Putting your money where Pirate's mouth is.

[Raoul Duke]

Profiting since December myself.

Phantom profits. They're only there if you withdraw first at the others' expense. The clock is ticking..

Yes, yes... Keep lying to yourself. Maybe it will become true. Are you a politician, or?...
And my clocks don't tick.

[copumpkin]

I find it amusing that inconclusive evidence + arrogance + people rejecting one's own interpretation of the evidence = absolute certainty and strong language. Nuance was supplanted by big egos and verbal machismo, and this whole hullabaloo seems to have become more of a pissing match ("just wait and see; I am 100% right and you are 100% wrong!") now than the moral panic ("but the innocents will be hurt!") it started out as.

Where's BTC_Bear when you need him?

[BTCurious]

Pirate is a genius.

1. The bet takes and pirate defaults: Van makes 5k
2. The bet takes and pirate doesn't default: van loses 5k
3. The bet doesn't take and van goes long: he makes over 8k
4. The bet doesn't take and van does nothing: he is even

So essentially taking this bet is the only way for van to lose money, and if he is wrong he limited his profit versus going long.

*applause*

If the pirate default is a 100% certainty, then betting on it is not a bad idea. Vandroiy is 100% certain, so this explains his actions.

[jamesg]

100% certain

Only a fool is 100% certain unless we are talking about death.

[organofcorti]

100% certain

Only a fool is 100% certain unless we are talking about death.

Maybe not even death.

[Mageant]

Epic!
 

[Scott J]

I love this forum

[BTCurious]

100% certain

Only a fool is 100% certain unless we are talking about death.

Oh, so the taxes one got dropped out since we have Bitcoin? What makes you so sure the death one is certain?

In all seriousness though, I agree. But then he's foolish for being certain, not for taking the bet. Taking the bet is a rational effect of being so certain.

Maybe not even death.

+1

[ninjarobot]

It's been going strong for almost a year.

Madoff had been going strong for 38 years (1970-2008). Of course he was only providing ~16.3% ROI per year. At the rate pirate is going he will run into the walls of reality a bit faster than that. Greed is rarely a good adviser. In general you should be very skeptical about anything that promises >7% return per year. Risk and reward go hand in hand. Just because you see some numbers on a screen, and you like what you see does not make it real.

Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
--Albert Einstein

Seems like pirate is catering to at least two of these. Of course - There is always the chance he could be a 'genuis' and really cares about helping his clients make tons of money out of the kindness of his heart. Yarr!

[Vandroiy]

Pirate is a genius.

1. The bet takes and pirate defaults: Van makes 5k
2. The bet takes and pirate doesn't default: van loses 5k
3. The bet doesn't take and van goes long: he makes over 8k
4. The bet doesn't take and van does nothing: he is even

Worse!

1. The bet takes and pirate defaults: Van makes 5k and Pirateat40 gets Van to shut up, plus the show improves visibility, if he is lucky the PR even makes the bet a profit even though he loses.

4. The bet doesn't take and van does nothing: he can shout "That loser does not put his money where his mouth is, give me more loans!"

Pirateat40 had little to lose in this. Offering was about neutral-win-win, there was no real bad outcome possible.

It's been going strong for almost a year.  You can figure a few benchmarks in terms of timing that would indicate increased levels of maintenance and visibility, which we can roughly correlate to investment activity.

• Manual loans to get up and running at scale, no external communication of balance other than ad hoc email exchanges or IRC queries
• Crappy website that basically showed "current balance, expected balance" with x%/day compounded q3d
• New crappy website
• Payment restructuring to pay tiered rates weekly
• Announced payment restructuring for 'trust' and other accounts

People other than I can dig and put dates to these.  I didn't stir in GPUMax for obvious reasons.

I will say that I have a good idea of the total balance through the first few stages.  At least, I know a handful people who have larger loans than I do and roughly what they're holding.  All were early (comparatively) lenders.

This is why I am very comfortable asserting that you are wrong.  You made accusations based on assumptions that you are now discovering may be in error.  Unfortunately, you only came to realize this after you put your money on the table.

When you lose, and you will lose, I hope you are capable of manning up and making amends for being not only a douche, but the bag it came in.

This is very valuable intel, and I thank you for it. Though I don't understand how it reduce my chances in the bet, looks like a classical Ponzi inception to me. Now I know its status is more advanced than I assumed, reducing the possibilities for tricks against me.

But what is it with that last sentence? What does "douchebag" mean anyway? That I'm mistaken? Paid by the government to annoy the great pirate? Can we please pretend we're civilized and use wording that has a meaning beside "Come at me sucker, do the Neanderthal!"

I can live with "jealous". It's still nonsense, but has a remotely sensible model of what I might be thinking. "Douchebag"... I just can't make sense of it other than you being emotionally compromised. The same goes for "son of a bitch", "sucker", "SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK VANDROIY" and whatnot. I can take an insult, but place content into it. "Mental" was also acceptable, it's actually a good hook to act funny.



Anyway, back to topic. If we're past one year, an orderly pay-out is unlikely. A single account starting at 2k would be at >66k by now, an amount BS&T is unlikely to ever pay out. This is good news to me, however it makes the default timing extremely random, since it depends strongly on withdrawal timings of less than 10 people. In addition, these people were not chosen as they are normally in finance.

What I mean by that: people who joined early did not need as many funds to be important now. They are more likely to neglect trading rules that strongly encourage diversification. They might be keeping five-digit BTC accounts with BS&T even though they do not have five-digit BTC wallets. This is usually a grave mistake. For an example of the mathematical problem, see the Kelly Criterion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion



TL;DR: I think the data works in my favor. If you insult me personally, please use a specific accusation like "slander", "jealous" or "mental".

[Vandroiy]

Only a fool is 100% certain unless we are talking about death.

Yes, Nothing is 100% (other than death). Very much plus one.

We can only play the odds and the cards given us.

Yup. True words. If I say "certain" in real life, I mean something like .999. In the remaining cases, I'll just have to suck it up. (Well, there is one exception; mathematics includes concepts with real certainty. You lose that when applying them though.)

It still is a Ponzi. Edit: did you guys notice the switch to final accretion mode leaking? It's a subtle post, and it's not by Mr. P.

[organofcorti]

So, you're not going to apologize for being disagreeable, then?  It's amusing how you dodge questions, you developmentally delayed donkey-clown.  Can you reply to a point regarding integrity, you insipid ovary, when your specious reasoning and lack of, let's say, imagination, become as obvious as the spirochete that has rotted your excuse for a brain?

Donkey hole.

Edited for a younger audience.

[organofcorti]

Poopoo-head liar liar, pants on fire!

Edited for a younger audience.

Edited for an even younger audience.

Is your avatar a light sculpture of Donald Trump's hair?

No. Close though. It's part of a series of CAD drawings engineers followed to create the scaffolding used to construct his hair.

[Hecate]

So, you're not going to apologize for being a *********, then?  It's amusing how you dodge questions, you ********* *********.  Can you reply to a point regarding integrity, you ********* *********, when your specious reasoning and lack of, let's say, imagination, become as obvious as ********* that has ********* your ********* *********

*********.

Congratulations, you win a prize for the best and most convincing argument given so far. This clearly shows that the group in favor of pirateat40 is consisting purely of highly intellectual individuals with very high standards who know exactly what they are doing and the risks involved.

[Vandroiy]

So, you're not going to apologize for being a *********, then?  It's amusing how you dodge questions, you ********* *********.  Can you reply to a point regarding integrity, you ********* *********, when your specious reasoning and lack of, let's say, imagination, become as obvious as ********* that has ********* your ********* *********

*********.

Congratulations, you win a prize for the best and most convincing argument given so far. This clearly shows that the group in favor of pirateat40 is consisting purely of highly intellectual individuals with very high standards who know exactly what they are doing and the risks involved.

He was actually just making fun of me complaining about content-free personal insults.

But yea, it doesn't get much better if you add an "implicit sarcasm" tag to it. Just the good old flooding attack when a post is a hassle to deal with. And it's not even funny.

[Vandroiy]

I was also mocking your continued avoidance of "difficult" questions.  As for the Hecate's (seriously?) comment, I suspect English isn't your first language and that you are not well-read in that language.  I raided so many better authors for those nuggets, admittedly from memory so I may be off a wee bit, that the subtext of classic, calm, contempt may have gone over some readers' heads, as V- appears to have missed any of the references as well.

I suggest spending some time reading T.S. Eliot, Hunter S. Thompson, James Joyce, and Thomas Pynchon to start, especially their letters.  Reading literature will enrich your life and increase the scope of your thoughts and discourse.

And it is a poor thing that you do not understand what "sarcasm" means.  You are in fact all of those things.  You are a waste of space, air, and being.  As they say, the best part of you ran down the crack of your mother's ass and became a stain on the mattress.

If I avoided a question, just re-state it clearly. I have difficulty telling which part of your post is addressing whom, and I'm not so sure this is a language skill problem. Whatever this is trying to show, it's derailing the thread.

Nobody claimed to be versed in English literature. It is not my first language, in case you care. But this is completely beside the point here. Insults do not get an upgrade because they're chained and get references added.

Whatever I'm missing here, how is it possibly relevant? Just stop the flood contribution already.

[miscreanity]

As they say, the best part of you ran down the crack of your mother's ass and became a stain on the mattress.

I've always wanted to use that in conversation, and I couldn't imagine a more deserving target.

[Hecate]

I suggest spending some time reading T.S. Eliot, Hunter S. Thompson, James Joyce, and Thomas Pynchon to start, especially their letters.  Reading literature will enrich your life and increase the scope of your thoughts and discourse.

Tautologic statement which i dont interpret as intended help but rather as an attempt to imply you are on higher ground. It might be true that english is not my first language, however if your "being better in english" leads to a point where posts consist mainly of insults, i humbly decline (sarcasm or not).

And it is a poor thing that you do not understand what "sarcasm" means.  You are in fact all of those things.  You are a waste of space, air, and being.  As they say, the best part of you ran down the crack of your mother's ass and became a stain on the mattress.

I doubt it being sarcasm improves the quality of a row of random insults.

[Raoul Duke]

And it is a poor thing that you do not understand what "sarcasm" means.  You are in fact all of those things.  You are a waste of space, air, and being.  As they say, the best part of you ran down the crack of your mother's ass and became a stain on the mattress.

I doubt it being sarcasm improves the quality of a row of random insults.

I beg to disagree... They weren't random at all. They were pretty well targeted, I would say.

[Hecate]

I beg to disagree... They weren't random at all. They were pretty well targeted, I would say.

I am sorry, let me correct it to
"a row of insults aimed at the other side in a discussion"