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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

#171

Post by mannykannot »

saas_co_de wrote: post #152
everdev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ponzi scheme work because people believe the fraud (promise of high returns). If they said, deposit your money and we'll pay you back only if enough people after you also deposit their money then you'd have an interesting point, although I'm sure it's still illegal even if you announce your intentions before doing something illegal.

> Ponzi scheme work because people believe the fraud That is not always the case. Sometimes you have a Ponzi like Madoff where it may seem legit to investors but most ponzis are blatant and the people involved know it is a ponzi but think they can profit by selling it to greater fools. Of course they will all express shock and feign ignorance when they are trying to get their money back or defend themselves from the…

In the US, as the Madoff case showed, if it can be shown that you are a sophisticated enough investor to realize that it is probably a Ponzi scheme, your profits can be clawed back and used as partial restitution for the victims. Any scheme that is upfront about what it was doing would significantly lower the bar on making that case.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#172

Post by Nursie »

dom96 wrote: post #154
Pyxl101 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Tether does not guarantee in their terms and conditions that they'll exchange Tether back into equivalent reserve currency makes it _super_ sketchy from my point of view. The only way that Tether should be considered backed by and equivalent to USD (risk-reduced) is if Tether is contractually obligated to convert it back into USD. Instead, this is what their TOS says: > Tethers are not money and are not…

I'm by no means an expert, but I'm wondering why the people responsible behind Tether do this? Why don't they ask people for a dollar for each Tether coin and then store those dollars indefinitely, wouldn't that guarantee that the currency is pegged? They would always be able to exchange the Tether back to a dollar.

>> Why don't they ask people for a dollar for each Tether coin

AFAICT they cannot bank in dollars at the moment, which is where the origins of the tether currency lie in the first place. They say that theey have the money to back it... but given they minted a quarter billion over the last three days seems a little less than credible.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#173

Post by gbersac »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #59
StavrosK wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a few people who fell for this, despite my warnings. When you tell someone "these returns are astronomical, teams of PhDs in hedge funds cannot come anywhere close, do you think they're so dumb that they wouldn't put billions in this if it were legitimate" and they reply "yes, I do", there's no helping them.

People love to think they're smarter than those 'experts'. It's a combination of Tall Poppy Syndrome [1] and the Dunning-Kruger Effect [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The fact that you invest in crypto is thinking you are smarter than many well respected experts like Warren Buffet. If you invest in cryptocurrencies (and I do), you are not any more clever than those who bought into BitConnect.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#174

Post by paulie_a »

ncallaway wrote: post #168
paulie_a wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

But that doesn't require a disclaimer, if anything that just requires you to not claim to be a lawyer. Additionally: what recourse does someone have even if they read a random internet comment as legal advice. Pretty much zero.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#175

Post by PeterisP »

dom96 wrote: post #154
Pyxl101 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Tether does not guarantee in their terms and conditions that they'll exchange Tether back into equivalent reserve currency makes it _super_ sketchy from my point of view. The only way that Tether should be considered backed by and equivalent to USD (risk-reduced) is if Tether is contractually obligated to convert it back into USD. Instead, this is what their TOS says: > Tethers are not money and are not…

I'm by no means an expert, but I'm wondering why the people responsible behind Tether do this? Why don't they ask people for a dollar for each Tether coin and then store those dollars indefinitely, wouldn't that guarantee that the currency is pegged? They would always be able to exchange the Tether back to a dollar.

Well, someone might do what you describe - or, instead, they might say that they will store those dollars indefinitely but actually spend them. Why should they care about being always able to exchange the Tether back to a dollar, when they can simply take the cash instead?

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#176

Post by ebikelaw »

Fnoord wrote: post #87
drexlspivey wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them took down their videos by now

Google surely must have a copy, as well as Archive.org. These people benefitted from the scam; they should be held accountable as well.

I love these comments because they highlight the ambivalence of the HN commentariat. If google actually had copies of deleted user data, the privacy-minded would lose their heads. And they’d be right because there are all kinds of laws around this. Deleted user data has to be really gone, even from backups, within a finite time.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#177

Post by toomuchtodo »

lhl wrote: post #116
drexlspivey wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of them took down their videos by now

@Bitfinexed [1], who tracks all kinds of scams (the Tether one is going to be the real doozy when that unravels) has been diligently saving Bitconnect videos, tweets, etc. He is pseudononymous, so the question now is how to effectively get these (apparently) hundreds of gigs of videos archived/shared. [2] I can't imagine he's the only one to have thought to do this, though. Bitconnect was simply too blatant of a skee…

They should get in touch with Jason Scott or Archive Team in general to get them in the Internet Archive, or upload them to the Internet Archive themselves.

EDIT: I don't have Twitter, if someone wouldn't mind, could they connect @Bitfinexed to @textfiles?

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#178

Post by toomuchtodo »

ebikelaw wrote: post #176
Fnoord wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google surely must have a copy, as well as Archive.org. These people benefitted from the scam; they should be held accountable as well.

I love these comments because they highlight the ambivalence of the HN commentariat. If google actually had copies of deleted user data, the privacy-minded would lose their heads. And they’d be right because there are all kinds of laws around this. Deleted user data has to be really gone, even from backups, within a finite time.

There is no law (that I'm aware of in the US) that requires Google to purge any user data except GDPR (which applies only to EU residents after May 25, 2018), or perhaps the EU's "right to be forgotten" (which isn't going to supersede preserving evidence for an investigation).

Those Youtube videos exist, if not with a "is_deleted" flag, in Youtube backups. Some are already in the Internet Archive.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#179

Post by PeterisP »

csomar wrote: post #108
bhouston wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If $200M was printed today, then it likely doesn't exist. Hilarious that this is going on. At some point the music has to stop.

They don't really "print" a $200million. Finex explanation is that when a user requests USDT they issue new USDT from their USD reserves.

Unless they would prove to the public and/or competent regulatory authorities that they definitely have done that, they should be considered as "printing" this money.

Proven reserves count, claimed reserves don't. If USDT is "covered" by reserves that are claimed but not verified, then USDT is not covered.

Re: BitConnect Closes Exchange as States Warn of Unregulated Sales

#180

Post by 52804375092485 »

paulie_a wrote: post #164
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42

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

When actual attorney's are talking about legal issues, they'll usually say something like "I am not your lawyer" as a defense against entering into an attorney-client relationship which creates a bunch of complications.

So I guess the "I am not a lawyer" is sort of a corruption of that, a magic spell invoked by not-lawyers to save themselves from not-problems.

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