It was just so obvious to me from the start that it was a scam. Good grief; they used an actual picture of a pyramid to explain their payment model! Yet even with all the warning signs that it was both a pyramid scheme AND a ponzi scheme, it was useless convincing anyone who had already invested. Why? Desperation and greed make for a powerful intoxicant, that's why.

Anyway, I honestly laughed out loud when I first saw the headline for this post in my feed. I used to live in Indonesia and I'll tell you a funny little story this brought to mind.

So I was living in Indonesia for a year, having arrived with just an (at that time) 2 month tourist visa. So I had to go to Singapore every 2 months to get a new tourist visa, which was an expensive and inconvenient trip to keep making. Some long-time expats put me on to this service where they would get a 6 month business visa for you allowing you to do 6 months at a time instead of 2. So I did this, only every month I had to go there to get a 1 month extension on my 6 month visa actually remaining active.

Well long-story short, every month there were new prices and new hoops to jump through. It was always a surprise what it was going to take each month I went to reup. So finally I get fed up and decide to give them a piece of my American mind, LOL. So I start telling them this is no way to run a business. They need to have fixed prices and post them, and if everyone has to go through the same hoops all the time, why not write that up and tell people so they can plan ahead.

They just smiled and nodded. Years later it hit me. I was in that country illegally, they were essentially the mob, and they never knew what they were going to need to ask me for a month in advance because they had no way of knowing what bribe the govt. official they were working with was going to demand.

So basically, I was criticizing the mob on poor business practices. LOL. I'm happy to say I've become a little less "Americans abroad" over the years since. 😀

Anyway, it may not be so strange that bitconnect is still going strong in Indonesia.