Wattum.io, to be exact.
That's got us off on the wrong foot.
The domain .io covers a post colonial area called the British Indian Ocean territory, particularly the Chagos Islands.
They were popular addresses for tech and startups (and also scams) from the start, but their popularity plummeted with companies that had any social awareness because of the
ethnic cleansing carried out in that area by the British Government.
Like many domains, anyone can buy a .io address, including
kiddiePr0nnners.Anyways, that's no reason to draw any hasty conclusions, I'm sure there's thousands of totally legit .io businesses about.
As I research and do due dilligence on investment opportunities in the crypto field, it's often difficult to conclusively find proof of courtroom standard that such and such a scheme is definitely a scam, but it is fairly easy to look for signs in their behavior that indicate that extra skepticism is prudent, including the telling of falsehoods.
There are two basic reasons not to deal with liars.
One is that liars are unpleasant people generally and I don't want to reward their behavior by investing with them.
Two is that liars don't stop lying. If you find something innocuous but provably and deliberately a falsehood - lie - then there's a temptation to say "Oh, it's not important" and let it go. I don't think that's wise. If someone lies or misleads others on the small things, then surely the impulse to lie would be increased as the reward for doing so grows.
Anyway again, this pre amble is relevant.
For some reason I get notifications on a couple of those generic threads much loved of spammers, about
Cloud Mining and saw this one
Hi, miners!
I am looking for cloud mining reviews, ROI, payouts and more information about cloud mining, please give your honest reviews and reasoned advice about legal cloud mining service...
That's bot/spammer grammar, so I looked at "Jack"s recent posts.
Strange.
On the same day he was looking for cloud mining advice, he was busy posting this everywhere...
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FJutxb9S.png&t=665&c=DP2CWj_13GicVA)
He was also being answered by another 'Peterson' account, registered at the same time
I mine for 2 years and mining now, so in my personal rating of legal, profitable mining services with advanced equipment, high-quality service with daily payments:
Genesis (new mining farms, promo codes, but sometimes they have some problems with payments)
Wattum.io (most profitable offer for mining btc and altcoins, data-centers located at USA and Canada)
This post has since been deleted in a cleanup of that account, a day after I posted the first of a few warnings about the two accounts and another two,
MelisaMoris and
DavidStone which were also "echochambering" Wattum endorsement in the same way.
The pairing of Genesis and Wattum in their shilling is a common tactic of "credit by association" i.e. Genesis are seen to be legit cloud mining market leaders (by the
unenlightened lol) so by linking the two names in the reader's comprehension, Wattum receives vicarious credibility.
"No Big Deal", you say, "Alt accounts are doing this all the time".
Yeah, probably, but by dismissing it as such you fall into the "accepting the little lie" syndrome I mention above.
It prompted me to have a look at Wattum.
They have a pretty standard website, full of standard unverified claims in broken English
The USA and Canada are TOP countries to invest in, which ensures the high reliability of Wattum company.
With our expertise, we are able to reduce energy consumption, while increasing the hashing power of Mining Rigs. Our contracts for electricity are below average market prices.
While we keep the exact locations private as a security precaution, the bulk of our mining is split between our data centers in Miami (USA) and Winnipeg (Canada).
Their pricing is standard, for BTC $89 per Th/s. They charge a maintenance fee, (variously and on the same page??) quoted as $0.319 Ths/day and $0.35 per day. Currently 1 Th/s will return about $0.40 mined per day, so at a cumulative net income of $0.05 per day that looks like 20 days to earn a dollar, or 4.8+ years to ROI. Of course, they also have a minimum withdrawal amout of 0.004
BTC, around $33, so small investors will have to wait years to get their dust).
But at least Wattum can't be accused of fanciful ROI claiming, unlike the
Kazakh Kave Kompany....
Wattum claim to be in serviced offices in NY. That's in America, where they can't sell their passive investment plans to the locals.
Yeah, but they have lots of people, including PR specialists and media specialists.
Back to the "little lie" concept.
These pushy and ambitious sales/media persons have lots of time and nous to be creative in their attempts to establish a solid perception of Wattum, the more likely to attract investment.
For example, they have a scrolling "REVIEWS" section on their landing page, featuring happy, contented customers.
These customers are called Ali Moani and Terry Gramm.
(Just a small diversion here.
I have experience of scam operations firsthand, including "boiler room" selling of fictitious investment programs.
You need a certain psychological makeup to lie to people on a deliberate, ongoing basis.
You dehumanise the "marks", the victims, and convince yourself that they deserve to get ripped off because of their stupidity.
You become contemptuous of them. In one particular Gold shares scam that I knew intimately the cold calling boiler room guys would have a weekly competiton amongst themselves (with a $10k sweepstake prize) for the most pisstaking but successful completion, containing the most outrageous lies and jokes..)
Anyway, Ali Moani = Alimony phonetically. Good joke.
And Ali Moani, the satisfied Wattum German investor, only exists in the imagination of Wattum's PR department (and Columbia).
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FZEhnid9.png&t=665&c=qx7tznRqgpvRGw)
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FZdEmzcn.png&t=665&c=gDP8_uXxd26Vwg)
And "Terry Gramm" from Canada, satisfied customer of Wattum
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FVkJCevZ.png&t=665&c=LIm7q4J5Ow59Nw)
is actually HAPPY CUTE CAUCASIAN MAN from Shutterstock
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FAdb8inM.png&t=665&c=EGwflfoyfqhSIg)
It's the "little lies", see.
MTF.