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BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

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Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can add to that that "experts" are pretty clueless as well, 2000 and 2008 are reminders of that. Close to none saw it coming and the ones that did where laughing stock amongst them, you have to be a pretty remarkable person to swim against National bank presidents, government officials and other high ranking people like Alan Greenspan, that was a super respected economist but also has made some of the worst mista…

Perhaps then your definition of 'expert' is incorrect? Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts? And those who laughed at them were anything but? I would argue that those who laughed at the doomsayers of 2000 & 2008 are the same as those now arguing that BitCoin can only go up. Your reply is a rather odd justification for self-destructive financial behavior.

The difficulty lies not in predicting a crash successfully, but in being able to do so consistently.

At any given time, there is someone who is saying that it’s all about to fall apart. There might even be someone who gets the timing and the reasons right.

The hard part is doing so consistently, and there’s little evidence that anyone can do this, which indicates that luck is the primary factor in various famous “crystal ball” economic predictions.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can add to that that "experts" are pretty clueless as well, 2000 and 2008 are reminders of that. Close to none saw it coming and the ones that did where laughing stock amongst them, you have to be a pretty remarkable person to swim against National bank presidents, government officials and other high ranking people like Alan Greenspan, that was a super respected economist but also has made some of the worst mista…

Perhaps then your definition of 'expert' is incorrect? Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts? And those who laughed at them were anything but? I would argue that those who laughed at the doomsayers of 2000 & 2008 are the same as those now arguing that BitCoin can only go up. Your reply is a rather odd justification for self-destructive financial behavior.

> Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts?

Maybe, maybe not. Without a track record of doing it a whole bunch of times, it's far more likely they made a lucky guess, stumbled into information, etc.

Some are even right but don't get the timing correct. For example, this guy wound up losing everything and owing $106k on a margin call... but if you look at the stock value today he was absolutely correct in shorting it. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/help-my-short-position-got...

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#163
post #66
post #19

I'm just going to leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbR1SXIje1U

Hard to believe that people watched this and still invested in this shitshow.

Recommended reading: The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17349.The_Demon_Haunted_...

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#164
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To have that line of defense, the youtubers would have had to phrase their claims very carefully. I am willing to bet a fistfull of dogecoin that this was not the case of all of them. Make them discover these actions have consequences, I can only see good sides to this.

> the youtubers would have had to phrase their claims very carefully Ponzi schemes are one of those things you can't disclose your way out of. Sort of like HIPAA [1]. If you violate HIPAA, "we disclosed our non-compliance to the patient" is an inadequate--and borderline aggravating--excuse. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_a... Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Off topic: why do people put "I am not lawyer" disclaimer on posts?

Ive rarely seen that sort of disclaimer about any other occupation

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is correct, further the company was registered under 3 different names with companies House in the UK.

Doesn't that just mean 3 different companies? It's not actually unusual for what you might think of as a single company actually to be a group of companies - e.g. a holding company and a set of subsidiaries.

That's didn't seem to be the case, they looked like similarly named but distinctly different.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For starters, they don't deal in USD at all. They deal in "USDT", which isn't at all USD but a token called a tether that is somehow magically supposed to be pegged so 1 USDT == 1USD that you can... well... I dunno what you can do with a tether but one thing you can't do is turn it into actual fiat money on Bitfinex. You might be able to convert it to cold hard fiat on some other exchange though, but odds are good sa…

Poloniex and Binance let you convert to/from Tether (USDT). Do you consider Poloniex or Binance to be sketchy?

Absolutely. Is there any information available on the ownership of Poloniex? Do they provide any proof of reserves?

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Famous Youtubers and other individuals with influence convinced hundreds of people to put their money into BitConnect in order to profit off of referrals If you lost money in this scheme and are in the United States or Canada, contact your state securities regulator [1]. Mention any such referral sources. Those individuals may be liable for securities fraud under state and federal law. If you're in the United State…

Most of them took down their videos by now

An enterprising prosecutor will probably not find it that challenging to get a copy from YouTube.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the youtubers would have had to phrase their claims very carefully Ponzi schemes are one of those things you can't disclose your way out of. Sort of like HIPAA [1]. If you violate HIPAA, "we disclosed our non-compliance to the patient" is an inadequate--and borderline aggravating--excuse. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_a... Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Off topic: why do people put "I am not lawyer" disclaimer on posts? Ive rarely seen that sort of disclaimer about any other occupation

Because in many jurisdictions it is illegal to represent that you are a lawyer or provide legal advice if you are not a lawyer.

http://hirealawyer.findlaw.com/do-you-need-a-lawyer/what-is-...

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can add to that that "experts" are pretty clueless as well, 2000 and 2008 are reminders of that. Close to none saw it coming and the ones that did where laughing stock amongst them, you have to be a pretty remarkable person to swim against National bank presidents, government officials and other high ranking people like Alan Greenspan, that was a super respected economist but also has made some of the worst mista…

Perhaps then your definition of 'expert' is incorrect? Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts? And those who laughed at them were anything but? I would argue that those who laughed at the doomsayers of 2000 & 2008 are the same as those now arguing that BitCoin can only go up. Your reply is a rather odd justification for self-destructive financial behavior.

> Would it not be that the ones who saw it coming were really the experts?

No, because there are people that predict fiscal doom all the time.

* People predicted that 2016 would have a huge crash.

* People predicted that 2017 would have a huge crash.

* People predicted that 2018 would have a huge crash.

* People will predict that 2019 would have a huge crash.

* People will predict that 2020 would have a huge crash.

If there's a huge crash in 2019, are you sure the people that predicted the 2019 crash are geniuses? Perhaps some of them were simply lucky. You have to be super careful if you are going to go by a small sample of past predictions, because there are a lot of people that make a lot of predictions. Statistically, some of them will make predictions that are correct by random chance.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#170
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ponzi scheme work because people believe the fraud (promise of high returns). Lotteries work the same way and are legal.

Lotteries are also illegal to operate privately, which makes them completely irrelevant to this conversation.

> Lotteries are also illegal to operate privately

I didn't know that. Does that mean that raffles are technically illegal? Or is there some kind of special-case about winning money?

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