is playing a zero sum game (i think). In theory, it all comes back around to market in the end, and everyone benefits from the delayed price hike. It's just delayed. (could be totally wrong about this last paragraph)
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Last I checked Visa verifies who you are.. quite thoroughly... Dank has said a few times he is not interested in providing any personal details (which is his right if he doesn't want to). Nothing wrong with wanting alot of stuff, we all do... but asking every week, and having the same result every week is beyond retarded. Perhaps its time he tries a new approach....... Like providing some personal information... you know.. like Visa makes you do  Of course. Surely he is not expecting *this* loan to be completed anonymously... If he's serious about this, he must to be willing to disclose all the necessary information (meaning any information the potential lender requests), in private. If you can't disclose even your name to someone in private (if you can't meet people), then something is not right. Anonymity is a privelege that doesn't come without a cost. |
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If he's able to pay out everyone at the same time the business cannot be a Ponzi, so your argument doesn't fly.
i think you missed the part where bob said "plus money out of his own pocket", in which case he could pay out everyone at the same time and more, depending on how personally rich he is. Yes but if he is that wealthy the profit he gains with the Ponzi is only a small fraction of his net worth and the risk it brings will not be economical. If you say so. Depends on how big you think it can potentially become, really. |
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I may be wrong, and apologies if I am... but I suspect people are a little weary of lending you money because you seem to ask for money atleast once or twice a week. And every week its something else. A house, a motorbike, a car, a slice of bread etc.
And how do you think VISA makes money? Anyway, dank, if I had the money, I would grant you the loan only if I'm a lienholder, and you get full coverage insurance and prove that you maintain it on a month to month basis. If we met in real life and we doxxed each other and signed some papers, I would have little to lose. Your credit, despite the hiccups, is better than that of 99% of the people here. And supposing you default, I would send a repo man to your driveway with some car keys per our contract, problem solved. Hope you get the loan. |
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A couple of people don't commit to due diligence in lending and other deals so all the new people on this forum get the short end of the stick?
yes go pawn your rifle instead (it's a better deal) |
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they won't make anything illegal unless they know they can actually enforce it otherwise the black eye would be politically suicidal. since they can't enforce it, they won't make it illegal.
How's that been working out for drugs? A better comparison would be bittorrent. How's that been working out for bittorent? I'm sure government/lobbyists would just love to shut down bittorrent. They would love to outlaw it if only they could enforce the ban. But that ban would not be even remotely enforcible, and they know that. Drug laws are at least somewhat enforcible. Also, bittorrent pisses off a lot more bigwigs, at the moment, than bitcoin does. Yet it continues to thrive, as it changes the world. I'm sure that when bittorrent first hit the scene, these same conversations were taking place. |
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Actually, I'm guessing something like that will be his next move. It's probably his only option left. Or he may simply wave his hands, say a few words, and publicly move a huge amount of bitcoins around from address to address, perhaps combined with an unveiling of some kind of ledger for all to see. We already know pirate likes to jingle his bitcoins for us  |
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If he's able to pay out everyone at the same time the business cannot be a Ponzi, so your argument doesn't fly.
He knows people would be drooling in line to get their 7% all over again. So yes, it flies if you look at the big picture. It's not an argument anyway. It's a hypothetical situation. Imagine what would happen if he forced a mass withdrawal: The word might even spread outside of this forum. "I heard some guy on the Internet named Pirateat40 has been offering 1% a day for a year, they say he just proved it's legit." It could even cause a price spike from all the new interest in bitcoin and newcomers buying in. Just some silly speculation, but seriously. It would *easily* be worth it to Pirate in the long run, assuming he can fund such a spectacle at this point in the game. assume the Ponzi scenario for a moment: Suppose payb.tc decides to close his pass-through and send all of the coins back to his sub-depositors. Considering the size of bitcoinmax, it would be tempting for Pirate to fold his arms and disallow the withdrawal, ending the scheme. Or, he could "purchase" more trust from the community by following through with such a massive withdrawal, with the hope that he could bring in more money in the long run. A Ponzi operator must walk a very fine line to achieve maximum profit. |
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*Ok, I'm going to beat the dead horse again*
If you haven't noticed, he appears to be grasping at straws for new investors. I just don't see it growing much more. I thought that awhile back, but then the PPTs came about. Later, he acted against type with the announcement of lowered interest rates (which proved to be meaningless). After that, the Vegas thing. Now he's rolled out new incentives for investors. I really don't see what else he can do to bring in more money, since he can't advertise on the forum.
We can observe that his grand total from investments has grown roughly exponentially. We can also observe that his debt continues to grow exponentially (the math, compounding interest). What we cannot observe is that his "business" is also growing exponentially, faster than his debt and faster than his incoming deposit capital (plus the profit his business is allegedly earning). Seriously, if he is this desperate for investors and he is running a legit and profitable operation, his business must undoubtedly be a mammoth by now. Otherwise he would neither be scrambling for new investors nor be continuing to hold and compound existing deposits.
The above proposal of an audit that only peeks at his bitcoins and doesn't pull back the curtains over his business plan is foolhardy. Pirate likely has plenty of bitcoins of his own. He could (and would, assuming he is sufficiently wealthy) buy more to cover the audit.
Which brings me to the kicker: He could even do a mass forced withdrawal buy paying everybody back exactly what they are owed, with the existing principal plus money out of his own pocket. Then, he could reopen BTCST, and his investments would drastically exceed his previous total. Maybe even Micon would invest. Legendary.
All that to say... we will never know for sure whether it's a Ponzi until D-Day arrives. No matter what happens now, unless I can see his "trade secret," I will continue assuming it is a scam. Sorry Pirate, you are a friendly chap. I hope you are honest as well.
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@OP, not @current discussion.
(I'm a U.S. resident)
I like anti-trust laws and their enforcement. (I'm pretty certain)
I like that the cost of educating all of our children is distributed. I want to pay for less privileged children to have a shot at a life. (Maybe there is a better way of doing this than with taxes...)
Today I was just thinking that I like that I can pick up any package of food or any beverage and get what feels like a pretty rigorous and trustworthy analysis of its contents. I often take this for granted, but it is something I use on a daily basis. It is invaluable to me.
Well, since the Anti-trust thing is going to be the "hard" fight, let me knock down the two easy ones first, then come back to it. Since we're doing it that way, we'll just go ahead and work backwards. First, the product analysis. That's actually not funded by taxes, but it is legislated, so I'll do it anyway. Would you eat packaged foods that didn't have that handy chart on them? I probably would, but it is useful, so I would likely prefer foods that had it over foods that did not. Given that, it's likely that manufacturers would continue the practice of putting analysis of their products on the packaging, even without legislation requiring it. Even if they don't, there is a market demand for that information, so it would be provided, perhaps by a non-profit organization. One example that could be implemented with today's technology is a smartphone app which looks up that information in a database when the product's UPC code is scanned. Distributed education cost. There most definitely is a better way to do that than taxes. I guarantee there are other people with as much caring for the underprivileged kids' education as you out there, and enough, surely, that you can, combined, pay for all those kids' education. Charities are a great way to voluntarily fund social programs like that. Kickstarter is another. Without the tax burden, you could pick and choose which social programs you want to fund, rather than giving it all to the state, and watching them piss away the money you wanted to go to educating inner-city kids on killing other countries' inner-city kids. OK, now the big boy. First, a fun fact. In 1865, when Rockefeller’s (Standard Oil) market share was still minuscule, a gallon of kerosene cost 58 cents. In 1870, Standard’s market share was 4%, and a gallon cost 26 cents. By 1880, when Standard’s market share had skyrocketed to 90%, a gallon cost only 9 cents — and a decade later, with Standard’s market share still at 90%, the price was 7 cents. ( source) Second, Anti-trust laws don't do what you think they do. I'm probably going to get blasted for linking to C4SS, but that's where you're going to find this kind of information. I challenge anyone who complains to refute the article on its merits, not on its origin. This article is about the FDA, specifically, but it talks about the subject of Trusts and Cartels, as that's basically what the FDA is all about: http://c4ss.org/content/11299 Thanks (again) for your level-headed and well thought out reply. Back to the thinking board... |
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@OP, not @current discussion.
(I'm a U.S. resident)
I like anti-trust laws and their enforcement. (I'm pretty certain)
I like that the cost of educating all of our children is distributed. I want to pay for less privileged children to have a shot at a life. (Maybe there is a better way of doing this than with taxes...)
Today I was just thinking that I like that I can pick up any package of food or any beverage and get what feels like a pretty rigorous and trustworthy analysis of its contents. I often take this for granted, but it is something I use on a daily basis. It is invaluable to me.
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I think you owe me two and a half hours. Interest free! |
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I hope they declare it illegal. Then I can start dealing.
But really, I can't see how a ban can be constitutional. You don't "own" bitcoins, you have knowledge that lets you access them. Would it be illegal for me to know the combination to a safe full of heroin, that I have never visited, and then tell somebody else the combination, who tells somebody else the combination?
I suppose they could make it illegal to broadcast signed transactions (TOR integration ftw). But even then, it would be totally unprecedented. My guess is that nerds, libertarians, corporations, and media who previously had nothing to do with bitcoin would come out of the woodwork to stand up for it.
Oh, and the price would go way up IMO.
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Whatever happens, it's going to be spectacular. There's no way this scheme ends without drama.
+1 one of the few things that still keeps me posting here  It took me roughly 9 seconds to realize that you weren't talking about Michael Jackson GIFs |
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Disclosure: Raised Church of Christ, now atheist. Surprised to see so many atheists here. I know like 2 IRL
You may know more than you think. Since we are not looking for converts it may just not come up in conversation. I hope so! [removed] |
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Clipse is all alone down there...
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if Pirateat40 is rebuying coins on Gox to repay his lenders, does the volume traded on Gox actually support this?
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Been following this thread, but just now got around to watching the first video.
I don't think it's a staged video. However, I don't know any Christian (Catholic or otherwise) who thinks of Mohammed has a prophet.
This guy is Islam's Ray Comfort. It's disheartening to see somebody be this easily and wilfully manipulated. I have little tolerance for these kinds of underhanded evangelistic tactics. Semantic tricks and appeals to pathos.
Disclosure: Raised Church of Christ, now atheist. Surprised to see so many atheists here. I know like 2 IRL
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