5 ms·

The pyramid was literally on the Bitconnect FAQ page: https://youtu.be/wK0ztRcXvNQ?t=135 https://youtu.be/wK0ztRcXvNQ?t=135

saalweachter 9y ago
I mean, this being the internet, it could have started as a tongue in cheek joke and then when the money started rolling in the founders just kind of went with it. Which I think is a potential lesson for HN readers: something can be funny, but still be fraud.
- spookthesunset 9y ago
  No. My USDT is on them deliberately putting that crap on the site in order to weed out anybody with a functioning brain. It's kinda like Nigerian prince scammer emails are full of deliberate grammar and spelling errors. You gotta filter out the noise in your conversion funnel. Lots of crypto-coin stuff, including virtually all "name brand" crypto's, do the same thing. Most of the marketing is full of complete political, financial, and computer science nonsense. Anybody educated in any of those topics takes one look at the crypto space and goes "nope. sounds too good to be true. pass". What's left is a much more, shall we say, naïve set of marks to go after. You know, the kind that won't likely sue the shit out of those at the top of the pyramid... or even report them to the authorities. A very nice feature of Bitcoin is it specifically targets those with an anti-authoritarian bent--the kind who blather on about tax-theft, how the police should be deregulated, free market private industries and how the system of law should be replaced with cold, hard, unfeeling computer programs. If you were a scammer, wouldn't you want to target a group of people who wouldn't in a million years report you to the police? Good stuff. The "crypto space" is an amazing thing to watch. Never a dull moment.
  - asddddd 9y ago
    I disagree, lots of smart people who know it's bullshit are still involved (because it's very easy money if you know what you're doing). Any sort of tangible value is utterly irrelevant, what matters is future market opinion. Quite the same for gold, stocks, forex, or anything else, just with much greater volatility. > If you were a scammer, wouldn't you want to target a group of people who wouldn't in a million years report you to the police? Most of the fresh faces that make the bubbles happen don't care about any of that stuff, they are just blinded by greed and will get burned for it. The ancap/libertarian ideologues who have been involved for years are the ones who are worth ridiculous amounts of money these days. The fact that it's a relatively large community of fresh millionaires/billionaires (they won't tell you, but that's a huge percent of people involved in crypto for 5+ years) with an unwillingness to convert to fiat currencies (revoking citizenships to avoid taxes, even) does mean that there's a willingness to put money in marginal opportunities.
  - trophycase 9y ago
    Email scammers lose time if they don't quickly eliminate bad targets. Ponzi schemes have no such issues.
- TheSmiddy 9y ago
  for example: https://www.chemtrailvaccines.com/ https://www.chemtrailvaccines.com/ Not really a fraud though, they WILL send you a bottle of mints as described
  - TaylorGood 9y ago
    That’s brilliant.
  - lagadu 9y ago
    > 100% proven to combat all symptoms caused by government released chemtrails Can't argue with their claims either, the mints really do combat all the symptoms caused by government released chemtrails.
    - daemin 9y ago
      I didn't know chemtrails caused bad breath! /sarcasm
      - jacobush 9y ago
        it combats that too
ce4 9y ago
Video was deleted by the user. Any other source?
- rplnt 9y ago
  Not sure, but this is what I've found: https://bitconnect.com/images/referal_bonus.png https://bitconnect.com/images/referal_bonus.png
  - npongratz 9y ago
    Image also archived here: http://archive.is/wdET3 http://archive.is/wdET3

saalweachter 9y ago

I mean, this being the internet, it could have started as a tongue in cheek joke and then when the money started rolling in the founders just kind of went with it. Which I think is a potential lesson for HN readers: something can be funny, but still be fraud.

spookthesunset 9y ago
No. My USDT is on them deliberately putting that crap on the site in order to weed out anybody with a functioning brain. It's kinda like Nigerian prince scammer emails are full of deliberate grammar and spelling errors. You gotta filter out the noise in your conversion funnel. Lots of crypto-coin stuff, including virtually all "name brand" crypto's, do the same thing. Most of the marketing is full of complete political, financial, and computer science nonsense. Anybody educated in any of those topics takes one look at the crypto space and goes "nope. sounds too good to be true. pass". What's left is a much more, shall we say, naïve set of marks to go after. You know, the kind that won't likely sue the shit out of those at the top of the pyramid... or even report them to the authorities. A very nice feature of Bitcoin is it specifically targets those with an anti-authoritarian bent--the kind who blather on about tax-theft, how the police should be deregulated, free market private industries and how the system of law should be replaced with cold, hard, unfeeling computer programs. If you were a scammer, wouldn't you want to target a group of people who wouldn't in a million years report you to the police? Good stuff. The "crypto space" is an amazing thing to watch. Never a dull moment.
- asddddd 9y ago
  I disagree, lots of smart people who know it's bullshit are still involved (because it's very easy money if you know what you're doing). Any sort of tangible value is utterly irrelevant, what matters is future market opinion. Quite the same for gold, stocks, forex, or anything else, just with much greater volatility. > If you were a scammer, wouldn't you want to target a group of people who wouldn't in a million years report you to the police? Most of the fresh faces that make the bubbles happen don't care about any of that stuff, they are just blinded by greed and will get burned for it. The ancap/libertarian ideologues who have been involved for years are the ones who are worth ridiculous amounts of money these days. The fact that it's a relatively large community of fresh millionaires/billionaires (they won't tell you, but that's a huge percent of people involved in crypto for 5+ years) with an unwillingness to convert to fiat currencies (revoking citizenships to avoid taxes, even) does mean that there's a willingness to put money in marginal opportunities.
- trophycase 9y ago
  Email scammers lose time if they don't quickly eliminate bad targets. Ponzi schemes have no such issues.
TheSmiddy 9y ago
for example: https://www.chemtrailvaccines.com/ https://www.chemtrailvaccines.com/ Not really a fraud though, they WILL send you a bottle of mints as described
- TaylorGood 9y ago
  That’s brilliant.
- lagadu 9y ago
  > 100% proven to combat all symptoms caused by government released chemtrails Can't argue with their claims either, the mints really do combat all the symptoms caused by government released chemtrails.
  - daemin 9y ago
    I didn't know chemtrails caused bad breath! /sarcasm
    - jacobush 9y ago
      it combats that too

ce4 9y ago

Video was deleted by the user. Any other source?

rplnt 9y ago
Not sure, but this is what I've found: https://bitconnect.com/images/referal_bonus.png https://bitconnect.com/images/referal_bonus.png
- npongratz 9y ago
  Image also archived here: http://archive.is/wdET3 http://archive.is/wdET3