Bryan Micon's List of BTC Ponzi Schemes that should not be listed as "Lending"

[Micon]

Pretty sure Micon is a puppet for that guy who has the huge bet on Pirate defaulting.

yup, you google'd me at least once.

[CoinCidental]

We are all going to be rich! Stop trying to stop us! How dare you! Do you really expect us to stop deluding ourselves and start doing something productive?  

BTW you can add all the so called pirate pass through bonds to your list. The are just his co-conspirators who would be equally liable for fraud IMO once/if "savings and trust", lol, is revealed as a ponzi (so would be every singe ponzi promoter on this forum).

A ponzi is not a ponzi until it defaults ......or is it ?

no it is a ponzi when it starts, as it runs, and when it defaults

So ,you think pirate is not shaking up a volatile market and making money by doing so .......

You think he has designed the BTCST to be a ponzi right  from the start ?

[ColdHardMetal]

Pretty sure Micon is a puppet for that guy who has the huge bet on Pirate defaulting.

Assuming this is the same Micon (I believe it is) he's actually pretty well known in the (online at least, not sure about live) poker community.

[Tomatocage]

Micon, so what about the .5%-2.5% per week schemes?  Those are legit right?

[Micon]

Funny how he only lists BTCST as a ponzi when pretty much every other BTC security returns Ponzi-like divs.  Every single one of them. Come on now, .5%-2.5% a WEEK?  Are you f**king kidding me?  Where's the outcry about those?

please link me to all ponzi's / lending scams with extremely high interest rates.  

I am going to keep a complete list in the OP of this thread.  

I apologize for not being extremely active on this forum and not knowing about all of them.  I added https://bitcoinmax.com/ just now to the list.  

It is a complete and utter shame that these threads are allowed to be listed under Marketplace > Lending

it should be under MarketPlace > Ponzi

do not put this crap in with MarketPlace > gambling because some of us out there are trying to run a legit, sustainable gambling businesses such as SealsWithClubs & SatoshiDice & a few other operators out there trying to do it right.  These obvious ponzis are so obvious but there are just too many 19-yr old silk road btc ballers that keep shooting their coin into these things, thus sustaining for just a bit longer.

A ponzi always implodes, remember that.  yes a few at the top (and the site owners) profit wildly.  an overwhelming % get boned.  

[Micon]

Micon, so what about the .5%-2.5% per week schemes?  Those are legit right?

link me to example.  likely just a slower ponzi. 

remember Bernie Madoff returned 1% each month like clockwork.  every month 1%.  likely slowest and biggest ponzi ever. 

definition of a ponzi scheme -

can have no underlying business unit to make money, i.e. payments to "investors" must come from new "investors"

[Micon]

We are all going to be rich! Stop trying to stop us! How dare you! Do you really expect us to stop deluding ourselves and start doing something productive?  

BTW you can add all the so called pirate pass through bonds to your list. The are just his co-conspirators who would be equally liable for fraud IMO once/if "savings and trust", lol, is revealed as a ponzi (so would be every singe ponzi promoter on this forum).

A ponzi is not a ponzi until it defaults ......or is it ?

no it is a ponzi when it starts, as it runs, and when it defaults

So ,you think pirate is not shaking up a volatile market and making money by doing so .......

You think he has designed the BTCST to be a ponzi right  from the start ?

what does "shaking up a volatile market" mean?   

he has a site. 

you can deposit

it pays interest each week (as long as there was enough new depositors that week)

it's a ponzi scheme.  It doesn't do anything.  it doesn't make a product, provide a service, or do anything tangible that anyone would want to pay for.  it's is nothing more than a scam.  and it is listed under the "lending" section, making the entire BTC space less credible and it must be stopped or at least exposed and categorized correctly.  And oddly enough ppl will likely still fire on it after we do that.

[Micon]

Pretty sure Micon is a puppet for that guy who has the huge bet on Pirate defaulting.

Assuming this is the same Micon (I believe it is) he's actually pretty well known in the (online at least, not sure about live) poker community.

i run donkdown poker forum

site pro at sealswithclubs

did thriller dance at WSOP / pro poker player 2x WSOP FT's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-mBUA-uUDM

fully legit guy here and wore a BTC button during all WSOP, check the pokernews pix

I also am 33 yrs old and have been scammed before when I was younger and ppl try to scam me all the time here in Vegas.  Seen a ton of scams and how they go down and some of you younger kids could learn a bit.

[CecilNiosaki]

Micon, so what about the .5%-2.5% per week schemes?  Those are legit right?

link me to example.  likely just a slower ponzi. 

remember Bernie Madoff returned 1% each month like clockwork.  every month 1%.  likely slowest and biggest ponzi ever. 

definition of a ponzi scheme -

can have no underlying business unit to make money, i.e. payments to "investors" must come from new "investors"

2.5% a week isn't always a ponzi, and the majority of legit businesses pull these figures or larger. Hell, I make over 1.2% a week in the Second Life stock market. I also buy ceiling clips for $0.30 direct, and then mark them up to $13.00.

Generalities are a bitch.

[Vladimir]

2.5% a week isn't always a ponzi, and the majority of legit businesses pull these figures or larger. Hell, I make over 1.2% a week in the Second Life stock market. I also buy ceiling clips for $0.30 direct, and then mark them up to $13.00.

Generalities are a bitch.

Do you also have a credit card charging you 3000% APR (without grace periods) and use it to buy all those ceiling clips and never pay the balance off?

With ponzis it is all not so much about earning whatever crazy stuff as about continuing buying the capital at insane prices.

[CecilNiosaki]

2.5% a week isn't always a ponzi, and the majority of legit businesses pull these figures or larger. Hell, I make over 1.2% a week in the Second Life stock market. I also buy ceiling clips for $0.30 direct, and then mark them up to $13.00.

Generalities are a bitch.

Do you also have a credit card charging you 3000% APR (without grace periods) and use it to buy all those ceiling clips and never pay the balance off?

Negative.

My comment was only aimed at the .5% to 2.5% weekly statement, which I find to be more realistic. The scope of a legitimate business that can earn enough to pay that, and then also have the volume to do so large scale is beyond me.

[CoinCidental]

The only missing ingredient is how

I have "invested" money in goods and sold them on ebay before making 100-300% (although it took a bit longer  )  so 0.5 to 2.5% is more than achievable IF there is something legitimate behind it

you cant prove its a ponzi without knowing whats behind the scenes

[memvola]

I think bitcoinmax doesn't have a place on that list, since it's only a pass-through. Alternatively, you could try to include all pirate pass-throughs. The starfish maintains a list of the most prominent lenders here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81542.0

Some of those are definitely not ponzis/scams though, and others are unlikely, so such a list wouldn't be very credible. On the other hand, it may serve as a reminder for lenders to do their own research.

what does "shaking up a volatile market" mean?

If you have enough capital to control a highly volatile market, it may yield high returns. It's obvious that this is being done in the BTC markets. I don't know what this has to do with BTCST though.

it must be stopped or at least exposed and categorized correctly.

Everyone says it must be exposed, but where is the definitive proof?

I suggest you create a bounty for the person or persons who can bring proof that it is a ponzi. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would donate to that (especially the investors themselves). It would be much more helpful than laying down thousands of bitcoins for bets against pirate.

[RDegas]

I've invested a bit of money in Bitcoinmax.  Not much, but some.  I may be fairly new to Bitcoin, but I'm rather adept at life.  I certainly have enough real-life experience under my belt to understand how to mitigate a high risk transaction.  I'm sure that a 6.9% compounded interest rate is not sustainable in the long term, but for now, it seems to be working fine, no?  Of course the whole thing may collapse tomorrow (or sooner), but that's a risk I'm willing to take.  

And, come-on.  Just *getting* into Bitcoin (educating yourself about it, transferring funds, exchanging funds for Bitcoins, setting up wallets, etc...) probably means you have a better than average understanding of risk management.  

Services like Bitcoinmax have value.  They allow people (for various reasons...I'll explain mine in a moment) to do some heavy speculating.  Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn't.  It's the individual's responsibility to mitigate the risks.  If Bitcoinmax fails tomorrow (or sooner), I have nobody to blame but myself.  He plainly states that he doesn't guarantee deposits.  He plainly states that all of the risk lies with the depositor.  So, what's the problem, here?  

I take a bit of umbrage when people come around and insist telling me that I'm being scammed.  If I were being lied to, or the risks of the speculation were hidden from me, that may well be the case.  I don't see that happening, here.  

I plan on watching my deposit on a daily basis and start mitigating the risk of said deposit as soon as possible.  This can be done any number of ways, but the important thing is, I'm taking responsibility for my own actions.  

I love Bitcoin and these forums because they are generally anarchistic and unregulated.  I enjoy seeing mutual cooperation come together to solve problems in a void.  There are ways of of determining scams, and the serious people on these boards seem to be coming up with good counters to those scams all the time.  This is how a free, unregulated market is supposed to work.  

I'm not a child.  I understand the risks.  I want to swim in these waters, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

**The reason I'm speculating in Bitcoinmax at the moment is to get my "feet wet" and to attempt to grow a large enough stake where I can start doing lending of my own.  This is a learning process for me.  If I lose my stake, I'll chalk it up as a price of admission.

And, that's all I have to say about that.

[RDegas]

I suggest you create a bounty for the person or persons who can bring proof that it is a ponzi. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would donate to that (especially the investors themselves). It would be much more helpful than laying down thousands of bitcoins for bets against pirate.

This is an excellent idea.  Incentives work more efficiently at the margins than coercion. 

[nimda]

Rofl... you can get 0.5%/week if you just buy some mining hardware
Because GPU's and FPGA's are ponzi schemes.

[Frankie]

ROFL, you can get money on a freaking credit card cash advance for 0.5% a week. Anyone paying more for loans than that is irrational, a scammer, or a kid who doesn't know any better/can't get credit. I wouldn't lend any of them money.

It's not about whether someone can actually make 0.5-2.5% ROI, it's about whether it makes sense for someone to pay that much for a loan. It doesn't.

[RDegas]

ROFL, you can get money on a freaking credit card cash advance for 0.5% a week. Anyone paying more for loans than that is irrational, a scammer, or a kid who doesn't know any better. I wouldn't lend any of them money.

It's not about whether someone can actually make 0.5-2.5% ROI, it's about whether it makes sense for someone to pay that much for a loan. It doesn't.

It may not make sense *to you*, but it obviously makes sense to others.  Here's a hint.  We aren't a collectivized entity.  We each approach these things as individuals, assess the risks, and act accordingly.  In other words, people work and play on the margins all the time.  This is how the margins get pushed back to make room for the rest of us.  The people who work and play out there either understand the risks and act accordingly, or they quickly get burned.

[Frankie]

I agree that credit is attractive to an individual who knows she has the option of never repaying. And I know that early adopters to Ponzi scams can make money. Bur in the end, I think spades should be called spades and scams called scams.

OP is fundamentally right, even if he is a horrid poker player "gambler."

[RDegas]

I agree that credit is attractive to an individual who knows she has the option of never repaying. And I know that early adopters to Ponzi scams can make money. Bur in the end, I think spades should be called spades and scams called scams.

OP is fundamentally right, even if he is a horrid poker player "gambler."

OP is fundamentally incorrect, for the very reasons I stated.  If someone is offering me a very risky service, which may well result in me losing capital, and is completely upfront about all the risks involved, how in the world can that be classified as a "scam?"

So many people were burned on the original Ponzi scheme (and later with Bernie Madoff) because those two people really *were* scamming people.  They did not disclose the risks.  They guaranteed things which could not be guaranteed, and they blatantly lied to the people who gave them money. 

Like I said upstream, I've put money into Bitcoinmax.  I'm well aware of the risks.  I know nothing is guaranteed me, and I'm fairly confident I'm not being lied to. 

Am I being scammed? 

Words mean things.  You can't just throw them around without consequence. 

This is all ironic because the OP accuses those of offering and accepting these services of being "kiddies." 

Yet, it's those who misappropriate language and fail to understand that words have consequences who are acting like children.