Seeds of distrust

[hashman]

Frankly speaking, I see no future where anonymity reigns.

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously? All the scientific discoveries, the conquests with the super-leaders, the great thinkers, they all have their name attached to their lifes-work. Dont worry about the "rant", you made a good point.

A great many, and also:  No. 

Take a look at Stigler's Law of Eponymy. 

For almost all of these great scientific discoveries, conquests, thinkers, whose names you are thinking of, there are others you haven't heard of who really did it first or did the grunt work. 

[1714863513]

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[1714863513]

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[Matthew N. Wright]

Frankly speaking, I see no future where anonymity reigns.

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously? All the scientific discoveries, the conquests with the super-leaders, the great thinkers, they all have their name attached to their lifes-work. Dont worry about the "rant", you made a good point.

A great many, and also:  No.  

Take a look at Stigler's Law of Eponymy.  

For almost all of these great scientific discoveries, conquests, thinkers, whose names you are thinking of, there are others you haven't heard of who really did it first or did the grunt work.  

Yep. I don't necessarily agree that your name must be attached to some work for it to be taken seriously. We're talking about purposely hiding and masking your identity while operating in a financial marketplace. Big difference.

Not taking credit for something happens all the time. Unfortunately, so does not taking credit for thefts.

[drakahn]

Shun the non believers!

[Vladimir]

If you claim something big, have the balls to back it. Only Vandroiy had the balls to do it unlike the rest of the fear-mongers, who acted like a bunch of cowards. Guys like Micon or Vladimir were only insulting people and spreading shit.

There are only two kinds of people "invest" into ponzi:

1. Suckers, who do not get it.
2. Scammers (fraudsters), who want to "get in early" and liberate money off of suckers.

There are no other options. Now note how many of self-confessed scammers (as per above classification) are on bitcointalk.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

At the heart of all of this is a split movement in Bitcoin, both supporting it equally-- hackers and crackers. Hackers want transparency and information to be shared. They want government for it's power to change and control, but they want to be a part of the change and take away control from the evil forces. Crackers just want personal gain and are mostly against government, crave anonymity, etc.

In the Bitcoin community it is easy to see the split between those who outright refuse to give even their name (why?) and those who don't care if their name is plastered on a billboard along with their private bank transactions for 10 years. The difference is a philosophical one as best as I can tell. Some people believe the world is full of good natured people who let too many bad natured people take control of it, and that things need to be balanced. Others feel that any control is bad and chaos is beautiful, because we only live once anyway.

People who support bitcoin, support it because it enables something. What it enables for them is different from person to person, but if what it enables for you is to be able to steal from others more easily, then you will have a large majority of hackers constantly going up against you. If what it enables you is to track thieves easier, then you will have crackers constantly up against you, spreading lies and creating sock puppets.

Frankly speaking, I see no future where anonymity reigns. Then again, no one matters in the end and names and faces are just representations of initiative and intentions. Bitcoin is a tool. We use it to transfer value. GLBSE, Pirate, you name it, these are all intentions of individuals. As a diverse community of Bitcoin, we should always allow questioning of intentions from individuals, and encourage transparency. There is not a single thing I wouldn't share about my own personal life if it served a purpose of betterment. The problem is that the forces of crackers, dishonest businessmen, and chaos lovers is inherently loud in these forums given their greatest weapon is sockpuppetry and simulating public opinion in their favor.

Ask Pirate what he's doing, if he tells you he refuses to explain anything, don't put money into him, warn others in an honest manner what he said to you, nothing more. When news sources ask you your opinion on certain things, tell them the facts. We will only ever be looked at as a "bad" currency so long as the people in the community keep showing emotion where logic should be shown instead. This forum is a comedic venture and it's full of daily drama from Dank trying to convince people that he's trustworthy for a loan while refusing to explain anything, to loganschrye trying to convince people that buying popcorn should be on the first of the to-do list for starting a movie theatre with other people's money. This place is a proving ground for economics, philosophy and basically serves as an experimentation ground for ideas, horribly ill-thought out ones especially. Pirate is part of the experiment. So was Bitcoinica. So was Bitmunchies. So is SilkRoad. Everything is just an experiment and everything here is new. We're all part of this experiment. It's currently high risk just to be involved in something this new as protocols, adoption and value can change at any moment. That said, the forums are not Bitcoin. Everyone knows this. Real bitcoin business and movements happen outside the forums. The very reason it is the busiest network of bitcoiners is directly due to its nurturing moderation in favor of anonymity, deniability, etc.

I'm not convinced that's a good policy, but the best I can say is-- if you don't like it, start another one.

P.S. Sorry for the rant.

I quit reading when I got to the word 'rant'.

+1

Nice post, Matthew.

~Bruno~

[Coinoisseur]

Wanting to retain the ability for private financial exchange seems reasonable to me. The history of private exchanges of wealth is about as old as money itself. Of course there has been a consistent escalation of marketing against anonymous cash transactions for at least 10 years now. The US government isn't trying to hide their demands for more and finer detailed tracing of financial transactions. Remains to be seen how it will play out over time, so far they can't even kill off the US penny.

Now taking investors money in an anonymous fashion and decrying any objections, that has less historical footing.

Frankly speaking, I see no future where anonymity reigns.

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously? All the scientific discoveries, the conquests with the super-leaders, the great thinkers, they all have their name attached to their lifes-work. Dont worry about the "rant", you made a good point.

A great many, and also:  No.  

Take a look at Stigler's Law of Eponymy.  

For almost all of these great scientific discoveries, conquests, thinkers, whose names you are thinking of, there are others you haven't heard of who really did it first or did the grunt work.  

Yep. I don't necessarily agree that your name must be attached to some work for it to be taken seriously. We're talking about purposely hiding and masking your identity while operating in a financial marketplace. Big difference.

Not taking credit for something happens all the time. Unfortunately, so does not taking credit for thefts.

[aq]

Trust is earned, not given. What did pirate do to earn trust?

Member of the community, gpumax, OTC rating, etc

Do people know who he is or where he lives?

People are way too lazy this day. Google him. Look at his facebook page. Look at the facebook page of his wife. Look at the pictures of his sons, dogs. Hell, we know more about him, than we know about the whole dev team combined. But in sharp contrast we trust the dev team with ALL our bitcoins.

Do they know how the money they give him is used to make those returns?

I guess sometimes the business model itself can be the trade secret. That being said, read his post on this forum and on IRC and you will get an almost clear picture about his business.

Do they know how much of the profits he keeps for himself?

Yes, he stated to make about 10%/week and gave his lenders about 7%.

Do they even know why he needs other people's money instead of just earning the 7% weekly return on his own money?

He did not have such huge funds, and those were necessary for him to make this profit.

But while all those are neat questions that can be answered easily, it still leaves the actual one unanswered:

I don't really follow the logical connection between "some people may have lost money to a bitcoin scam" and "it's time to panic sell!"

Why would anyone panic sell over this type of announcement? Is the assumption that pirate's was going to dump his btc holdings, causing the price to go down? If so, why would he bother announcing?

[dust]

I think DeathAndTaxes nailed it in another thread.

...Another way to look at it is IF you run a business that is 100% legit but it utterly indistinguishable from a ponzi scheme then guess what .... the risk that it will be confused with a ponzi scheme and you may suffer a lack of liquidity as a result is a business risk.  A risk that both the operator of the business and the investors should have considered.   Lets assume Pirate operation was 100% legit.  Could he have done anything to mitigate that risk?  Transparency?  Delayed withdrawals?  Working with a smaller pool of high net worth investors?  Since he chose NOT to take steps to mitigate that risk factor and the "investors" decided to ignore that risk factor any losses are solely the fault of the operator and investors.

[teflone]

I think DeathAndTaxes nailed it in another thread.

...Another way to look at it is IF you run a business that is 100% legit but it utterly indistinguishable from a ponzi scheme then guess what .... the risk that it will be confused with a ponzi scheme and you may suffer a lack of liquidity as a result is a business risk.  A risk that both the operator of the business and the investors should have considered.   Lets assume Pirate operation was 100% legit.  Could he have done anything to mitigate that risk?  Transparency?  Delayed withdrawals?  Working with a smaller pool of high net worth investors?  Since he chose NOT to take steps to mitigate that risk factor and the "investors" decided to ignore that risk factor any losses are solely the fault of the operator and investors.

Awesome quote...

Awesome profile pic.. 

[Matthew N. Wright]

Trust is earned, not given. What did pirate do to earn trust?

Member of the community, gpumax, OTC rating, etc

Do people know who he is or where he lives?

People are way too lazy this day. Google him. Look at his facebook page. Look at the facebook page of his wife. Look at the pictures of his sons, dogs. Hell, we know more about him, than we know about the whole dev team combined. But in sharp contrast we trust the dev team with ALL our bitcoins.

Do they know how the money they give him is used to make those returns?

I guess sometimes the business model itself can be the trade secret. That being said, read his post on this forum and on IRC and you will get an almost clear picture about his business.

Do they know how much of the profits he keeps for himself?

Yes, he stated to make about 10%/week and gave his lenders about 7%.

Do they even know why he needs other people's money instead of just earning the 7% weekly return on his own money?

He did not have such huge funds, and those were necessary for him to make this profit.

But while all those are neat questions that can be answered easily, it still leaves the actual one unanswered:

I don't really follow the logical connection between "some people may have lost money to a bitcoin scam" and "it's time to panic sell!"

Why would anyone panic sell over this type of announcement? Is the assumption that pirate's was going to dump his btc holdings, causing the price to go down? If so, why would he bother announcing?

Call me an eternal sucker, but the above viewpoints ring louder than any "HE MUST BE A PONZI BECAUSE _____" claims.

Disclaimer: I have never "invested" in Pirate or any derivative thereof and do not plan to as I find it highly risky and lacking much needed transparency.

I think DeathAndTaxes nailed it in another thread.

...Another way to look at it is IF you run a business that is 100% legit but it utterly indistinguishable from a ponzi scheme then guess what .... the risk that it will be confused with a ponzi scheme and you may suffer a lack of liquidity as a result is a business risk.  A risk that both the operator of the business and the investors should have considered.   Lets assume Pirate operation was 100% legit.  Could he have done anything to mitigate that risk?  Transparency?  Delayed withdrawals?  Working with a smaller pool of high net worth investors?  Since he chose NOT to take steps to mitigate that risk factor and the "investors" decided to ignore that risk factor any losses are solely the fault of the operator and investors.

That's of course true, but opening yourself up to criticisms and not caring much doesn't make you a ponzi automatically either. Wait until Monday.

[Coinoisseur]

Member of the community, gpumax, OTC rating, etc

His OTC rating and activity on this forum were mostly run of the mill small loans (both giving and receiving) and selling of items. I did some perusing when another forum user said they figured out what he was doing by being open minded and looking through Pirateat40's bitcointalk history. Personally, all his history told me was when he started accepting bitcoin accounts he may have been loaning out bitcoins at high interest rates in much larger volumes than he could handle personally. But the question there is how was he able to maintain such a consistent rate of return. The loan business, especially at payday loan style interest rates, isn't known for 100% payback rates.

GPUMax was introduced later than the interest bearing accounts yes? And is structured such that it could be used to "clean bitcoins"? I haven't personally researched this but I may now that I'm a bit curious. If the aforementioned questions have affirmative answers then I think it raises more questions rather than add to Pirateat40's trustworthiness.

Next few weeks should be interesting.

[drakahn]

Trust is earned, not given. What did pirate do to earn trust?

Member of the community, gpumax, OTC rating, etc

Do people know who he is or where he lives?

People are way too lazy this day. Google him. Look at his facebook page. Look at the facebook page of his wife. Look at the pictures of his sons, dogs. Hell, we know more about him, than we know about the whole dev team combined. But in sharp contrast we trust the dev team with ALL our bitcoins.

Do they know how the money they give him is used to make those returns?

I guess sometimes the business model itself can be the trade secret. That being said, read his post on this forum and on IRC and you will get an almost clear picture about his business.

Do they know how much of the profits he keeps for himself?

Yes, he stated to make about 10%/week and gave his lenders about 7%.

Do they even know why he needs other people's money instead of just earning the 7% weekly return on his own money?

He did not have such huge funds, and those were necessary for him to make this profit.

But while all those are neat questions that can be answered easily, it still leaves the actual one unanswered:

I don't really follow the logical connection between "some people may have lost money to a bitcoin scam" and "it's time to panic sell!"

Why would anyone panic sell over this type of announcement? Is the assumption that pirate's was going to dump his btc holdings, causing the price to go down? If so, why would he bother announcing?

Call me an eternal sucker, but the above viewpoints ring louder than any "HE MUST BE A PONZI BECAUSE _____" claims.

Disclaimer: I have never "invested" in Pirate or any derivative thereof and do not plan to as I find it highly risky and lacking much needed transparency.

There was a because? I mean apart from "I DON'T KNOW SO ♪~A PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI BITCOIN BITCOIN A PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI BITCOIN BITCOIN A PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI PONZI ARGH A SCAM AHH A SCAM AHHH ITS A SCAM~♫"

[mobile4ever]

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously?

Is this a trick question?  

Who's to say how many unknowns working for the good of others rather than for fame or prestige etc., have contributed to, if not single-handedly brought about,
some of the big "world-changing" events in history?  More than we will ever know... more than we can ever know.  
  

It could be a trick question, but nope, it is not.

[herzmeister]

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously?

I hear the inventor of this crypto-currency thing did.

And probably more will follow. Times are a-changing.

[Factory]

Individuals do not deserve trust when people refuse to verify and provide no explanation of their business model. 'Trusting' someone in that situation is willful ignorance guided by the temptation of great profits and riches.

Even if Pirate pays back every single deposit with interest I will not trust him in the future (unless he provides verification and a clear and concise model of operation.)

To everyone who invested in Pirate: you are speculating (gambling) and not investing. Part of investing is weighing potential risk vs potential reward. All investments carry risk; but is up to the diligent investor to discover and acknowledge them. With a completely blind offer (by Pirate) you are weighing the temptation of 7% weekly against a complete unknown.

This can best be summarized by one of my favorite quotes found on these forums:

Good advice that I expect will be widely ignored: only invest in what you know.

So-called high yield investments are (almost?) always dressed-up Ponzi schemes. If you "invest" in them then please lick your wounds quietly when they implode. And if you're one of the lucky few who make money on them, don't expect me to admire your investing wisdom, any more than I'd admire the number-picking brilliance of a lottery winner.

[doobadoo]

I don't think so. Being pirateat40 #6 on the Web-of-Trust of Bitcoin-OTC how do you explain all the hate and distrust?
http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratings.php

Not quite.  Remember, a WOT standing doesn't equal how trustworthy a person actually is.  It only shows how trustworthy a community of users who chose to do business with that person THINKS the person is, mostly based on how trustworthy a person appeared to be to those specific users for past transactions.

In short, people who never thought the guy was trustworthy at all never did business and are not in the rating.

[Raoul Duke]

I don't think so. Being pirateat40 #6 on the Web-of-Trust of Bitcoin-OTC how do you explain all the hate and distrust?
http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratings.php

Not quite.  Remember, a WOT standing doesn't equal how trustworthy a person actually is.  It only shows how trustworthy a community of users who chose to do business with that person THINKS the person is, mostly based on how trustworthy a person appeared to be to those specific users for past transactions.

In short, people who never thought the guy was trustworthy at all never did business and are not in the rating.

Thank you for demonstrating to the OP that the Web-of-Trust isn't working as good as he thinks it is.
I was addressing the following quote, especially the bolded part.

The problem here is not bitcoin, per se, the problem is dealing with and putting trust in people you don't know. Using bitcoin with people you already know and trust works well. The web-of-trust method seems to be working better, from what I've heard.

Not sure why you removed the above quote when you quoted me. Also don't understand why you tell me "not quite" when I didn't make any statement for you to disagree with.
Good job at answering a rethorical question taken out of context. lol

[Portnoy]

How many people who have contributed something "world-changing" in history did it anonymously?

I hear the inventor of this crypto-currency thing did.

And probably more will follow. Times are a-changing.

 

+1

[stochastic]

I guess sometimes the business model itself can be the trade secret. That being said, read his post on this forum and on IRC and you will get an almost clear picture about his business.

I call BS, say what he does if you know it.

[bg002h]

The problem here is not bitcoin, per se, the problem is dealing with and putting trust in people you don't know. Using bitcoin with people you already know and trust works well. The web-of-trust method seems to be working better, from what I've heard.

I don't think so. Being pirateat40 #6 on the Web-of-Trust of Bitcoin-OTC how do you explain all the hate and distrust?
http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratings.php

Simple. Extremely high interest rates mean there is a time in the not too distant future when the interest owed is larger than the Bitcoin supply. Clearly it can't go on forever. It's hard to reconcile the absolute finite time period the operations can continue with the desire to hold out for longer.

If all accounts are made square according to the deposit terms, I will be incredibly impressed and presume the man is a genius. If he falls short of his mark but people getost or more than their deposit, I'll be less impressed but impressed nonetheless and I wouldn't be quick to label him a scammer for missing some interest payments.

If he cuts and runs, well...