[BitcoinMax.com] Closed

[JoelKatz]

YES with a big big please
i want to think for myself and i really hate it when other people try to tell me what to do (even if it means that i get burned) - my parents hated me for this

You are still thinking that this is about the relationship between the PPT operators and the people who paid them money. It is not. It is about what they paid Pirate to do.

If I ask for donations to hire a hitman to kill my boss, I'm not ripping off my investors if I actually use the money to hire a hitman to kill my boss. The issue is what I paid the hitman to do. What did the PPT operators pay Pirate to do?

again: we still dont know for sure if it was a ponzi or not.
i still think that pirate tried to be honest but failed because of his clients - but i dont know.

It makes no difference. Even if you think that Pirate wasn't a Ponzi, his business is still indistinguishable from a Ponzi. So this is some kind of "essence" or "omniscience" argument. ("You can't prove there's no possible way I'm right, even though all the evidence suggests that I'm wrong.") If I shoot at you with a gun I loaded yesterday, having no reason to believe anyone unloaded it, can I somehow escape responsibility because there was some chance someone unloaded the gun before I aimed it at you? Of course not. It's still wrong because I have no reason to believe the gun is unloaded and every reason to believe it's loaded. The standard for moral judgment is not a hypothetical being with perfect knowledge.

what exactly to you want to prevent?

anonymous funds / projects?
ponzis?

i dont see any way to distinguish between them. and one of the reasons i love bitcoins is that i have the chance to keep my businness anon (btw this does not mean it is illegal by any way).

If there is no way to distinguish between the two then there is no difference with respect to the culpability of the investors for the two.

Say there are a bunch of boxes. Some are empty and some contain children. There is no way to distinguish which is which. Should you shoot at the boxes?

I hope you don't take this as rude, but you really demonstrating how Ponzi schemes and the desire for a quick, unearned buck make people throw reason to the wind.

[flower1024]

YES with a big big please
i want to think for myself and i really hate it when other people try to tell me what to do (even if it means that i get burned) - my parents hated me for this

You are still thinking that this is about the relationship between the PPT operators and the people who paid them money. It is not. It is about what they paid Pirate to do.

If I ask for donations to hire a hitman to kill my boss, I'm not ripping off my investors if I actually use the money to hire a hitman to kill my boss. The issue is what I paid the hitman to do. What did the PPT operators pay Pirate to do?

they lended it to him for 7%/week.
and (my guess) they did hedge their own risk so they could still get the 7% without investing so much from their own money.

I hope you don't take this as rude,

i'm fine but thanks

but you really demonstrating how Ponzi schemes and the desire for a quick, unearned buck make people throw reason to the wind.

higher risk means higher reward.
i dont see how this is "unearned".

i work for my money, i guess this is what you consider "earned" money.
but why not gamble a little?

[JoelKatz]

higher risk means higher reward.

This is not about risk. Risk is the chance that you'll lose the spin of the roulette wheel. This is about the casino planting a magnet under the roulette wheel.

When you hire someone to clean your house and he steals your jewelery, people don't say that this was a risk you accepted when you hired someone to clean your house and that you knew a house cleaner might steal.

i dont see how this is "unearned".

When you are willfully blind to how you are being paid an extraordinary amount of money, it is unearned.

i work for my money, i guess this is what you consider "earned" money.
but why not gamble a little?

This is not about gambling. Gambling is when you play roulette. This is about the casino planting a magnet under the roulette wheel. There is a massive difference between gambling and fraud.

When you pay a deposit to buy a car from a dealer, there's a chance the dealer will run off with your deposit. But we don't refer to taking this risk as "gambling".

[unclescrooge]

Joel,  you don't have the start of a proof, so stop accusing.

Assumptions and facts are different things.

[Inedible]

Was I aware of what I was getting myself into? Yes.

Then you are a scammer. You knowingly paid Pirate to fraudulently transfer other people's money to you without their consent.

It's not like I didn't read payb.tc's warnings. It's not like he didn't say you stand to lose your entire gam...er...invstment.

That's not the issue. It's not what Pirate did with your money, it's what you paid him to do.

Everyone's saying "a 3400% annual return rate - it's got to be a scam" - well I agree with you. Did I still take a chance, sure.

Okay, so you knowingly participated in a scam. You are a scammer.

I don't think anyone who can think rationally could believe that there wasn't something fishy here, especially with no information as to how these returns were being generated.

Right, so you knew it was a scam.

I'm also as suspicious of people who are calling people like payb.tc scammers, for exactly the same reasons.

Umm, how do you figure? You don't agree that they paid Pirate to fraudulently transfer other people's money to them?

If you're a rational person who can think for themselves, how can people who operated passthroughs be considered scammers?

Because they knowingly participated in a scam and tried to profit from it. Duh.

Some have said that they're scammers because they helped legitimise Pirate... how? Am I a scammer because I gambled? Did I legitimise him?

You are a scammer because you knowingly participated in a scam, paying Pirate to make you the beneficiary of fraudulent transfers of other people's money. Sorry, but that's the truth.

True or false: Pirate induced people to invest in him by claiming to have an actual business that turned a legitimate profit. You knew, however, that he was probably using new investments to pay off interest on previous investments. You knew or should have known that by investing with Pirate, you were in fact paying him to transfer some of those funds that others were lead to believe would be invested to you, which is in no way an investment of those funds.

How can you say that doesn't make you a scammer? How long until reality sinks in and the cognitive dissonance stops?

Ah - I think I see the problem.

There are two subtle issues here which appear to be being called the same thing by both sides and thus causing some confusion.

1) I've been scammed - I don't feel this to be the case as I went into this knowing I could lose my investment.

2) I'm scamming - This would only be true of people who went into this believing they would never lose anything (this can't be true either as they will have gone into it knowing what I knew) and me expecting my returns to come from those that invested after me (which I didn't).

Did anyone invest believing they wouldn't lose anything?
Did anyone invest expecting their payments would come from others who joined later?

Neither of those are true of me but I can't speak for everyone else.

[Vladimir]

The extraordinary claim is not that pirate and his crew run a ponzi. The extraordinary and preceding claim is that pirate and his crew are operating some biz model producing ~14204% annual ROI and that it reasonably requires capital to be borrowed at ~3372% APR.

As such the burden of proof never even initially was on JoelKatz. It was and is on pirate and his shills and his captives and simply idiots who think that a biz model with 14204% ROI biz model is in a realm of possibility.

Even if the above is not the case, and someone first claimed that pirate is operating a ponzi, and only after that pirate claimed his magical money making machine existence. Still Occam's Razor argument effectively shifts burden of proof back to pirate and his shills.

Nobody needs to prove anything to claim that an operation claiming ~14204% annual ROI (10%/week) and requiring capital to be borrowed at ~3372% APR (7% a week) is indeed a ponzi scheme (or some other kind of fraud and combination of various fraudulent activities) for all practical purposes until proven otherwise.

The only slight innacuracy here is saying that it is definitely a ponzi. It is just being said so for convenience and simplicity. There of course could be other types of fraud involved and even one type of fraud could be converted into other type of fraud over time etc.

[Inedible]

Sorry - re-replying because I didn't answer one of your questions directly.

I'm also as suspicious of people who are calling people like payb.tc scammers, for exactly the same reasons.

Umm, how do you figure? You don't agree that they paid Pirate to fraudulently transfer other people's money to them?

I don't believe payb.tc paid Pirate to fraudulently transfer other people's money to them. Personally, I hope that the money is generated in some high, risk, high reward scheme. 3400% is just too good to believe and that's where we differ. I believe it's more likely to blow up than to work out. I've made some high risk investments (run by me) that if they'd worked out would have made me very wealthy but they didn't work out.

I think this lies at the heart of our disagreement. You rightly believe that if someone were going into an investment knowing the money was being used in a Ponzi that they're implicit in the wrongdoing. I agree with you but we differ in our belief that Pirate is a scammer (currently anyway).

If you're a rational person who can think for themselves, how can people who operated passthroughs be considered scammers?

Because they knowingly participated in a scam and tried to profit from it. Duh.

Some have said that they're scammers because they helped legitimise Pirate... how? Am I a scammer because I gambled? Did I legitimise him?

You are a scammer because you knowingly participated in a scam, paying Pirate to make you the beneficiary of fraudulent transfers of other people's money. Sorry, but that's the truth.
[/quote]

I agree with your conclusion but I disagree that Pirate is a scammer (with the existing evidence).

True or false: Pirate induced people to invest in him by claiming to have an actual business that turned a legitimate profit. You knew, however, that he was probably using new investments to pay off interest on previous investments. You knew or should have known that by investing with Pirate, you were in fact paying him to transfer some of those funds that others were lead to believe would be invested to you, which is in no way an investment of those funds.

How can you say that doesn't make you a scammer? How long until reality sinks in and the cognitive dissonance stops?

False. I disagree completely but if I did believe Pirate to be a scammer, yes I'm with you 100%.

[JoelKatz]

Ah - I think I see the problem.

There are two subtle issues here which appear to be being called the same thing by both sides and thus causing some confusion.

1) I've been scammed - I don't feel this to be the case as I went into this knowing I could lose my investment.

I'm with you on that one.

2) I'm scamming - This would only be true of people who went into this believing they would never lose anything (this can't be true either as they will have gone into it knowing what I knew) and me expecting my returns to come from those that invested after me (which I didn't).

I can't follow this reasoning at all.

Say I promise you a 10% weekly return if you lend me $500. I have no intention of paying you back. I am trying to scam you.

You say, "I won't have $500 until payday. But if you buy me lunch today, I'll lend you the $500."

If I buy you lunch, now my $500 loan scam, that I still fully intend to carry out, isn't a scam because you might not lend me the $500?

No, not every scam is a sure thing. Otherwise, nothing is a scam because someone might steal the money you scammed.

Did anyone invest believing they wouldn't lose anything?
Did anyone invest expecting their payments would come from others who joined later?

Neither of those are true of me but I can't speak for everyone else.

The operative question is this one: Did anyone invest knowing that this scheme was indistinguishable from one in which interest payments to earlier investors come from later investors and no (or insignificant) legitimate investment actually takes place?

And, by the way, several people have admitted that they thought it was a Ponzi but invested anyway. Necessarily, they expected their payments to come from others who joined later.

[Vladimir]

I can't stand how people keep bringing up the yearly compounded interest rate and how it was impossible.

Bitcoin Savings & Trust didn't even run for a year.

Get back to us once you understand meaning of compound interest, annual ROI and APR (AER to be more accurate, we are not talking about US version of APR here).

[Inedible]

hgmichna & JoelKatz

I'm beginning to understand what you're saying now.

Your argument is a moral one.

Whilst there is a hope that such a highly profitable venture exists, belief in one is naive and almost wilfully ignorant. Is that roughly what you're saying?

If that's the case you're making then I can see where you're coming from and I guess all that's left for me to say is that I hope there is some legitimacy in Pirate's venture.

[unclescrooge]

The extraordinary claim is not that pirate and his crew run a ponzi. The extraordinary and preceding claim is that pirate and his crew are operating some biz model producing ~14204% annual ROI and that it reasonably requires capital to be borrowed at ~3372% APR.

As such the burden of proof never even initially was on JoelKatz. It was and is on pirate and his shills and his captives and simply idiots who think that a biz model with 14204% ROI biz model is in a realm of possibility.

Even if the above is not the case, and someone first claimed that pirate is operating a ponzi, and only after that pirate claimed his magical money making machine existence. Still Occam's Razor argument effectively shifts burden of proof back to pirate and his shills.

Nobody needs to prove anything to claim that an operation claiming ~14204% annual ROI (10%/week) and requiring capital to be borrowed at ~3372% APR (7% a week) is indeed a ponzi scheme (or some other kind of fraud and combination of various fraudulent activities) for all practical purposes until proven otherwise.

The only slight innacuracy here is saying that it is definitely a ponzi. It is just being said so for convenience and simplicity. There of course could be other types of fraud involved and even one type of fraud could be converted into other type of fraud over time etc.

It has actually been exposed how such return could be possible on this very forum (only to be dismissed by mockery). I even tried to discuss that yesterday with Joel in another thread. He didn't responded to the point I made and went on how "even if it is possible why wouldn't he pay his debt back instead of continuing to borrow".

He should have done that though, that wouldn't have put him in the situation he is now, with his name, adress and face known, and a debt of 5 millions he can't repay because at some point he screwed up :/

[Inedible]

I can't stand how people keep bringing up the yearly compounded interest rate and how it was impossible.

Bitcoin Savings & Trust didn't even run for a year.

It's the crux of why we should have seen it as a scam. There are almost no legitimate businesses that can make those kinds of returns.

It's the equivalent of someone offering you a £1000 television for £10. Sure, it's possible but very unlikely to be legal.

[dextryn]

This is all so annoying.  All of you anti-pirate people, please find a different thread.  This thread is for people involved in bitcoinmax, not for you to spew your endless rage of anti-pirate sentiment.  We're all aware of both sides at this point, so please stop trying to stroke your ego by hijacking threads.

[marks1976]

This is all so annoying.  All of you anti-pirate people, please find a different thread.  This thread is for people involved in bitcoinmax, not for you to spew your endless rage of anti-pirate sentiment.  We're all aware of both sides at this point, so please stop trying to stroke your ego by hijacking threads.

+1
I also think OP should lock thread again to stop the wasted space.  This is for bitcoinmax and it's users.  Thread was unlocked to allow business to occur between site users.  That hasn't been the case in some time again.

[Inedible]

2) I'm scamming - This would only be true of people who went into this believing they would never lose anything (this can't be true either as they will have gone into it knowing what I knew) and me expecting my returns to come from those that invested after me (which I didn't).

I can't follow this reasoning at all.

Say I promise you a 10% weekly return if you lend me $500. I have no intention of paying you back. I am trying to scam you.

You say, "I won't have $500 until payday. But if you buy me lunch today, I'll lend you the $500."

If I buy you lunch, now my $500 loan scam, that I still fully intend to carry out, isn't a scam because you might not lend me the $500?

I don't quite follow. I agree it's still a scam but I don't follow the 'lunch' part of the analogy.

Did anyone invest believing they wouldn't lose anything?
Did anyone invest expecting their payments would come from others who joined later?

Neither of those are true of me but I can't speak for everyone else.

The operative question is this one: Did anyone invest knowing that this scheme was indistinguishable from one in which interest payments to earlier investors come from later investors and no (or insignificant) legitimate investment actually takes place?

And, by the way, several people have admitted that they thought it was a Ponzi but invested anyway. Necessarily, they expected their payments to come from others who joined later.

The scheme being indistinguishable from a ponzi doesn't make it a ponzi. I'm not saying that shouldn't be the conclusion to be reached but in this case, if you've been told it's a ponzi and everyone else participating knows it's a ponzi, I don't see the harm of people joining in. Haven't there been multiple ponzi threads on Bitcointalk where people participated of their own volition?

(BTW, did your avatar previously have a photograph of you wearing glasses or am I thinking of someone else?)

[JoelKatz]

The scheme being indistinguishable from a ponzi doesn't make it a ponzi.

I'm not saying that shouldn't be the conclusion to be reached but in this case, if you've been told it's a ponzi and everyone else participating knows it's a ponzi, I don't see the harm of people joining in. Haven't there been multiple ponzi threads on Bitcointalk where people participated of their own volition?

Seriously? You're going to argue both that it might not be a Ponzi and that everyone knew it was a Ponzi? That both arguments are even superficially plausible demonstrates that it's a fraudulent scheme.

(BTW, did your avatar previously have a photograph of you wearing glasses or am I thinking of someone else?)

That was me.

[hgmichna]

hgmichna & JoelKatz

I'm beginning to understand what you're saying now.

Your argument is a moral one.

Whilst there is a hope that such a highly profitable venture exists, belief in one is naive and almost wilfully ignorant. Is that roughly what you're saying?

Yes, roughly.

If that's the case you're making then I can see where you're coming from and I guess all that's left for me to say is that I hope there is some legitimacy in Pirate's venture.

I do not believe that anybody capable of running a front-end operation for the pirate, for example, processing "investments" for a significant number of clients, is at the same time so stupid that he does not see the scam in the face of a continuous stream of explanations and warnings.

I also cannot believe that you indeed hope even today that "there is some legitimacy in Pirate's venture".

[c0in$]

The extraordinary claim is not that pirate and his crew run a ponzi. The extraordinary and preceding claim is that pirate and his crew are operating some biz model producing ~14204% annual ROI and that it reasonably requires capital to be borrowed at ~3372% APR.

As such the burden of proof never even initially was on JoelKatz. It was and is on pirate and his shills and his captives and simply idiots who think that a biz model with 14204% ROI biz model is in a realm of possibility.

Even if the above is not the case, and someone first claimed that pirate is operating a ponzi, and only after that pirate claimed his magical money making machine existence. Still Occam's Razor argument effectively shifts burden of proof back to pirate and his shills.

Nobody needs to prove anything to claim that an operation claiming ~14204% annual ROI (10%/week) and requiring capital to be borrowed at ~3372% APR (7% a week) is indeed a ponzi scheme (or some other kind of fraud and combination of various fraudulent activities) for all practical purposes until proven otherwise.

The only slight innacuracy here is saying that it is definitely a ponzi. It is just being said so for convenience and simplicity. There of course could be other types of fraud involved and even one type of fraud could be converted into other type of fraud over time etc.

Vladimir, there is something you are overlooking...  7% ROI in btc is not equivalent to 7% ROI in $... you will see what I mean in 48 hours

[piotr_n]

Guys, I believe that matthew is still accepting the bets for weather pirate will eventually pay out or not.
So, instead of flooding this topic with your useless whimpering, why won't you just go talk to him and put your money where your mouth is?
Or - if you don't want to put any money where your mouth is - why won't you just start your own whimpering topic and shut the fuck up here?

[LoweryCBS]

It was a scam all along! toldyasolol!

Wait...    what?

WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY WARN ME ABOUT THIS ?!?





Seriouslly, payb.tc: lock this thread until there's news.