Quote from: cryptoanarchist on June 28, 2013, 11:47:29 PM

He was the main voice on this forum calling pirate a scam

You are very much confused.

April 17th, 2012:

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I would be more interested in how many reserves the "trust" still has. E.g. what would happen if the 10 biggest accounts cash out at the same time. Right now.

This.

Scenario.

I. Buy, borrow or steal 1k btc.

II. Open Krakken Bank of Bitcoin, October 1st (as we all know krakken eat pirates). Offer 7% per week to investors. At this point it makes sense strategically to open it only to "selected" investors - most everybody isn't interested anyway so you gain some "mystique" that costs nothing.

III. 1st of November. Collected a few hundred in principal, paid maybe 10-20 BTCs from your 1k. BuKK stands at a few hundred btc invested + the goodwill of paid investors, you stand at ~980 BTC.

IV. 1st of December. Collected about 1k BTC in principal, paid ~200 BTC from your 1k. BuKK stands at 1k invested, buzz is starting to fly. You're ~750 BTC.

V. 1st of January. Collected 2-3k BTC, paid pretty much the remainder of your original balance. Start making little noises here and there about how you "own" the bitcoin market and delicately suggest to people that your moves actually have any impact (a ludicrous concept, but it served the bankers of old fiat well).

VI. 1st of February. Things start to balloon from here. BuKK principal is easily over 10k BTC, growth rates in the 10 to 20% range each week. Replenish your original 1k with some fringe just in case, pay the suckers their "interest" from the growth rate like any serious pirate/krakken/anything else designed-to-fail ponzi scheme. Do a lot of mouthing about imaginary investment opportunities irl or at the irl/btc interface that somehow magically net you what no business in the ~1000 years of business history ever made and each hyip in the ~10000 years of hyip history always claimed.

Huh

VII. Fail. A well, certainly not the first time, certainly not the last time, it's a pity to let a sucker keep its bitcoin and all that. Not like any lessons are liable to be learned or anything of the sort.

What's that, June? September? May? Heck, with a little luck it might even survive till the reward halving.

Also April 17th:

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In 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) warned that "[t]he con artists behind HYIPs are experts at using social media â including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook â to lure investors and create the illusion of social consensus that these investments are legitimate."
[...]
Some HYIP operators opened their own digital currency companies that eventually folded; these companies include Standard Reserve, OSGold, INTGold, EvoCash, and V-Money.
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The largest documented HYIP scam was OSGold, founded as an e-gold imitation in 2001 by David Reed. OSGold folded in 2002. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in early 2005, the operators of OSGold may have made off with USD $250 million. CNet reported that "at the height of its popularity, the OSGold currency boasted more than 60,000 accounts created by people drawn to promises of "high yield" investments that would provide guaranteed monthly returns of 30 percent to 45 percent."
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The second largest documented HYIP was PIPS (People in Profit System or Pure Investors). The investment scheme was started by Bryan Marsden in early 2004 and spanned more than 20 countries. PIPS was investigated by Bank Negara Malaysia in 2005 which resulted in Marsden and his wife being charged in a Malaysian court with 97 counts of money laundering more than 77 million RM, equivalent to $20 million. Even after these charges were brought forth, many of Marsden's followers and investors continued to support him and believe they would see their money in the future.

There is no 7% a week. Deal with it.

Quote from: cryptoanarchist on June 28, 2013, 11:47:29 PM

Don't be surprised if these guys run off with a bunch of people's money, then play the blame game.

You're late.

Quote from: darkmule on July 25, 2013, 06:07:58 PM

A legitimate business has a reputation to defend, which is why a legitimate business wouldn't hire a freak like Josh to insult its customers. A scam, though, might hire a professional troll to disrupt discussions of its misdoings by making outrageous posts. The hope would be to distract from the real discussion onto whatever crazy thing the troll said.

Of course, it takes a special kind of stupid to make that trolling an official part of your business.

This all depends. No legitimate business defends itself or its reputation from the onslaught of idiots, it's much cheaper and much more effectual to just call them idiots and let them be. Consider the numerous early threads about me "pedaling" and whatnot. So in this strategic sense BFL did the right thing.

The fact that they're rather competent doesn't mean they're not scammers, however, it just means they're competent scammers (which we, as well as the US Penitentiary System already know).

The fact that you ascribe stupidity, incompetence and "all the bad things" to some entity that has hurt you by taking advantage of your manifest, marauding stupidity and then proceed to disregard both fact and reason in a ridiculous attempt to "prove" the nonsense through some painful contortions is nothing more than proof of the same thing: you're fucking dumb, and that's what dumb people do. It's not however how thinking works, and if you're wondering that's why I get to call you stupid to your face, put it in writing, sign it and get away with it: because you actually are.