This is how I like you, guys. Screw the doomsayers. I'm bullish!

Yeah, I hope that people will come to their senses and with banks open for trade, the market will liven up. I repeat : there is no reason to sell bitcoins this cheap. Even if Pirate runs away with the investments, it's just that their owner has changed (since their previous owners were idiots). Nothing changes for the rest of us. The concept still works.

7% change per week is not uncommon. However, the price has been rising since May. Until then, it has been pretty flat. Therefore pirate's profits couldn't be sustainable merely from changes in the price.

Ironically, you are right - it doesn't.

I'm afraid market doesn't work like this. If you start dumping your btc, the price would start falling. You would get less and less money with each sold 'bundle' of bitcoins. Then, you would start buying and the price would increase. In the end, your balance would be aproximately the same.

This is exactly how ponzi scheme does NOT work. When you announce 50% return per week nobody believes you. Naturally. And when you finally find a lunatic who gives it a try, it's only a little investment. People are cautious ... at first. If you run away, you only get a bunch of bitcoins. If you want a really big loot, you have to build trust. Let them make profits from their first, small investments. Then they give more and more and they persuade their friends to invest too. Do you think pirate got his incredibly huge investments over night? Hell, no. It took him several months to build his investment base. And he paid the early investors from deposits of latter investors and so on. You know, this kind of scam is also called a 'pyramid game' in my native language. It is a very self-explanatory title. Imagine a pyramid. Your first investment is on the top. You pay the profit from the deposits of the line below (say two or three new investments), then when these investments mature you pay them from deposits of the line under them and so on. By the time you reach the bottom, you have a shitload of money. But you can no longer find new investors and the old ones have already invested everything they could. That's when the pyramid collapses. This is a very common scam. If you search 'ponzi scheme' on wikipedia, you'll find out that this has been done many, many times in all parts of the world during history. People have been falling for this type of scam for centuries. Some of them even more than once in their liftime! It's both terrifying and amusing.

I assure you that I'm not a pirate investor. I would be one if I had the chance to invest in the begining. Because only early investors profit from ponzi schemes. However, I sincerely hope you are right and Pirate SOMEHOW pays the money to his investors only to let the pyramid collapse later. This time, I will be ready.

Well, then let me assume some more. I assume that you are one of the people who invested with pirateat40 and that is the reason for your rather naive post. Am I right?

Furthermore, let me assume that you aren't into mathematics. If you were, you could easily calculate that pirate would soon need more bitcoins that can be possibly generated to make his 'business model' sustainable. You can read the general discussion. Some people have already calculated that for you.

Finally, I assume, that you have no idea what pirate's business model is. How can he possibly generate 7% profit every damn week? Do you realize that with such business model he could easily get money elsewhere? He would become a billionaire in no time and probably get the Nobel Prize in economics.

Am I right with my assumptions?

No, it's not a funny thing. Actually it's the usual modus operandi for ponzi scammers. In the begining everybody is cautious, only a few people invest some little money. You give them huge profits (compared to small investments) and their greed makes them invest more and more. Soon other people see how their friends are getting rich and they get envious and greedy too. So they invest, despite the fact that it is a blatant ponzi scheme.

In the general discussion, there was a link to an article about a major ponzi scheme on some online game. It was brilliant. It depicts the simple mechanism of ponzi schemes. Everyone should read that. And those who fell for pirate should read it twice daily : when they get up from bed and when they go to sleep.

I've been watching this pirate thing for a while and I didn't really understand how people could be so incredibly stupid. They use bitcoins to escape government bullshit and whatnot, yet they happily run right into scammer's hands. It was a clear and blatant ponzi scheme and the current situation is really disappointing. Even more, when I realize that although I didn't fall for pirate's bullshit, the value of my assets in bitcoins falls rapidly anyway due to the situation on the market.

Now I only hope the panick doesn't last too long and the community wakes up from its 'momentary lapse of reason'. There is no reason why people should sell all their bitcoins for such low prices. If everyone realizes that, everything will be alright again.

In conclusion, people's stupidity deeply saddens me. I beg everyone :  don't let emotions win over logical thinking, don't disappoint the community again by selling for low prices. Otherwise you will harm both yourself and the community.

Strange indeed.
The system logs you out automatically after a short time. Are you sure you were logged in all the time?

you must also spend 4 hours online to qualify as an estabilished member

I will use it to make up for bitcoin.de fees.
I already paid more than two bitcoins in fees and my balance has too many decimal places.

1GtyeAsZf4XzSf6oahy2pfk7qD2gNRjQ67

Thanks for all of this. You help the community grow.

Hi.

I would really like to get access to the rest of the forum, because I've been lurking this site for a few months and don't really see the point in discussing newbie topics. I have an account on bitcoin.de with silver trusted level (hell yeah).

Thanks for consideration.

sup, bitcoiners
long time lurker, first time poster here.