Faith is the only difference between scam and valuable. USD/CAD is also just paper blessed by a central bank..
Government currencies have a concrete function - if you are legally required to pay taxes in it that gives it a very concrete value of being needed to operate legitimately in a country. That makes it very different from just faith even taking the most cynical possible view of governments - even if a complete collapse in faith would undermine it greatly.
It's even more than that. You are legally required to accept the national currency for the settlement of debts. If you are a US entity and we have a contract where I owe you 1 btc, you must accept the equivalent amount of dollars as settlement of the debt.
You are allowed to accept payments in different currencies, or even barter, but you can't require them.
My bet is she was a front for some Eastern EU or EEU mafia group and now rests in a concrete-filled barrel at the bottom of Black Sea, with all the money taking multiple round trips through off-shore banks, never to be found by their MLM "investors" again.
I suspect that even if this isn't the way it started, this is how it ended up - probably due to a bad investment or attempted money laundering.
Presumably they also have some kind of pull with the main states in which they are based which prevents prosecution/examination.
Why, with all that money, didn't they simply buy a Blockchain? It's not hard, fork bitcoin, build something on Ethereum. Or did it simply not matter for the pyramid scheme? If in the end they had a crappy Blockchain and the investors would have gotten their coins, would they've been guilty of anything?
It seems like they tried, but no blockchain expert would go near it because it was so clearly a Ponzi-type scheme. Just look at the website: http://web.archive.org/web/20150302021347/http://www.onecoin...
My bet is she was a front for some Eastern EU or EEU mafia group and now rests in a concrete-filled barrel at the bottom of Black Sea, with all the money taking multiple round trips through off-shore banks, never to be found by their MLM "investors" again.
Was my thought as well. It’s a shame they killed her off, she seemed like a nice woman despite it all. Who knows if that kind of life was even worth it. Seems like by the time you find out, you’re already in too deep and have to keep going.
In 2016, Ruja Ignatova and her father pleaded guilty to and were convicted on multiple fraud charges, including fraudulent accounting in order to bankrupt a German foundry for personal gain.
It seems like they tried, but no blockchain expert would go near it because it was so clearly a Ponzi-type scheme. Just look at the website: http://web.archive.org/web/20150302021347/http://www.onecoin...
Reminds me of https://timeai.io/ I thought these companies only existed in movies... But obviously they got their inspiration somewhere. (Yes 'they' can intentionally be read both ways)
That website looks and reads like they’re selling some high end Breitling or Patek Philippe
Government currencies have a concrete function - if you are legally required to pay taxes in it that gives it a very concrete value of being needed to operate legitimately in a country. That makes it very different from just faith even taking the most cynical possible view of governments - even if a complete collapse in faith would undermine it greatly.
That and the government is paying all its employees salaries with that money, and it accepts paiements with that currency too. It’s what all the crypto currency people completely misunderstand whenever they’re bringing the « every currency is a matter of trust ». Indeed, ultimately paper is just paper, but the guarantees and legal bindings behind that paper are what makes it easier to grant « trust » and thus value.
The constitution allowed for the government to coin currency. Literally out of metals. That was gamed with tickets for gold, aka dollars. That was gamed even further by removing it from the gold standard. That causes weird things like the metal value of the coin being worth more than the face value and a bunch of news stories about how it is illegal to melt down your worth less coins. We now effectively have communist economic spending where the banks get to print and loan currency to the government and other groups that get to front run the inflation it causes and massively pull forward demand in a way that would not be naturally possible without the ability to skim from everyone. This system is what devalues all capital savings by 3-6% per year, effectively shutting down the ability to save capital and hence real capitalism. Technology by definition causes deflation. Everything should be getting cheaper, not more expensive. The inflation sucks those gains away from the workers and society like a vampire. It is why my generation makes on average half as much as my parents generation, which on average made half as much the previous generation. A hard currency removes that burden. The minimum wage in 1950 was $30/hour in today's purchasing power.
Reminds me of https://timeai.io/ I thought these companies only existed in movies... But obviously they got their inspiration somewhere. (Yes 'they' can intentionally be read both ways)
That website looks and reads like they’re selling some high end Breitling or Patek Philippe
No not watches, 'quantum' cryptography. More background: