7 ms·

The China factor behind this "surge" is because this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_c

by est 11y ago

The China factor behind this "surge" is because this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company) started doing business in China. It's growing very huge.

trymas 11y ago
+1 Somehow I refuse to believe that this surge in price is natural.
- hellofunk 11y ago
  Price fluctuation in tradeable products of any kind is never "natural", it is supply/demand-driven. And supply and demand are complex forces with much turbulence from a vast number of influences.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Speculation is a thing. BC is still infinitesimal in terms of the global economy and even relatively tiny movements of money can underline or pop a bubble.
    - hellofunk 11y ago
      Yes, and speculation is one of the forces affecting demand. There is no such thing as a "natural" price move in any tradeable product. The term has no meaning; all trading is based on some form of speculation or other forces.
      - Retric 11y ago
        People use "natural" or "baseline" to refer to the price a commodity returns to after a bubble burst. Though, price movements are more chaotic than that and you can have short term spikes, swings from external effects ex: natural disasters, short term 'bubbles', and demand from things like tax policy changes so "natural" is somewhat vague. So, the implication is it's what happens when you remove short term and artificial effects.
        hellofunk 11y ago
        In practice I've never heard anyone use the word "natural" in regards to price movement in a tradeable product, not in the five years I've been working in the financial industry. Sounds like more of a layman's term, perhaps. But the line between short-term and long-term movements is nearly non-existent since one typically affects the other, and the idea that there is any sense of normal price movement that lies behind all that turbulence is fairly naive.
        Retric 11y ago
        It is a defined term, but I think trymas is referring to the layman's usage. "natural price" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/natural_price https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/natural_price A price for a good or service that is equal to the cost of production.
        hellofunk 11y ago
        Oh well that is a totally different term than the context it is being used in here.
  - smrtinsert 11y ago
    This is false, a lot of things are seasonal or weather related.
    - hellofunk 11y ago
      The weather does not cause prices to change. Traders do. The weather can be an influence on supply or demand economics, but price fluctuation at its core is not a natural phenomenon by any means.
corv 11y ago
Very unlikely the cause considering the amount of hits their website is getting.
- corv 11y ago
  Believe what you want but MMM isn't even getting 1/10 the hits of a single bitcoin exchange.
mikeyouse 11y ago
There are thousands of videos popping up on YouTube with how much money these people have 'made' on MMM Global, it's sad to see; https://www.youtube.com/results?lclk=week&search_query=mmm+global+pays&filters=week https://www.youtube.com/results?lclk=week&search_query=mmm+g... It's very likely a big part of the price increase, many of the local MMM sites advertise that they're bitcoin-only and all of the exchanges are extraordinarily shallow so small surges in demand really move prices. Here's a pretty good article from a mid October predicting the huge run-up based on interest in MMM and how they reward posts to social media where people show off how much they've "made": https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/mmm-global-republic-of-bitcoin-cryptos-next-scandal https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/mmm-global-republic-of... If anyone pays for better website analytics, I bet you'd find a pretty striking increase in the MMMGlobal rankings in the past month or so that corresponds pretty strongly with bitcoin price. One more note is that the exact same price runup happened in July with Litecoin based on a different Chinese ponzi scheme: http://www.dailytradingprofits.com/4669/was-litecoin-pumped-by-a-chinese-ponzi-scheme/ http://www.dailytradingprofits.com/4669/was-litecoin-pumped-...
- deleted 11y ago
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- deleted 11y ago
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- mikeyouse 11y ago
  Side note: I don't know if anyone with the skill has the extra time on their hands, but it'd be interesting to track BTC through the MMM accounts to try and locate their largest addresses. It has to be in the millions by now if not much more..
  - askmike 11y ago
    It is easy to hide those amounts by just using a lot of different addresses. Of course people can try to tie those addresses together again, but that's pretty hard.
- simias 11y ago
granaldo 11y ago
Agree this is unnatural. Mmm is one theory, gold commodity price isn't doing too well very little reason for Bitcoin to bull at this time Still an impressive gain looking at 30 days trend https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd
the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
It's not just china. MMM is popping up all over the place lately.
kenesom1 11y ago
A film (PiraMMMida) came out in 2011 depicting the rise and fall of MMM in early-90s Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-JgGV8cH1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-JgGV8cH1I http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606652/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606652/
- donkeyd 11y ago
  I did not expect this to be published on the official MMM Worldwide channel
  - the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
    It's officially run as a pyramid scheme in all marketing for the last two iterations at least.
mrb 11y ago
Yes, the MMM Global ponzi scheme now requires participants to fund their account in bitcoins. This is likely what nudged the price of Bitcoin upward. Even the CEO of BTCC (China's 3rd largest Bitcoin exchange) admits it: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-breaks-260-to-hit-two-month-high/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-breaks-260-to-hit-two-... However, at this point the Bitcoin price surge alone almost certainly ignited a Bitcoin speculative bubble that is self-sustaining and would continue even if MMM was shut down today. I mean look at a hockey stick graph like this, it's enough to trick people into thinking now is a good time to buy "because it's going up": http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg30zig6-hourztgSzm1g10zm2g25 http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg30zig6-hourztg... This speculative bubble is taking place mostly in China right now, as all Chinese exchanges trade at a premium over American exchanges. In fact Huobi just hit 3188 CNY (503 USD): https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/huobi/btccny https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/huobi/btccny when most American exchange are at 460 USD —a 9% arbitrage opportunity!
- jegutman 11y ago
  It's only kind of an arbitrage. There's also a huge onshore / offshore spread for Renminbi, but you can only move currency onshore for very specific purposes.
pimlottc 11y ago
I'm a bit confused, the Wikipedia link says it was shut down in 1997 and makes no mention of bitcoin. Is it the same company or is MMM now being used as a generic term?
- tomku 11y ago
  It's the exact same company run by the exact same guy using the exact same branding. Search for "MMM Pays" on Youtube and you'll get thousands of videos people uploaded talking about how rich they got off the current scam.
- dntrkv 11y ago
  As Tomku pointed out, it's the same company with the same scammer running it. I know back in 2011 they relaunched as MMM-2011 (creative, I know) and then in 2012, you guess it, MMM-2012. I know some people that were involved in it back then and one of them lost something like $5k. You can get people to do very stupid things if you convince them that you can help them get rich quick.
- tzm 11y ago
  http://m.china-mmm.net/cn/news/rules_and_recommendations_on_safe_participation_in_mmm_china-3626.html http://m.china-mmm.net/cn/news/rules_and_recommendations_on_...
fierycatnet 11y ago
Wow, so this is THE "MMM" that people are talking about. They took Russians for a ride in the 90s, I didn't think I'd hear this name again.
gohrt 11y ago
Wait, MMM Global is the same company that perpetrated one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history?

by est 11y ago

trymas 11y ago

+1 Somehow I refuse to believe that this surge in price is natural.

hellofunk 11y ago
Price fluctuation in tradeable products of any kind is never "natural", it is supply/demand-driven. And supply and demand are complex forces with much turbulence from a vast number of influences.
- Retric 11y ago
  Speculation is a thing. BC is still infinitesimal in terms of the global economy and even relatively tiny movements of money can underline or pop a bubble.
  - hellofunk 11y ago
    Yes, and speculation is one of the forces affecting demand. There is no such thing as a "natural" price move in any tradeable product. The term has no meaning; all trading is based on some form of speculation or other forces.
    - Retric 11y ago
      People use "natural" or "baseline" to refer to the price a commodity returns to after a bubble burst. Though, price movements are more chaotic than that and you can have short term spikes, swings from external effects ex: natural disasters, short term 'bubbles', and demand from things like tax policy changes so "natural" is somewhat vague. So, the implication is it's what happens when you remove short term and artificial effects.
      - hellofunk 11y ago
        In practice I've never heard anyone use the word "natural" in regards to price movement in a tradeable product, not in the five years I've been working in the financial industry. Sounds like more of a layman's term, perhaps. But the line between short-term and long-term movements is nearly non-existent since one typically affects the other, and the idea that there is any sense of normal price movement that lies behind all that turbulence is fairly naive.
        Retric 11y ago
        It is a defined term, but I think trymas is referring to the layman's usage. "natural price" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/natural_price https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/natural_price A price for a good or service that is equal to the cost of production.
        hellofunk 11y ago
        Oh well that is a totally different term than the context it is being used in here.
- smrtinsert 11y ago
  This is false, a lot of things are seasonal or weather related.
  - hellofunk 11y ago
    The weather does not cause prices to change. Traders do. The weather can be an influence on supply or demand economics, but price fluctuation at its core is not a natural phenomenon by any means.

corv 11y ago

Very unlikely the cause considering the amount of hits their website is getting.

corv 11y ago
Believe what you want but MMM isn't even getting 1/10 the hits of a single bitcoin exchange.

mikeyouse 11y ago

There are thousands of videos popping up on YouTube with how much money these people have 'made' on MMM Global, it's sad to see; https://www.youtube.com/results?lclk=week&search_query=mmm+global+pays&filters=week https://www.youtube.com/results?lclk=week&search_query=mmm+g... It's very likely a big part of the price increase, many of the local MMM sites advertise that they're bitcoin-only and all of the exchanges are extraordinarily shallow so small surges in demand really move prices. Here's a pretty good article from a mid October predicting the huge run-up based on interest in MMM and how they reward posts to social media where people show off how much they've "made": https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/mmm-global-republic-of-bitcoin-cryptos-next-scandal https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/mmm-global-republic-of... If anyone pays for better website analytics, I bet you'd find a pretty striking increase in the MMMGlobal rankings in the past month or so that corresponds pretty strongly with bitcoin price. One more note is that the exact same price runup happened in July with Litecoin based on a different Chinese ponzi scheme: http://www.dailytradingprofits.com/4669/was-litecoin-pumped-by-a-chinese-ponzi-scheme/ http://www.dailytradingprofits.com/4669/was-litecoin-pumped-...

deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago
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mikeyouse 11y ago
Side note: I don't know if anyone with the skill has the extra time on their hands, but it'd be interesting to track BTC through the MMM accounts to try and locate their largest addresses. It has to be in the millions by now if not much more..
- askmike 11y ago
  It is easy to hide those amounts by just using a lot of different addresses. Of course people can try to tie those addresses together again, but that's pretty hard.
simias 11y ago

granaldo 11y ago

Agree this is unnatural. Mmm is one theory, gold commodity price isn't doing too well very little reason for Bitcoin to bull at this time Still an impressive gain looking at 30 days trend https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd

the_mitsuhiko 11y ago

It's not just china. MMM is popping up all over the place lately.

kenesom1 11y ago

A film (PiraMMMida) came out in 2011 depicting the rise and fall of MMM in early-90s Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-JgGV8cH1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-JgGV8cH1I http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606652/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606652/

donkeyd 11y ago
I did not expect this to be published on the official MMM Worldwide channel
- the_mitsuhiko 11y ago
  It's officially run as a pyramid scheme in all marketing for the last two iterations at least.

mrb 11y ago

Yes, the MMM Global ponzi scheme now requires participants to fund their account in bitcoins. This is likely what nudged the price of Bitcoin upward. Even the CEO of BTCC (China's 3rd largest Bitcoin exchange) admits it: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-breaks-260-to-hit-two-month-high/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-breaks-260-to-hit-two-... However, at this point the Bitcoin price surge alone almost certainly ignited a Bitcoin speculative bubble that is self-sustaining and would continue even if MMM was shut down today. I mean look at a hockey stick graph like this, it's enough to trick people into thinking now is a good time to buy "because it's going up": http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg30zig6-hourztgSzm1g10zm2g25 http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg30zig6-hourztg... This speculative bubble is taking place mostly in China right now, as all Chinese exchanges trade at a premium over American exchanges. In fact Huobi just hit 3188 CNY (503 USD): https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/huobi/btccny https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/huobi/btccny when most American exchange are at 460 USD —a 9% arbitrage opportunity!

jegutman 11y ago
It's only kind of an arbitrage. There's also a huge onshore / offshore spread for Renminbi, but you can only move currency onshore for very specific purposes.

pimlottc 11y ago

I'm a bit confused, the Wikipedia link says it was shut down in 1997 and makes no mention of bitcoin. Is it the same company or is MMM now being used as a generic term?

tomku 11y ago
It's the exact same company run by the exact same guy using the exact same branding. Search for "MMM Pays" on Youtube and you'll get thousands of videos people uploaded talking about how rich they got off the current scam.
dntrkv 11y ago
As Tomku pointed out, it's the same company with the same scammer running it. I know back in 2011 they relaunched as MMM-2011 (creative, I know) and then in 2012, you guess it, MMM-2012. I know some people that were involved in it back then and one of them lost something like $5k. You can get people to do very stupid things if you convince them that you can help them get rich quick.
tzm 11y ago
http://m.china-mmm.net/cn/news/rules_and_recommendations_on_safe_participation_in_mmm_china-3626.html http://m.china-mmm.net/cn/news/rules_and_recommendations_on_...

fierycatnet 11y ago

Wow, so this is THE "MMM" that people are talking about. They took Russians for a ride in the 90s, I didn't think I'd hear this name again.

gohrt 11y ago

Wait, MMM Global is the same company that perpetrated one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history?