▁ ▂ ▄ ▅ ▆ Cloudmining 101 (ponzi risk assessment) ▆ ▅ ▄ ▂ ▁

[Puppet]

However:
-physical ownership is a kind of wrong argument. It excludes platforms using hosted services from another locations. CEX for example claims they host all over the world. You cannot say they physically own the hashrate.

I dont know how cex.io is structured exactly, but AFAIK its at least partially owned by bitfury. Bitfury most certainly does posses a shitload of physical mining assets. And this is important, because you claim to rent your hashrate somewhere else. THat means;

1) you have no control over it
2) you add a layer of uncertainty on top of a third party provider that we arent even allowed to know and therefore can not judge.

Even if you're not lying, we can not know if you thought eg pbmining was a legitimate venture, and you could have bought hashrate there. Or you might be buying at GAWminers.

Moreover, we would have to know what kind of deal you have exactly. For instance, are you renting for 1 month? 1 year?  5 years ?

Just are essentially just saying 'trust me", and that is not going to cut it.

-setting up a limited company solves this problem to the degree of the sum fixed in the funding contract (or extended further in the future if a company raises more capital). So technically I can set up an Ltd with $1,000 capital and my liabilities will be limited to this amount. Everything is correct according to law but to me it does not give the credibility.

No your liabilities are not limited to $1000 if you perpetuate fraud.

As Ive said this a few times, its of course possible some honest companies are being labeled as ponzi by me now, just like its possible there some real Nigerian princes willing to do business with you. But considering the label is because of their lack of disclosure, Im completely fine with that, and certainly prefer it over attributing a legitimate label to a company that turns out to be a ponzi.

[1713530002]

1713530002

[1713530002]

1713530002

[1713530002]

1713530002

[1713530002]

1713530002

[1713530002]

1713530002

[Alns]

Thanks, cool list.

[armedmilitia]

From the looks of the list you're only showing SHA256 cloud mining companies. No "love" for the scrypt crowd? I heard zeusminer/zeushash stopped payouts for their contracts...  

EDIT: Looks like zeus does SHA256 too... Huh. Might want to check them out, they're pretty popular.

[Puppet]

From the looks of the list you're only showing SHA256 cloud mining companies. No "love" for the scrypt crowd?

exactly. I dont follow alt coins at all, sorry. But you can apply the same criteria yourself. IN fact I strongly encourage everyone to do their own due diligence, dont just take my word for it.

I heard zeusminer stopped payouts for their contracts... 

Link?

[armedmilitia]

Link?

No proof, this is what I saw:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=892061.0

Link to their official site:
https://zeushash.com/

[Puppet]

No proof, this is what I saw:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=892061.0

Interesting. Ill keep on eye on it, but for now one or two users reporting 1 day delay, its a bit early to pronounce a collapse.
edit: well its more than 1-2 users clearly, but lets not yet rule out a technical issue.

Link to their official site:
https://zeushash.com/

I know who they are, they are rated on my list:
Zeushash              1+2+3+4+5          => 5/7 = (very) suspicious

[armedmilitia]

I know who they are, they are rated on my list:
Zeushash              1+2+3+4+5          => 5/7 = (very) suspicious

Whoops, must have missed that! In my defense, that list is getting pretty long. Maybe we should start a wiki?  

[darkangel11]

There is no chance to positively verify a legit mining operation, that's the paradox.

Yes, there is!
If you show your mining address anyone can calculate how many coins you mined and how many you paid out to your clients. As long as the coins keep moving from the mining address to their clients, while the money the clients paid for shares go to a separate address, everything is fine.

Even if you have a public mining address you would have to be mining with your own miners on a pool. What if you use a hosted service elsewhere and bitcoins are being distributed among other participants and then redistributed to the shareholders minus the costs of maintenance? You would need to know not only the number of users but also the amount of shares each of them has. It cannot be solved that easily as you think.

In such case it wouldn't be their mining address. A mining address is a place where you place fresh coins not redistrubuted ones.

[l3sny]

There is no chance to positively verify a legit mining operation, that's the paradox.

Yes, there is!
If you show your mining address anyone can calculate how many coins you mined and how many you paid out to your clients. As long as the coins keep moving from the mining address to their clients, while the money the clients paid for shares go to a separate address, everything is fine.

Even if you have a public mining address you would have to be mining with your own miners on a pool. What if you use a hosted service elsewhere and bitcoins are being distributed among other participants and then redistributed to the shareholders minus the costs of maintenance? You would need to know not only the number of users but also the amount of shares each of them has. It cannot be solved that easily as you think.

In such case it wouldn't be their mining address. A mining address is a place where you place fresh coins not redistrubuted ones.

Exactly. And to do this you would need to have such control over your miners that you could mine to your address and probably pool directly which is not always the case. Some operations may be using hosted miners by a third party and get their profits distributed from the 'second hand'. Moreover mining operations need liquidity, they buy and sell hashing power outside their platform. This is just normal practice so you may see dodgy things under the address. Therefore I think proper verification is not that straight forward

[Puppet]

Exactly. And to do this you would need to have such control over your miners that you could mine to your address and probably pool directly which is not always the case.

Thats the point isnt it; if you dont control the miners, then who does?
Your answer: "we cant say". It might as well be santaclaus then.

[l3sny]

Exactly. And to do this you would need to have such control over your miners that you could mine to your address and probably pool directly which is not always the case.

Thats the point isnt it; if you dont control the miners, then who does?
Your answer: "we cant say". It might as well be santaclaus then.

Well.... we basically do not care. We use hosted miners and we do not care where they mine. Perhaps we will change that as indeed it is a good argument for the sake of the credibility if it is questioned.

[creuz]

Your answer: "we cant say". It might as well be santaclaus then.

SantaClaus Mining
Lifetime contract
Best mining hardware from secret Nazi research center.
Our miners were sent to dark side of the moon (minus 153 °C) by cheapest Russian launchers.

So only for bitcointalk members, here is our limited offer :

10 TH for only 1 BTC.
Hourly payout.
+1800% a year profit.

For 24h only. Hurry Up !

[l3sny]

looks legit!

[creuz]

looks legit!

To reward our 10 first customers :

If you buy more than 100 TH we offer you...

One day on a paradise island all expenses paid with one of the best friends of Justin Bieber ! Fantastic.

[tmfp]

Your answer: "we cant say". It might as well be santaclaus then.

SantaClaus Mining
Lifetime contract
Best mining hardware from secret Nazi research center.
Our miners were sent to dark side of the moon (minus 153 °C) by cheapest Russian launchers.

So only for bitcointalk members, here is our limited offer :

10 TH for only 1 BTC.
Hourly payout.
+1800% a year profit.

For 24h only. Hurry Up !

I vouch for SantaClaus Mining as very dependable and honest operation. I invested 8 satoshis last Christmas in special invitation and have been paid regular every twelve minutes, now ROI'd 64 times and have 300 PH/s and my own hydropower plant.
DO NOT LISTEN TO FUD from sick making so called scambusters who are all investors in GRINCH Mining cowboy ponzi scheme competition.

I BELIEVE IN FATHER CHRISTMAS.

[Puppet]

Several operators so far have offered to,  and/or sent me 'privileged' information.
When asked, I will respect confidentiality but I  refuse to sign NDA's and I want to be clear that I base my assessments solely on publicly available information.

There is a very good reason for that, I want everyone to be able to  (and do)  their own due diligence and I dont want anyone to feel they have to trust me or my assessment of whatever 'secret' information I might be given. Whatever Im told or given in confidence will  therefore not change any rating.

If you think thats unfair, just make it public so everyone can scrutinize it. If you think that doing so might hurt your business model, then there is probably something wrong with your business model.

[creuz]

Several operators so far have offered to,  and/or sent me 'privileged' information.
When asked, I will respect confidentiality but I  refuse to sign NDA's and I want to be clear that I base my assessments solely on publicly available information.

There is a very good reason for that, I want everyone to be able to  (and do)  their own due diligence and I dont want anyone to feel they have to trust me or my assessment of whatever 'secret' information I might be given. Whatever Im told or given in confidence will  therefore not change any rating.

If you think thats unfair, just make it public so everyone can scrutinize it. If you think that doing so might hurt your business model, then there is probably something wrong with your business model.

OK, we have nothing to hide.

Our control center


Client support staff daily briefing :


Our datacenter (can't show more, its a critical part of our business) :


Inside :

[creuz]

CheapCheap Mining

Our miners don't use electricity so lowest fees. Actually we only employ real humans who manually compute hashes. Only young calculus genius from best third world universities work for us.

Our miners are hackproof.

We are able to switch to most profitable algorithm at anytime.

Our ecological footprint is very low. The datacenter is protected by north korean military commandos.

You can pay with dollar, food, or technological secret.

[l3sny]

Several operators so far have offered to,  and/or sent me 'privileged' information.
When asked, I will respect confidentiality but I  refuse to sign NDA's and I want to be clear that I base my assessments solely on publicly available information.

There is a very good reason for that, I want everyone to be able to  (and do)  their own due diligence and I dont want anyone to feel they have to trust me or my assessment of whatever 'secret' information I might be given. Whatever Im told or given in confidence will  therefore not change any rating.

If you think thats unfair, just make it public so everyone can scrutinize it. If you think that doing so might hurt your business model, then there is probably something wrong with your business model.

Actually there is nothing wrong with our business model. We just do not want to disclose it for the reasons I explained to you in private as we just do not have any interest in it. I did not ask you to judge our business model but to confirm if we are mining/possess the hashing power and do not do fractional mining. If you were in this business you would understand that given recent drop in diff dynamics that has occured almost two months ago and subsequent drop in diff would make it very difficult for fractional mining business to survive. We have even reduced our maintenance fees by 25% on 01 Dec and we plan to reduce them further.
It seems that you did not want to look on the evidence I was ready to disclose and that's the end of it. Please accept that not all legit businesses like ours will do as you please.


I think the DC above is from Space 1999

[Puppet]

Ive been getting several requests for a tip jar. I didnt want to do this to avoid the impression I'm doing this for personal gain.
But since the ponzi pushers turned that argument around by saying it proves Im shilling for whatever company complies with my criteria, I might as well post an address.

15YNTMoAzTCve64rveEka75qCeJMZpmDCx

Anything I receive on that address will be used to further this cause, like doing signature campaigns to raise awareness.