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Bitcoin Ponzi scheme
- tommorris 13y agoI'm sure the Dogecoin Ponzi scheme will be better.
- bendoernberg 13y agoAh, you mean Dogecoingem.com? Been up for over a week :) http://dogecoingem.com/ http://dogecoingem.com/
- dogewow 13y agoAs I mentioned below, my money is on http://dogepound.l8.lv http://dogepound.l8.lv (literally)
- FiloSottile 13y agoThe experiment is over. We will pay back everyone we can. We are not making money from this. And it's down.
- FiloSottile 13y agoPeople are still sending money in (!?) https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1vE64q https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1... Paybacks seem to have halted https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1vE64q?filter=1 https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- utuxia 13y agoHere's another one: http://igjam.com/?pool http://igjam.com/?pool
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- icpmacdo 13y agoheres the correct blockchain info on it. https://blockchain.info/address/1AQxcdPgMTTQghPXt1EXHU8vEjSn2kYrPQ https://blockchain.info/address/1AQxcdPgMTTQghPXt1EXHU8vEjSn...
- ll123 13y agoExcept that one is just a copy of the html and nobody is going to get paid, the chat doesn't even work.
- jacob019 13y agoactually I just put in 0.01 BTC, got back 0.015, put that back in again, and now I have 0.0225. I dare not try again, quite pleased with my USD$7 profit. There is definately something much scammier about it. The # of transactions doesn't increment, and with 150% payout it will die much quicker.
- epmatsw 13y agoHuh. I got paid back. I'm actually somewhat surprised. Well, I made 0.0002.
- yownie 13y agosame here, made .0999
- yatakaka 13y agoCareful. I just sent .3, complained in the chat and was subsequently blocked...
- yatakaka 13y ago17gHYULi7cvfUdyJspiV7acRACJrvmVK3k
- 97s 13y agoThis is amazing.
- kenrose 13y agoWhat is amazing is that (at the time of this writing), they've had 205 BTC deposited. At today's value, that's $140,000 USD. For a site that looks to be just over one week old. In a way, this is almost sort of like gambling. You either get 1.2x your money, or lose it all. Odds depend on the hype of the site. Cute whois information too: Owner : Charles Ponzi
- orn 13y agoThe site seems to have crashed, maybe it's Game over ?
- BobMarin 13y agoYou do realize that the site is a joke, don't you?
- ryanjshaw 13y agoThe blockchain doesn't lie: https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1vE64q https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1...
- kenrose 13y agoWhat do you mean a joke? Looking at the blockchain, it seems to be a full fledged, serious, Ponzi scheme. They're taking in BTC and paying it out again to the early investors. EDIT: +1 to ryanjshaw for showing the blockchain: https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1vE64q https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1...
- BobMarin 13y agowow did not expect that, my bad... I just glanced over and saw all the automated responses and figured it's a joke. I'm actually still not convinced it's not an elaborate joke
- bernardom 13y agoThis is a beautiful piece of art/social experimentation/I-don't-know-what.
- TheAnimus 13y agoIt's brilliant, and it will work, and continue to work until people don't believe in it.
- ryanjshaw 13y agoThat's the fun part. Watching to see how big it will grow. It's almost like putting an exact dollar value on the amount of greed present.
- maxerickson 13y agoIt's technically how high it goes (the current balance should be quite a bit less than the total paid in).
- eterm 13y agoI don't find it fun at all, I find it a bit tragic. Looking from the chat it looks like it's a bunch of kids who don't have the sense to not engage with this kind of site.
- ElongatedTowel 13y agoI love how people send over $1000 to this site. Why not play poker if you have that much money to spend on gambling? Or, you know, buy an instrument and learn something beautiful?
- BlackDeath3 13y agoBecause if they gamble and win, they can buy two instruments! Do you not understand how gambling works?
- ZitchDog 13y ago
- runn1ng 13y agoI will add, since this hit the frontpage: nobody post any big money there. It's a Ponzi scheme. It says so in the title.
- mikkom 13y agoPonzi scheme is ok if you are in at the beginning of the scheme. That's what makes this interesting - it's basically a bet that other people will also believe this will go on.
- sklivvz1971 13y agoUnless someone runs off with the money (and in any case, unless you are the first, you never know if you are at the "beginning")
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- eschaton 13y agoPonzi schemes aren't OK. They're a form of theft, both immoral and illegal.
- pmikal 13y agoWebsite shows they've shut it down. "The experiment is over. We will pay back everyone we can. We are not making money from this."
- runn1ng 13y agowell, that was quick. note: I did not post the website to make money or anything (and I was not affiliated with the author in any way). I thought it was funny, and I thought nobody will seriously put money into it. I was probably wrong.
- icpmacdo 13y agohaha seconds after I send money to it. This is what I was expecting. I was going to see how long I could save that 0.1 return.
- radicality 13y agoCould have let it run its course to actually make it an 'experiment', couple of hours of popularity is a bit too short to shut it down :(
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- leugim 13y agoCool cool cool The human stupidity in one web, from the same Carlo Ponzi to Bernard Madoff. All Ponzi scheme portrayed in a web. I love it.
- refrigerator 13y agoIf I had any Bitcoin, I would definitely play this once or twice
- RobinL 13y agoWhat a great illustration of how investment bubbles can rationally occur.
- aestra 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory The greater fool theory says there are fools who know their purchase is either worthless or overpriced but purchase it anyway in order to sell it to greater fools at a profit.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoCharles would be proud.
- makomk 13y agoThere have been a few Bitcoin sites like this, I think the original one was Bitcoin Gem. Most of them turned out to be scams (and I don't just mean that they were Ponzis).
- runn1ng 13y agoWell, (1) they weren't so hilariously open about their scam nature, (2) they weren't so nicely done and so transparent. On the other hand, this is going for just a few days, it might go south quickly.
- sashazykov 13y agohttp://bitcoinpyramid.com/r/230 http://bitcoinpyramid.com/r/230 is 3 years old (and still paying :))
- sashazykov 13y agoMoreover it was the first profitable pyramid. Income: 751.63949374 btc Deposits: 692.04538439 btc Donations (ads): 59.59410935 btc Expenditure: 748.05864780 btc Withdrawals: 739.21264780 btc
- dclara 13y agoscammed: ponzi is a SCAM I copy-pasted from the site. BTW, any pyramid scheme is bad and should be prohibited, right? But the site is cool though.
- tobz 13y agoI wouldn't recommend a pyramid schema. You'll run into migration problems down the road. Better to keep it flat.
- dclara 13y agoI guess we are talking about difference things. Sorry, I meant Pyramid scheme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme But regarding pyramid schema, you mean hierarchical structure, right? I have the same concern, but flat tagging does not help much as we can observe from many sites. Let people browsing from multiple levels of the category is fun. The rule of thumb is: don't expect perfect structure and don't need to have everybody agree on that. Ad hoc hierarchy should be good enough like Amazon product list. Also keep it away from people who don't need to browse it.
- plumeria 13y agoI think it was a joke?
- Kiro 13y agoA bit OT but how do you build automatic Bitcoin services like this?
- guard-of-terra 13y agoUsing RPC API of the official client? Unless you do something smarter like bitcoin lottery (I forgot how it is called).
- runn1ng 13y agoIf you have just a few transactions then yes, but the official client has a few caveats that can show up as problematic. I would write it myself, but there is far better explanation here on reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x93tf/some_irc_chatter_about_what_is_going_on_at_mtgox/cf99yac http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1x93tf/some_irc_cha... basically: - the difficulty of finding available addresses is quadratic to the number of unspent transactions - someone can slightly change the transaction so it's still valid, but have a different transaction ID - that can mess up clients and break chains of unconfirmed transactions
- hendzen 13y agoIf you like Java (or other JVM langs), check out BitcoinJ. By far the most solid Bitcoin library.
- jccooper 13y agoThe official bitcoin client (and all its alt forks) runs as a JSON-RPC server. It also runs as a graphical and/or command-line client for said server. You can thus communicate directly, or you can script calls of the command-line client (which gives back the direct JSON responses.) There are also plenty of language libraries that wrap the JSON-RPC calls. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_calls_list https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_calls... https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/API_reference_(JSON-RPC) https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/API_reference_(JSON-RPC) I find the naming of the API a little peculiar, but it's simple enough.
- 3rd3 13y agoHow does that work exactly? I pay in X BTC and two other people pay in say 0.5 X and 0.7 X then I get these BTC back? How exactly will my X BTC be distributed among other gamblers?
- sp332 13y agoYou don't get the original money back at the end, you just get the 1.2x BTC that other people gave you.
- maxerickson 13y agoIt's interesting that this is exactly what a 'high risk' mixer looks like.
- dzhiurgis 13y agoOr money laundering scheme. Genius idea.
- xcyu 13y agoRefresh the page to see some "live" action.
- thrush 13y agoHow much does creator make?
- ilya89 13y agohe probably funded the first 10-100 btc, 20% profit. do the math.
- thrush 13y agoare you sure 20% profit is the right number? Imagine two people use it, and they both pay 1 BTC. Time | Event 1 | First person pays 1 BTC 2 | Second person pays 1 BTC 2 | First person gets paid 1.2 BTC The creator makes .8 BTC in this case. Pretty solid return if you ask me.
- WWKong 13y agoKeep going. Then a third person joins. Second gets 1.2. Creator now has only 0.6. Then a fourth one joins…
- ilya89 13y agomy thought process is: one large BTC pool. all transactions are feed into the pool. the order of the deposits dictate priority of withdrawal. Owner does not skim the transactions, only makes a large initial deposit and then markets the site like crazy. Big assumption here is that he is running an "honest" ponzi operation.
- coherentpony 13y agoOh jesus fucking christ. People have sent over 200 BTC to that. :/
- harrigan 13y agoThis was tried out about a year ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=138749.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=138749.0. The rules were originally very similar to the website above; then the owner modified them so that the gem randomly "reset".
- runn1ng 13y agoWhat I realized now: if you look at their BTC balance https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1vE64q https://blockchain.info/address/1ponziUjuCVdB167ZmTWH48AURW1... plus https://blockchain.info/address/14ji9KmegNHhTchf4ftkt3J1ywmijGjd6M https://blockchain.info/address/14ji9KmegNHhTchf4ftkt3J1ywmi... their "debt" - meaning, what other people have to bring into the system - is their balance + 20%. Right now, their debt is about 42 bitcoin.
- eterm 13y agoIsn't their acrued "debt" actually 20% of what has been paid in? That's about 48 bitcoins as of now. (Or perhaps that's what you meant?)
- runn1ng 13y agoHm, you might actually be right. I am not sure what the balance actually represents.
- yxhuvud 13y agoRemember that it takes a while for transactions to complete, so the balance could be a simple counter of outstanding outgoing transactions.
- maxerickson 13y agoThere is some list of unpaid 'investors'. If they are operating as they say, the balance should always be less than 1.2 times the amount put in by the first entry on that list (or so, they could be combining payments or what not).
- powera 13y agoThis is quite possibly the worst post to ever hit #1 on Hacker News. Why are you people voting it up? Just because it admits that it's a scam (and "get your money plus 20% back for nothing ALWAYS ENDS UP A SCAM") doesn't mean that it should get posted here.
- sehr 13y agoBecause it's interesting?
- powera 13y ago"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." - I maintain that a "good" hacker wouldn't find a blatant scam interesting. Especially not "just because it uses bitcoin".
- GeneralMayhem 13y agoIt's beyond blatant; it's unabashed and self-aware. That's interesting - who would make such a thing? Who would pay into it? Will it still work even when people know what it is?
- runn1ng 13y agoThis is why I posted it. I didn't think it will reach #1 spot, but here we go.
- powera 13y ago"Every time you send money to the Ponzi address, you'll get back 1.2x what you put in." - honestly, it sounds like a normal Ponzi scheme to me. It's probably targeting people who don't realize that Ponzi schemes by their nature always end up as scams. "All of our activity is is open and public on the blockchain. It's impossible for us to cheat anyone out of their payout without everyone knowing." - completely ignores the point. 15% of the people who put money in WILL lose all of it. Period.
- RyanZAG 13y agoI'm trying to work out if this is some grand statement on the similarities of Bitcoin to a Ponzi scheme in the way it's deflationary, or just a quick way for someone to make a few BTC. Maybe it's designed as a way to teach people about Ponzi schemes? Got to say, I pity the person who eventually deposits too much money at once, causing the payments to pause while they build up enough to cover his large deposit, in turn causing everyone else to think that the money has stopped paying out and causing no further money to be deposited. That seems like the likely end of this eventually...
- eterm 13y agoEven if it's not one person depositing a large amount, the backlog must grow larger and larger as time continues, this site actually has to grow exponentially to keep payout times constant.
- ivanca 13y agoIndeed, the liquidity here is the popularity of the site itself so as soon as the media buzz fades out the last ones to invest are going to lose everything; just like it always happens in ponzi schemes.
- poopsintub 13y agoPoor Kevin Bacon didn't know what hit 'em.
- Buge 13y agoIt's less of a statement about bitcoin as a statement about people. It shows that people will willingly deposit money into a scheme that they know is broken. Just like with Bitcoin Savings and Trust, people essentially knew it was a ponzi scheme but they still deposited 263024 BTC. It was offering 7% a week which is 3373% a year. There are also debates about whether the people who profited are morally obligated to send their profits to the people who lost money. Are the people who profited considered to have stolen from the people who lost?
- tzakrajs 13y agoA ponzi scheme on top of a ponzi scheme. Brilliant.
- a3_nm 13y agoThis would be cooler with one of those other cryptocurrencies that feature a Turing-complete scripting language: the code of the scheme could be public and run in the blockchain so that everyone would know the system is fair.
- tobias2014 13y agoWhich cryptocurrencies have such a feature?
- a3_nm 13y agoThere's http://www.ethereum.org/ethereum.html http://www.ethereum.org/ethereum.html but I'm sure there are others.
- breaker05 13y agoI'd love people to donate a few BTC that I can use for more noble causes. 1P6yGa6nerZZ7jFDVPtFuXUPvLSfku4kWj
- tobz 13y agoWhy bother with a faceless ponzi scheme? Send your bitcoin directly to me, and I will invest it by hand, making sure to maximize your return: 1HbNxRhrv5Jocr7Q9ZqbbqCwuNNy4UsR77 This is totally legit. Seriously.
- judk 13y agoI wonder how much enforcement action I could get if I acted on your post at face value...
- jaekwon 13y agoI have sent you $50 though coinbase. I expect you to honor your word. Return address: 1JEGu8qiaKbLgheAWCjRkeZNyEqhhaFVY3
- blantonl 13y agoHe really did: https://blockchain.info/address/1HbNxRhrv5Jocr7Q9ZqbbqCwuNNy4UsR77 https://blockchain.info/address/1HbNxRhrv5Jocr7Q9ZqbbqCwuNNy... So far, no such honor has been extended from the OP: https://blockchain.info/address/1JEGu8qiaKbLgheAWCjRkeZNyEqhhaFVY3 https://blockchain.info/address/1JEGu8qiaKbLgheAWCjRkeZNyEqh... This is one of the beauties of Bitcoin - complete transaction transparency.
- logicallee 13y agohow is that "beautiful". what business is it of yours what these two posters' financial histories are?
- dav- 13y agoJesus, man. If you want to go around throwing away money, why not give it to me? 1QHz6XPn8m8ujpMK1iCBaZfD5FTStfnk58
- tobz 13y agoJust waiting on the next person to send me some skrilla then you can reap your reward.
- dwaltrip 13y agoNo one finds this repulsive? People will lose money to this. Yes, they are dumb, yes it is obvious. But those who participate are still morally complicit. Enabling others who suffer from serious issues (addiction, gambling) seems like a pretty shitty thing to do.
- sehr 13y agoIt's horrible. But it's like watching a trainwreck to be honest, you know exactly what's going to happen yet it's still intriguing.
- gojomo 13y agoIt's as repulsive as state-run lotteries. The expected return to entrants, over all entries through its collapse, is likely even better than lotteries. At least this isn't advertising on TV and YouTube to attract even more vulnerable and unsophisticated players!
- fragsworth 13y agoIt's really not much different from gambling. It's not repulsive if they are honest about how it works.
- Tohhou 13y agoI love people like you who think they are smarter and better than anyone who would do things they don't like. Kudos.
- 13y ago
- smartistone 13y agoWell, this is how folks get rich in the smartist era, by creating schemes like this. Or buying facebook & google stock. Or creating/investing in the next web 2.0 billion dollar company. A 9-5 chump would have to work for years to make this kind of money, assuming he paid off all his college loans.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mmaunder 13y agosnip Ponzi Scheme Enforcement Actions Curtailing Ponzi schemes and holding those responsible for these scams accountable is a vital component of the SEC's enforcement program. Since fiscal year 2010, the SEC has brought more than 100 enforcement actions against nearly 200 individuals and 250 entities for carrying out Ponzi schemes.1 In these actions, more than 65 individuals have been barred from working in the securities industry. The SEC also has worked closely with the U.S. Department of Justice and other criminal authorities on parallel criminal and civil proceedings against Ponzi scheme operations. snip Source: http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/enf-actions-ponzi.shtml http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/enf-actions-ponzi.shtml Keep in mind that BTC or virtual money is just another asset class.
- gburt 13y agoA Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. With little or no legitimate earnings, Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of money from new investors to continue. Ponzi schemes inevitably collapse, most often when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask for their funds to be returned. Surely this isn't an "investment fraud" if it is completely honest about how it works. I wouldn't count on the SEC being reasonable about that though.
- powera 13y agoBut it's not completely honest. The FAQ says "Every time you send money to the Ponzi address, you'll get back 1.2x what you put in." But by the nature of these scheme, the last 15% of people won't get their money back.
- BlackDeath3 13y agoIt also not only plainly labels itself a Ponzi scheme, but explains that you'll only get a return if others invest after you.
- sunshinerag 13y agoI bet this ponzi scheme will be much short-lived compared to the one run by federalreserve.io.
- Kiro 13y agoI just tried and got paid within 30 minutes.
- kokey 13y agoI've always been fascinated by ponzi schemes, or other pyramid and chain structures. Most of the legislation against it that I've looked at, attacks it from a deception angle. So, basically, if it's honest about what it is and your chances are to make or not make money from it, it may be within the law of many countries. I have never looked at it from a cross border legal perspective, that might make it even more interesting.
- dror 13y agoThis is almost perfect except for not including a warning: "Warning, if people stop depositing money, you won't get 120% back, and you could lose all your money." Also, it seems like the person running the site is not taking a cut. If that's right, he's not making a profit, and he's less likely to get in trouble when things collapse.
- judk 13y agoOr the feds will convince a judge that the runner owns the anonymous addresses that got paid.
- ck2 13y agoI'm impressed by the vanity address, must have taken a lot of cpu power to hash that one out.
- kordless 13y agoProbability on a low end machine is 50% in 2.6 hours.
- GigabyteCoin 13y agoCPU power, maybe. Vanitygen works with GPU power now, however. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Vanitygen
- sillysaurus2 13y agoHere's someone who recently sent 1 BTC to this ponzi scheme: https://blockchain.info/address/1Gh2tRaqaPWFbQVabVD9rPsN1nm951iRD5 https://blockchain.info/address/1Gh2tRaqaPWFbQVabVD9rPsN1nm9... https://blockchain.info/address/1BYbqzLvAN9PCC4LqNPPG2dHSyTnN4Jim8 https://blockchain.info/address/1BYbqzLvAN9PCC4LqNPPG2dHSyTn... I'm going to watch and see what happens to them. If they don't lose their 1 BTC, then that's at least slightly interesting. EDIT: It's been more than an hour; no repayment yet.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- magic8ball 13y agoThe payout system does not seem to be FIFO, that is, just because you put in money before person B does not mean you'll get paid out before person B. I also put in 1BTC (far before these people) and followed it up with a small transaction. The small transaction got paid back (also incorrectly) whereas my 1BTC was never returned. Oh well, it was fun to watch.
- erikb 13y agoI would not wonder if it was posted by the actual author and if his advertisement here is actually successful.
- ponzi_io 13y agoActually I couldn't post here since my account is too new.
- udfalkso 13y agoSo how do the creators of this make money from it? The best solution is one that doesn't infringe on the "correctness" of the game, and it's a simple one. Simply play the game yourself. Send money in, let the system send money back. Do it a lot. Many small transactions. You will never lose, because when the game ends you are the owner of the actual account and won't get screwed like everyone else. Right? So, perhaps many of the transactions we're seeing go into this are suspect and the total amounts aren't to quite be trusted?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- judk 13y agoThe creators buy the first N shares, for guaranteed no-loss.
- udfalkso 13y agoYes, but they can keep playing as it goes in addition. Making money and reinvesting it.
- DelightfulScone 13y agoOr you know, take the currency since this is a ponzi scam and ponzi scammers don't want to let pay-outs go to anyone but themselves. Why is HN giving traffic to scam sites now?
- shalmanese 13y agoIf you think Ponzi schemes won't work if you tell people that they're a ponzi scheme, MMM-2011 was a Ponzi scheme in Russia that hooked people despite nakedly advertising that it was a scam: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/is-global-finance-a-ponzi-scheme-ask-a-russian-expert.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-06/is-global-finance-a...
- melarina 13y ago> Transparent Bitcoin Ponzi scheme needs more parentheses
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- randomflavor 13y agoJust tried sending .2, and got back .119 - so therse a bug or he's skimming. lol, anyway interesting to make this https://blockchain.info/address/1MeDEWdpJRdSiRXaVFJK6b6m7Bv2SiKcHT https://blockchain.info/address/1MeDEWdpJRdSiRXaVFJK6b6m7Bv2...
- bbosh 13y agoIt is either a scam or very poorly coded. I've seen one transaction in the blockchain for 7BTC from yesterday that hasn't been paid. But, people sending 0.01BTC today are being paid. Any proper Ponzi scheme would pay back in time order, not by order of value.
- bbosh 13y agoI found this at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=447831.80 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=447831.80: "Actually, I set it up to prioritize the small transactions. The 1 BTC depositor will have to wait a while, and everyone else will get paid out as soon as their transaction confirms (this makes sense since the 1 BTC guy is making more money anyway)." Clearly doesn't understand the concept.
- CurtMonash 13y agoTo be technical, there are multiple inaccuracies in "Get 120% back when the next person sends". First, as per the central problem of Ponzi schemes, it is missing an "... if ever" at the end. But further, it is oversimplified, because people can submit different amounts of bitcoins. Covering up that uncertainty -- which while apparent is not as clearly disclosed as the "Ponzi" aspect -- makes it harder for people to assess the likelihood they will get the promised return.
- avodonosov 13y agoI think "when" is perfectly precise, and includes the "... if ever" meaning.
- FiloSottile 13y agoI think the completely honest thing to do would be to show another number (total sent * multiplier), explaining that if you send now, you will get the amount back when the total counter reaches that amount.
- CurtMonash 13y agoSounds like it might work.
- ryanskidmore 13y agoSomething is not quite right. Deposited 0.05859407 BTC ( https://blockchain.info/tx/c5411ae7ad41d6dab5dd879c158cb81f0ae6d20b066bd4e0c5e6d1dfb69553ae https://blockchain.info/tx/c5411ae7ad41d6dab5dd879c158cb81f0... ) Recieved 0.0599 BTC back ( https://blockchain.info/tx/ef7f32df518dabb104812ea4a127190266c4d4700b2d147e669353fe484bd824 https://blockchain.info/tx/ef7f32df518dabb104812ea4a12719026... ) 1.2 * 0.05859407 = 0.070312884 BTC So, somebody owes me 0.010412884 BTC
- avodonosov 13y agovery good idea
- RRRA 13y agoCan anybody tell me how you come I've sent close to the minimum and got almost 100 time more? (this is not a joke, algo. fail?)
- mmaunder 13y agocough-bullshit-cough
- RRRA 13y agoWell, it seems the experiment is over and they tried to pay back everyone, but have a look at my wallet: http://imgur.com/10nx0DG http://imgur.com/10nx0DG I sent 0.0012408 + 0.0001 fee and got 0.1199 back... So I just tried again before seeing that it was over and probably will not get anything back from that payment. So, in total, I "lost" 0.0013408*2 and got 0.1199. That's 76$ profit, at current rate anyway!
- bbosh 13y agoI don't know why you've gone to the effort of blacking out the other addresses, when the blockchain is public. Here's a definitive proof of the transactions: https://blockchain.info/address/1B45zbsPXDDwoCsY11NGmX7useg1TcJAja https://blockchain.info/address/1B45zbsPXDDwoCsY11NGmX7useg1...
- RRRA 13y agoGood point, I guess I'm still new to this, I just bought some BTC from the new Montreal's ATM yesterday. I guess that by blacking out the time or part of the amount I would have made it "uncertain"... So yeah, point is, it's true, ponzi.io screwed up big time in my favor (and I just got the 6th verification). And ... it's Saturday, and I've just got some "money" for free booze. cheers! ;)
- omni 13y agoI sent them 0.001 BTC and got 0.00256 in return over two transactions. Something screwy is definitely going on.
- loucal 13y agoI'm wondering though how they can afford to pay some people 400% Kind of seems like a bug might be making this less sustainable than it normally would be. https://blockchain.info/address/144PHT3EDfKcDreSGHHS3uND52GTWDiEeG https://blockchain.info/address/144PHT3EDfKcDreSGHHS3uND52GT...
- loucal 13y agomake that 500%... the original 79mBTC got refunded to it 2 hours later...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- fnsa 13y agoshameless plug: my ncurses thin SPV bitcoin client for linux/mac: https://github.com/bit-c/bitc https://github.com/bit-c/bitc * 100% C code, * support for linux and mac platforms, * console based: uses ncurses, * home grown async network i/o stack, * home grown poll loop, * home grown bitcoin engine, * supports encrypted wallet, * supports Tor/Socks5 proxy, * multi-threaded, * valgrind clean. You'll need basic dev skills to install it: check-out the code, install dependencies then build. It's all in the README file. I'm interested in all kinds of feedback you may have: feature requests, bugs, etc. Thanks!
- fnsa 13y agoit looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/IJJU14s.png http://i.imgur.com/IJJU14s.png
- Kiro 13y ago"The experiment is over. We will pay back everyone we can. We are not making money from this."
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- 1Ponzi 13y agoDon't trust on any new address. Legit Ponzi address starts with 1Ponzi, like: 1PonziAwQpnfj15Br4YFJHygWtd5LQKgN1 This is the new address that will be up shortly. Early birds get 1.35X payout.
- lucb1e 13y agoShould have known! Like ten minutes before I expected 1.2x to be gathered and my payout to be done, the site reports "The experiment is over." Come on guys, just let it run. I would have accepted it if it just 'died of natural causes' and I lost all I put in (which is not much, 0.03); that was my gamble. Not that you'd pull the plug. Somehow their pulling the plug just really bothers me much more than losing it would have been. Especially because at the rate at which it was going, payout was more or less ensured (300btc * 1.2 = 360. They quit 16 coins short). Right now, two hours after they supposedly would pay everyone back, I still got nothing.
- daeken 13y agoI'm kind of amazed I got a payout. I threw in 0.3BTC for the hell of it, and out popped 0.2999 + 0.0239. Also, where does it say the experiment has ended? I don't see that on the page, and the chat is still lively. [Edit: Now I see that]
- acchow 13y ago> At the rate at which it was going, payout was more or less ensured (300btc * 1.2 = 360. They quit 16 coins short) I think you misunderstand how ponzi schemes work.
- FiloSottile 13y agoI don't see the flaw in his reasoning, can you elaborate? EDIT: I will, then. If when he put money in when there was a total deposit of 300, the total owed by the system was 300 * 1,2 = 360. So it would all be payed when the total deposit of 360; he considered that at the rate it was going at the moment it would have been reached quickly (here is the gamble) but instead they closed the site 16 BTC short of that target. Are you sure you did understand? Or am I on the wrong path?
- acchow 13y agoAnd the people putting in those last 16 bitcoins - what do they get back? There are always losers in every ponzi scheme.
- jasonvolpe 13y agohttp://coincurious.com/ http://coincurious.com/ is a more interesting experimental art piece as it's not a blatant scam.
- breeezzz 13y agoI threw some old satoshi-dice coins at it (0.25) and was saddened at the header mocking that "The experiment is over.". 1.5 hours later 0.30BTC showed up in my wallet! Wow, did not expect that!
- lucb1e 13y agoSpent 0.03 saw 0.0 in return so far :S
- magic8ball 13y agoJust received my 1BTC back. The "experiment is over" seems to be legitimate.
- amenghra 13y agoA few small teaks could make this into a money laundering / mixing money trail tool.
- kolev 13y agoSo, ponzi.io is a Ponzi scheme squared?
- n1c 13y agoFunny, I also built something like this in December. http://pyramidofcoins.com/ http://pyramidofcoins.com/
- legojoey17 13y agoI deposited the minimum just to give it a go (80c... Can't hurt?) and the Ponzi sent me back an absurdly larger amount of bitcoins... Not quite sure what happened, but hey. When this hit the top of Hacker News the site wasn't loading any bitcoin stats or such so I feel the load must have had something to do with it possibly. (That or I just got double spent on, which would be a real sneaky trick to get a user to send back the 'perceived' amount, but coming out of their pocket. This is personally why I wouldn't trust any programs to handle currency so openly on the web. The inability of the average user to stress test or put proper testing through applications can cause quite a fault. Having experienced the methods that banks undergo for software cycles there is a tiny chance someone would have the resources to properly engineer something so fragile (relative to money) properly. Because of this I would assume the main reason the author actually shut the site down (or at least so suddenly) was because of scaling technical issues.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- agent462 13y agoFirst, I fully understood what I was getting in to. I first deposited .1 bitcoin to see if it was real and got 0.11978 back. Ok, this will be fun. I then deposited .8591 and got back 1.1999. Ha this is hilariously fun. More gambling! I then sent 1.2001 and got back 0.8589. Wait what.. The game ended and he skimmed from me to hopefully pay someone else back and not pocket it.
- jacob019 13y agoSo you actually have 0.01938 more than you started with, 0.01938 of someone elses coins who didn't get them back and you feel that he skimmed you?
- agent462 13y agoI think you're missing my point. I'm not saying I feel skimmed. I'm just stating what happened. What I'm saying is that he skimmed from my last deposit. I'm hoping he did use it so others got their coin back.
- jacob019 13y agokind of seems like he purposefully gave you just enough to cover your deposits
- dogewow 13y agoLooks like the fun has moved to http://dogepound.l8.lv/ http://dogepound.l8.lv/ Who wants to make some money before the prices get too high ;)
- jheriko 13y agowhatever happened to ethics and demonstrating problems without victimising people? its not big or clever. :/ once again disappointed in the community...
- gorteks 13y agoA clone is already up at ponzi.tk
- jccooper 13y agoLooks like the operator had seconds thoughts--or plain got scared. I was interested in how trackable he is. The domain is registered under a fake name and DNS is from Namecheap. It's a funny whois entry, lacking all the usual boilerplate, so I'm not entirely sure it's Namecheap; some sort of reseller? Doesn't match what I see from Namecheap itself, but Namecheap does take bitcoin now, so it seems plausible. Hosting is libertyvps.net, a bitcoin-paid host. Hosted "offshore"; company appears to be in US. If a US authority leans on libertyvps, they can get an email and blockchain address, and maybe an IP. Tracing the person would be hard if Tor was used for setting up (and using) the email and all host access, and a decently anonymous acquisition of the bitcoin. A US authority could also get to Namecheap. Using the registrar safely requires about the same precautions, notably access via Tor and acquiring the payment BTC (or pre-paid card) in a non-traceable manner. Done right, they could shut the domain down, but not find the person. Anyway, looks like the top-level bases were covered. But there's a lot of links in the chain. Perhaps the operator got nervous that he didn't cover all of them--and it only takes one. (Against a determined LE agency with jurisdiction or no scruples.)