I know what Pirate's doing

[N12]

Distraction method #34 from your handbook?

I have some too:

"I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people." - Isaac Newton

"When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." - James Whitcomb Riley

But let's get back to the topic's issue at hand, shall we.

I know what Pirate's doing

Ah, then surely you are already making the kind of returns he does (10%/wk.)?

And BrightAnarchist prefers his business to making 10% a week? Interesting, too.

If there is any truth at all to what you are saying, then I challenge you to search for a trusted third party (theymos or Maged perhaps, or someone who has no outspoken stance on this like nanotube), share your story how it is you think one can pay out 7% a week on now 6 digit BTC debt for now 8 months (while the debt continuosly grows), and they can confirm if your theory makes any sense or not.

Otherwise, I will have to assume this:

Pirate still has the option to run with all our money.

Those who benefit from HYIP scams are the ones who only invest once and never again, or only put the interest earned back into the system. They have a vested interest in keeping all HYIPs going as long as they possibly can. They would make a post saying, "I know what he's doing, it's legit" without providing evidence, because it benefits them to do so.

[1714066956]

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[1714066956]

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[N12]

It's not a debt. Pirate is not paying back the capital from his lenders, only the interest. Lenders don't lend him money, they lend him an "inventory" of Bitcoins. He manipulate that inventory and with his manipulation, he's growing his business at 10%/week. If he have an inventory of 100 000 BTC, he needs to make minimum 7 000 BTC of profit each week to pay back his lenders. I say minimum, but he said he was paying around 5.8%, so it's even less than that. Right now, his business is making around 10 000 BTC each week.

Making 10 000 BTC with 100 000 BTC each week? In the current state of the Bitcoin market, it's doable.

This is nonsense if you refer to Bitcoin trading at any of the exchanges; pick any of the optimal entry and exit points at MtGox within a week and see if you can do a 100k trade on which you make 10%.

Do you know that even with 7k weekly, this would be a multiple of what MtGox alone earns on commission during a typical trading week? Must be magic.

Let me just illustrate how stupid this idea is: Typical MtGox trading volume has been ~400k in the past weeks months, and pirate would have had to be 200k for entry+exit. It is absolutely impossible to make 10% profits on this alone continuously. How the hell would this work, trading with himself? Look for yourself: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg150zigWeeklyztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

We are also working with only 100k which is a conservative estimate.

But I'm guessing you haven't done much Bitcoin trading.

[N12]

OK, sorry for assuming MtGox trading, it's just a popular theory around also which I thought you referred to.

Alright, so it is OTC and some people out there have been paying outrageous amounts of money for some reason on huge volumes for 9 months and for some reason noone else really (except the joint and BrightAnarchist et al.) can provide competition or even knows about this clientele. Although I believed this, it is now unlikely due to the volumes, timeframes, consistency and seemingly non-diminishing profit margins.

[byronbb]

OK, sorry for assuming MtGox trading, it's just a popular theory around also which I thought you referred to.

Alright, so it is OTC and some people out there have been paying outrageous amounts of money for some reason on huge volumes for 9 months and for some reason noone else really (except the joint and BrightAnarchist et al.) can provide competition or even knows about this clientele. Although I believed this, it is now unlikely due to the volumes, timeframes, consistency and seemingly non-diminishing profit margins.

Ok, let's take 10 dudes, who trade between themselves (they're bankers, investors, we don't care). They want to make trades using Bitcoin (to be anonymous, low profile, fast transactions, whatever their need). Each week, each of them needs to trade 100 000$ to another guy of the group. The total each week traded is 1 million$. It's not a big market.

How many BTC do you need each week to trade 1 million$? Calculate and imagine.

Bitcoin is not a currency revolution, it's a money transfer revolution.

+1000

[DeLorean]

I like pirate. He makes me money.

[BrightAnarchist]

Hey interesting responses, but I never said I knew what Pirate was doing. I just said there's someone else here in the forum who told me that they know what he's doing and are planning to compete ( other than the OP ).

[the joint]

OK, sorry for assuming MtGox trading, it's just a popular theory around also which I thought you referred to.

Alright, so it is OTC and some people out there have been paying outrageous amounts of money for some reason on huge volumes for 9 months and for some reason noone else really (except the joint and BrightAnarchist et al.) can provide competition or even knows about this clientele. Although I believed this, it is now unlikely due to the volumes, timeframes, consistency and seemingly non-diminishing profit margins.

Ok, let's take 10 dudes, who trade between themselves (they're bankers, investors, we don't care). They want to make trades using Bitcoin (to be anonymous, low profile, fast transactions, whatever their need). Each week, each of them needs to trade 100 000$ to another guy of the group. The total each week traded is 1 million$. It's not a big market.

How many BTC do you need each week to trade 1 million$? Calculate and imagine.

Bitcoin is not a currency revolution, it's a money transfer revolution.

+1000

Bingo.

Bitcoin is not an isolated market.  It's inherently tied to the transfer of fiat currencies, but it's like fiat with a mask.  This is one reason I use things like Bitcoinmonitor in addition to Bitcoincharts and Blockexplorer to see what's going on in real time.

Pirate has made it clear that his clients are interested in one of two things:  Cash and BTC.  Hm...why do you suppose that is?  Can you think of a few groups of people who could benefit from this, and would pay a premium for BTC?  

Pirate is also big on trust.  Look at his OTC.  Look at his posts from his date of registry up to November.  Pirate can't pull off this operation by himself.  One of the best ways to make money is to place yourself in the middle between two markets.  Pirate is currently that guy in the middle.  Both sides need to trust him.

Bruinic is also correct that the 6 figure debt is not real.  The interest debt is real, but Pirate is making more than the interest debt.  As the interest debt increases, the BTC inventory increases.  And round and round you go.

I don't think Pirate himself is concerned so much with BTC as he is with USD.  By the way, he has a lot of that and his sum is increasing.  BTC can't pay his bills or buy him awesome shit, but USD can.  Pay some attention to the bid/ask walls in relation to what Pirate said about the danger of the BTC price increasing too quickly.   Think about the impact that a rapid price increase would have on the USD he's holding, and think of where he got that USD from, etc.   Also consider that Pirate needs USD to purchase BTC for interest payments, and check out the interesting "support" walls after a rally.  Like Pirate said, when there's a rally, people panic buy but new buy orders don't immediately rush in, but rather people eat away at the outstanding supply.  When there's a crash, people panic sell and buy orders are removed.

The relative stability we've seen is no coincidence.  We're riding a cycle.  

[cytokine]

It's so simple now:

Person A wants to launder money to person B.

Person A gives pirate 100K.

Pirate takes a big fee, say 10K.

Pirate buys 90K worth of coins via person A's mtgox account.

Pirate launders these coins to another address in a manner ( using GPUMax etc. ) that makes it impossible to trace.

Pirate sells 90K worth of coins via person B's mtgox account.

Bam. Person A just laundered a ton of money to person B. The more BTC pirate can borrow, the more he can launder each week. Person A and person B pay him big bucks because he's "the computer guy" and they don't know how to do this themselves.

Wow. Just, wow.

[the joint]

It's so simple now:

Person A wants to launder money to person B.

Person A gives pirate 100K.

Pirate takes a big fee, say 10K.

Pirate buys 90K worth of coins via person A's mtgox account.

Pirate launders these coins to another address in a manner ( using GPUMax etc. ) that makes it impossible to trace.

Pirate sells 90K worth of coins via person B's mtgox account.

Bam. Person A just laundered a ton of money to person B. The more BTC pirate can borrow, the more he can launder each week. Person A and person B pay him big bucks because he's "the computer guy" and they don't know how to do this themselves.

Wow. Just, wow.

Actually, the model I was thinking of doesn't need to include money laundering of any kind.  But, as I said, I have no concrete knowledge of who his big buyers are.  That .1% of uncertainty goes a long way.

Edit:  And keep in mind that there are other sources of BTC than exchanges.

[R-]

It's so simple now:

Person A wants to launder money to person B.

Person A gives pirate 100K.

Pirate takes a big fee, say 10K.

Pirate buys 90K worth of coins via person A's mtgox account.

Pirate launders these coins to another address in a manner ( using GPUMax etc. ) that makes it impossible to trace.

Pirate sells 90K worth of coins via person B's mtgox account.

Bam. Person A just laundered a ton of money to person B. The more BTC pirate can borrow, the more he can launder each week. Person A and person B pay him big bucks because he's "the computer guy" and they don't know how to do this themselves.

Wow. Just, wow.

Actually, the model I was thinking of doesn't need to include money laundering of any kind.  But, as I said, I have no concrete knowledge of who his big buyers are.  That .1% of uncertainty goes a long way.

Laundering without point. The tax man would want to know how the 'buyers' suddenly accumulated 90k.

[zerokwel]

you know.. Tbh I don't care what pirate is doing as long as them sweet sweet payments keep coming my way.

If pirate is making a good chunk for himself good on him and thanks for giving me my cut each week. I think the reason some people want to know is so they can try and cut out pirate and make more for themself hence all the FUD.

[cytokine]

It's so simple now:

Person A wants to launder money to person B.

Person A gives pirate 100K.

Pirate takes a big fee, say 10K.

Pirate buys 90K worth of coins via person A's mtgox account.

Pirate launders these coins to another address in a manner ( using GPUMax etc. ) that makes it impossible to trace.

Pirate sells 90K worth of coins via person B's mtgox account.

Bam. Person A just laundered a ton of money to person B. The more BTC pirate can borrow, the more he can launder each week. Person A and person B pay him big bucks because he's "the computer guy" and they don't know how to do this themselves.

Wow. Just, wow.

Actually, the model I was thinking of doesn't need to include money laundering of any kind.  But, as I said, I have no concrete knowledge of who his big buyers are.  That .1% of uncertainty goes a long way.

True, it could simply just be international transfer between legitimate business's. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest laundering then. I was just trying to fit GPUMax into the picture and I didn't see any other way to fit it in. Either way I'm looking forward to finding out (if we do find out eventually) because I'm so darned curious!

This reminds me of the Penn and Teller episode where they talk about Area 51: whenever people don't know what's going on, all kinds of crazy theories come out. Maybe pirate is enabling money transfer between aliens from mars?

[the joint]

I'm dropping out.  Not locking this yet, but I've said all I'm willing to say.

[cytokine]

I'm dropping out.  Not locking this yet, but I've said all I'm willing to say.

Same here. I'm making myself look foolish here, but I'm just having fun trying to figure this out. Not trying to spread FUD.

[cryptoanarchist]

All I can figure is that people will avoid logic as long as the money is coming in. My guess is when pirate's ponzi collapses will have another thread like the Bitcoinica one - a bunch of people whining that really should have known better.

[sadpandatech]

All I can figure is that people will avoid logic as long as the money is coming in. My guess is when pirate's ponzi collapses will have another thread like the Bitcoinica one - a bunch of people whining that really should have known better.

IF it goes that way, it may be true for all the average joe's invested in through pass throughs.

You'll need to add the following up for yourself to validate it. But I am fairly certain a large percentage, like 70% or more of the money in BS&T is on deposit from larger investors who are all well aware of the risks. These people are more likely to spend their energy on looking for the next venture versus coming here to cry if a collapse were to happen.

On a personal level, I do find it slightly concerning that such a large volume would be vested into one place. No matter who or what that place would be. edit; that is likely as much a product from a lack of high risk investments (see start-ups, other Bitcoin based ventures) as it is people not analyzing risk.

[Raize]

I don't know if you realize the scale you're dealing with.

Too big to fail?

You shouldn't be bothered by comments criticizing the investment or folks saying "well, I got out with my profits", especially after how long of a track record you've had. You clearly *are* bothered, though. That's what's throwing a red flag for me.

The dude discovered North America and he's currently building a whole nation while you guys are stuck in Europe fighting for the 120 different crowns of the 34 countries down there. He's keeping his mouth shut because he's not interested in seeing all the wannabe-king going for the gold rush and crippling his profits.

If this is the remittance argument, even in jest, you don't need to borrow coin to do it, you can buy it. I know, I have done so. The profit margins can easily reach 7%, but they don't scale, some days you'll have 5 customers at 10%, some days you have 0. Using loans actually cuts into your profit margins. You'd only use loans if you wanted to conceal the source of remittance, which I would agree has some merits, but not to the scale of what BS&T is doing, at that scale, the only entities doing that aren't exactly legal.

My opinion is that Pirateat40 is buying all the weed on S R and reselling it for rediculous markups! Possibly the rum too! Case solved!

I realize you say this in jest as well, but even this is better done by buying coin at market rates to avoid unnecessary financial risk of a loan. You would only want to borrow coin in the case of resale, and even then you're likely not making a whopping 7% per week doing this, and you're probably going to start losing money the more you do it, so the whole "scale" thing really wouldn't apply.

The tax man would want to know how the 'buyers' suddenly accumulated 90k.

There's ways of easily getting around this for money laundering. It's called "smurfing" in the industry. You can use actual people as your smurfs or just use accounts of random people who's SSN and other info you happen to know and you've created a special bank account for that they likely don't even know of.

Like others have somewhat alluded to, he could very easily be laundering money for Sinola or Los Zetas, I mean, given his stated location on his forum account it would even make sense. There was a NY Times article on this just the other day. A few of the Sinola underbosses have bricks of cash just sitting around in their living rooms and they don't give a crap if they lose 7-10% having to clean it. Hell, most of the time they don't even clean it, they just trade it dirty and leave that up to the capos getting their weekly payment to fix.

But Pirate has went out of his way to insist he is not doing anything illegal because he's a "family man", so I suppose we'll have to take him at his word. It's great what all you can theorize as having the same kind of profitability when someone's unwilling to talk about the details of their investment plan, though. Occam's razor.

Have a great 4th of July weekend, pirate!

[nimda]

It's so simple now:

Person A wants to launder money to person B.

Person A gives pirate 100K.

Pirate takes a big fee, say 10K.

Pirate buys 90K worth of coins via person A's mtgox account.

Pirate launders these coins to another address in a manner ( using GPUMax etc. ) that makes it impossible to trace.

Pirate sells 90K worth of coins via person B's mtgox account.

Bam. Person A just laundered a ton of money to person B. The more BTC pirate can borrow, the more he can launder each week. Person A and person B pay him big bucks because he's "the computer guy" and they don't know how to do this themselves.

Wow. Just, wow.

Actually, the model I was thinking of doesn't need to include money laundering of any kind.  But, as I said, I have no concrete knowledge of who his big buyers are.  That .1% of uncertainty goes a long way.

True, it could simply just be international transfer between legitimate business's. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest laundering then. I was just trying to fit GPUMax into the picture and I didn't see any other way to fit it in. Either way I'm looking forward to finding out (if we do find out eventually) because I'm so darned curious!

This reminds me of the Penn and Teller episode where they talk about Area 51: whenever people don't know what's going on, all kinds of crazy theories come out. Maybe pirate is enabling money transfer between aliens from mars?

Well you see the aliens noticed this genius Bitcoin idea. They can use it to cryptographically conjure starships and then sell these cryptoships for a huge profit. The only problem is, the quantum cryptography requires a signmessage being run from an address with a verifiable balance of over 100K BTC...

[the joint]

Ok, now the FUD's coming in.  I'm locking this.