For the record, the scam has *nothing* to do with the pre-mined coins. That's a ridiculous red herring. At one time, you could have had ixcoins equal to the total number of pre-mined coins for under $1,000. The ixcoin founders probably spent that much hiding their identity and buying ixcoins to make a market. (In fact, I'm pretty sure I watched them do that.)

The early adopter argument doesn't apply to ixcoins. If you assume ixcoins won't succeed, then it makes no difference who adopted them early -- a large number of worthless coins is only slightly less worthless. If you assume they will succeed, then you can still be an early adopter. You can purchase 100,000 Ixcoins for about $1,000 right now. So if you believe the initial miners or early adopters got an unfairly good deal, you can have that same deal. Not interested? I didn't think so.

The scam is that they add *no* value to bitcoins whatsoever. Ixcoins have no conceivable value beyond speculation. There is no realistic reason anyone would ever adopt them as a currency over bitcoins. Or at least, if there is one, I sure as heck can't figure it out.

That is, the *only* conceivable reason to value Ixcoins is that hope that others will value them more greatly in the future. And the only reason they would ever do that is that someone might value them even more highly further in the future. This progressively increasing value is borderline inconceivable. On the other hand, bitcoins are gradually acquiring value as a medium of exchange, and if a cryptocurrency does become mainstream, the most likely candidate right now is bitcoins. So there's a realistic prospect of real future value anchoring the speculation.