Should there be public awareness campaigns to warn new users about Ponzi schemes

[sbtctalk]

Many beginners into the bitcoin world have probably "invested" in ponzi sites and lost some coins in the process.

How should veteran bitcoin users in the community do their part to alert beginners about ponzis?

[romero121]

Many beginners into the bitcoin world have probably "invested" in ponzi sites and lost some coins in the process.

How should veteran bitcoin users in the community do their part to alert beginners about ponzis?

In my view such awareness programs gives a stepped procedure to use bitcoin, so its not needed. Let them earn from their own experiences. If they follow certain written procedure with bitcoin you can use it securely but can't earn as predicted.

[xavier77]

Not a public awareness about the ponzis but an awareness about the trusted websites and their own flaws should be given. People tend to try out the things they are forbidden, so a positive approach is better. Also, there are such websites listing scams and few users who keep on updating these lists on scams. However, it depends on the user to be safe. Users must learn about the related terms before jumping into action.

[fkvidar]

Absolutely, I think there should be awareness campaigns which will warn newbies and will save their coins at initial stage, if they get cheated in beginning then they will start taking bitcoin negatively.

[jtipt]

Yes its a good idea of course and if i am correct i have seen few topics around this forum telling the same thing. the problem is newbies don't really care reading a page long post and even after reading after that they tend to invest for their curiosity. There is no way anyone will not invest in ponzies until they have been scammed atleast once.

[Lauda]

Even though this would definitely be beneficial, it would not come close to completely 'preventing' losses. It really comes down to the individual; as an example, I've been here for three years now and have avoided scams completely and will continue to do so.

Let them earn from their own experiences.

In other words: Let scammers get money and continue their practice on each wave of new victims?

Absolutely, I think there should be awareness campaigns which will warn newbies and will save their coins at initial stage, if they get cheated in beginning then they will start taking bitcoin negatively.

Maybe adding a Warning within the investor-based games section would be a decent start, but that is a discussion for Meta.

[Labumi]

Many beginners into the bitcoin world have probably "invested" in ponzi sites and lost some coins in the process.

How should veteran bitcoin users in the community do their part to alert beginners about ponzis?

Most importantly never baited or investing to sites that provide a Bonus for every deposit you make, because the site was certainly using the Ponzi system and never use Cloudmining because 90% of the site cloudmining using the ponzi system. If you want to retain your Bitcoin then investment or play market bitcoin

[Daniel91]

Many beginners into the bitcoin world have probably "invested" in ponzi sites and lost some coins in the process.

How should veteran bitcoin users in the community do their part to alert beginners about ponzis?

This is very good idea but not realistic.
Beginners will always do things their own way, will not listen anybody and will make the same way as we did.
After that, they will become ''veterans'' and experienced users as we
young people don't have wisdom, patience and experience and wants to do everything in fast way, can't wait.
You can try to put some info in public forums and sizes but it's question if others will read and accept it.
It's always easier to believe in some crazy ponzi schemes and promises that to accept that there is no possible to get to rich over night without hard work and effort.
It's human nature, I guess.

[ebliever]

It's really a very general issue,  not something specific to Bitcoin: Getting people to understand that no one is going to throw money at you for free (or shouldn't, in a fair and sane world), no matter what their advertising promises you. And no, random people on the internet are not seeking to give way secrets to make you rich. If they really had such secrets they'd be using them to make themselves rich.

You can earn money by investing in a new company. That new company takes your money and buys manufacturing equipment or hires a programmer, etc., who creates something of value that can be sold. They earn a profit, and as an investor you share in those profits, hopefully earning  back your original investment and then some.

By contrast a Ponzi typically doesn't even pretend to be creating anything of value. It is just shuffling money around, with greedy people imagining that they will be luckier than others doing the same thing.

If people understood the distinction between these two cases it would save them a lot of grief. Whenever someone promises you a return on some bitcoin "investment" ask yourself: How exactly are they making money with the bitcoin I loan them? If you don't have a very solid answer, walk away.

[VanDeinsberg12]

Many beginners into the bitcoin world have probably "invested" in ponzi sites and lost some coins in the process.

How should veteran bitcoin users in the community do their part to alert beginners about ponzis?

What??Beginner is not take care about Ponzi's risk, So some beginners even dark eyes about it. The beginners need to take a more caution about Ponzi and their need to be an active person to talk and searching more news about it. They can think,not only to rely on people's alert. so they will get more experience to walking alone after this.

[AlgoSwan]

Maybe a database of possible ponzi sites would be good. Of course beginners will take their lessons in a hard way. But still this awareness approach should help to some newcomers.

[TastyChillySauce00]

i just want to be honest and revealing the fact that some new potential bitcoiners were getting attracted because of this ponzi scheme,most of my friends in real life know bitcoin because of ponzi,and endup leaving bitcoin with bad experiences on it,just see MMM a PONZI site which recommending their member to use bitcoin and it's give affect to bitcoin image in my region,teaching the beginners about how to get away outta ponzi is a must i do say,maybe in beginners section a thread which explain about ponzi should be stick in the top of thread list

[pearl11]

Many beginners into the bitcoin world have probably "invested" in ponzi sites and lost some coins in the process.

How should veteran bitcoin users in the community do their part to alert beginners about ponzis?

Thats the choice of every beginners in bitcoin joining in ponzi scheme to earn fastest and easiest way.
You cannot dictate them just let them what they want to do.. They will only figured it out when they have no more money to invest.

[Cryptonitex]

No, people just need to use common sense and just stay away form sketchy situations like that.

[sbtctalk]

No, people just need to use common sense and just stay away form sketchy situations like that.

Greed overrides common sense and logic.

Maybe a database of possible ponzi sites would be good. Of course beginners will take their lessons in a hard way. But still this awareness approach should help to some newcomers.

There is badbitcoin list but how effective is a single site going to be useful? There should be more community effort.

[sana54210]

Apparently, there's quite a small effort put into this. We definitely should have a campaign that helps inform the beginners to not invest in ponzi sites. Maybe we should make a pinned thread here in the forum on the list of possible ponzis. That's probably a good start.

[bittrojan]

Many beginners into the bitcoin world have probably "invested" in ponzi sites and lost some coins in the process.

How should veteran bitcoin users in the community do their part to alert beginners about ponzis?

we always give newbie a warning about scam site and people,scam acusition should most important sction for newbie to know what site and who are scammer on here and outhere. but newbie look like doesn't care about thatw warning.

[countryfree]

Nice idea. But tell me, who would you trust to say this is ponzi, and this is not? Your government? A central bank? There are plenty of folks saying that BTC is a scam. And the US dollar is a ponzi scheme, don't you know?

[Raimonn]

There are users alerting about ponzi schemes on investors based games subforum, but users don't read the warnings, they only read "double your bitcoins". Others only read about the warnings, when they understand that their bitcoins are lost.

[yayayo]

Best learning experience is loosing some money in a Ponzi scheme. I doubt that public awareness campaigns would have any significant effect, since people tend to be easily blinded by greed. Many successful Ponzis are exact replicas of previous ones, the only difference being the visual design and wording employed.

Another problem is that an awareness campaign simply can't cover the whole variety of Ponzi constructs out in the wild. Sometimes it is very difficult to determine without insider knowledge if an investment is legit or an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

Also, Ponzi schemes are just one segment of the financial fraud landscape. What about traditional fraud, which I think is even more common? I think that as long there is something as desirable as money, crimes related to money will happen. You can tell people to be careful when dealing with money in general, but I doubt you can really prepare them for the constant innovation within the "fraud industry" through an awareness campaign.

Another question remains: Who will pay for such a campaign?

ya.ya.yo!