FOR THOSE WHO WONDER...THE TRUTH ABOUT BITCONNECT

Hello Steemit friends,
Since my last post, some members took it upon themselves to flag my post so that steemit removed even my pictures. I was posting on BitConnect and @palme said that BitConnect was a scam and that it was unethical for me to post to lure people into this scam.

I consider myself a very rational person and so I wanted to analyze what he brought forth and look at BitConnect for a second from the perspective that it is a scam.

@palme, please note that I have lost 15 ETH to a scam before and it is painful and so believe me when I say that before investing my money on any platform, I check and double check and triple check and research the hell out of a platform before committing a red cent to that venture; let alone my own efforts. We can all agree that I could be using my time to write about something else so then why am I choosing to concentrate on BitConnect?

It could be either I am a fool or sucker or maybe we shouldn't just dismiss BitConnect because of fear mongering.

So where were we?

WHAT ARE SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF AN INTERNET SCAM?

1. Usually, a shady but well thought out website that has a funnel to lure the user into transferring money or leaving valuable information like a phishing site.

2. A scam, that promises incredible returns is known as a High Yield Investment Program or HYIP for short.
   These programs promise a high yield of 20% to 30% yield on your invested capital and they provide even higher yields the more money that you put in. Good luck getting your money back!

3. Another characteristic of these sites is that it is very difficult if not downright impossible to get access to transaction details and you can't drill down to the components of any transaction let alone break it down and see where it came from.

4. These scammy sites also don't have any real kind of support.

5. The tools that you can use on these sites are usually poorly constructed if they work or don't work at all.

6. Another characteristic is that you don't see other user's interactions. If you do see it, you can't interact with it because it is usually an image and not real text.

CASE STUDY OF A REAL SCAM: ETHTRADE.ORG

Starting with the first point:
1. Usually, a shady but well thought out website that has a funnel to lure the user into transferring money or leaving valuable information like a phishing site.

When you go onto the ethtrade.org website, you will see that it is constructed well. It looks like a legit business and you have all the usual links like contact and support.

2. A scam, that promises incredible returns is known as a High Yield Investment Program or HYIP for short.
These programs promise a high yield of​ 20% to 30% yield on your invested capital and they provide even higher yields the more money that you put in.

One of the tell tale signs that I should have noticed when I went onto the site was the blatant guarantee of a return percentage. No one can guarantee a return percentage.

3. Another characteristic of these sites is that ​it is very difficult if not downright impossible to get access to transaction details and you can't​ drill down to the components of any transaction let alone break it down and see where it came from.

On the Ethtrade website, you are able to see transactions but you can't drill down on the transactions to see what it is composed of. It is essentially an image. Here is a shot from my own account:

The other thing is that you the user have utterly no control over​ your funds once they are deposited.

4. These scammy sites also don't have any real kind of support.
On the ethtrade website, when I sent them an email, my email bounced saying ​there was a problem with the email address. I found this message time and time again I tried to send them an email.

5. The tools that you can use on these sites are usually poorly constructed if they work or don't work at all.

There are actually no real tools on the website and even when I clicked on my portfolio, it showed me that I had a portfolio but it was sold. I am not able to click on the details of the sale and see what the transaction involves. It was an image file. You couldn't​ select any of the texts.

6. Another characteristic​ is that you don't see other user's interactions. If you do see it, you can't interact with it because it is usually an image and not real text.
Apart from the view on your account, there is no way to see that others are using the site. Because for the most part, ​the whole site is just images that show you information. The only real interaction that I got was through the support link and that proved to be utterly useless.

Here is my full interaction with them:

The reason I decided to post my full conversation was for the benefit of the steemit community to demonstrate how much effort I put forth to get my money back and why after something like that I am quite wary of scams.

Finally, ​check out the review that BinaryScamWatchMonitor.com did on ethtrade.org. Check it out here

I know that this was a very long winded and detailed demonstration, but for this argument to be valid I need to demonstrate how BitConnect is not like ethtrade.

CASE STUDY: HOW BITCONNECT IS NOT LIKE ETHTRADE
So to compare the 2 I will again look at each of the 6 points that I made before on the characteristics of an internet HYIP scam.

The first point was that a scam site has the following characteristics:
1. Usually, a shady but well thought out website that has a funnel to lure the user into transferring money or leaving valuable information like a phishing site.

The BitConnect Website, unlike the ethtrade website, ​is structured not according to trying to sell you BitConnect but on telling you about BitConnect the cryptocurrency. Just like you will see if you went to any other cryptocurrency site. With news on Bitcoin as well; what is going to happen with Segwit; Market summary from the BitConnect Exchange and so forth. In other words, actual useful information.

2. A scam, that promises incredible returns is known as a High Yield Investment Program or HYIP for short.
These programs promise a high yield of 20% to 30% yield on your invested capital and they provide even higher yields the more money that you put in.

On the BitConnect site, the focus is on the cryptocurrency and the trading platform and the 4 ways of interacting with BitConnect. You can Stake it, you can Invest in it -- by using the trading platform and lending BitConnect; you can trade it on the BitConnect Exchange and other exchanges like Livecoin and finally you can mine it.

In addition to that, when you click to lend your BitConnects, you are not given a guaranteed return but rather ranges of investment tranches and additional interest incentive based on dollar amount invested. You can drill down by checking their volatility software returns to see if this is something that interests you. The average daily amount is about 0.8% but it varies based on how Bitcoin tracks the USD.

Range of investments

Not to mention you can track their volatility software in real time to project possible interest returns.:

These are all tools that actually work and allows the user and investor to make a better-informed​ decision.

3. Another characteristic of these sites is that ​it is very difficult if not downright impossible to get access to transaction details and you can't​ drill down to the components of any transaction let alone break it down and see where it came from.

One of the things I like to do is track my own investments and to do that I need return details. It was not possible to get real details on the returns that I was getting with ethtrade. On the other hand, ​BitConnect provides all that information and so I am able to track exactly what is going on with my investments.

Lending Transaction Details

Wallet Transaction Details

4. These scammy sites also don't have any real kind of support.

On BitConnect, there are many ways to get support

Through social media and directly on the platform. Since I didn't have any issues yet, I decided to send the admin a thank you note and I will report back with their response:

The support message was easy to track and it will be logged on my account for the rest of the accounts life.

5. The tools that you can use on these sites are usually poorly constructed if they work or don't work at all.

As I showed earlier, you have tools to track the interest but you can also monitor how the coin is doing on the Exchange

Not only that, the different tabs to access information actually work and you get the information that the tab suggests you will get

The final characteristic:
6. Another characteristic​ is that you don't see other user's interactions. If you do see it, you can't interact with it because it is usually an image and not real text.

You can see that there is activity and​ others are also actively using the site

One of the main difficulties with scam sites is that it is virtually impossible to take your money out and so here is a demonstration of me taking some BCC tokens out

*The dialogue box is easy to use and has 2 factor authentication for added security.

I was able to send some tokens to my wallet to stake them

I even got an email within seconds that the transaction was complete

I hope that I have demonstrated to the skeptics out that that I thoroughly researched the BitConnect platform before committing any money to it and by using my own account on a site that scammed me and on BitConnect you can at least realize​ that the information I am sharing is sincere. My aim is to educate and share my experience as I go along this journey and discover things.
I hope sharing my experiences will help some one avoid mistakes I have made and inform them to make better decisions.

So there you have it!

But before I finish this post, I also wanted to share a video that I came across from @jetiknight where he took questions from viewers of his YouTube channel and went through just one scenario of how BitConnect can pay the interest it is paying and how they can also afford to pay the referral fees they are paying to users. I find it very well thought out and well done. Check it out

I am also a trader on the Options market trading different stock and index options and I can tell you that based on the scenario that @jetiknight talks about; I will do that deal as a trader to pay investors that sort of return if they give me capital. This is just to say that if this is the scenario that BitConnect uses, it pays and makes sense for them to give the incentives that they give because it will give them more capital to trade with and they get to make more money for themselves. For instance, my trading structure returns back to investors 70% of profits because even keeping 30% of the profits is insanely profitable because I get more capital to use to make more money than if I was only using just my capital.

Please note that this does not constitute investment advice, but only a chronicle of my own experiments and adventures into crypto investments. I think that it is always helpful to share information like that to help others make informed decisions.

If you find that this is an avenue that could be profitable for you; and you want to Join BitConnect, consider using my link to help me produce more content like this one and share your own journey with the community as you go along.

A wise man once said:

"To be happy at the top, make sure that as you climb to the top,
you help others climb up with you too. Because if not it will be very lonely at the top" -- Anonymous

Please upvote if you like this post. Comment, ask questions and interact. And also if there is someone out there who has had more exposure to BitConnect and will like to share their experience. Please feel free to do so too.

Thank you for your time. MUCH LOVE!

NB: A shoutout to @craigrant/new , @ #craigrant @trevonjb @jetiknight for all contributing to my education of BitConnect.