Bogus cryptocurrency apps steal millions in mere months Cybercriminals posing as legitimate investment firms and cryptocurrency exchanges have stolen tens of millions of dollars from more than 200 people by convincing them to download mobile apps and deposit cryptocurrency into wallets owned by the perpetrators. According to an alert [PDF] sent out on Monday by the FBI, the cyber- …
Why do so many people describe cryptocurrencies in general as Ponzi schemes? It suggests they either don't know how cryptocurrencies work, how Ponzi schemes work or both.
Ironically, there's plenty of reasons to not buy cryptocurrency but incorrectly describing the issue just means that anyone who takes the time to read even a couple of Wikipedia articles may end up ignoring any other advice accompanied by this ignorance.
Wikipedia says Ponzi Scheme too, with citations.
The citation pertains to MLM/pyramid schemes, which it does bear some features of but it (the citation) doesn't describe it as a Ponzi. It's certainly possible to run a Ponzi scheme based upon cryptocurrency but that's true of just about anything.
Sorry for replying twice but it took me a while to find the link explaining how to reliably warn off a potential crypto victim.
Here's some advice for people who find no use for their daytime when they have taken care of all their monetary need by virtue of crypto.
If you don't need to work during working hours, and you're bored because you don't work anymore, just get a job for the fun of it.
https://www.theshovel.com.au/2022/07/07/crypto-bro-who-retired-at-25-just-working-at-maccas-for-fun/
Want to get into crypto but don't know how?
Have money to spare?
Gullible and/or greedy?
Invest your money with EasyBucks. Guaranteed safe and secure.
Disclaimer: the price of crypto can go up and down.
-> legitimate investment firms and cryptocurrency exchanges
legitimate investment firms, OK up to a point. Legitimate crypto exchange? Hello?
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A friend of mine asked me what I thought of crypto and I explained my belief that it is basically an elaborate Ponzi scheme and those who are left with the burnt out rigs after the progenitors have moved on to their next scam will pay dearly.
Browsing though our chat history makes for a sad read:
Turns out he had already sunk a sizeable chunk of their savings into a powerful mining set up and it was dated last October!!
Possibly the worst time to have got on board with rigs costing astronomical fees.
What made this re-read worse was that the company he invested in was based in eastern Ukraine and was apparently looted in the conflicts earlier this year and no longer exists as a business entity.
To say that he was gutted would be a pretty fair summary, figuratively and fiscally.
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It's really not a surprise that those who were gullible enough to fall for the crypto mania in the first place are also gullible enough to fall for all the wallet draining scams that have multiplied in its wake. They've put a sign on themselves saying "easy mark" just by being involved, and the scammers know that their greed is greater than their sense.
It seems that in most of these scams, there's a common "connect your wallet in order to have this free thing" step, and then the wallets get drained. As if in real life you'd hand over your actual wallet to someone you don't know on the street who says "just give me your wallet, and I'll go away and put lots of free money in it for you".
And at each point the only value it ever had was 1) buying illegal drugs, weapons or pornography on the internet, for which its price in dollars is irrelevant and price stability is most important, or 2) the hope that you can sell it to someone else for more than you paid for it. Gambling, essentially.
The only "value" that comes into the network is the money that people put in to pay for tokens - it doesn't generate any value itself. In a zero-sum game, for every winner there is an equal loser, except in this case it's a negative-sum game as far as its users are concerned, because they also have to pay the miners to keep it running.
>"buying illegal drugs"
>"price in dollars is irrelevant"
Good luck with that, I hope it works out well for you.
"the hope that you can sell it to someone else for more than you paid for it"
You mean like all those fiat currencies on the Forex?
Strange how something with no apparent 'value' has been such a better investment than whatever fiat currency you choose to believe somehow has more 'value' over the past decade. I guess all those people who were buying BTC at sub $1000 must be very stupid. How silly must they look now that it's crashed to only $20k?
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