I don't understand why people are so obsessed with the 12% APR. If they had the money to run the most profitable signature campaign, leave $40k as collateral, charged absolutely zero for mixing, and carried a shitload amount of money to begin with as we saw, then it doesn't preclude the possibility that they wanted to attract users via APR.
Because it's a scam tactic?
Everything else you mentioned is bait to get people into the service and probably stems from previous scams.
They didn't have the money to run the most profitable campaign in the long run - this just built instant trust and lured people in to advertise the scam.
$40k collateral? If it yields even 10℅ in net profits (net scam profits) then that's no problem for a previous scammer/group.
Charging zero for mixing? Red flag. lol.
8BTC to begin with ... Great, but that would have just come from the last scam.
That's a bit extreme. More like you'd just get paid less to advertise more legitimate campaigns.
I'm yet to understand how is this legitimacy measured. Presenting yourself as the superior custodial mixer, about to introduce blinded bearer certificates, backed by significant collateral, and employing one of the most reliable campaign managers, had successfully and convincingly passed my test of legitimacy.
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Legitimacy by default depends on the business:
- Services which do not take custody of peoples coins for extended periods of time (exchanges, mixers, casinos) and that are more transactional = more legitimate
- Services which do not pray on the demise of the end user (casinos) = more ethical, and legitimate
- Services/businesses which provide an instant good/service = more legitimate (more transactional, you buy, you receive, end of transaction)
Obviously you've been so lost in the mixer & casino sauce that you've lost touch of the aspects of a truly legitimate business lol
As for you being apparently tricked - if they're your checks - your checks are SHIT.
- Code is not open source
- Protocol is not decentralized
- Custody is kept (who gives a shit about a newbie's promises?)
- Creator was a newbie who could talk somewhat technically (is that really a legitimacy indicator?)
- On-chain traces showed the mixing was not anymore advanced than any other solution (I pointed this out early on, BTW)