BS&T -- Are you staying or leaving?

[Vladimir]

Right lets short bitcoin to get more of it. It might be simpler than ponzi, but it also needs to be plausible.

Have you seen how many times we were on an uptick in price and a wall showed up out of nowhere to kill it and bring us back down?

Its plausible.  Now who is being stubborn and refusing to accept the easiest solution?

Do entertain us and provide a simple explanation for your "money laundering" hypothesis, simple enough that we can understand.

It is not I am stubborn, it is you failing to argue your point concisely.

Is anyone with "pirate is definitely not a ponzi" stance capable of forming a
logical argument without a bunch of fallacies embedded in it?

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[imsaguy]

When the ponzi collapses, I won't feel bad for you at all. If you want to waste your money, fine, just don't invest more than you can lose and still be happy -- because you WILL lose.

Do you know something the rest of us do not know?

The exponential curve.

Which one is that?

[humanitee]

Right lets short bitcoin to get more of it. It might be simpler than ponzi, but it also needs to be plausible.

Have you seen how many times we were on an uptick in price and a wall showed up out of nowhere to kill it and bring us back down?

Its plausible.  Now who is being stubborn and refusing to accept the easiest solution?

Do entertain us and provide a simple explanation for your "money laundering" hypothesis, simple enough that we can understand.

It is not I am stubborn, it is you failing to argue your point concisely.

Also, include the reason for minimum investments and decreasing interest rates in a money laundering context. Good luck.

[hgmichna]

Monthly? Pfft. Big boys play with WEEKLY now. 

That doesn't show commitment.  I'll step it up.  I'll pay 700% each year!

16% crushes 7%, and 700% makes it look like a tiny, tiny, tiny thing!

7% per week equal approximately 3,300% per year.

[bitcoinBull]

Exactly! If it walks like a ponzi, looks like a ponzi, quacks like a ponzi it very likely is a ponzi.

As i said in the other thread, Occam's Razor has another side. Given Pirates close proximity to the Mexican border, and considering that area is a major drug trafficking corridor, I suspect this isn't a Ponzi at all. Most likely it's simply conversion if drug money, plain and simple. That would easily explain the outrageous returns at least.

Interesting possibility. So you are saying that they are possibly doing "conversion of drug money" AKA money laundering of USD via BTC and somehow this involves borrowing large amount of BTC and paying 6-10% per week on this. (BTW very interesting biz for it's promoters and "others" to be involved in with full self confessed knowledge of it)

Walk me through please, how it works? What is a plausible biz model here? Sorry for being so slow.

If he's laundering drug money, then why claim he can't divulge or competition would come and kill his margins? Because there's such a small barrier of entry to working for that market (laundering drug money), anyone who lives close to the border can do it... 

[imsaguy]

Ok, let's play through a scenario..

Let's make an assumption that for every lender you have for your business, it eats 15 minutes of your time per week.  Sure some will be more because they're needy and ask a bunch of questions all the time, just like others will be less because they just want a 'set and forget'.  So, on average, you spend 15 minutes per lender per week.

My next assumption will be that we confine ourselves to a 9 hour working day, 6 days a week.  That gives us 54 working hours per week.  That gives us time for about 216 lenders.  Anything more than that, you're eating up your personal time.  We already made an assumption the person is working more than the traditional 'work week' and it pretty much factors out a 'day job'.  That leaves no time for other projects, like running CPUmax or your IT consulting business or the like.  It also leaves less than optimal time for a wife/husband and any kids.  Skip the hobbies, because you better believe there will be a honey-do list.  There can't be vacations because if you're not around for a day, people start labeling you a con artist because you didn't respond to your pm within 15 minutes or payments went out at 12:09 instead of 12:00.

Now imagine if you should shuffle some of the day to day to some of your more willing and able lenders.  Think of them like bundlers.  You don't want everyone to do it so you set some quantity limits, because otherwise every Tom, Dick, & Jane would want to be one and you've not reduced your time investment.  You figure out about how many coins you're using in your business, you divide that number by about how many people you'd like to interact with on a daily basis, and you base your numbers off that.  You've suddenly brought your time investment down from 50-60 hours a week to perhaps 10-20.  Certain people will feel uncomfortable with using a 3rd party for their savings, so you continue to offer them a plan with a rate that takes into account the cost for the amount of time they're likely to consume.

You're suddenly working less hours, dealing with more experienced people.   The pm's are now responded to more quickly because there's a team of people that are responding to them.  If people are dissatisfied with their bundler, they can move to a different one.  Hell, they can even use two or three at the same time because bundlerA offers free lunch and bundlerB offers free condoms.

So far we've not really changed anything, other than to whom the end user communicates.  We've not encouraging new deposits, we're simply encouraging consolidation.  We get more time with the wife.  We can spend more time on our other projects.  We can even go to our 10 year high school anniversary now without feeling guilty someone's going to complain.


1) How does any of the above not match with Pirate?
2) How is any of the above not reasonable?

[bitcoinBull]

Ok, let's play through a scenario..

Let's make an assumption that for every lender you have for your business, it eats 15 minutes of your time per week.  Sure some will be more because they're needy and ask a bunch of questions all the time, just like others will be less because they just want a 'set and forget'.  So, on average, you spend 15 minutes per lender per week.

[...]

1) How does any of the above not match with Pirate?
2) How is any of the above not reasonable?

Its not reasonable because there are no borrowers, only lenders. So nobody is paying the interest, just a bunch of lenders collecting.

[imsaguy]

Ok, let's play through a scenario..

Let's make an assumption that for every lender you have for your business, it eats 15 minutes of your time per week.  Sure some will be more because they're needy and ask a bunch of questions all the time, just like others will be less because they just want a 'set and forget'.  So, on average, you spend 15 minutes per lender per week.

[...]

1) How does any of the above not match with Pirate?
2) How is any of the above not reasonable?

Its not reasonable because there are no borrowers, only lenders. So nobody is paying the interest, just a bunch of lenders collecting.

The business.  Keeping capital around to do what you need to do.  ML, pimping, whatever it is.

[Vladimir]

Ok, let's play through a scenario..

...

1) How does any of the above not match with Pirate?
2) How is any of the above not reasonable?

Awesome, some reasonable post finaly. Thanks.

This could explain the many intermediaries thing, though it is still much cheaper to hire help than to sacrifice significant part of revenue.

Absence of "leaches" will also mean less fanatical forum coverage.

[hazek]

Monthly? Pfft. Big boys play with WEEKLY now. 

That doesn't show commitment.  I'll step it up.  I'll pay 700% each year!

16% crushes 7%, and 700% makes it look like a tiny, tiny, tiny thing!

7% per week equal approximately 3,300% per year.

Unfortunately people don't know how to calculate compounding interest rates [ P(1+ R) to the power of T] and even if they did they don't know just how ridiculous the result at weekly 7% on an annual basis is of approx. 3400% is.

[hgmichna]

I'd like to have your opinions on when the bubble will burst.

My take is that a Ponzi operator shuts down and disappears with the money as soon as he feels that his money mountain is no longer growing fast or even begins to shrink. The latter happens when more money is withdrawn than new money is coming in.

As long as nobody withdraws, the scheme can run forever, but of course some people always withdraw, for various reasons, the most obvious being that they slowly realize that the Ponzi operator claims to have more than, say, 10 million bitcoins, while only 8 or 9 million bitcoins exist.

Assuming he has 100,000 BTC now, that would happen after a bit more than one year (at 7% a week = 3,300% a year), but then nobody believes that he can possibly get all existing bitcoins, so the ultimate time limit is probably less than a year, give or take a few months. Or would you believe than any single Ponzi scheme can hold 3 million BTC in 2012 or 2013?

Trouble is, if the "investors" get the outrageous idea to switch on their brains, they might withdraw much earlier, namely when they realize that only the first few will get their stash back with interest, while all latecomers will lose everything they "invested".

I think the time until it happens is a bit difficult to guess, but with all the obvious information and explanation out in the open right here, I think it can't be long.

So let's think about how many new "investors" he may be getting. I would say that, if all new "investors" read this thread first, he would get none. This would mean that the Ponzi scheme will shut down later this week. But then one should never underestimate stupidity.

[Vladimir]

hgmichna, exactly.

The name of the game is:

One, who pulls his money first, wins.

[imsaguy]

Ok, let's play through a scenario..

...

1) How does any of the above not match with Pirate?
2) How is any of the above not reasonable?

Awesome, some reasonable post finaly. Thanks.

This could explain the many intermediaries thing, though it is still much cheaper to hire help than to sacrifice significant part of revenue.

Absence of "leaches" will also mean less fanatical forum coverage.

When people like Bob cry that I'm being disrespectful or others say I'm a fanboy, I take offense.

I really don't know much more than most people about Pirate.  I respect that people are trying to warn n00bs away from a potential scam.  I disagree with the methods.  If you really want to protect n00bs, you go to the n00b forum, make a well written posting and keep it bumped at the top.  Trolling the BS&T thread with "ponzi because occam said so" really doesn't accomplish much other than piss people off and create a wedge issue that only drives apart the community.

Now to get back OT.  The bundlers have quantity thresholds to maintain if they want to keep their rate.  The thresholds that have been set are a bit high, which probably means many of them won't actually get to keep their rate.  This is the catch-22.  People claim his rates are too high.  If he reduces them, people scream the end is near.  So he pretty much can't win unless we pays out everything right at this very moment.  If we can make the assumption that isn't a ponzi for a moment (just like people assume it is), if the business is still successful, why would you want to wind it down completely just because some people were bitchy?  I think the easing of rates downward is a good thing, regardless if its a ponzi or not because the rates aren't sustainable either way.   There is/will be an endgame.  It does suck for my pocketbook, I would absolutely love to get 7% a week forever.  So if he can consolidate the number of contact points AND reduce his rates ever so much, he's essentially getting *almost* free labor out of his bundlers and I think that's' why he doesn't actually hire someone as a salary position.

As to the fanatical coverage bit.. the defenders are fanatical just as much as the people crying wolf are fanatical.  Its bad on both sides.

[Vandroiy]

@imsaguy, yes. Your post is reasonable.

But what are you responding to? Of course Pirateat uses the bonds and large accounts to keep down his work-load. So what? Every large Ponzi-operator does that. He need not even know anyone personally for it.

Oh, and:

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function" -Albert A. Bartlett



Wait a second. imsaguy, I was just suspecting this, and dropped it with "nah" until that last post. If you are actually not in on the heist, we need a talk. I was convinced you are a sock puppet, but that post is... somewhat credible. If you have been somehow psycho-tricked into Pirateat40's side, we've been doing something wrong here. Well, I have, because I never tried to convince you with my answers to you, since I assumed you were well aware what's going on.

[hgmichna]

As to the fanatical coverage bit.. the defenders are fanatical just as much as the people crying wolf are fanatical.  Its bad on both sides.

There is just a tiny little difference. Only one of the sides can be right.

[imsaguy]

@imsaguy, yes. Your post is reasonable.

But what are you responding to? Of course Pirateat uses the bonds and large accounts to keep down his work-load. So what? Every large Ponzi-operator does that. He need not even know anyone personally for it.

Oh, and:

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function" -Albert A. Bartlett

I'm pretty good at math   I know what exponential is.  I was asking if he meant Pirate's balance sheet was growing exponentially.  I know some of the largest investors and I know they're taking payouts so it'd be pretty hard for Pirate's total to be growing

Wait a second. imsaguy, I was just suspecting this, and dropped it with "nah" until that last post. If you are actually not in on the heist, we need a talk. I was convinced you are a sock puppet, but that post is... somewhat credible. If you have been somehow psycho-tricked into Pirateat40's side, we've been doing something wrong here. Well, I have, because I never tried to convince you with my answers to you, since I assumed you were well aware what's going on.

I'm most certainly not in on it.  I am not a sock puppet.  I've traded with enough people in here and met enough people in here in person to prove that I am most certainly not Pirate.  I wasn't psycho tricked.  In fact, pirate's never really tried to convince me.  I've done a bunch of my own researching, thinking about things, talking to people and I've simply come to a different conclusion than you.  It pisses me off that just because I arrived at a different opinion than you or the other people convinced that it is a ponzi that I must be in on it.  I'm an adult with reasoning skills and I simply came to a different conclusion than you.

[hgmichna]

...
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function" -Albert A. Bartlett

I'm pretty good at math   I know what exponential is.  I was asking if he meant Pirate's balance sheet was growing exponentially.  I know some of the largest investors and I know they're taking payouts so it'd be pretty hard for Pirate's total to be growing

Just a moment. You state:

• You understand the exponential function.
• You assume that some people have their interest paid out, which I will take the liberty to translate into: Some other people will not have their interest paid out, but instead will try to accrue compound interest.
• You conclude that the total will not be growing significantly.

What gives?

The other question is: Somebody anonymous offers to take your money and accumulate 7% interest per week for you (i.e. 3,300% per year). It takes me half a second to conclude that this is a Ponzi scheme. You come to a different conclusion? Could you please confirm that you come to a different conclusion?

I'm not trying to attack you. I don't want to be your or any honest person's enemy. I just want to make sure we understand each other properly. I believe the things we are discussing here are actually pretty simple.

[hazek]

I've yet to figure out why Occam's razor says it must be a ponzi.

Occam's razor doesn't "prove" anything, and people using it in support of the Ponzi argument are committing a logical fallacy.  It doesn't mean their conclusion is wrong, but that the course of their reasoning is unsound.  However, people who do not apply rigor to their reasoning are more likely to go astray.

People who say the moon landings were faked employ Occam's razor, but it doesn't make Buzz Aldrin want to punch them any less.

Yes yes, let's compare apples to oranges, a case where people ignore evidence(shiny plate installed on the moon off of which one can bounce a laser beam) applying Occam's razor to support their crazy ideas vs a case where there is no direct evidence.

[Vladimir]

It all depends on the standard of proof. If you trying to prove something on "beyond reasonable doubt" standard, then yes, Occam's razor sometimes can be disputed effectively. And there might be some magic underlying biz with humongous yield for which it is impossible to find any financing with less than say 1000% APR. It is just we, the lesser beings do not understand it. I would give intuitively 0.000000001% chance that this could be the case. You never know. Would this count as a reasonable doubt?

However, if the standard of proof is "on balance of probabilities", then Occam's razor is good enough.

[hgmichna]

I've yet to figure out why Occam's razor says it must be a ponzi.

Occam's razor doesn't "prove" anything, and people using it in support of the Ponzi argument are committing a logical fallacy.  It doesn't mean their conclusion is wrong, but that the course of their reasoning is unsound.  However, people who do not apply rigor to their reasoning are more likely to go astray.

People who say the moon landings were faked employ Occam's razor, but it doesn't make Buzz Aldrin want to punch them any less.

I'm wondering anyway why one needs Occam's razor to understand that 7% per week, or 3,300% per year, or anything above 10% a year means Ponzi? You don't need Occam's razor to state the obvious.