Dude there is a big difference between not investing and starting a fucking crusade.
This is fair, but there's also a big difference between investing and attacking skeptics as FUDsters and worse. I don't care what people want to do with their money, but a lot of the folks on this thread are culpable co-conspirators morally, if not legally.
There's a difference between being skeptical and calling someone a scammer. Most of the FUDsters were claiming 100% irrefutable proof, when none existed.
Really? Where did someone claim 100% irrefutable proof? I saw a lot of people claiming that it exhibited all the characteristics of a Ponzi. That was true. If a passive investor felt differently, they were free to keep their high rates of return to themselves. That's not what many conspirators did.
In my humble opinion, you are being dismissive because you're convinced that it would be best if everyone stopped investing in these schemes.
Yes, exactly. Legitimate investments don't involve a complete absence of disclosure of what you're investing in, no way to estimate the actual level of risk, and no way to tell whether claimed losses were actually incurred or whether claimed profits were actually legitimate. No honest person should ask for investments on terms only a fool would accept.
We have actually seen offers that were basically: "Give me some money to invest, if I make money, I'll share it with you. Otherwise, you'll have to take my word that I actually lost your money in some kind of actual investment". That was literally all they were saying. And people were actually taking this offer seriously. That shows that this community is massively disconnected from reality.
I agree it's disappointing, and it's especially disappointing to see bitcoin rhetoric co-opted by Ponzi-boosters. Yes, Bitcoin is great, and has the potential to reduce transaction costs, but it's not the ticket to absurd rates of return.