Online Currency Actually A Big Ponzi Scam
from the wonderful dept
Remember during the bubble years when you couldn't open a website without seeing yet another form of internet currency? Apparently, one of them, that claimed it was actually "gold backed" was simply a big ponzi scheme that was discovered when the guy who ran it stopped making payouts and hightailed it to Mexico. Those who lost money have sued him and a bunch of others, including some Latvian banks who apparently were partners to the project. The article linked here is about how one of those banks can be included in the lawsuit, as the bank tried to dismiss the charges. Either way, it does raise legitimate issues about how people can trust any kind of internet-based currency system.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Somebody Bought This?
While you certainly can have investments perform that well over the short term (I had stock options in 1998 that basically quadrupled when I sold them a year later), I haven't heard of any investment that comes close to that over the long term — much less one that's guaranteed to do so.
I guess P. T. Barnum was proved right once again.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]