I believe theses quotes should now kill BS&T.

[coin_toss]

coin_toss, imsaguy:

Yes, it might not work in court. But it's true. And your version of it is much much worse, because any real application of it means Pirateat is frequently shorting BTC with customers' money! Going deeper into these "theories" make things worse, not better.

Allow me to remind you of what pirate says he does with this money: local transactions, market arbitrage, and private loans to network members. Last time I checked ‘market arbitrage’ includes the possibility of buying and selling on exchanges as required. And this is somehow worse than running a ponzi scheme? You have funny ideas about right and wrong Vandroiy.

...
It's not just about the "exercise" content. He implicitly confirmed a theory on his business that's bullshit from the start, and now he's shown that he probably couldn't do it without losses, let alone 3300% pa! Magical arbitrage? You did not ask a trader. That or you just took the first guy with posts on the speculation forum and half his coins in BS&T.

When did he implicitly confirm a theory that's bullshit from the start? On the contrary, if it turns out he's buying and selling coins on the exchanges, as well as engaging in local transactions, that would be entirely consistent with what he said he’s doing. And whoever said he was doing it without losses? All traders make losses. It’s part of the deal. But unless you are operating hand to mouth, you don't pass on your losses on to your investors unless you absolutely have to. If your profits are high enough, you simply absorb the losses and get on with the job.

To someone who knows what they're doing, and has a large number of bitcoins under their control, it would be relatively simple to make 1% a day - even if all you did was trade on Mt.Gox. This isn't the NYSE, where you have countless wealthy individuals and institutional players moving into and out of stocks, and where duties of disclosure apply.

Read this again. Dude, what. So everyone with lots of BTC is a colossal idiot, and traders especially? You're aware we could just add our funds together, right? Gee, thanks for telling me I'm a fucking idiot at something I've been doing effectively for years, right to my face. I missed out on a factor 6 this year already, one that was relatively simple to get? Are you serious?

You're insulting me far more than psy could with any amount of "jealous son of a bitch" shouts.

You’re putting words into my mouth which I never said. Perhaps you missed the part where i said 'large number of bitcoins.' Do you have access to the (possibly) largest bitcoin wallet of them all? Do you have access to one of the top five wallets? If not, then I do not think it would be easy for you to make 1% a day. Its doable, but certainly not easy. I'm sure you're a competent trader, but you don't have access to the same pot of resources pirate does. Don't feel too bad, you're in the same boat as just about everyone else.

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[Vandroiy]

coin_toss: I get now that I can't show it without a trader that sounds trustworthy. But I said that from the start! Get someone who knows what he's talking about.

• Arbitrage has insufficient volume as explained above, in addition to it being clear from his comments he doesn't have the skill.
• Local transactions should cause price fluctuations as explained above, which I don't see. Pirateat should have enough Gox trading experience from arbitraging the dark trades alone to never make the mistake in the OP.
• Local transactions on this volume should leave a footprint somewhere. Where the hell are they, who is borrowing at such unethical rates and who says they're not just an excuse for a default?

I have just posted two of these with little change! Do pretty much copy-pasted arguments I just refuted without changing them! Flooding tactics on my threads will get you blacklisted and put to question after the default.


On the trading money: the Gox order book is not that big, and gathering traders to cooperate on the speculation forum is possible. the manipulation can only be of the visible size in the order book, remember? What did we see, 40k walls? Yea, I don't have that, but together with all the traders I know? Take a guess.

I'm not saying it is especially bad you share a common false belief, but in this case you'll have to drop it. Manipulation is not an infinite money source. It works at times, but only so long, and spreads vanish the longer it does. I actually eat manipulators in my trading (I do volatility dampening at times), so would I see it, I'd be getting the funds in the end.

Sadly, I don't get a super huge amount of manipulation to prey on, and competition is rather stiff.

[Mushoz]

Okay, let's just assume that the business Pirate is running is not a ponzi.
I hope we can all agree that nobody can prove it isn't a ponzi.
I also hope that we can all agree on the fact that it could possibly be a ponzi, because it has a lot of its properties.

So under the assumption that it _isn't_ a ponzi, isn't it still a very bad thing people are defending it? What's to stop people from defending a real ponzi once it comes along, if people are defending Pirate's operation with ponzi-like properties without any real evidence to debunk the ponzi claims? In my opinion this is far worse than Pirate's operation possibly being a ponzi. People are defending a possible Ponzi Scheme, without any evidence to prove that it isn't one!


Disclaimer: I have a trivial amount of BTC invested with Pirate, because I honestly don't know what to believe.

[N12]

Okay, let's just assume that the business Pirate is running is not a ponzi.
I hope we can all agree that nobody can prove it isn't a ponzi.
I also hope that we can all agree on the fact that it could possibly be a ponzi, because it has a lot of its properties.

So under the assumption that it _isn't_ a ponzi, isn't it still a very bad thing people are defending it? What's to stop people from defending a real ponzi once it comes along, if people are defending Pirate's operation with ponzi-like properties without any real evidence to debunk the ponzi claims? In my opinion this is far worse than Pirate's operation possibly being a ponzi. People are defending a possible Ponzi Scheme, without any evidence to prove that it isn't one!


Disclaimer: I have a trivial amount of BTC invested with Pirate, because I honestly don't know what to believe.

Yep, I have formulated the same thoughts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91552.0

[ColdHardMetal]

... and Bitcoin Consultancy Ltd (if they are still involved with GLBSE) ...

Bitcoin Consultancy is not now, nor have they ever been, involved with GLBSE.

[Vandroiy]

I can actually conclusively prove arbitrage and daytrading impossible. I can rule out options because they must have negative profitability!

Order book trading and Arbitrage for example: volume is not just too small. Combined with spreads within the week, it keeps him below interest paid, probably rendering everything but private loans lossy trades because of locking up funds, and if not, they have too little fund requirement for making borrowing the money profitable.

Check volume and arbitrage: He's fucked even if he participates in every single trade on Gox, fucked by far! 200k weekly, roughly 2% spread, this locks up enormous resources to get the spiking trades.

Again! This isn't some faint evidence. The guy is lying, he's listing businesses that just can't work profitably with his footprint. We all know he holds at least high five-digits on paper, the market just doesn't cut it for this, and one coin can't do two things at once just like that!

You need outright absurd assumptions like him perfectly predicting everything and being in every trade and it still gets hard! Are you guys calling Pirateat40 a God?

[hazek]

Lets review the facts:
-pirate borrows large quantities of money from his investors
-pirate claims to use this money for 'local transactions, market arbitrage, and private loans to network members.'
-pirate does not reveal exactly how he makes money, and in return pays a high interest rate
-pirate has done this successfully for over 8 months

To the people in the anti-pirate camp, these facts somehow prove pirate is running a ponzi.

Yeah they do. Please explain to me how is he able to "successfully" do what he hints at that he is doing..

No, I need no details. I just want to know why you don't have enough BTC to continue without investors by now. Exponential growth is pretty neat, and I don't see why these peoples' BTC should be better than your own.

If there's one thing I found out by now, then it's that you joke a lot less than it seems. I trust you can fulfill the promise above, and you'll have a laugh at a lot of people when you do.

I can't remember how many times I've explained this, but for you I'll do it again.

Bitcoin is not fiat yet.  That doesn't mean it won't be at some point nor does it mean I don't believe in it. There's simply no reason at this time for me to risk market movements with my converted fiat > bitcoin when there's hundreds of users that will let me make money with their coins.  I don't need them, I just prefer them.

My operation is funded by my lenders and I do hold a few personal coins myself.

.. even after the recent significant BTCUSD exchange rate increase! Why I'm asking you this? Well this is precisely the event he claims he is using other people's money rather than his own as a hedge against losses ergo his "investors" should have lost money since BTCUSD went up about 30% in the last 30 days and even spiked almost 20% in just a span of 4 days.

So either his clients lost money with their "investments" in the last 30 days but they are keeping quiet or lying about it and he is legit, or they didn't in which case it's him who is either lying that he is using their money as a hedge where if he is legit he himself took the loss or he is lying and isn't doing what he hints at that he is doing.

Point is someone is lying, now you tell me who is lying about what.

[Mushoz]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91653.0 shows that Pirate is holding at least 32353 BTC in a wallet controlled by him and that number is possibly much higher if things like other wallets and offline storage are counted in. If Pirate's business is legit, why in the hell is he holding 32k+ BTC over which he pays 7% weekly?! Shouldn't he be using those BTC for his mysterious business or at least force withdrawals if he can't use that much BTC right now?

[hazek]

i thought very long about it and came to the conclusion that it is ok - because you never know for sure what your invested money is used for.

In other words you are perfectly content with people losing their hard earned money if it turns out you did in fact "invest" and defended "investing" in a ponzi scam.

Interesting.

[Vladimir]

But the thing that makes absolutely no sense is sharing those returns with strangers. Even with a small amount invested by now if he was running anything legit he would buy back most of the investments and just keeping profits for himself. It has passed the point where the explanation of "hedging risk of volatile btc market" makes any sort of sense. As the interest payouts far exceed what would have been lost by now. When you get these types of returns you keep it private, because it won't last long, and you make a nice life for yourself. You don't payout to strangers.

I cannot agree more.

[Vladimir]

I also hope that we can all agree on the fact that it could possibly be a ponzi, because it has a lot of its properties.

Would it not be more accurate to say that it is very likely a ponzi i.e. with probability of that way higher than 50%?

Because there is no any evidence of any value producing economic activity, only evidence of taking deposits and paying "dividends".

It has ALL of properties of ponzi except the default (just yet).

[hazek]

One other HUGE HUGE problem with pirate's story:

Well, after some of the clues pirate posted, having big influence at Mt.Gox or some other large exchange, he might be doing Front running which is extremely profitable. ...

Front-running that continuously yields several percent per week? Front-running with the help of Mt.Gox? Come on ...

If anybody could do some front-running, then that would be Mt.Gox themselves. But even they would not make several percent per week while staying inconspicuous.

I can do several percent per week on trading at Mt. Gox + some other exchanges, though not very often and not on such scale as pirate does with his business (whatever it is). And yes I think he might have his stakes in Mt. Gox or in some other big exchange.

It doesn't make sense. How was he able to manipulate the market rates at the beginning, before he found investors? He offered 7% right from the get-go. Gox volume per day is 45,680 bitcoins roughly. Pirate did not have anywhere close to that amount invested in his Pirate-Pussy-Fund.

[coin_toss]

coin_toss: I get now that I can't show it without a trader that sounds trustworthy. But I said that from the start! Get someone who knows what he's talking about.

• Arbitrage has insufficient volume as explained above, in addition to it being clear from his comments he doesn't have the skill.
• Local transactions should cause price fluctuations as explained above, which I don't see. Pirateat should have enough Gox trading experience from arbitraging the dark trades alone to never make the mistake in the OP.
• Local transactions on this volume should leave a footprint somewhere. Where the hell are they, who is borrowing at such unethical rates and who says they're not just an excuse for a default?

I have just posted two of these with little change! Do pretty much copy-pasted arguments I just refuted without changing them! Flooding tactics on my threads will get you blacklisted and put to question after the default.

Yes, you repeated yourself very nicely. However as I already pointed out, you have defamed someone’s reputation and business, on the basis of what exactly? A forum post which allegedly proves you know more about trading then he does? When you accuse someone of scamming, it is a serious allegation where the onus is on you to provide the evidence backing it up. If you cannot do so, you should not be making the statements in the first place. Sure nobody is going to sue you, but it’s ethically and morally bankrupt of you to act this way.

On the trading money: the Gox order book is not that big, and gathering traders to cooperate on the speculation forum is possible. the manipulation can only be of the visible size in the order book, remember? What did we see, 40k walls? Yea, I don't have that, but together with all the traders I know? Take a guess.

I'm not saying it is especially bad you share a common false belief, but in this case you'll have to drop it. Manipulation is not an infinite money source. It works at times, but only so long, and spreads vanish the longer it does. I actually eat manipulators in my trading (I do volatility dampening at times), so would I see it, I'd be getting the funds in the end.

Sadly, I don't get a super huge amount of manipulation to prey on, and competition is rather stiff.

If it’s so easy for you to cooperate with all your friends from the speculation forum, then why haven’t you done so? I’ll tell you why, because there’s a lot of risk in it. The speculation forum is full of sharks, with people often trying to trick others into doing the exact opposite of what they should be doing. If only there was a way to cooperate with other traders without the risk of them screwing you… Oh wait, there is. And pirate already thought of it.

[coin_toss]

Lets review the facts:
-pirate borrows large quantities of money from his investors
-pirate claims to use this money for 'local transactions, market arbitrage, and private loans to network members.'
-pirate does not reveal exactly how he makes money, and in return pays a high interest rate
-pirate has done this successfully for over 8 months

To the people in the anti-pirate camp, these facts somehow prove pirate is running a ponzi.

Yeah they do. Please explain to me how is he able to "successfully" do what he hints at that he is doing..

No they don’t. Please point out to me where in the above list of facts you see reference to any wrongdoing, scamming, stealing, or any kind of unethical conduct whatsoever. You can’t point to that, because there hasn’t been any.

[hazek]

Lets review the facts:
-pirate borrows large quantities of money from his investors
-pirate claims to use this money for 'local transactions, market arbitrage, and private loans to network members.'
-pirate does not reveal exactly how he makes money, and in return pays a high interest rate
-pirate has done this successfully for over 8 months

To the people in the anti-pirate camp, these facts somehow prove pirate is running a ponzi.

Yeah they do. Please explain to me how is he able to "successfully" do what he hints at that he is doing..

No they don’t. Please point out to me where in the above list of facts you see reference to any wrongdoing, scamming, stealing, or any kind of unethical conduct whatsoever. You can’t point to that, because there hasn’t been any.

I already did, I can't help you if you cut that part of my post.

[Vandroiy]

I already did, I can't help you if you cut that part of my post out.

I also noticed it, again now. We've had the selective derailing before, it has not worked in the past, but they do it again and again and again; just burying the main arguments with repetitions or focusing on the fuzziest part of the topic.

It may or may not be unintentional, but it's annoying. Thanks for keeping it up and consequently pointing out the buried stuff, hazek.

[Vladimir]

If you're asking me if I believe an experienced trader can consistently make 1% a day trading one of the more volatile markets in the world, when he controls perhaps the largest bitcoin wallet of them all, the answer is obviously yes.

Some of us know those returns are possible.

Some of us also know that it is possible to bet on red 8 times in a row and win every time, while "reinvesting" all the wins.
This does not mean that this strategy has any decent risk/reward expectation.

[coin_toss]

Lets review the facts:
-pirate borrows large quantities of money from his investors
-pirate claims to use this money for 'local transactions, market arbitrage, and private loans to network members.'
-pirate does not reveal exactly how he makes money, and in return pays a high interest rate
-pirate has done this successfully for over 8 months

To the people in the anti-pirate camp, these facts somehow prove pirate is running a ponzi.

Yeah they do. Please explain to me how is he able to "successfully" do what he hints at that he is doing..

No they don’t. Please point out to me where in the above list of facts you see reference to any wrongdoing, scamming, stealing, or any kind of unethical conduct whatsoever. You can’t point to that, because there hasn’t been any.

I already did, I can't help you if you cut that part of my post.

I cut that part of your post because I didn’t see you making any logical points in it…just some vague speculation that pirate must have lost money because the price of bitcoins rose and because we didn’t hear anything about losses either pirate or his investors are lying? How can you possibly know pirate was in USD at the time when the market moved up? And even if he was, how can you possibly know he doesn’t have sufficient profits saved up from last month to cover it? You can’t know, and that’s why I’ll ask you again:

Please point out to me where in the above list of facts you see reference to any wrongdoing, scamming, stealing, or any kind of unethical conduct whatsoever.   

[hazek]

I already did, I can't help you if you cut that part of my post.

Ok, let me make it clearer just for you:

How can you possibly know pirate was in USD at the time when the market moved up?

Supposedly, it's his business model:

Bitcoin is not fiat yet.  That doesn't mean it won't be at some point nor does it mean I don't believe in it. There's simply no reason at this time for me to risk market movements with my converted fiat > bitcoin

Now I don't know about you but I don't know of a business that can run by not doing what their business model says that they do. Either pirate was operating as usual when the exchange rate increased and made the profits he paid his "investors" or he didn't run his business and didn't pay his "investors". It can't be that he didn't run his business but was able to pay his "investors". There should either be loses or there should be no profits. We appear to have neither.

Unless you are willing to claim that pirate can predict the future and knew exactly when to jump back into BTC just before the price increase to avoid loses, my argument makes perfect sense.

And even if he was, how can you possibly know he doesn’t have sufficient profits saved up from last month to cover it? You can’t know, and that’s why I’ll ask you again:

Because that's not what he says is his business model. He specifically said, explicitly, that he is using other people's money as a hedge against fiat to BTC conversion risk. Why would he then after incurring these type of loses not transfer them to his clients if that is what is his business model?

[cryptoanarchist]

My two cents..


I started off with a very small amount of bitcoin and have been steadily growing it through trading. I use almost every exchange relative to their volume with the exception of Gox, and I also mix in some triangle trading. On a good day, when I have lots of computer time, I can pull 1% - IT IS POSSIBLE. Could I do it every day if I had the time? maybe.

That said, I have a hard time believing pirate. If he was trading himself he would just keep those returns for himself. If he has these "large investors" that want to buy large amounts at a premium that are worried about moving the market...well, that just doesn't make any sense on so many levels. Rich people can buy their own BTC - they certainly don't need pirate. C'mon people, use your heads.