Iâve seen almost exactly the same scam for in-game currencies. It seems somebody out there must believe the pitch, or theyâd try something new. But really - weâll double your money free because weâre nice? Somebody bought that?
Who sends money to Western Union to free up the six million of some dead countryman thatâs not yours?
But people do it. Otherwise theyâd have moved on to a new scam.
They fall for Ponzi schemes on a routine basis, despite the fact that they have a copy of the ledgers on their computer. Bitcoin is full of ideologues tanked to the eyes on wishful thinking and egoâthat theyâre vulnerable to every scam in the book is not exactly a surprise.
I saw that one. Iâm sorry to say that my first thought was âAnyone dumb enough to fall for this deserves to lose their Bitcoin.â
Widespread adoption of crypto-currencies by people who really donât understand them could create a new golden age for scammers. On the other hand, the scammers seem to be doing just fine separating people from their traditional currency on-line, so maybe it wonât make a difference.
âBoy, Iâm not sure how he makes money, but itâs going real, real good, I donât want to miss out on this opportunity!â
âBoy, they say I should get into buying a house before I get priced out, itâs expensive, but I donât want to miss out on this opportunity!â
âBoy, they say this timeshare is like a free vacation, I donât understand it, but I donât want to miss out on this opportunity!â
Salesman pitch the concern about missing out on your chance, taking that gold ring, getting it FOR FREE and a lot of dummies donât sleep on it and ask a second person if itâs a good idea. But then, a lot of dummies just voted to put Trump in charge of the Republican ticket this year, so you can certainly say thereâs no shortage of people who like to be sold.
âDid you ever notice how you sometimes find a Canadian Bitcoin in among your Bitcoins? Whatâs up with that? Could someone explain this to me?â ~ Digital Seinfeld
OT but thats nice looking messenger bag.
The scams tend to push it to outright unbelievable levels, being scams and all that; but such offers are really only an exaggerated flavor of transactions we make routinely in the form of âloansâ, âbondsâ, etc.
In the context of an economy sufficent to support âtime value of moneyâ a dollar today is worth slightly more than a dollar tomorrow and more still than a dollar a year from now or ten years from now. So the genre of âgive me the cash I need now; Iâll pay you a greater quantity of cash at a later timeâ is wholly believable; itâs justâŚdubiousâŚthat time time-value of bitcoins is such that they appreciate by two factors of ten in 10 hours.
Yes, thatâs also one reason banks are built out of marble and not 90s vintage HTML.
Good point, it is pretty amazing how much âconfidenceâ the bitcoin community continues to have in cons; despite the almost complete lack of misleading symbols of stability and trustworthiness(which banks and financial instutitions are experts in: they all have reliable-sounding names and respectable buildings and stuff).
I suspect that some of it is pure greed making people stupid, and some of it is the (to me very surprising; but apparently widespread) confusion regarding what is and isnât mathematically assured by bitcoinâs design: In fact, only bitcoin operations benefit from the blockchain and the bitcoin design. Without more than 50% of the hashing power, it is true that forging bitcoins, fraudulently transferring them, etc. is considered infeasible. However, that assurance extends to nothing else: crack somebodyâs bitcoin wallet, and your transfer of all their bitcoins to you is 100% âlegitimateâ mathematically speaking, since you have access to the necessary keys. Set up an âexchangeâ or similar and let people give you bitcoins in exchange for IOUs, those IOUs have none of the properties of bitcoins; and none of the (limited, but nonzero) assurances of bank-issued IOUs.
I really donât understand why this confusion persists, despite the fact that using bitcoins is like banking while multiple robbery teams shoot it out in the lobby and somebody crashes a truck through the wall to haul off an ATM, which should breed caution; but it seems to. As in crypto; the math can make some powerful promises; but you had best understand exactly what it does and does not promise.
Well, traditional currencies are built on trust and part of that trust comes from the belief that the government will go after con artists. Bitcoin is built on zero trust. If you trust someone with bitcoins, well, you are SOL.
They probably just have different symbols of trustworthiness that appeal to the sort of person who rejects traditional symbols of trustworthiness.
A year or so ago, I was helping one of my tutoring clients read through Bitcoin papers for his cryptography class (ESL student, he wanted to make sure he was understanding the papers correctly); it was really quite interesting, from a technical and social viewpoint, on how many involved workarounds for money-laundering and such without the need for a âTrusted Third Partyâ.
My guess is that this is aimed at the half-smart pigeons â folks who have heard some news about the recent $50M hack affecting the Ethereum blockchain currency, and want a piece of that action for themselves (since cons against the dishonest always work best).
You have a very good point there. Bitcoin seems to get all the at-least-slightly-techie goldbugs, so it probably scores cred every time it doesnât behave like a fiat currency.
If anyone wants a megabyte coin, i have some for half off.
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