If I understand you correctly, this is inaccurate, as some borrowers (we were debating vescudero) say they guarantee deposits. They may or may not be lying, but that still makes your statement invalid.
Read over the statement. I don't think it does. I'm not saying all investments are equal. I'm saying we've seen obviously absurdly bad investments that people have taken seriously and been willing to invest in. I believe that indicates a serious problem in the community.
My other point is, what is the difference between these business descriptions:
- lending out to other borrowers, investing in short term opportunities and investing in other bitcoin projects
- buying and mining with 10 BFL Single's and preordering 10 more Single SC's
Both have the same potential to be a scam. If you would support a bias towards the second one, the effect would be nothing more than making the scammers pick that method instead.
There is nothing inherently different in those two. Either of them could be perfectly legitimate if there's transparency. Both of them are bad investments if there's not. Investors should be careful with both such business plans.
All I'm saying is, your point is less convincing when presented as clear-cut. Even though the basic reasoning is sound, the dismissive approach will continue to lose effectiveness as exceptions to the "rule" increases.
What exceptions are there to the rule that an investment with no transparency or that promises suspicious return relative to risk is almost certainly a scam? (Or, in the rare case where there really does seem to be an unusually good business plan, must at least be evaluated with extremely heightened suspicion to ensure it's not a scam.)