Mining contracts - the new ponzi

[cooltoadfrommoon]

its not "ponzi", in my opinion. Its all about the investment someone can do.

[phillipsjk]

its not "ponzi", in my opinion. Its all about the investment someone can do.

If there is no actual investment (revenues paid from new participants), it is a Ponzi.

[smooth]

Given the lack of transparency with most if not all of these schemes you might as well (and should) assume they are fraudulent until and unless proven otherwise.

Do not send money to anyone for any reason unless trust has been demonstrated in a transparent and verifiable way. If people followed this simple rule, these so-called mining operations as currently structured would all disappear.

[phillipsjk]

Incidentally, one way to prove that that actually do have mining hardware is wait for it... "proof-of-work"!

A hashing operation that wants to prove that they have the hash power you purchased, needs only to point it at a pool that you specify. You can host the Pool yourself (for example using P2Pool), or tell them to use one of your Bitcoin addresses while pointing the hasher at one of the more traditional pools.

This while hash-power is still concentrated in one place, people would notice if an attack is under-way because the hash power they are paying for would suddenly disappear.

Edit: some mining/proxy software would need tweaking to split the miner into smaller blocks. Logical sub-units for ASICminer hardware are per-chip at 0.333 Ghash/s. Each chip seems to mostly ask for work independently.

[smooth]

Incidentally, one way to prove that that actually do have mining hardware is wait for it... "proof-of-work"!

A hashing operation that wants to prove that they have the hash power you purchased, needs only to point it at a pool that you specify. You can host the Pool yourself (for example using P2Pool), or tell them to use one of your Bitcoin addresses while pointing the hasher at one of the more traditional pools.

This while hash-power is still concentrated in one place, people would notice if an attack is under-way because the hash power they are paying for would suddenly disappear.

Only if everybody does that. If only a few people do it they can fraudulently run on fractional reserve.

[CAMTRONNNNN]

First off;
BTCig props to anyone who owns 18/45 posts in their own thread. BTCallin

Secondly;
Props to Mr. Piggles for callin' it like he sees it, irregardless of it's truth or widespread espousal.

Third;
Nooo!! Gaieus!! Gaisues!! is ponzi!!! Confirmed I know how to berate someone for no reason AND wrong raisone! Nah ugh!! I know how do that and then also after you, 2!!!

In summation;
YES, Mr. Piggles knows what a ponzi scheme is. Jesus fucking christ on an avalon eruptor stick... I couldn't give less of a fuck what the definition, cut and dried of the concept of a Ponzi Scheme is after this incessant and unwarranted Pggle-bashing. The fuck

[CAMTRONNNNN]

its not "ponzi", in my opinion. Its all about the investment someone can do.

BTCrilliant. Thank you for weighing in.

[CAMTRONNNNN]

Sorry, I did miss that point on the thread, but have been following the thread on pbmining and whether it is a scam or not.

I don't think all mining-as-a-service companies are scams, but I do think several of them bank on the fact the newbie is not well informed about mining in general. Case in point, the 5 year deal that pbmining offers, what value are gh purchased today going to be worth in 5 years? Most hashing power purchased today declines rapidly in effectiveness towards an ROI. The only way that would change is if difficulty fell, which I don't see happening in the future at all.

So I think companies like pbming are banking on that, raising capital through sales quickly to fund the purchase of more hardware to fund more sales, rinse, and repeat. I don't think that's a sustainable business model. If anything, it's a pyramid model...

There's another thread here where a mining company looks like a ponzi, it sold bonds (LabRat) and then decided to change the payout structure per bond. Well, as you can imagine, everyone is flipping out because it turned a bond into something nearly worthless.  Check it out https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=251423.3720

/thread

[MrPiggles]

First off;
BTCig props to anyone who owns 18/45 posts in their own thread. BTCallin

Is there a way to see how many post someone has in a thread or did you manually count them?

[RyanK]

In regards to PBMining, I have been with them since their first week with the website up (first 100 customers) and although I can't guarantee it is not a scam, all I have to say is if it is, they have the best customer service ever for a scam and it was very well thought out...

If you are interested in purchasing with PBmining, please do so through my referral link as I will greatly appreciate it!

PBMINING.COM  BUY NOW: 0.0083BTC/GHs 5 Year Contract

[808Mining]

We are just a small company selling mining contracts.
We built our own system from scratch. No glossy website, no big promotional budget.

My wife handles customer support and scheduling, I created the system she uses.

Now we are expanding.

GHashForCash.com is the system we created over the past 4 weeks.

[smooth]

If you are interested in purchasing with PBmining, please do so through my referral link as I will greatly appreciate it!

Because after all you have to give back your referral fees if it turns out to be a scam and people lose their money right?

[smooth]

We are just a small company selling mining contracts.

And what assurances can you give that you are creditworthy so people should send you their money and trust you to send something back? Are you posting proof of your physical identity and assets so if it turns out that you are ripping people off, they can easily sue you? Are you posting a bond?

What have you done to credibly demonstrate your trustworthiness?

[CoinFirma]

Mr. Piggles,

Regrettably, there are a few bad actors in the cloud-mining business.  However, it's unfair to paint all of us in the sector with such a broad brush.

As a show of good faith and to demonstrate that not all cloud-mining companies are a "ponzi", please accept our offer of 20 GH/s of free cloud mining for 1 week. All we ask in return is that we live up to our end of the offer; you let others know that we kept our word.

Please email us your contact information via the forum, and we'll email you.  Sound fair?

[smooth]

As a show of good faith and to demonstrate that not all cloud-mining companies are a "ponzi", please accept our offer of 20 GH/s of free cloud mining for 1 week. All we ask in return is that we live up to our end of the offer; you let others know that we kept our word.

How does this "demonstrate" that you aren't a ponzi? It doesn't. At best it means nothing, at worst it is bait meant to lure in even more investors/suckers. You realize that practically every ponzi scheme in the history of the world started out with some good returns early. That's what lures brings in the suckers and makes the scheme work.

[CoinFirma]

Thank You, Smooth, but we are not reliant on attracting any new customers in order to payback early customers.  Our customers mine independent of what other potential new customers may or may not do.

[smooth]

Thank You, Smooth, but we are not reliant on attracting any new customers in order to payback early customers.  Our customers mine independent of what other potential new customers may or may not do.

How can we independently verify any of that, and how will you be held accountable if it turns out not to be true?

Are you posting proof of your physical identity and assets so if it turns out that you are ripping people off, they can easily sue you? Are you posting a bond?

You realize that every ponzi operator says "I'm not running a ponzi scheme" so that alone can't ever be used to tell the difference between legitimate operators (if there even are any -- I have my doubts) and fraudulent ones.

Demonstrate clearly and verifiably why you (especially YOU with your "Activity: 6") should be trusted or expect people such as me to continue warning people not to trust you.

[CoinFirma]

Yes, you can learn more about us via our website.  Additionally, you can always follow me personally on Twitter @TheBitcoinGirl

[ghur]

Mr. Piggles,

Regrettably, there are a few bad actors in the cloud-mining business.  However, it's unfair to paint all of us in the sector with such a broad brush.

As a show of good faith and to demonstrate that not all cloud-mining companies are a "ponzi", please accept our offer of 20 GH/s of free cloud mining for 1 week. All we ask in return is that we live up to our end of the offer; you let others know that we kept our word.

Please email us your contact information via the forum, and we'll email you.  Sound fair?

Yes, you can learn more about us via our website.  Additionally, you can always follow me personally on Twitter @TheBitcoinGirl

It looks kinda fishy.

Doing a reverse image search on the photos posted here:
One works for a casting agency and the other is an actress.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ryansfelton doesn't mention CoinFirma.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5042024/ seems odd for an actress to do customer services.

[smooth]

One works for a casting agency and the other is an actress.

To be fair it says that right on their page, so in a sense you are verifying their claimed identities...

EDIT: https://cgov.sos.state.ga.us/Account.aspx/ViewEntityData?entityId=4822146