BITCOIN CLASS 101: CLOUD MINING Vs HARDWARE MINING

Greetings everyone, most of us are vest with one simple quest: maximizing profits in whatever investment we are in.

Without any iota of doubt, Bitcoin must be mined and traded just like obsolete petroleum (it's crude must be explored, mined, refined and sold to end users).

Bitcoin hardware (CPU or GPU) mining can be difficult (not from personal experience though) with lots of difficulties. By the way, the difficulty increases everyday, the cost of electricity, equipment costs (which have increased incredibly since the evolution of crypto mining), software mining susceptibility to piracy, counterfeiting, hacking interference, technical support, technical expertise knowledge, etc. All contributed to discourage newbies and most crypto enthusiasts, mining hardware themselves.

Now, Cloud Mining seems to be best option left. Everyone here is focused on ROI, hardly anyone seems to care if these companies are legit. The majority of cloudmining websites dont do any mining whatsoever. They pay out old customers via coinmixers from revenue that comes from recruiting new ones. This is the common definition of a PONZI SCHEME . No surprise, to keep the game going they usually heavily emphasize referrals and signature campaigns to make you do their dirty work running for God knows how long.

CRITERIA TO HELP YOU SPOT A CLOUD MINING SCAM/PONZI.

1. NO PUBLIC MINING ADDRESS / NO USER SELECTABLE POOL:
   A cloud mining company that wont let you direct the hashrate to your pool of choosing and cant prove its actually mining bitcoins itself, is very likely a scam. There is no reason to hide mining address or not sign blocks. None.

1. NO ENDORSEMENT FROM ANY ASIC VENDOR:

Asic vendors will gladly make a simple post to show the company in question is a significant customer of theirs. Its free advertisement for them and it helps their customer grow their business, so there is absolutely no reason they wouldnt. If a (cloud) mining company cant get any asic vendor to post such endorsement, you should assume they dont have any hardware to mine with.

1. NO RELEVANT PICTURES OF THEIR HARDWARE AND DATACENTER:

There is no reason not to provide such pictures, except of course, if there is nothing to take pictures off. Mind you: pictures can be faked. Picture dont prove current ownership. So like all criteria listed here, by themselves they are by far insufficient proof.

1. OPEN ENDED IPO / FRACTIONAL REVERSE MINING RISK:

Unless the cloud mining is operated by the asic vendor himself, you can not sell an unlimited amount of hashrate. Hardware takes (usually a long) time to order, arrive and deploy. Any company that doesnt limit sales or make public how much hashrate they sold vs what they have (provably) deployed should be considered suspicious.

1. REFERRAL PROGRAMS AND SOCIAL NETWORKING:

Referral programs, especially ones that pay almost 10%, are a huge red flag. The mining market is cut throat with razor thin margins. No real company can afford to pay 10% referrals on below market cloudmining prices. Referral programs almost always serve only to feed the ponzi and provide financial incentive to posters to lie about the true nature of the company. Never trust anyone with a referral link in their sig.

1. ANONYMOUS OPERATORS:

If the operators are hiding behind whoisguard, provide no provable identity and especially when, like in some cloudmining cases, they use demonstrably false ID or company registration information, you have to be nuts to trust them with your money.

1. NO EXIT STRATEGY:

If you cant sell your position, you cant get your money out. Thats the ideal case for a ponzi and allows it to run for a long time.

8 ) BONUS POINTS FOR "GUARANTEED PROFIT":

So far, Ive only seen bitcoinmaker.ch do this. If anyone guarantees you a bitcoin denominated profit, and especially a 30+% one, you can be sure its a ponzi, all the other criteria become unimportant. There is no such thing as certain profit when it comes to mining, no one knows how the network will evolve, or what btc exchange rate will do. If anyone could somehow be certain of making a 30% profit, they wouldnt need your money (and they wouldnt give the profit to you).

SOME FAILED CLOUD MINING PLATFORMS (PONZI SCHEMES)

• PBMiningdotcom
• LunaMinerdotcom
• CoinSonClouddoteu
• Cryptominedotcom
• hashiedotcom
• GenerateBTCdotcom
• Hashprofitdotcom
• Teraboxdotme

Your esteemed comments will be appreciated.