Quote from: piike2323 on November 23, 2014, 06:22:47 AM

You don't see a ponzi scheme coming until its here.

Yeah, you can. Certainly with the vast majority of these cloudmining ponzi's.

Everyone here is focused on ROI, and no one seems to care if these companies are legit. The majority of cloudmining websites dont do any mining whatsoever. They pay out old customers via coinmixers from revenue that comes from recruiting new ones. No surprise, to keep the game going they usually emphasize referrals to make you do their dirty PR work.

Now why would you care if these companies are mining or not? All that matters is they pay out, right? Wrong.

If the company (or more aptly: scammer) isnt mining, then its impossible on average for the investors to profit. Early investors might, but only at the expense of later ones. If there are no miners, then there is nothing to generate those profits. So dont be fooled by low prices or high payouts. Ponzi miners will drop prices as low they need to keep the game going.

And dont think because its been running for 10 months, that it has to be legit either. Unlike traditional ponzi's, mining ponzi's dont risk a bank run. You cant get your money out if you begin worrying, so they can run a fairly long time. Take PBmining, one of the most obvious ponzi schemes. Several posters here are promoting them, and at least some seem to think they are legit because they have been paying since early this year. Here is the reality: based on their own stats, in the past month they sold ~1.5 (non existent) PH worth of contracts. Good for around ~2200 BTC. During that same month they paid around 1600 BTC in dividends. A net profit of ~600 BTC or nearly a 1/4 of a million dollar. Just for running a website. SO of course they are still paying out, not because they are legit, but because they are maximizing their profits: they are still getting far more revenue from new victims than they are paying out.

Of course that cant last. At some point the new sales will slow while the owed dividends keep going up. Once the latter becomes bigger than the former, guess what the anonymous operator will do? Yep, the same thing pirate, bitcoin-trader and countless other (mining) ponzi's before did. They go *POOF*

Be smart. Think before you invest. Dont trust *anyone* with a referral link in his signature. Let this be a guide:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=860400.0

BTW, to all the referral link whores that are about to say Im full of it, that I have no proof etc, Im taking bets. I will double your ponzi revenue through escrow if Im wrong. I will win the principal if Im right and within say 12 months, said ponzi collapsed.