Am I am being 'LOBTAILED' by a Big Whale on Steemit?

Lobtailed?? or Whale Tailed??

The Comment

I was recently away for a few days and when I returned I noticed that @pfunk had left a comment in one of my posts about Bitconnect. In his comment he explained that ponzi scams hurt others and can be promoted by well intentioned but naive investors/members of said scam. He asked me to read his 3 month old post on Bitconnect explaining why Bitconnect is bad and a ponzi scheme.

I did read his post, and the very first line in his article about Bitconnect says,

"let's call it what it MOST LIKELY is."

The key words 'Most Likely' immediately hit me in the face. I continued reading the article which further directed me to read two other posts that would further solidify the conclusive argument that Bitconnect MOST LIKELY IS a Ponzi scheme. So I read those two post but so far everything discussed in those posts was simply argumentative with no solid facts. Then going back to finish reading @pfunk's post, the next line floored me.

The purpose of this post is to put Steemians on notice that promotion of BitConnect with referral links makes you an active, profiting participant in the scam.

Not only had no one proved that Bitconnect is a ponzi scheme, but now anyone promoting it would be considered a scammer without any proof other than speculation. I felt lobtailed and immediately wondered if @pfunk had picked on someone their own size like @craig-grant or @trevonjb . I don't mean to throw them 'under the bus,' but I am a small Dolphin, and pfunk is a whale backed by other powerful accounts either owned by pfunk or on good terms with them. Craig and Trevon are heavies when it comes to discussing Bitconnect here on Steemit, and I am sure they take advantage of using their referral links for Bitconnect.

Have they too been put on notice??

I continued reading the post mentioned in the comment that explained that Steemit's purpose of onboarding new users to crypto-currency was not being helped by promoting such scams as Bitconnect. The promoting the likes of Bitconnect was counterintuitive to Steemit's designs and goals, and that this was harmful to all of the crypto-currency world. The article by pfunk ended by stating that posts promoting or linking to the likes of Bitconnect would be Down voted.

By now I felt that pfunk had not truly read any of my posts on Bitconnect. At this time I invite you @pfunk and everyone else interested in this discussion to read these posts as I have read the ones pfunk recommended. I ask this not to convince you as to whether Bitconnect is good or bad but rather to see the information contained within the post.

• To Ponzi or Not to Ponzi

• To Ponzi or Not to Ponzi Part II

and here is a post by @jetiknight in response to the above posts that should also be considered.

• A Response to @streetstyle

Then there are some of the incredible responses that I received to my posts above to be considered.

by @artbysua

Good post, I "invested" a small amount into Bitconnect to see how it worked and even though I see it working as advertised there is one really important question that sticks out as a red flag and that is the issue you already mentioned with the owner structure being a secret.
That said, there are some things that I have yet to see any review take into consideration. The first is the biggest detail that seems to be ignored and that is the volatility software does not trade BCC. It trades based on the volatility of BTC & dollar. That's a huge difference. If it were trading BCC, I could see this system as being a ponzi or at least broken but by trading on volatility, it gives the system stability. In theory. To understand, let's compare Bitconnect to the Federal Reserve that is printing BCC out of thin air and selling it for BTC. Immediately Bitconnect is making a 100% profit. However as soon as someone lends their BCC, they are gaining twice the value for the term of the loan. This gives Bitconnect leverage to increase the volume the volatility software can trade. The practice is not uncommon in trading but by loaning back to Bitconnect, gives them much needed leverage to buy and sell. This is similar to how traditional banks use money you deposit.
Another detail I see being missed is that although they say " The interest rate that we can guarantee on your investment while using our investment platform is calculated by our BitConnect Price Volatility Software " the truth is there is no actually guarantee of daily interest. I think this statement is worded poorly because it is referring to the interest that have already been calculated in real time for that trading period. Also people are misinterpreting their chart to be the guarantee when it clearly states "up to 40% per month" As you can see from the screenshot I provided of my account, there are days where there is no interest. And unless someone who can prove otherwise, even if you lend $1010 or more, 0% + .1% is still zero. It just so happens that BTC is pretty stable which makes loan investments relatively risk free while their software for tracking volatility has a proven track record. Surely if the company were to tank overnight, just as any company, investors would likely lose their money. So despite it smelling fishy with the "guaranteed interest" that really isn't saying that and the lack of transparency which is a major red flag, there is no actual evidence that they are scamming anyone. To the contrary nobody has said they have lost money. Yet. But then if it were a real ponzi, we wouldn't know about it until people lose their money right? So what are you going to do? Play into your fears until more information comes out? That's for everyone to decide for themselves but people really shouldn't be calling something illegal when there's only indicators not evidence of being a scam.

Research volatility trading for a better understanding.
https://tradingsim.com/blog/how-to-trade-volatility/
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/how-does-volatility-surface-work-in-market-practice.282853/
https://volatilitytradingstrategies.com
https://www.math.nyu.edu/faculty/avellane/harcourt.pdf

With investments, there is always the possibility of losing everything. Especially with investments that are dependent on the fiat system. Educate yourself but don't be paralyzed by fear. Avoid giving into excitement and make investments your comfortable with and can afford to lose.

Then there is this comment by @melowilo in regards to possibly the most interesting aspect of Bitconnect and its trading software,

Hey, there is a good chance this is a scam, but what convinced me personally to invest a tiny little bit is that I played with automatic trading systems with forex trading in the past. It is possible for a good auto trading software to get good returns like this on a very volatile currency that Bitcoin certainly is. Some days auto trading systems will fail, and I think what they are doing looking at the days there is almost no interest paid, is they just autokill the software to stop trading on the days the formula don't work. Ironically the zero paydays convinced me more than the paydays :) I'm taking my seed money out asap and hope for the best with the rest and manage risk.

Then @altcointrends left us this question to ponder on about Bitconnect:

"How many Ponzi schemes have a currency backing them?"

Hopefully after reading these posts, responses and comments we can all at least agree that being better informed in any decision making leads to wiser choices and that the lack of information through censorship, which flagging or down voting can be, is not conducive to better decision making.

I fully understand pfunk 's argument that any type of crypto-scam makes all crypto look bad. I hope that Bitconnect is not going the way of Mt. Gox and others, and I hope that no one loses anything, but I also don't want to miss out on a possibly good investment based on argumentative fear. Yet, I also agree that steemit should not be used for nefarious purposes and that sometimes the community needs to "police" itself. Obviously plagiarism and other types of theft should not be rewarded, but using the threat of censorship veiled through Down Voting, in my opinion is also harmful to a place like steemit that claims to be censorship free.

Please let me know what you think? For now I have removed any Bitconnect referral links from my blog here on steemit.

Full Steem Ahead!
07/17/2017
@streetstyle


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