Is the runup being driven by the MMM Global Ponzi?

[Nagle]

The runup is definitely coming from China; look at the exchange volumes.

The MMM Global Ponzi scheme may be driving this. They claim "100% per month" returns. That never ends well.

If you're not familiar with the MMM Ponzi, see the Wikipedia article..  The guy behind this did it in the 1990s, it collapsed like all Ponzi schemes, he went to jail, did his time, got out, and now he's back.  Using the same MMM name and logo, no less. But this time, it uses Bitcoin.


Sergey Mavrodi, the guy behind it.

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[r0ach]

Translation: You're mad that you went full fiat and the price went up while you have 0 Bitcoins and you really hope it goes down so you can buy so you'll try to think up any excuse possible for it to go down even though some BS ponzi that's been open since 2012 or something has nothing to do with the price.

[HI-TEC99]

There's an old thread from 2012 advertising an MMM ponzi scheme by the same guy. He was trying to get this thing started on bitcointalk three years ago but Bitcoin wasn't worth as much then. Over half the posts in the thread are by the OP, and not many users fell for it. An earlier Ponzi had collapsed, then someone tried to restart it in 2012. How many times can it collapse before people stop falling for it?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77276.0

This just collapsed.

'Fool me twice, shame on me: Russians fall once again for notorious Ponzi scheme'

http://www.rt.com/news/mmm-mavrodi-ponzi-scheme-715/

This just restarted as MMM-2012.

Polish cell is in progress moving deposits of MMM-2011 to MMM-2012.

[tmfp]

The runup is definitely coming from China; look at the exchange volumes.

Are Chinese exchange volumes a reliable indicator of anything, given their zero fees and meaningless (in a wider sense) HFT activity?

There's an old thread from 2012 advertising an MMM ponzi scheme by the same guy. He was trying to get this thing started on bitcointalk three years ago but Bitcoin wasn't worth as much then. Over half the posts in the thread are by the OP, and not many users fell for it. An earlier Ponzi had collapsed, then someone tried to restart it in 2012. How many times can it collapse before people stop falling for it?

The problem with these global ponzis and pyramids, often with MLM structures, now turning their attention to Bitcoin, is that the mugs investors are not Crypto literate.
They are just buying into the sales pitch, which is a combination of anti banking industry/establishment hyperbole and get-rich-quick off this new marvellous invention.

That said, the main MMM scheme doesn't require Bitcoin at all, it takes local fiat currency deposits.
It's currently very hot in South Africa, the Phillipines, Bangladesh and Peru? apparently, being presented as a "social bank" to the unsophisticated.
In order to participate in the give/receive game, the players have to convert their fiat into 'Mavros', a centralised worthless shit coin named after our crazy Russian friend.
Once they have done that, they're basically fucked.

[Nagle]

There's an old thread from 2012 advertising an MMM ponzi scheme by the same guy.

Yes, same guy. The new version is called MMM-2014, and combines a Ponzi schme, multi-level marketing, payday loans, and Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not essential; they also support Perfect Money and bank transfers, but it's recommended in their many video tutorials.

[ssmc2]

That guy looks like a serial killer/pedo.

[NorrisK]

I doubt this alone has created the price rise.

A lot has probably to do with other people entering as they have FOMO.

look at litecoin ponzi. Price went from 1.5 to 8 USD before settling at 3 USD, which means that it has doubled as effect of the ponzi that caused others to enter. Not too bad right?

[HI-TEC99]

I doubt this alone has created the price rise.

A lot has probably to do with other people entering as they have FOMO.

look at litecoin ponzi. Price went from 1.5 to 8 USD before settling at 3 USD, which means that it has doubled as effect of the ponzi that caused others to enter. Not too bad right?

Wasn't Litecoin at 1.5 dollars when Bitcoin had crashed to $150, then settled in the low $200s? All the alts are priced in Bitcoin, and when it goes up so do they. The Ponzi may have helped Litecoin, but it's not more than doubled in price solely because of it. I hope we don't get a Bitcoin crash like the Litecoin crash after its Ponzi collapsed.

[tmfp]

That guy looks like a serial killer/pedo.

This is his 'official' photo, taken pre prison




Have a poke around the site http://mmm.systems/ , it's alternately funny, sad, absurd and credible in a weird sort of way.
"Calculator of Happiness", "Financial Apocalypse", etc.

The testimonial scroll bar gives you an idea of who is being targeted here (None of the amounts are quoted in bitcoin, it's all fiat).

[r0ach]

I doubt this alone has created the price rise.

Of course it has nothing to do with the price.  All the dipshits that went full fiat and had the bus leave without them are spamming endless threads making up any bs imaginable to try and get people to dump so they don't have to pay a 40% markup to get back in the Bitcoin game.

[Mickeyb]

I hope not! Whatever these guys have touched hasn't end up well. This is the last thing that we would need, to get associated with these crooks. I know that media would love this, to connect us to these ponzi scammers. This would be very bad for our reputation that is still not great.

[ssmc2]

That guy looks like a serial killer/pedo.

This is his 'official' photo, taken pre prison




Have a poke around the site http://mmm.systems/ , it's alternately funny, sad, absurd and credible in a weird sort of way.
"Calculator of Happiness", "Financial Apocalypse", etc.

The testimonial scroll bar gives you an idea of who is being targeted here (None of the amounts are quoted in bitcoin, it's all fiat).

Looks like prison treated him well. Hopefully he's back inside real soon.

[Morecoin Freeman]

I think you guys came to my house and tried to sell me a vacuum cleaner once...

 

[ElectricMucus]

I hope this gets hugely popular in this forum, pirateat40s ponzi did, despite that (uh time to gloat) I called it a "classical hyip scam" at the first post after OP.
You guys will swallow everything if it promises fast riches, come on, do it! I can see wide your wide-eyed moon faces already.

Also don't forget to buy more bitcoins so you can invest them in this mountain of awesome.

[gentlemand]

I hope this gets hugely popular in this forum, pirateat40s ponzi did, despite that (uh time to gloat) I called it a "classical hyip scam" at the first post after OP.

This guy has a very impressive, er, track record that's publicly accessible to anyone. Anyone who goes for it deserves to be goosed. I wasn't around for the pirateat40 thing but let's hope people on here are a teensy bit wiser these days. I wouldn't want to bet on it though.

And I just read the pirateat40 thread. Kudos to you.

[HI-TEC99]

I hope this gets hugely popular in this forum, pirateat40s ponzi did, despite that (uh time to gloat) I called it a "classical hyip scam" at the first post after OP.

This guy has a very impressive, er, track record that's publicly accessible to anyone. Anyone who goes for it deserves to be goosed. I wasn't around for the pirateat40 thing but let's hope people on here are a teensy bit wiser these days. I wouldn't want to bet on it though.

A post in this thread suggests that pirateat40 invested all the coins sent to him in the MMM Ponzi. Another poster quickly dismisses the suggestion, but perhaps pirateat40 was an innocent-ish patsy, and the real culprit for stealing all those coins was the MMM Ponzi scheme.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77276.0

[Q7]

I'm not sure exactly how it would work but assuming the guy is running some kind of ponzi scheme, wouldn't he be collecting the fund for himself and then use part of the fund from the newcomers to pay the early joiners? And why would he put the price into bitcoin. And somehow you will need a lot of funding to actually push up the market to that scale. Like I've said earlier, I'm still skeptical whether the recent rally and this is somehow related.

[maokoto]

I don't think this is the main reason behind the price raise. There are so many scams in Bitcoin that it is hard to concentrate all money in just one of them LOL.

[KeyJockey]

All the "MMM" posts recently might be an attempt at FUD to cool down this rapidly fueling rocketship rally.

May even be gov covert attempt to *yet again* try to associate the word "bitcoin" with "ponzi" and/or other bad financial things to try and put the cat back into the bag.  The controlled media attempts over the last couple years to say, "Oh bitcoin?  Yeah, that failed: nothing to see here, move along move along folks" LOL  apparently were NOT working well enough anymore.  So this could be Plan B.

BUT it occurred to me that this strategy could blow up in their face: Maybe even IF this new rally is driven by something like MMM it's gonna end up being good for bitcoin long term.

Consider this: suppose the rally price increasing IS due to MMM but most people are NOT participating in MMM.

So it nevertheless brings the idea of "bitcoin is increasing in value and it's a good long term store of wealth" faster, to a larger group of people (i.e. the general public).

This in itself then helps fuel universal adoption.

So, when the MMM part of it finally does fail?  At that point, Bitcoin's still stronger and more widely used, so it's real long term value IS still proven... and MMM doesn't change the fundamentals.

TL;DR : no such thing as bad publicity, LOL

[jasonjm]

That guy looks like a serial killer/pedo.

This is his 'official' photo, taken pre prison

His official photo still looks pedo




Have a poke around the site http://mmm.systems/ , it's alternately funny, sad, absurd and credible in a weird sort of way.
"Calculator of Happiness", "Financial Apocalypse", etc.

The testimonial scroll bar gives you an idea of who is being targeted here (None of the amounts are quoted in bitcoin, it's all fiat).

His official photo still looks pedo