BITCLUB NETWORK: Prison is not the place to be right now

[tmfp]

Imitiation is the greatest form of flattery they say, and there's MLM/Cyptocurrencies crawling out of the woodwork these days, so it's not a surprise to see

WHO WE ARE...
BitClub is not owned by any single person or entity, we are a team of experts, entrepreneurs, professionals, network marketers, and programming geeks who have all come to together to launch a very simple business around a very complex industry. Anyone can join BitClub Network and begin earning a passive income by taking advantage of our expertise in Bitcoin mining and other Bitcoin related services.

turn up, word for word here

BitCloudAcademy is not owned by any single person or entity, we are a team of experts, entrepreneurs, professionals, network marketers, and programming geeks who have all come to together to launch a very simple business around a very complex industry. Anyone can join BitCloudAcademy and begin earning a passive income by taking advantage of our expertise in Bitcoin mining and other Bitcoin related services.

The "Academy" bit refers to another hot MLM scam favorite, that of selling an education package of useless, plagiarised cut and paste with some motivational memes thrown in.



Most blatant at this is OneCoin, a figment of Bulgarian Mobsters' imagination, which was the "coin" of choice of many of the BitClub Networkers before they realized it was too absurd even for them.

BCA is run by Mike Lavoie and Todd Hirsch.
Lavoie is the man behind SkyCoinlab (does it mine? doesn't it mine? No,it doesn't) in Canada and also Bitcoin Cycler. Hirsch just pumps any old crap.

So, the moral is, in the MLM world there's shitty scams and copies of shitty scams, take your pick.


Checking to see that the "team of" quote was word for word, I also noticed BCN's old

So far this community has created one of the largest mining pools in the world - BitClub Pool

Well, I guess that's true, but a slight abuse of "one of" as a description of an outfit that's bumping along around 2% of network hash.

This is the pool that BCN 'miners' are paid out of, and BCN's sole source of income apart from new investors' money. Looking at Bitcoin, how are they doing with their quest to be

the biggest miner in the world

?

So, let's accept that they are mining, probably with some Bitfury product and S7's as Weeks, their self appointed spokesman and negotiator with suppliers, maintains.
Trouble is with Weeks, you can't exactly trust what comes out of his mouth.
Not saying he's a liar, but...

Anyway, I get the feeling that BitClubNetwork were hoping to buy some of Bitfury's 16nm machines. Weeks mouthed off to the effect that they already had, but then he has pretty zero cred and it's commonplace in the MLM industry to be shouting about "Exciting times ahead".

On March 1st, Punin from Bitfury confirmed that BCN were customers, a pretty easy conclusion to come to by looking at the pool references.
Punin was confident too, to the extent of having a bet on the imminent availability of these chips, then..........

It all went dark. Possibly blamed on damage to the chip manufacturer's plant in Taiwan, TSMC predicted at least a 50 day delay in delivery, knocking back Bitfury's projected 1st April (how apt) to late May.
And now Weeks is palming off disgruntled customers with "September". Already ROI's have been slashed to nothing and the only thing good going for BCN is the $100 rise in the price, but their outgoings against contract are priced in BTC so that's of limited help to a hugely top heavy overhead structure.

An interesting screenshot this morning shows Bitfury completely absent from pool data and BCN having a little increase, which seems to indicate some symbiosis between the two.



Both Spondoolies and KNC have recently gone to the wall attempting to compete with the Chinese. Anyone who thinks that Bitfury are invulnerable because what? to the same fate is probably drinking the wrong Koolaid.
Probably Weeks piss flavored KoolAid, because the halving's only a month away and it looks like he's backed the wrong horse.

Crunchtime.

[tmfp]

That BitClub Network has collected a large amount of money, there is no doubt.
Unverified, self released claims of numbers of subscribers should be treated with the utmost skepticism (the OneCoin pyramid is laughably claimed to be currently over 2 million and rising exponentially), but it's fair to say that the MLM pitch of "getting involved in the Next Big Thing" and "passive income" has attracted a large number of get rich quick merchants, as well as professional pimps shilling for their affiliate commissions.
The combination of these lures + remorseless and built in encouragement to reinvest profit, makes BCN a Cash Cow.

Who's milking it?
Where does the cash go?
The vast majority percolates ever upward thru the pyramid to the elite level, the "Founders". These are serial MLM scheme promoters with a past of failed "opportunities" and a present of globe trotting activity, reflecting the lifestyle that the bottom of the pyramid aspires to.

Some of the raised funds go into the Front business, to show that "We are a real company, with a real product" when challenged.
BitClub Network has two mining pools, one in BTC and one in ETH, which do mine the respective coins. Shares in these activities are sold (illegally in the U.S. as an unregistered security, hence their official lack of activity there) and stats are available of the gross income.
This in itself, proves nothing about the ability of BCN to provide "passive income" in large enough amounts to satisfy investors from their only real income mining, but the large cash mountain they have built up can be used to top that up.
This is called a Ponzi Scheme if new investors money is being used, even partially, to repay commitments and returns to earlier subscribers.

Human nature being what it is, the Founder level affiliates will want to maximize the percentage of income that goes to them, and minimize the investment in the Front.

THE FRONT

BitClubPool is the front.
It mines, or has access to mining, at a healthy level of around 45 Ph/s atm and is discovering blocks at the rate of around 4 per day, giving a top line gross income of 50BTC.
This is obviously ~50% down on the pre halving gross, but even then investors were moaning about dust payments and belatedly realizing that moaning is all they could do, as there were no contractual terms whatsoever specifying a fixed return (just massive implied figures used in the hard sell) and no exit strategy apart from receiving the actual (obsolete) mining equipment based solely on BCN's valuation.
BitClub Network has no Terms and Conditions stated anywhere. Unusual practice for even a scam business.

Anyway I digress.
Where does the BitClubPool mining equipment come from?
There are two ways to gain access to any productive asset, purchase it or rent it.
For an asset holder, leasing out is very attractive because it offers a fixed income + probable upfront key money cash payment, as well as a pledgable security against finance to purchase further assets, which can be leased out and so on.
One such asset which would be idea for this would be a Bitcoin mining farm, essentially the theory behind cloud mining on a macro level.

So, when an MLM operation has had a successful launch and the capital is flowing in, the one thing Founders will want to do is Keep It.
They need to make the Front believable, but instead of setting up their own mining operation (a complex field in which none of them has any prior experience and draining the funds which they want to spend on Bentleys and toys), what would they do?
Rent it from an existing supplier.....
This becomes more likely when you look at the terminology in a recent BCN news update

We pay about $21,000/month for 1 PH of the S5’s and the S9 model 1 PH is about $6,800/month.

These are rental terms, not capital.

So, the MLMer's go looking for a potential supplier, an existing tech savvy operation with a good reputation.

That existing tech savvy operation (hereafter TSO) would welcome a cash injection plus ongoing payments, enabling them to build their own business further.
The MLMers would be happy, no large capital outflow or overhead, just fixed payments serviced by new investor income.
As OneCoin pimps say, "Don't worry about the technicals, just keep selling."
 
Part of this deal would be that the TSO takes care of everything, including setting up a new mining pool and pointing the rented gear at it.
Job done.

This was pure speculation on my behalf, but as I read about Joby Weeks and Russ Medlin (BCN Founders) making wild claims about how BCN was going to expand and invest in cutting edge equipment, I thought it was strange for them to be making specific promises and claims which were easily disproved.
Part of the MO of MLM is to make claims believable, based on an indeterminate time frame and vague promises. But here they were, claiming specific mining upgrades which didn't happen.
I thought, "What if they're just passing on bullshit, optimistic claims from their suppliers of hashrate?"
BCN investors are hurting, no doubt not continuing downlines and minmizing re-investment because their "passive income" has reduced to virtually nothing, and they are having grave doubts.
BCN are saying to the TSO, "WTF happened to our %'s, our return custom and referrals are flatlining?"
What if the TSO is keeping the Founders happy, bullshitting  and promising 16nm gear because it may be coming to them and BCN are doing the same with their customers?

Who could the TSO be?
Who could be renting out their Icelandic Mining operation to BCN, allowing, as part of the deal, BCN banners to be draped over their racking and videos to be made, even visits for interested Pro/Master Builders (MLMspeak)?

The GENESIS MINING CONNEXION

Genesis Mining publically claim to have an Icelandic mining farm, amongst others. Both Genesis and BCN reference the Verne Global setup.
Genesis Mining give no details of their mining pools.
Genesis Mining, since Spondoolies bit the dust, give no details of what mining equipment they use.
Genesis Mining are getting heavy criticism for reducing cloudmining payments to dust.

Where and to whom would Genesis go to replace their Spondoolies scrap?
There aren't many choices of miner manufacturer, especially if you are seen as a competitor to operations controlled by the same company. Think Hashnest/Bitmain.
But there's Bitfury....the same Bitfury that Weeks claimed to be supplying BCN, the same Bitfury that may have been intending to market 16nm gear more widely until the TSMC chip manufacturing delay threw everything out the window. The same Bitfury that was promising Genesis first call on the new gear.....possibly?

What pool would they mine to?
They may split their hashrate, they may avoid Chinese pools because of vulnerability, they may set up a pool in third party's name..

Pure speculation of course, There's no public link between BitClub Network and Genesis Mining.
Or is there?



This screenshot comes from a Staged video, voiced over by an Irish MLM pimp Paul McCarthy, an erstwhile Banners Broker scam promoter.
It is on J Ryan Conley's channel. Conley is the serial MLM pimp of serial MLM pimps.
His auspicious MLM history includes:

Isagenix, Viewtrakr, Staged, Buzztrakr, Kannaway, Brain Abundance, Ingreso Cybernetico, Wake Up Now, YOBSN, Jeunesse, IQKonnect, TSU, Elevate Solar, Solavei, OneCoin, MMM Global, BitClub Network and Future Net.
Plus Steemit, just started.


You don't just walk up to an existing company and say "Hey, got any good trading bots I can promote and pay you $millions for out of my downline's money?"
You would most likely have an existing relationship, like that with the TSO mentioned above. Money is the pure motivator here, and each company gets what they want.
Genesis get regular income plus upfront lump sum for their hashrate and BitClub Network get a plausible Front at low capital cost.
Same with this bot project.
As usual, BitClub Network investors pick up the tab, providing capital with no protection or guaranteed returns; that small % of the capital that doesn't get swallowed up by the parasitical Pyramid commission structure.

Marco Kron is Chief Finance Officer of Genesis Mining.
Marco Kron is quite happy to chat with Conley on YT about his bot brainchild. The CFO of a supposedly respectable operation doesn't just go on camera with some stranger.



Anyway, I'll have a look at this "Arbitrage" front running trading bot proposal later, with its $25k "passive income" opportunity (offering, but not guaranteeing 10% a month, remind you of anything?), but for the moment I'd say that all indications are that Genesis and BitClub Network are old pals.
From the mining industry.

Note: I could hammer various references herein with relevant proof/links, but wanted to give an overview. Also many links come from scammer's websites and I don't want to give them extra traffic. Anyone requiring context, please ask.

Minor edits for gramma.

 






 

[owlcatz]

https://99bitcoins.com/anatomy-bitcoin-scam-bitclub-network-analyzed

[CjMapope]

https://99bitcoins.com/anatomy-bitcoin-scam-bitclub-network-analyzed

o that's funny.    he also calls it "Bitcum Mining"   at 1:25   lmao

what a sham.


wow OP you have done your research, thx man for keeping us updated!  as a simple post history check can tell you, i am not a fan of Genesis Mining, and i tell you your THEORY FITS. the reduced payments, the refusal of techincal info on miners or pools... geeeez....
 i tell ya Satoshi gave us a double edge sword, it really brought out the professional scumbags  ;/

[owlcatz]

if anyone can post any btc addresses from Genesis , I would appreciate it. thanks!

[CjMapope]

if anyone can post any btc addresses from Genesis , I would appreciate it. thanks!

this is my last tx from them.   noticed 2 sender addys*, but looks like they (of course) mix the coins ;/, tx's just go back and back dust loops. course im not a pro in btc analytics ;p
https://tradeblock.com/bitcoin/tx/b67f3dc83e8d7056b3fd8155dce76c4e74aee7b5bd1055ee12ad83d1886db373


*1ERAsjBQXMd2hx1JpKPxJfaUpBQv8KTiVh
*1PeMXzkiz1qQpWwNvpccgYp8SpuJAGjPNR


edit;  some one of their doge wallets DCPbGvoVJfhENVb8aUkBvZktHgZ4z5SXN6
                         DB5vZAu7i9nbNyxvfFPrs59GXUzH9rx4eh

again, look heavily mixed ;/

[tmfp]

https://99bitcoins.com/anatomy-bitcoin-scam-bitclub-network-analyzed

Thanks for the link mate. It's an interesting summary of points that BitClub Network continue to avoid answering, but it's also brought a very important aspect of BCN out into the open thru the comments made.

BitClub don't operate in the U.S. (officially) and haven't done since May 1st this year.
The U.S. is a huge market for Bitcoin schemes and is totally addicted to MLM.
Many of BitClub's major movers and shakers hold American citizenship. But they have to scour the world for new suckers, as BCN does not authorize new members to join if they are obviously U.S. based. (This is easily circumvented and affiliate marketeers are passively encouraging prospects to do so by using overseas registration).
BitClub hint at the reasons for doing this in various member news updates

After careful consideration and many conversations with lawyers, advisors, and leaders within BitClub Network we have decided to stop taking new memberships within the United States and focus on other countries that we are growing much faster in.

Why do you need to talk to lawyers if you're a legit business?

It is only intended to stop future members from joining until we can figure out if our business model will be a fit for the US market. The fact is the cost to do business in the United States significantly outweighs the benefits of being in the market and if we do nothing it could jeopardize everything so we are pulling out now!

The cost to do business..... what cost? How is the origin of investor money in anyway a variable?
It could jeopardize everything.....how?

The answer is law.
You know, that fascist establishment control method that enslaves us all that people rant about. And then run to when they need protection.
I'm not going there with this, suffice to say there is a lot of validity in the expression "My enemy's enemy is my friend." (which cuts both ways.)
Anyhow, the law exists. If you break it, there are consequences.

There is a regulatory framework in the U.S. which governs investment, investment "advice".
It gives consumers basic rights of redress, as well as laying down rules by which anyone looking for money to finance their scheme has to abide.
There's probably thousand upon thousand of pages of sub clauses, precedents and guidelines in this area, but the very basic one regarding money changing hands in the hope of reward is called the Howey Test. It's a pretty simple working definition of what constitutes an "investment contract".
It basically defines it as

(i) the investment of money; (ii) in a common enterprise; (iii) with the expectation of profits to come solely from the efforts of others.

If you are doing that, then you are selling investment contracts. You are required, among other things, to provide

A description of the company's properties and business purpose
A description of the security being offered
Information about the company's management
Financial statements about the company, certified by independent accountants

Scammers hate this with a passion.
What does a scammer do when confronted with an obstacle such as the law? Squirm and turn, deny obvious facts and twist definitions, usually aided by aided by specialist niche lawyers who have a massive vested interest. Or bite the bullet, withdraw from that market and go look for victims in less regulated places?

That's why BitClub Network withdrew from the U.S.
To avoid giving basic information about who is behind it, or any consumer rights or protection to their investors, .

Also, when a scheme implodes, under certain circumstances a receiver can operate a "clawback", which involves taking illegally acquired profits from net gainers (usually upline affiliate marketers) and returning them to the vast majority who lost money, because of the illegal means by which it was taken.
This can run into hundreds of millions of dollars as seen in Zeek Rewards, another huge "passive income" scam, where net gainers thruout the world are being sued for their scam rewards.
U.S. based BitClub Network affiliate marketers would be in the frame for this.

In a recent series of court cases in Germany on this subject, BitClub Network's name pops up.
There is a law firm in Germany called Schulenbeg and Schenk. They are basically attack dogs for the OneCoin scam.
OneCoin has been making huge changes and separating its structure to avoid being seen as an "investment provider".
According to them now, they just sell "education packages" for thousands of euros and give away points that can be used to "practice" crypto trading and investment.
They then claim they are neither revenue sharing or selling investments.
This is transparently bullshit but may help them extend the life of this huge scam for a bit longer. In order to do that, they want to maximize income in the meantime and one way of doing that is to drop competing scams in the legal shit.
Enter S&S and this recent legal judgement in Hamburg, where they brought action against the Beonpush Ponzi
The tl,dr is that

The Hamburg Regional Court confirmed the above decision, that it is the Beonpushsystem is an investment. The consultants that provide this facility have to observe a number of requirements, such as that the investor has to be noted that a total loss of its investment is possible. A right of withdrawal must be given. As these requirements were fulfilled by any single Beonpush counselor, have all recruited participants who have lost their use, may claim for damages against their recruiters, since the relevant information has not been granted. This law may incidentally readily be transferred to almost any RevShare programs and their advisors, such as Getmyads, Questra, and also the Bitclub.

also the Bitclub....

Still Awake?

WTF has this to do with the 99bitcons piece?
The answer is in the comments.
There are two (so far, just waiting for the brigading to start), the second one from some pseudo intellectual Aussie BCN pimp isn't even worth mentioning, but the first one from "Joby" is. Joby Weeks, perchance?

He makes big play of the huge txt fee "mistake" (wondered when they would use that) and how BitClub distributed it "benevolently", so they can't be scammers, can they?  

He waffles on and on, no facts, figures or anything, as he and other MLM salesmen do.
Hidden in his "we're misunderstood" spiel he tries twice to make the ludicrous claim

BitClub Network don't sell mining investments, they sell mining hardware.

Yup, that's what he said. Twice. For the reasons above.


So there you have it, BitClub Network investors. You're not investors at all. You have simply bought a piece of mining hardware. That you have never seen, touched or operated yourself.

Congrats.

[tmfp]

A mini update about the Genesis Mining tie up, with regard to this super trading bot  that is going to make everyone zillionaires.
When the Irish shill made his video promising but not promising 10% per month ROI (see above) he forgot to mention a small detail, helpfully provided by Thorsten Baldes, (yet another piece of EuroTrash that's washed up in Dubai [that's why they need all those mega buildings, somewhere to store the world's scammers])

After 18 months in the pool you will begin to receive a portion of your initial Bitcoin back that will begin to be paid back monthly over the next 10 months. More details will be provided about this and the payback will depend on many factors.

An eighteen month lock in with no repayments.........

More details about other minor changes to the "mining" side of BCN to come when I've got time, like mass early termination of contracts.

#endgame.

[favdesu]

A mini update about the Genesis Mining tie up, with regard to this super trading bot  that is going to make everyone zillionaires.
When the Irish shill made his video promising but not promising 10% per month ROI (see above) he forgot to mention a small detail, helpfully provided by Thorsten Baldes, (yet another piece of EuroTrash that's washed up in Dubai [that's why they need all those mega buildings, somewhere to store the world's scammers])

After 18 months in the pool you will begin to receive a portion of your initial Bitcoin back that will begin to be paid back monthly over the next 10 months. More details will be provided about this and the payback will depend on many factors.

An eighteen month lock in with no repayments.........

More details about other minor changes to the "mining" side of BCN to come when I've got time, like mass early termination of contracts.

#endgame.

LOL 18months... yeah, they won't be around in 18 month for sure.

[owlcatz]

A mini update about the Genesis Mining tie up, with regard to this super trading bot  that is going to make everyone zillionaires.
When the Irish shill made his video promising but not promising 10% per month ROI (see above) he forgot to mention a small detail, helpfully provided by Thorsten Baldes, (yet another piece of EuroTrash that's washed up in Dubai [that's why they need all those mega buildings, somewhere to store the world's scammers])

After 18 months in the pool you will begin to receive a portion of your initial Bitcoin back that will begin to be paid back monthly over the next 10 months. More details will be provided about this and the payback will depend on many factors.

An eighteen month lock in with no repayments.........

More details about other minor changes to the "mining" side of BCN to come when I've got time, like mass early termination of contracts.

#endgame.

LOL 18months... yeah, they won't be around in 18 month for sure.

Don't be so sure. They are actively mining blocks every day. There is no reason this scam can't continue as of yet, other than this thread IMO.

[tmfp]

There is no reason this scam can't continue as of yet, other than this thread IMO.

This is true.
The life of a ponzi is governed by many factors.
OMG, he used the Ponzi word again!
Just to refresh the memory a Ponzi Scheme is

a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned through legitimate sources.

That's a good enough working definition, although it implies that they are "all or nothing", but there's many shades of gray..

As Bernie Madoff showed, the "Front" is all important, it gives investors confidence and can actually make some money (not enough) in its own right.
A Ponzi doesn't have to be a complete fabrication, the more cred the better, leading to the classic "They've paid out for a long time, so they must be legit, and look they're trading/mining/doing stuff....."

With that in mind, the latest BitClub Network news

Mining Update – Important News

The Bitcoin mining industry continues to expand rapidly, even with the mining reward being cut in half to 12.5 Bitcoin per block nobody seems to be slowing down and the network hashrate is growing at a record pace.

This is both good and bad… It’s good because it shows the mining industry is really strong and very optimistic about Bitcoin moving higher in the future. However, it’s also bad because miners are willing to continue mining at a loss just to keep accumulating more Bitcoin and this makes the ROI in the short term very low for everyone.

Eventually, the market will adjust and either the price of Bitcoin will shoot up, or the difficulty will drop making large scale operations like ours more profitable. Either way, our main goal is to help you accumulate more Bitcoin than you started with and to accomplish this goal we have decided to make a change to boost the payouts and make mining more profitable for future members

We understand some members are not going to like this change, but we have talked with many leaders to figure out the best solution and they all agree this a good idea so we are moving forward with it.

Here is what we are going to do…

All members who purchased a mining pool share during the early days between September 14th 2014 through June 30th 2015 have made back a substantial return on their original Bitcoin mining purchases.

These members have accumulated a lot of partial shares (some even have full shares they have earned) and they are simply taking up too much of the pool. Plus, everyone in this time frame has received ClubCoin at a 1:1 ratio and all Founders have received an additional 2,000 – 7,000 ClubCoin as an added bonus. Not to mention all the Founder 1 and Founder 2’s have a lifetime share in our Founder pools that receive 1% and .5% of all the Bitcoin we mine.

So after much consideration we have decided to stop payments on all the FULL shares purchased during this time. You will continue to earn daily on all the partial shares that you have accumulated and no changes will be made to your account, we are simply ending your shares early starting on September 1st and you will no longer be paid commissions on these full shares.

Why are we doing this?

It’s simple… By eliminating these early shares it will boost the daily payout on a per share basis for everyone else. It will also allow us to go back to paying for 1,000 days on all the contracts instead of 600 days (this is big)

We believe that mining hardware has reached a peak in technology. The 14/16nm chips are the top of the mountain and while there could be one more jump to 10/12nm chips, the added efficiency gained is so small that it’s not worth it to produce. So we are loading up on hardware right now because we believe these newest models can run for many years and in the right environment, they can easily last 1,000 days!.

By retiring these older shares we are able to go back to 1,000 days on ALL mining shares and not just new shares, so if you purchased a share that was only good for 600 days you will see an extra 400 days added to your mining time. We believe this longer payout is more in line with the future of the mining industry and our goal to help you accumulate more Bitcoin over the next 3-5 years!

Just to put this move in perspective, if you purchased a share during this time frame (before June 30th 2015) your purchase would have either bought an S3/S4 Antiminer or possibly even some Script Mining equipment that we had running in the early days when mining ALT coins.

Either way ALL of this equipment has either been liquidated or the machines are dead so your original contribution to the pool is no longer contributing any power or value (only your partial shares continue to) and for all new members joining today they are purchasing equipment that is 20x more efficient but they are only earning half because of all the older shares, so the decision was made to help balance this out and help everyone!

If you have an issue with us ending your contract early please open a support ticket and we will address your concerns, but we hope you understand this is a very fair way to provide increased value and allow members to continue mining in profit for years to come!

Let's deconstruct that wall of text.....

The Bitcoin mining industry continues to expand rapidly.....
This is both good and bad… It’s good because it shows the mining industry is really strong and very optimistic about Bitcoin moving higher in the future. However, it’s also bad because miners are willing to continue mining at a loss just to keep accumulating more Bitcoin and this makes the ROI in the short term very low for everyone.

 

This is a faulty analysis as a look at actual numbers will show.
The halving wasn't a surprise, nor was the pre halving pump and "sell the event" followup.
Are they really asking their punters to believe that the dominant Chinese operators are running at a loss? The only miners losing money at today's prices are
a) mining with obsolete equipment
b) trying to service top heavy debt/commitments out of reduced income e.g. expensive power, expensive miner leases or a big fat MLM matrix that sucks the life out any profitability for their small investors (see vids of Founders on yachts, buying Bentleys etc.)

our main goal is to help you accumulate more Bitcoin than you started with and to accomplish this goal we have decided to make a change to boost the payouts and make mining more profitable for future members

Hmmm, another way of putting that would be "new investments have collapsed, quick, think!"

All members who purchased a mining pool share during the early days between September 14th 2014 through June 30th 2015....are simply taking up too much of the pool.

Too much of the pool?....how about "Our early contracts are now getting dust like everyone else, so if we make a big deal about them being sacrificed for the common good, then we might be able to tempt in some newbies with a bit of ROI for a while. WE NEED SOME NEW MONEY ASAP. It's no real loss to them us, just that particular trough is empty".

Not to mention all the Founder 1 and Founder 2’s have a lifetime share in our Founder pools that receive 1% and .5% of all the Bitcoin we mine.

Yeah, it's not like we're gonna actually lose anything much, just keep skimming off the top for ever and ever and ever.

It will also allow us to go back to paying for 1,000 days on all the contracts instead of 600 days (this is big)

Go back to? Errrr no. BCN have never paid anyone for 1,000 days.
They promised to, then they changed that to 600 days when it became clear that 1,000 was giving too much away to the wrong people (genuine investors). In MMM, this would be called a "reset".

If you bought in on say June 1st 2015, one of

the privileged few who have pool shares that earn for 1000 days.

then BitClub Network promised (nothing in writing, of course) to pay you till 25th February 2018.

these shares will ALWAYS earn for 1,000 days

(their capslock)

In that example, you have been shafted for over half your "contract", 542 days stolen.
If you bought in just because you bought their spiel, fancied cloudmining some coin and didn't 'earn' any MLM commission (from ya grandma, neighbours etc.) and were less than Founder level, you are fucked.

if you purchased a share that was only good for 600 days you will see an extra 400 days added to your mining time.

600 day shares have only been going 244 days, earning dust ROI. Maybe someone who's locked in will think "Well, 400 extra days of dust is better than no dust at all. Not like I've got any choice...."
N.B.
Ya must remember not to keep using the word "shares". It sounds a lot like an investment contract to me. According to Weeks, you don't sell them, only mining equipment. 

ALL of this equipment has either been liquidated or the machines are dead so your original contribution to the pool is no longer contributing any power or value

But what happened to compulsory reinvestment?

A percentage of all Bitcoin mined will be used to pay for mining costs and to purchase new mining equipment.

So, you've been compulsorily deducted up to 50% to pay for upgrades, but "the machines are dead". Wot?

If you are looking to take possession of your machines and buyout then we have an amazing deal on the S5 Antminers right now (especially in the US market). If you are in the United States we will double your hashing power and send you twice as many PSU’s to mine with on your own.

This means whatever your quote is for your hashing power you will receive double with free shipping. If you can find a special deal or free power somewhere then you can hash these machines for a long time and we can even show you how to point them to our pool if you wish.

Looking at a pure ROI this could mean big returns and since we will be selling off this equipment fully by September we would much rather give them to our members at a special deal. This may be the best time ever to get yourself into mining, right before the halving and before a major shift in chip technology. 

Lol, 10/10 for disingenuous.
Whatever happened to

I've got the new (Bitfury) 16nm tech chips. BCN are the only people in the world with Bitfury chips, buying all they can produce.

? Or his legendary hardware trading deals, where he

pays Bitmain $100 for an S7

?

If you have an issue with us ending your contract early please open a support ticket and we will address your concerns, but...

...fuck off.

Back to the Ponzi definition:

a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned through legitimate sources.

That's what this is all about. New money. No-one already in is going to add more with virtually infinite ROI and no-one new new is going to touch it, (if they have the wits to ask for recent mining payment history proof).
The core "Founders" don't give a shit about mining income, the MLM residual is all they've ever been interested in.
Early genuine investors have just had a massive haircut. More like a decapitation, and there's nothing they can do about it.

[allyouracid]

Sorry for that useless posting, but did anybody notice that the names J Ryan Conley and Joby Weeks are anagram to "Jey Ryans Weekly ConJob"?

I know the first "e" sucks a bit, but still funny. ^^


.edit:
Got a better anagram: "Yes, J Ryan! Weekly conjob!"
I know. I'm bored.

[tmfp]

Thanks for the legendary input

 

[allyouracid]

Thanks for the legendary input

 

No problem.
But after reading up on the latest events here, I'd have to drop a "Thank You!", too. Well written and explanative.
I'm really not a big fan of those guys, and I'm trying my best to warn other users who might fall prey to BCN and anything related.

So, keep up the good work. I'm confident it saves a couple of souls.


.edit:
I liked the part with the connection to Genesis Mining. When I read about BCN and all that Iceland stuff, I always had this "…Iceland… Iceland… I read this somewhere!", but couldn't really figure it out. Makes total sense to me.

[owlcatz]

if anyone can post any btc addresses from Genesis , I would appreciate it. thanks!

this is my last tx from them.   noticed 2 sender addys*, but looks like they (of course) mix the coins ;/, tx's just go back and back dust loops. course im not a pro in btc analytics ;p
https://tradeblock.com/bitcoin/tx/b67f3dc83e8d7056b3fd8155dce76c4e74aee7b5bd1055ee12ad83d1886db373


*1ERAsjBQXMd2hx1JpKPxJfaUpBQv8KTiVh
*1PeMXzkiz1qQpWwNvpccgYp8SpuJAGjPNR


edit;  some one of their doge wallets DCPbGvoVJfhENVb8aUkBvZktHgZ4z5SXN6
                         DB5vZAu7i9nbNyxvfFPrs59GXUzH9rx4eh

again, look heavily mixed ;/

Thank you for this.

So... I traced 1ERAsjBQXMd2hx1JpKPxJfaUpBQv8KTiVh  back to these addresses: https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/00436115152f383b , which appear to be coming from slushpool.com (?)

I found no trace of BCN in any tx's along the way, however, I did not pore over every one of them, it looks like it's from a valid mining pool at least?

 As for 1PeMXzkiz1qQpWwNvpccgYp8SpuJAGjPNR, same thing: https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/00436115152f383b

Strangely, looking at BCN's mining address here - https://blockchain.info/address/155fzsEBHy9Ri2bMQ8uuuR3tv1YzcDywd4 - run that through walletexplorer and you will see very few coins being paid out vs. paid in. Further, the coins that do go out, seem to either be being mixed/laundered, and/or sent to other addresses in 25/50/100/1000 BTC chunks which are still unspent outputs. It's quite strange to me, but I have not compared the outputs against a known legitimate pool either.

Thanks, this was just done in a half hour during lunch, let me know if anyone else sees anything strange there.

[tmfp]

Those MLM pimps desperately looking for new mugs passive income seekers willing to lock in $$$$ for at least eighteen months to auto trade with Genesis Mining's (sound of *crickets* from them when asked a simple question) super fantastic arbitrage money making machine are going to be pretty pissed right now.....

Delays with the launch of the Trading Pool

2016-09-01BitClub News
We have been testing and implementing our new trading platform for the past few months and the results have been great! The returns look very good and for one test account we started with 1,000 Bitcoin that is now at 1,178 as of this posting. (less than 30 days trading). Basically this was exactly what we were hoping for!

WOW, Great, here's my moneeez! Make me rich!

However there are some other factors that have caused us to delay the launch of this pool until further notice.

Oh.

We have been consulting with lawyers in different countries and getting many opinions from advisors on how we could structure everything and offer this pool to our members without crossing over any lines. Unfortunately, there are some really tough markets that we do not feel comfortable launching this product in.

Double Oh.

So rather than make a quick assessment and just go with it, we are going to need more time to sort out these details and package this product properly so that we do not jeopardize our future (your future).

What, you mean like not selling "mining contracts" to U.S. citizens? It's those G'damn fascists with their pesky rules and regulations again, I bet.

We are in unchartered waters here with this type of “product”. Is this pool considered a security even though we are trading only with other cryptos? Is it a commodity or other type or regulated investment that requires a license? Do we need to be licensed to hold Bitcoin on behalf of our members?

Isn't it a bit late in the day to be thinking of this? Maybe you should have thought about it before "dropping a few $million" on this super bot. Whose "few million" was it anyway?

The answers are not clear yet and they differ depending on who you ask. Basically NOBODY knows!

The SEC does.

Also, we believe that our network can easily raise $100 million worth of Bitcoin for these trading pools, and we know the trader works great. We have even identified a cap upwards of $3 Billion before the pools would be cut off and returns would suffer. This gives us plenty of room to launch and go for it!

 

But with $100 million dollars spread out across many exchanges what happens if an exchange gets hacked? In this latest case with Bitfinex they get hacked and gave everyone a 36% cut on their funds. Imagine we had 100 million in here and we lose $36 million dollars of YOUR Bitcoin? Who is liable for this? What happens if another exchange goes belly up or gets shut down with YOUR Bitcoin funds in them? Is BitClub responsible? Are we the custodians of your Bitcoin, are we liable?

Well you would be if you were legit, but seeing as you aren't what about Scammer Scenario #1 from the Play Book?
1) Get money from mugs
2) Everything's going great!
3) Everything's going greater!
4) OMG we got hacked. See ya!

There are many questions right now that we need further clarification on and we just feel like we are rushing this to market too soon without doing proper due diligence and we don’t want jeopardize our future by doing this the wrong way.

Very sensible.
Lucky you haven't got some pushy MLM pimp phoning and messaging you every minute asking where your deposit is.
But then of course, if people did proper due dilligence before giving you money in the first place, there wouldn't be a problem. Because y'all would still be selling energy drinks, pharmaceutical wellness, slimming coffee and other shit.

So, for right now we are putting this launch on hold and we will most likely launch the trader in a few friendly jurisdictions first and then expand into more as we get some clarity on everything.

Friendly jurisdiction = no extradition treaty with U.S.

We know this is not the news you were hoping for, and we are sorry that it comes at the last minute when the entire platform is coded and ready to launch. This is something our team went back and forth on for weeks and something in our gut collectively told us to hold off and be smart about this because it could be HUGE! and will be HUGE! We just need to make sure that we do it properly.

HUGE!

We are faced with tough decisions like this on a daily basis and we know that we can never make everyone happy

The only people you want to "make happy" are yourselves, the little inner cabal of MLM pimps. Everyone else is just collateral damage.

We want to thank you for believing in us and being a loyal member of BitClub Network. There are a lot of great things happening right now with many projects that we have been working on finally getting ready to launch. We couldn’t be more excited as we approach our 2 year anniversary this month!

Great things happening right now! We couldn’t be more excited!^tm

..by the way, we are officially 2 years old on September 15th… When we first launched nobody expected us to make it 1 year, and we can’t wait to hear what these haters say when we hit 5 years

Sincerely,
-BCN Support

Totally classic MLM speak; "haterzzz" are people who ask questions.


Meanwhile the small pool in a big discus fish (see what I did there  ) is grossing about 60BTC a day to be shared (minus of course, the lifetime affiliate payments to the People that Matter) by up to 30,000 BCN claimed investors.
That's the ones left who didn't get shafted by having their contracts cancelled and their money stolen.

They seem to be a bit slow in paying out to third party miners tho...

STILL No payment from Bitclubpool. They still owe me 4.57240245 BTC for week 35- 2016 mining at the pool.

[Xircom]

Yes, you are right im missing my payments. Non of the official e-mails are working any more and support@bitclubnetwork.com does not answer.
I was use to 2-3 days delay last year from Bitclubpool, but weeks is a different matter...

[tmfp]

As time goes by and BitClub Network becomes yesterday's news for the MLM pumpers, my suspicion that the operation was only ever a Genesis Mining reseller becomes almost a certainty.

Building on this

Genesis Mining publicly claim to have an Icelandic mining farm, amongst others. Both Genesis and BCN reference the Verne Global setup.
Genesis Mining give no details of their mining pools.
Genesis Mining, since Spondoolies bit the dust, give no details of what mining equipment they use.
Genesis Mining are getting heavy criticism for reducing cloudmining payments to dust

Genesis get lots of stick on here about declining payments and Bitclub's ROI also just stretches further and further, as evidenced by users

I have invested 540 Euro in BTC. That’s about 90 Euro for the one time fee and another 450 Euro for the small pool. The first few weeks I repurchased 100 % and changed this setting to 50 % in May or so.

Today I have withdraw 25 Euro for the second time. So within 200 days I made 50 Euro, a bit more than 10%. Lets do the math: 50 Euro in 200 days makes 250 Euro in 1000 days. That was simple
In total I have earned 0.28428 BTC and withdraw 0.04748 and 0.045. And of course I lost 0.004 BTC due to the “lower than 2.0 BTC” fee.

After 200 days I increased my shares similar like Chris. I agree, it should be possible to reach 2 shares at the end of the 1000 days. According to my simulation I have to keep the reinvest on 100% until they reach 1.2. That is because of the compound interest effect. However there will be no profit after 1000 days. The break even is around 1500 days. Assuming same average earnings and similar BTC price.

2 things I learned in the 200 days and through simulation.
1st the mining earnings are constantly declining. They go only up when the market share of Bitclub on the Blockchain increases. But that has been very stable. It only went up significantly when they canceled the 1st share of September 14th 2014 through June 30th pools as mentioned in a comment above.
Since then the earnings have come down to an average level again to about 0.00089 BTC per day for a 500 Dollar pool. The reason why it declines is the market share has stayed stable at about 5 found blocks per day on the Blockchain. At the same time the number of total shares in Bitclub pools increases through constant reinvest of existing members and through selling pools to new members. So the same amount of BTC is divided through more number of shares.

To add further

Genesis has a contract cancellation clause allowing termination if maintenance charge exceeds mining income.
BitClub Network are more basic, they just cancel oversold contracts.
 
Then of course, there's Ethereum mining, started by Genesis at the end of 2015 and, three months later, BitClub offering ETH packages with MLM attached.

And further then, there's the Curious Case of the Super Arbitrage Bot. This of course was openly sold (not sold in the end) as an official BitClub Network/Genesis Mining joint venture, as explained above. Something happened. All of a sudden bullshit excuses from BCN about them being TOO big to operate it properly or smth. Whether or not Genesis are still using this bot on their own account, supposedly have been for three years, is something only they can answer. GLWT.

And the latest coincidence/evidence that BCN are just a Genesis reseller is ZCash mining, Genesis' latest baby. Right up behind them come Bitclub, Zcash mining




"What does it matter," you ask?
"Obviously makes your view that Bitclub are unsustainable look unlikely. If they're "backed" by Genesis, the biggest cloudminer in the world according to themselves, my money should be safe amirite?"

Well no, not really.
Firstly there's no guarantee that Genesis are bomb or market proof. In a mining arms race like we have now, only the biggest will survive and it's unlikely Genesis qualify there. Although if they are using Bitfury gear, their belated announcement that they're finally gearing up with 16nm will at least make Weeks' claims come true, albeit over six months too late.
If Genesis are paying dust to direct contract holders, what chance do investors in a reseller have of making any money, especially when the sales force of that reseller are hiving off probably a third of all new money for themselves, as "commission"?

And what a temptation it must be to keep selling and selling, irrespective if there's nothing profitable left to sell?
That what they do, welcome to MLM.

[Xircom]

I know for a fact that they BCN opped the gear to Bitmain gear around 2 month ago since im having my farm on Iceland as well and I was asked if I wanted to buy the used BCN gear by Bitmain.  Im pretty sure you are right in your investigation, since some days ago suddenly a lot of PH appeared on KANO pool named Bitfury and LuckyAnt, and it was in the same time BCN pool had a massive drop in PH so BCN/Genesis are using KANO as backup pool.
The only thing I see you are missing is the fact that Bitmain is a part of Genesis and BCN.

[favdesu]

As time goes by and BitClub Network becomes yesterday's news for the MLM pumpers, my suspicion that the operation was only ever a Genesis Mining reseller becomes almost a certainty.

Building on this

Genesis Mining publicly claim to have an Icelandic mining farm, amongst others. Both Genesis and BCN reference the Verne Global setup.
Genesis Mining give no details of their mining pools.
Genesis Mining, since Spondoolies bit the dust, give no details of what mining equipment they use.
Genesis Mining are getting heavy criticism for reducing cloudmining payments to dust

Genesis get lots of stick on here about declining payments and Bitclub's ROI also just stretches further and further, as evidenced by users

I have invested 540 Euro in BTC. That’s about 90 Euro for the one time fee and another 450 Euro for the small pool. The first few weeks I repurchased 100 % and changed this setting to 50 % in May or so.

Today I have withdraw 25 Euro for the second time. So within 200 days I made 50 Euro, a bit more than 10%. Lets do the math: 50 Euro in 200 days makes 250 Euro in 1000 days. That was simple
In total I have earned 0.28428 BTC and withdraw 0.04748 and 0.045. And of course I lost 0.004 BTC due to the “lower than 2.0 BTC” fee.

After 200 days I increased my shares similar like Chris. I agree, it should be possible to reach 2 shares at the end of the 1000 days. According to my simulation I have to keep the reinvest on 100% until they reach 1.2. That is because of the compound interest effect. However there will be no profit after 1000 days. The break even is around 1500 days. Assuming same average earnings and similar BTC price.

2 things I learned in the 200 days and through simulation.
1st the mining earnings are constantly declining. They go only up when the market share of Bitclub on the Blockchain increases. But that has been very stable. It only went up significantly when they canceled the 1st share of September 14th 2014 through June 30th pools as mentioned in a comment above.
Since then the earnings have come down to an average level again to about 0.00089 BTC per day for a 500 Dollar pool. The reason why it declines is the market share has stayed stable at about 5 found blocks per day on the Blockchain. At the same time the number of total shares in Bitclub pools increases through constant reinvest of existing members and through selling pools to new members. So the same amount of BTC is divided through more number of shares.

To add further

Genesis has a contract cancellation clause allowing termination if maintenance charge exceeds mining income.
BitClub Network are more basic, they just cancel oversold contracts.
 
Then of course, there's Ethereum mining, started by Genesis at the end of 2015 and, three months later, BitClub offering ETH packages with MLM attached.

And further then, there's the Curious Case of the Super Arbitrage Bot. This of course was openly sold (not sold in the end) as an official BitClub Network/Genesis Mining joint venture, as explained above. Something happened. All of a sudden bullshit excuses from BCN about them being TOO big to operate it properly or smth. Whether or not Genesis are still using this bot on their own account, supposedly have been for three years, is something only they can answer. GLWT.

And the latest coincidence/evidence that BCN are just a Genesis reseller is ZCash mining, Genesis' latest baby. Right up behind them come Bitclub, Zcash mining




"What does it matter," you ask?
"Obviously makes your view that Bitclub are unsustainable look unlikely. If they're "backed" by Genesis, the biggest cloudminer in the world according to themselves, my money should be safe amirite?"

Well no, not really.
Firstly there's no guarantee that Genesis are bomb or market proof. In a mining arms race like we have now, only the biggest will survive and it's unlikely Genesis qualify there. Although if they are using Bitfury gear, their belated announcement that they're finally gearing up with 16nm will at least make Weeks' claims come true, albeit over six months too late.
If Genesis are paying dust to direct contract holders, what chance do investors in a reseller have of making any money, especially when the sales force of that reseller are hiving off probably a third of all new money for themselves, as "commission"?

And what a temptation it must be to keep selling and selling, irrespective if there's nothing profitable left to sell?
That what they do, welcome to MLM.

yeah well, ponzi pumpers are like grass hoppers. they move on, looks one scamcoin is still going strong. forget about this shit, it's the past.