I was offered $550 to say that "Ripple is a Scam."

[papaminer]

i'd hit it

[QuestionAuthority]

Matthew, you know that's the case. Bitcoin is driven by speculators and day traders. It is a money making game. That's the joke on the government. Real drug/terrorist money is huge and Bitcoin could never support even the most minor terrorist group. Yeah, I can really see two terrorists talking about a job in the Middle East and agreeing to settle up in Bitcoins. "What the fuck are Bitcoins! No bitch, you pay me in money or find someone else!"

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out this whole micro-economy is made up of college students worldwide practicing their day trading skills before they graduate and have to do it for real.

Please don't tell me you believe in the PorcFest "change the world" mentality. If any other monetary system is going to do that it won't happen in your lifetime. The reason Bitcoin is here is for trading and those businesses that sprung up because traders are "learning" with real money.

You have become too cynical to see that bitcoin is the solution to the authoritarianism that made you cynical in the first place.

The word is practical or you could use realistic.

In all fairness, bitcoin is *a* solution (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160292.0) but not every solution works for everyone, everywhere. Anyone saying otherwise is a blind cultist.

Sure, it could be some day but not today. But it will take many protest marches before that happens.

[peonminer]

Money hungry bastards.

 

[wormbog]

Matthew, you know that's the case. Bitcoin is driven by speculators and day traders. It is a money making game. That's the joke on the government. Real drug/terrorist money is huge and Bitcoin could never support even the most minor terrorist group. Yeah, I can really see two terrorists talking about a job in the Middle East and agreeing to settle up in Bitcoins. "What the fuck are Bitcoins! No bitch, you pay me in money or find someone else!"

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out this whole micro-economy is made up of college students worldwide practicing their day trading skills before they graduate and have to do it for real.

Please don't tell me you believe in the PorcFest "change the world" mentality. If any other monetary system is going to do that it won't happen in your lifetime. The reason Bitcoin is here is for trading and those businesses that sprung up because traders are "learning" with real money.

You have become too cynical to see that bitcoin is the solution to the authoritarianism that made you cynical in the first place.

The word is practical or you could use realistic.

Questioning authority is rarely practical.

[QuestionAuthority]

Matthew, you know that's the case. Bitcoin is driven by speculators and day traders. It is a money making game. That's the joke on the government. Real drug/terrorist money is huge and Bitcoin could never support even the most minor terrorist group. Yeah, I can really see two terrorists talking about a job in the Middle East and agreeing to settle up in Bitcoins. "What the fuck are Bitcoins! No bitch, you pay me in money or find someone else!"

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out this whole micro-economy is made up of college students worldwide practicing their day trading skills before they graduate and have to do it for real.

Please don't tell me you believe in the PorcFest "change the world" mentality. If any other monetary system is going to do that it won't happen in your lifetime. The reason Bitcoin is here is for trading and those businesses that sprung up because traders are "learning" with real money.

You have become too cynical to see that bitcoin is the solution to the authoritarianism that made you cynical in the first place.

The word is practical or you could use realistic.

Questioning authority is rarely practical.

LOL - Questioning authority requires a firm grasp on reality or you question the wrong side. There is entirely too much Groupthink going on here.

[BitcoinAshley]

You could argue that they scammed users by creating something claiming it's open sourced and not releasing it, but that's not "scamming", that's "lying". But what happens when the source code is released? Will people still call it a scam? I believe yes, and that's the heart of this nonsense.

So Matthew you have stooped to semantics games? "That's not scamming, it's lying."
BFL claimed they were going to create & ship ASICs. As they hadn't done that, they were scammers.
Bitcoin Magazine were 'defacto scammers' for 6 months when they did not release a product they said they were going to release.

Ripple claimed they were releasing a product that was open source. They never released this open source product. But wait, they are "liars" not scammers? LOL, dude. Playing with words is a fun game.

Also, I am concerned about your assumption that people will continue to call it a scam. Will people continue to call BFL a scam for years if it does end up shipping and ends up being a massively successful manufacturer/seller of ASICs for many years? If folks' problem is that ripple is closed source and the foundation controls half of the currency, and that is centralized and therefore subject to the same kind of shut-down as e-Gold, well - if all that stuff is fixed and Ripple becomes successful and gains a good reputation, I have no reason to believe that "people" will continue to call it a scam.

One more thing. You gave us those nice educational posts on logical fallacies; how kind of you? NOW STOP BEING A COMPLETE AND UTTER RETARD by posting, in the same thread, at least two blatant ad-homs specifically implying that someone could not form a "gude opinion" if their user account is only X months old. Let's see here, someone could be using a series of throw-away accounts (I've been here for far longer than my join date implies) someone would have been lurking for 6 months before they joined (I lurked for 3 months before I registered) someone could have been active and using bitcoin for 2 years before they felt the need to make a forum account.
BUT NO, "look at me I'm Matthew N. Wright, educating all the poor silly dumb masses on logical fallacies while using them myself, hope no one notices"
Good luck with that   
 

[Matthew N. Wright]

BFL claimed they were going to create & ship ASICs. As they hadn't done that, they were scammers.
Bitcoin Magazine were 'defacto scammers' for 6 months when they did not release a product they said they were going to release.

Yes, 2 products that took pre-orders. Where is Ripple's product order and income list? Are they scamming intended value?

Without accepting funds for a purchase and not delivering on that promise, they are not scamming. They could be guilty of deceiving and are definitely guilty of manipulating (holding the XRP themselves and releasing them slowly), but it seems a bit too early to tell to me. I for one await the open sourcing and copy cats who will try to do it better.

The reason I believe people will continue to claim they are a "scam" even after they open source is for the same reason people use the word "scam" now to describe them-- poor understanding of vocabulary.

[wachtwoord]

The reason I believe people will continue to claim they are a "scam" even after they open source is for the same reason people use the word "scam" now to describe them-- poor understanding of vocabulary.

They should not have created XRP and just use the system. I think there is a great opportunity for a competing framework which is just a IOU framework and not a 'premined' currency. Hopefully this will develop.

[Matthew N. Wright]

The reason I believe people will continue to claim they are a "scam" even after they open source is for the same reason people use the word "scam" now to describe them-- poor understanding of vocabulary.

They should not have created XRP and just use the system. I think there is a great opportunity for a competing framework which is just a IOU framework and not a 'premined' currency. Hopefully this will develop.

I really wish this too, unfortunately this iteration's developers were all bitcoin developers and are quite used to "hashcash" style solutions, and if they had made people mine for XRP, it would have created the same problems bitcoin has. It's a tough sell.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

To anyone interested in my posts, here's my price list:

If you want me to say:

Ripple is a scam: 2BTC
BFL is a scam: 1BTC
Gox Sux: 1BTC
LTC will fail: 0.5BTC
Josh is a fucking retard: FREE
Bruno fucking a goat: I'll pay 1BTC <I, Bruno, inserted this>

Wait, what! I've been fucking goats for free?

[Ekaros]

Money hungry bastards.

 

I admit I'm opportunist 

I do almost anything for right amount of compensation...

Greed is good, or something!

[Matthew N. Wright]

TradeFortress has an own site ripplescam.org/‎ where he explains his point of view.

Imho Ripple sux and lot of people will lose their their coins in a future.

I don't recall him ever publicly stating that was his site. TradeFortress, is that your site?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

TradeFortress has an own site ripplescam.org/‎ where he explains his point of view.

Imho Ripple sux and lot of people will lose their their coins in a future.

I don't recall him ever publicly stating that was his site. TradeFortress, is that your site?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180287.0

[Matthew N. Wright]

TradeFortress has an own site ripplescam.org/‎ where he explains his point of view.

Imho Ripple sux and lot of people will lose their their coins in a future.

I don't recall him ever publicly stating that was his site. TradeFortress, is that your site?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180287.0

Thank you Bruno. That should wrap up that one pretty well. So TradeFortress has been accused of paying people money to change their post content to his own anti-Ripple website by GoWest basically. I guess we just have to wait to hear TradeFortress's rebuttals. He said something about not messaging GoWest directly, but he didn't deny paying others.

[freedomno1]

Hmmm, interesting, why "GoWest" has to make it public by editing an old post in Feb.20 which apparently no one other than some archaeological fans will read?

He actually posted it as an article on his site too, apparently. I don't read his blog though so I found it by scrolling through the thread's first page.

I saw that post as well, I think it's probably a very transparent astroturfing, as all cooperators posted exactly the same thing in the same thread, one after another, I also remember TF advertising it somehow, otherwise it looks really weird and noticeable to anyone.

And yeah, it does look like TF has got a really deep pocket, he can pay for his shills like that, buying forum ad slots just to make them unavailable to BFL and debase Ripple, a lot of these things...., all at hefty prices, wow.

Sounds like public good no more noobs falling for BFL ads and forcing people to acknowledge the weakness of ripple Heck even paying people with legit bitcoins to advertise against ripple not tradefortress ripples and preparing the noobs with scam lesson 101 lol before the mass public when it finally releases guess the economy works that way too

[RichG]

I'll take 1BTC to say XRP is a scam!

[lophie]

My opinion on this:

1- It is not fair comparing the claims against ripple to the claims against Bitcoin because whoever called Bitcoin a ponzi or a scam had weak or no argument at all and for ripple there are many strong arguments.

2- You sir deserve a "Slanderer" tag on your account. When you come up with such accusation you should provide a reference to a txID including an input with a known address of TradeFortress and a signed message from an output address (5BTC) in the same tx, At least to give your slander some creditability.

Let me test this: Satoshi gave me 100000 Bitcoin to make me promote Bitcoin my entire life and he disclosed the fact that he is Jesus Christ and proved it to me in a dream I had last night.

I don't have the time to write a fictional lengthy text just to prove a point but sheesh I hope you are not taking the quoted text seriously just because it is lengthy, Then I suggest you would like to read MPOE-PR posts!

I really from the bottom of my heart hope Ripple is not BS since on the platform great things can be built. But as it is now it shows all symptoms of a scam. Plus XRP is a total scam, Any way you look at it.

[crumbcake]

TradeFortress has an own site ripplescam.org/‎ where he explains his point of view.

Imho Ripple sux and lot of people will lose their their coins in a future.

I don't recall him ever publicly stating that was his site. TradeFortress, is that your site?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180287.0

Thank you Bruno. That should wrap up that one pretty well. So TradeFortress has been accused of paying people money to change their post content to his own anti-Ripple website by GoWest basically. I guess we just have to wait to hear TradeFortress's rebuttals. He said something about not messaging GoWest directly, but he didn't deny paying others.

Matthew, i don't know why TF would pay someone half a grand to say Ripple's a scam, when there's already a frickin' Greek chorus chanting the same thing.  Rewards of adding another voice are slim to none, and the potential shitstorm if the shill turned on him -- spectacular.  The odds of anyone being that rich & that stupid simultaneously are pretty slim, but irrelevant.

A better question is why tf would YOU start this thread?  I mean, sure, clickbate, the subject line just screams tabloid, drama, attention is fun.  But your faux neutral tone really turned this post into sleaze. 

"It has come to my attention that a member of this forum, TF, is a child molester, so you might wana to protect your loli.  More ugly accusations against the pedo could be found http://here and http://here.  Please withhold forming your opinion until I ask the filthy baby-fucker to just have a seat over there, as he babbles some lame-ass excuses.  In the meantime, please form an organized mob, boil tar & pluck chickens."

I remember you giving TF some sagacious advice, comparing his Ripple troll to your welched bet.  Something about fucking with other people's money. 
Here's a curious factoid for you:  In a shrewdness (pack) of apes, when a weak ape is attacked, he tries to redirect the attack to target a weaker/less dominant ape.  That behavior is considered appropriate for socially well-adjusted apes. 

Or are you just trolling? (in which case  )

[BTC Books]

2- You sir deserve a "Slanderer" tag on your account. When you come up with such accusation you should provide a reference to a txID including an input with a known address of TradeFortress and a signed message from an output address (5BTC) in the same tx, At least to give your slander some creditability.

Yup.  Although the current tag is adequate.

[Matthew N. Wright]

When you GoWest come up with such accusation

FTFY. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145506.msg1544079#msg1544079

I really from the bottom of my heart hope Ripple is not BS

Even if it is, it will be replaced by the free market (Open Transactions + BitMessage for example). The point here isn't Ripple, it's paid subversion. I see several responses screaming "this is impossible!" but no one has bothered to ask why GoWest would lie about such a thing.