bitcoin-trader.biz

[capoeira]

The bet that this thing will implode in the next 120 days is risky. Plenty of Ponzis, including some BTC-related, have lasted for longer than BT's current age. I can see it going for another 4 months and even longer depending on how many suckers are still out there.

It will go boom, eventually, but I think 1 year is a safer bet.

yep. remember Madoff?


the problem is that people don't withdraw their "virtual gains". they even lie to themselfs. my brother once showed my an "incredibe deal". I saw it was a piramid sceme in 5minutes. I explained him how it works; he didn't believe much and said: "even if this is a scam. I allready gained all of my initial investment".....I responded: "Is it on you bank?"...."Yes", he said.
After the sceme colapsed I found out he hadn't withdrawn nothing at all. People see those "virtual gains" and brain stops to work.

[BetMoose]

You guys can set this up over at https://www.betmoose.com

PM us and we can make your bet 'unlisted' so that only the parties you would like to participate (at your odds) will be allowed.

You can also deposit anonymously if you prefer.

[crazyivan]

The bet that this thing will implode in the next 120 days is risky. Plenty of Ponzis, including some BTC-related, have lasted for longer than BT's current age. I can see it going for another 4 months and even longer depending on how many suckers are still out there.

It will go boom, eventually, but I think 1 year is a safer bet.

You do understand these guys are online over 9 months. Add 1 more year to this time and they would be 21 months online. Since full ROI is under 4 months, including reinvesting, this would mean people would reach ROI 5 times during this period. You really think something which is not legit can survive to pay out 500% return on investment to 2000 of its members just from ponzi earnings?

IMO, this just does not add up.

[Cassius]

Ugh. Said I was going to bow out of this thread after making my point repeatedly and crossing swords with that vile idiot yonce. But it won't go away from my 'new replies'.

I wouldn't take that bet, even if I did bet, and I am almost certain it is a ponzi. I don't get why people think the regular payouts give it any kind of legitimacy. They don't. Ponzis carry on, paying out nicely, until they don't. Then it all falls apart overnight. What determines how long they keep going is 1) how many more people get signed up and 2) how fast they pay out the new money this brings. 120 more days is quite possible.

Does anyone have any idea about 1? It only takes one $50,000 'investor' to allow them to play for time for quite a while if most people are testing the water with $20 or $100.

And has anyone tried blockchain analysis to try to figure out where the money is coming from, if exchanges are even involved at any point?

Here's one last thing to think about. IF it's a ponzi, then you can expect the people running it to be dishonest in more than one way. That's not a stretch, right? Well, they have your email address, and your password. And lots of people reuse passwords. So if you're not 100% confident these guys are as pure as the driven snow, you might want to change that password.

EDIT: the payouts of finished contracts don't fundamentally alter things. Sure it's a bit more they've got to cover, especially if a whale is cashing out. If - it looks like plenty of people reinvest because oh, it's proven itself now. If they do cash out, it just means they have to sign up a few more people.

[PilotofBTC]

Well, they have your email address, and your password. And lots of people reuse passwords.

People still do that?

[Cassius]

Well, they have your email address, and your password. And lots of people reuse passwords.

People still do that?

I pretty much guarantee you a bunch of people on this thread do.

[Rannasha]

The bet that this thing will implode in the next 120 days is risky. Plenty of Ponzis, including some BTC-related, have lasted for longer than BT's current age. I can see it going for another 4 months and even longer depending on how many suckers are still out there.

It will go boom, eventually, but I think 1 year is a safer bet.

You do understand these guys are online over 9 months. Add 1 more year to this time and they would be 21 months online. Since full ROI is under 4 months, including reinvesting, this would mean people would reach ROI 5 times during this period.

Your math is correct!

You really think something which is not legit can survive to pay out 500% return on investment to 2000 of its members just from ponzi earnings?[

IMO, this just does not add up.

Bernard Madoff - Ran a ponzi scheme for an unknown period of time, but at least a decade.
Trendon Shavers aka Pirateat40 - Ran BTCST, now known to be a ponzi-scheme using Bitcoin for almost a year offering a constant 7% per week (note: the higher the payouts, the faster it collapses)

These are the most famous examples, but there are many, many more lesser known schemes that lasted for quite some time. An overview, obviously not complete, can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ponzi_schemes

BT has a few things going for it that make it more stable than the average Ponzi scheme. The payout rate is rather low. It's still too high to be realistic for arbitrage trading (as I've already explained in this thread or the other one, an argument that never got an attempt at a rebuttal), but lower than most schemes. Also, the 120 day lockin period prevents bank-runs when there's a scare among investors due to downtime or some other negative event.

Also, I never said that BT would last another year. I said that "1 year" would be a safe bet for the timeframe in which the scheme to have collapsed. I give it reasonable odds that it won't make it another 120 days, especially with their "audit" being stalled (people will get suspicious eventually), but I certainly think it's possible that it'll live another 120 days, which is why I recommended against making that particular bet.

Oh, and I would still like to hear some counters to my arguments for this scheme being a Ponzi-scheme. "They are paying" doesn't count as an argument, because every Ponzi-scheme pays perfectly. Until they don't.

[Cassius]

"They are paying" doesn't count as an argument, because every Ponzi-scheme pays perfectly. Until they don't.

^^^

THIS

[ranlo]

Well, they have your email address, and your password. And lots of people reuse passwords.

People still do that?

I do, but only because there's no way someone can brute force my password: "ju5t1nb13b3rf4n69"

[PilotofBTC]

Well, they have your email address, and your password. And lots of people reuse passwords.

People still do that?

I do, but only because there's no way someone can brute force my password: "ju5t1nb13b3rf4n69"

Yep, that's a very strong password. No worries. You're 100% safe.

[pleiotropik]

All ponzi schemes need an initial pool of enthusiasts. For them to be enthusiastic they must receive a payout. Right now BT has a good number of people saying "i'm green" and not telling a lie. There's a second kind that says "i'm green" but they are not being truthful for they detect that being truthful would be detrimental to their cause of recruiting more investors on whose money their payouts depend.

The massive thirty trillion fraud called the "housing boom" is a classic ponzi scheme since the premise was false -"Real Estate always rises in price"-  and its momentum depended on a never ending stream of new suckers that would sign on the dotted line of the paper called mortgage.

I bring that epic instance of ponzification of a whole economy to the conversation because the mass psychology of Bubbles and Ponzi Schemes does not vary in history. Masses can and will  be self delusional and dishonest. This says nothing of individuals. it's just the herd asserting control over the individual, if honesty impoverishes you, you will learn to lie or die of hunger. With the added bonus that whenever it's time to crash, you can crash all together and keep solace with your brethren.

But the top of the pyramid made out like bandits. So when you evaluate a probabilistically high likelihood of an investment being a ponzi, the real question you have to ask yourself when you put money in is "am i early enough to reap the benefit of the bubble?"

And that is exactly the question i posed to myself. I gave it even odds and with that decided to sink a NOT significant % of my stash into it.

I never endorsed or advertised or prompted anybody to "invest" for that would have tainted me in my own eyes since i would have reaped an extra benefit for recruiting. Neither did i ever try to deny the ponzi scheme accusations which well might eventually prove to be true.

But it boils down to this question: Are you early enough; is there a potential pool of investors behind you to allow you to cash out above your gambled/invested money?

I'm not giving odds on that one as of today -even though i have a well formed opinion on BT's eventual demise- for if anybody assumes this is financial advice it must be because they already own the Brooklyn Bridge.

I wrote this little piece so that detractors and defenders can, perhaps work out another angle of debate. i Have enjoyed the trollnado here and would like to keep the discussion lively at the same time that i thank everybody posting here.

 

[pleiotropik]

As for strong passwords:

Pick an obscure poem you like, string 10 words together if it's something critical in your web access, change the password once a month and only the N.S.A will know what you're up to.

[pleiotropik]

"housemarket is not a ponzi, its inflation driven"

Interesting way of putting it. Would that mean that from 2008 to 2009 US had negative inflation in the order of 60%?

[ranlo]

"housemarket is not a ponzi, its inflation driven"

Interesting way of putting it. Would that mean that from 2008 to 2009 US had negative inflation in the order of 60%?

Negative inflation would be "deflation."

[BombaUcigasa]

"housemarket is not a ponzi, its inflation driven"

Interesting way of putting it. Would that mean that from 2008 to 2009 US had negative inflation in the order of 60%?

Negative inflation would be "deflation."

Deflation, like in deflationary. That's good, right?

[PilotofBTC]

"housemarket is not a ponzi, its inflation driven"

Interesting way of putting it. Would that mean that from 2008 to 2009 US had negative inflation in the order of 60%?

Negative inflation would be "deflation."

Deflation, like in deflationary. That's good, right?

It really depends on what economist you talk to whether inflation or deflation are a "good" thing.

[crazyivan]

"housemarket is not a ponzi, its inflation driven"

Interesting way of putting it. Would that mean that from 2008 to 2009 US had negative inflation in the order of 60%?

Negative inflation would be "deflation."

Deflation, like in deflationary. That's good, right?

It really depends on what economist you talk to whether inflation or deflation are a "good" thing.

You people must be bored big time....

[msarro]

"housemarket is not a ponzi, its inflation driven"

Interesting way of putting it. Would that mean that from 2008 to 2009 US had negative inflation in the order of 60%?

Negative inflation would be "deflation."

Deflation, like in deflationary. That's good, right?

It really depends on what economist you talk to whether inflation or deflation are a "good" thing.

There's actually a good bit of evidence showing that very minimal inflation is good (>=~1%). It gets people to buy things rather than continually waiting for prices to go down.

[capoeira]

"housemarket is not a ponzi, its inflation driven"

Interesting way of putting it. Would that mean that from 2008 to 2009 US had negative inflation in the order of 60%?

Negative inflation would be "deflation."

Deflation, like in deflationary. That's good, right?

It really depends on what economist you talk to whether inflation or deflation are a "good" thing.

There's actually a good bit of evidence showing that very minimal inflation is good (>=~1%). It gets people to buy things rather than continually waiting for prices to go down.

In this forum, this opinion, shared by about 95% of economists...will cause you a lot of agressive replys.

Btw: what is good or not for a specific economie depends realy on many other factors. Economies try to not find out how deflation would affect their specific situation... because when a deflation is negative it turns desasterous.....inflation is just better to control

[tmfp]

You do understand these guys are online over 9 months. Add 1 more year to this time and they would be 21 months online. Since full ROI is under 4 months, including reinvesting, this would mean people would reach ROI 5 times during this period. You really think something which is not legit can survive to pay out 500% return on investment to 2000 of its members just from ponzi earnings?

IMO, this just does not add up.

Talking about things not adding up, they could have avoided all the hassle of dealing with investors, receipts and payments and all these awkward questions very easily.
Just stayed private.
If they had started with just $10k of their own money and traded and reinvested at 2% per day, then after 21 months they would have over FORTY MILLION DOLLARS. All for themselves.
Why do they need investors at all?