Bitcoin Ponzi Schemes & How to Identify Them
Using Bitcoin Safely Is The Fun Way To Use Bitcoin
It's no secret that if you own Bitcoin that you get to be your own bank whenever you hold your own private keys. However, frequently to get the full use out of Bitcoin, or money in general, you need to have it held with various institutions. These institutions may be a bank where you can store your money for safe keeping or an investment portfolio to invest into domestic index funds. Outside of financial institutions they can be as simple as gift cards or other similar assets to be used at a future point in time.
One of the most powerful aspects of Bitcoin is the fact that all payments are irreversible. This fact is extremely important to people who accept Bitcoin for payment since they know that receiving Bitcoin money is sound money and cannot be faked, counterfeit or double spent. In the Bitcoin casino industry or other industries where fraud may be more prevalent, this aspect is huge in driving down compliance costs and other wasteful inefficiencies to serve you with a superior end product, such as lower house edge. However, irreversible spending becomes a very big problem for the consumer side when they send their Bitcoin to various institutions because the irreversible nature of Bitcoin brings out the worst scammers and fraudsters that the internet has to offer.
Fake Value Offered By Fraudsters
In order for a fraudster to allure victims into sending them their money, they frequently have to offer a value proposition in the first place. Since the discussion revolves around Bitcoin Ponzi schemes, we are going to keep it strictly based on that subject, but keep in mind this can apply to many other types of situations both in and out of cryptocurrency. In order to entice users, the Bitcoin Ponzi games will typically “offer” outrageous rates of interest to would be customers to attract them into the games. They will offer things that may look like:
1% per day!
10% per month!
1% per day if you invest $1,000 or 2% per day if you invest $5,000!
Also keep an eye out for their Ponzi "affiliate programs" that try to have you sucker other people into buying into their program.
As the old adage goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. Realistically, any time passive investments start promising to offer you rates more than industry standards of 5-10% per year, you should do some homework, math and community research to see if what they are saying is plausible or not. Generally speaking, any time offered interest rates are approaching 1% a day or more, you can usually automatically assume they are a scam.
Ponzi schemes can be especially deceiving to customers as well initially because they can, and will, pay out people in the beginning of their games as money starts flowing in. The problem becomes that eventually there are too many debt holders and not enough money and the owners/operators take the remaining Bitcoin sums to pocket for themselves and leave, never to be found again. And in the Bitcoin world, it's as good as gone at that point.
When it comes to investments, make sure you understand where the value is created and why. If they make empty promises on returns without saying how, it is almost assuredly a scam. If they guarantee profit with “no risk of losing funds” you have to ask yourself how that is possible as almost all investments have risk.
Don't Despair! Some Bitcoin Investments Can Make Sense!
With MintDice's investment program, the value proposition makes sense and the APR is completely calculable if you have enough knowledge. By taking a share of the profits of the online casino, you understand where the value is coming from. There is inherent risk in investing in a casino bankroll as casinos can lose, even over extended periods of time if they are unlucky. And the APRs can be rather large if enough large bettors come to the website to play. So while we make no promises on MintDice as to how much you'll make, you can rest assured that it is a good bet that makes sense, that is subject to some amount of risk. You also know it is NOT a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme or Ponzi game because we do not use customer funds to pay other's withdrawals. Your funds simply bankroll a casino. And we have a proof of solvency to show you that we have the Bitcoin funds on hand to pay out all participants of the casino at any moment in time.
Enjoy and stay safe out there.
