Not necessary. Read nanotube's evaluation. Interest rate changes do not have to be announced 30 days in advance. Changes in the Terms of Service have that requirement, but they state that interest rates may change.

Not that this will change the outcome of the bet.

Yes, makes perfect sense. Thanks!

Interest rate changes will not change the outcome of the bet anyway, because if pirateat40 lowered the rates as far as needed to make them believable, most of his "investors" would attempt to withdraw their money, which would end any Ponzi scheme.

This bet is a hundred times heavier:

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=433

I don't think that is possible. His problem is that every lowering of his interest rates makes his scam less attractive. If he cut down the interest to rates that are manageable over more than a year, most of his "investors" would drop out and ask for their money back, plus the already insane interest.

Vandroiy cannot lose his bet (if he has not already won it because pirateat40 violated the 30 day pre-announcement of rate change clause). Conversely, pirateat40 never even thought of winning the bet. For him it was only a public relations maneuver that went wrong, because he did not believe anybody would take the bet with any significant amount of money.

Remember how pirateat40 once offered Vandroiy to let him out of the bet? That had a 1% chance of succeeding (actually a 0% chance, but pirateat40 must have believed it had a chance). The pirate would never have done that if he had been sure to win the bet.

Because they are so obvious.

They may not be obvious to someone who believes he can get rich by handing over his money to some anonymous guy who promises 3,300% interest, but they are obvious to me and to you. We just have opposite intentions. I would like to see you serve a jail term in the cell next to pirateat40.

It seems he can no longer sustain a weekly 7% payout and is therefore trying to reduce his rates to 5%.

That would lose him the Vandroiy bet prematurely, but it does not matter to him when he loses it.

The interesting thing about a rate change is that it cuts both ways, as a lower rate also makes the "investments" somewhat less attractive, so some of his "investors" might withdraw. Therefore a rate change is a big gamble for him, but if he can't pay 7% any more, then he has no choice.

I would say it is another sign that the Ponzi scheme is nearing its end. It changes my admittedly rough estimate from months to weeks.

It doesn't cut into his profit. Why should the pirate even think about a bet he intended to lose all along?

Quite to the contrary, it means that the pirate can no longer pay out 7% to those on auto-payout of their interest. The auto-payouts are eating into his stash. It is a sign that the Ponzi scheme is nearing its end.

Also, 7% is too big an incentive for more of the early takers to go to auto-payout, once they feel that they have accumulated enough wealth.

The downside of his gamble is that lowering the rate may also make some "investors" withdraw right now. If that happened, then it would be over next week.

Not to mention that pirateat40 instantly loses his Vandroiy bet if he does not announce the interest rate change 30 days in advance. But he doesn't even think about that, because he has already written off the bet he never intended to win.

Micon has underestimated the extent to which greed can overpower sense. Not sure if that speaks for or against him. He thought some people were better, i.e. less greedy and more intelligent, than they actually turned out to be.

So what's a better estimate? We know that a Ponzi scheme can, in theory, go on forever, as long as people believe in it. However, in this particular case there are good reasons for a relatively short remaining time, particularly the extremely high interest rate and the resulting exponential growth.

Assuming that a certain fraction of "investors" withdraws some part of their paper gain, at first sight this part also grows exponentially, which will break the Ponzi scheme at some time. However, the steep exponential curve works against the pirate in two additional ways that may well make withdrawals grow more steeply than this assumption:

1. As the perceived wealth of some early "investors" grows way beyond their initial investment, they are increasingly tempted to withdraw a part of it, because they figure that the rest will soon make up for the withdrawal. BullShit Trust is now trying to counteract that by lowering the interest rate to discourage exactly this effect and make people leave everything in for longer.

2. As the figure grows, people may get suspicious and begin to ask themselves where all that money comes from. Some may withdraw when they realize that early withdrawal is their only chance to keep their money.

Still, as long as people believe in a Ponzi scheme, it can, in theory, go on forever. On the other hand, if just one person withdraws a larger amount, the pirate will shut down to avoid that payment. This can happen any day now, but if it doesn't, then the growing sum of smaller withdrawals will eat away on the pirate's stash until it becomes unbearable for him to see his heap shrink.

He may be able to keep going for a couple of weeks. With a lot of luck he may keep going for a few months. If something happens that brings in a load of new "investors", he may be able to go on for even longer, but that seems unlikely, as the potential newbies are probably all here in the forums already and should have made their decision.

Also, the discussions here, in which the BullShit Trust supporters look increasingly isolated, stupid, devoid of believable arguments for their case, and are increasingly recognized as greedy accomplices, may convince "investors" to withdraw and thus bring down the Ponzi scheme.

For the math-challenged, that is 3,100% per annum.

Of course the crooks won't ever say that, because they are after the kids who skipped maths at school.

Bitcoinmax is an integral part of the BullShit Trust Ponzi scheme.

Stop even mentioning "7% per week". Name it the ordinary, proper way. It is 3,300% annually.

"7% per week" is a psychological trick for the mathematically challenged to make it sound believable, yet have them calculate how they will get rich quick.

No legitimate business quotes its interest rates per week or per month.

Stop bullshitting everybody here. How deep are you in it?

So "respected members" know about the BullShit Trust business? Name one. Then tell us all why a 3,300% annual interest business borrows money in the first place and how it gets such profits. Then, after you did not do that, shut up for good and, if you are indeed in it, think about how to avoid a jail term.

You cannot rely on an ever-rising price of bitcoin. If this is another bubble, which is quite conceivable, then it may suddenly collapse and do so too quickly to get out at the top. We have seen this before.

So pirateat40 will continue as long as his stash, valued in dollar, grows, but he will, if he is not too stupid, be wary of unusually high bitcoin/dollar prices. Some people here think that a falling bitcoin price may trigger his exit, and that he has been selling bitcoin all the time, partly to get them out of the block chain and to launder them.

A falling bitcoin price may also indirectly trigger his exit, as some trend followers may want to sell their bitcoins, and for that they have to withdraw them first. (Trend-following is usually not a good strategy, by the way.)

Any big withdrawal order will also trigger his exit, as he will not pay out.

Why not just wait? It is a bit hard to watch a criminal go about his business of stealing money from unsuspecting people and do nothing about it. And with the incredible willingness of some stupid, math-challenged people to part with their money, we may have to wait a little longer, until the exponential curve finally cracks the Ponzi scheme.

Very simple. Stay away from schemes that promise you interest rates given weekly or monthly, because they are always scams. Legitimate businesses quote their interest rates annually. And learn to calculate compound interest, if you missed that in school. Read up on exponential growth.

However, an annual interest quote is no guarantee for legitimacy. Bernie Madoff quoted properly, but still ran a Ponzi scheme of a size that boggles the mind, swindling people of a two-digit figure of billions of dollars (not millions, billions).

If somebody asks you to give him your money and promises an annual interest rate of 3,000%, you don't have to be very clever to smell the scam, particularly if the "business" does not tell you anything about how they want to gain that much profit. Still some newbies here fall for such schemes, mainly because they believe they can get rich quick by compounding their interest. Greed appears to switch off certain parts of the brain, particularly the math and the reality check part.

It is something that somebody who has a life will not want to achieve. The filter is selecting for kids and people who have nothing better to do. It may also be selecting for spammers, because they have no problem to fulfill the requirement.

I perceive it as stupid and counterproductive. It is also unnecessary, as there are better ways to achieve the same thing.

But, tell you what, this posting will not achieve anything. The signs of the time are self-overestimation, righteousness, hunger for power (no matter how insignificant), and an incredible amount of stupidity. I did not mention greed, because it has no bearing here.

Make that: 3,300%, therefore Ponzi.

Those 7% per week are one of the pillars of this Ponzi scheme. It would not have taken off if the pirate had announced his interest payouts as 3,300%, because that would have raised some doubt even among the math-challenged, who are feeding this Ponzi scheme.

All the schemes who announce their interest rate in weekly or monthly figures are scams. Every serious business announces annual rates.

Let me say it again, because apparently it needs to be said from time to time:

Somebody who gives his money to an anonymous entity that promises 3,300% interest, but does not reveal any details about its business, is so utterly stupid that it boggles the mind. Conversely, the scammer is a criminal who belongs behind bars.

And, for good measure, those who gain from the scam are gaining stolen wealth. Depending on how deeply they are involved, they may belong behind bars as well. "I did not know what the pirate was doing," does not count as an excuse. I am saying it here. If you read it, you know.

It is an old tactic you can observe here all the time. They are trying to water down or derail the thread, trying to prevent analysis of the Ponzi scheme.

It does not have any effect on intelligent readers.

Aw, come on, just a few measly bitcoins for good looks, as I already wrote …

This bet is a bit overweight on the default-predicting side. Wouldn't some people here like to rebalance it a bit, just for good looks?

It is one of the very few bets there where more money is on green than on red.

Just say it a couple more times. Nobody in his right mind will believe it anyway.

There are so many obvious ways to lodge new deposits that your intention is equally obvious, just one of them being that he can bend his own rules. This had already been mentioned in this thread.