Discussion on ethical investing, and potential ponzi schemes such as bitconnect

I've been investing in crypto for 8 months and have had some successes. Enough not to think too much about possibly tossing in $100 to bitconnect as a loan to its investment bot as after 2 years of compounded interest based on reinvestment it could be worth 692x what i put in or $69k. It is almost certainly a ponzi scheme but I can't be 100 percent certain and don't want to be sued so do your own research. Early investors claim to have made money and got some out - but that is consistent as ponzi schemes usually pay out in the beginning. I may still be early enough to make a ridiculously high multiple gain before getting out after which (at some point) it will collapse. Worst case I don't get out fast enough and i lose $100. I think we are still in the early stages of investment and the odds are stacked in my favour especially if i aim to withdraw $100 within 6 months. Then i thought about putting in $1000 instead or $5000.

Then I stopped. What was i doing ? If i got out early enough to protect myself in the belief it was a ponzi scheme then if I'm right, someone would be left carrying the bags. A poor student trying to pay off their loan? A poor family in China or India ? A ponzi scheme works by paying current investors from new investors and is designed to give value to the early investors at the harm of the later ones. That's different from seed funding investors of companies or technologies who provide capital to help the company grow at a higher risk stage and get a higher return than later investments on the grounds a high proportion of early investments fail altogether . By contrast a ponzi scheme is designed from the start to make the founders and early investors rich and to devalue the original capital of the later investors when the scheme eventually and inevitably collapses.

After thinking about this I decided some initial key investment guidelines for myself but if you have other thoughts, please contribute them to the discussion and i might modify these for myself :

• i will not invest in or promote something that i logically or knowingly feel is entirely based on someone else losing

That, it turns out, is easy to say when you think you might be able to eschew a ponzi scheme.

But it set me thinking: what about investing early in what will be a crypto bubble and getting out early ? Is that wrong ?There will be bag carriers who get in late when the bubble pops. The same is true of stock markets. How is that different ? Seeing a company or technology you believe will be useful to society and successful for investors and investing in it for a win win to give the founders more resources and you a return on investment doesn't seem like an inherently bad thing. There is more risk but higher return early. The risk and reward will shrink at times. Sometimes the risk will be unattractive compared to the reward. But it isn't actually designed to lose people money. I can't be responsible for other people making good or bad investment decisions but I can be responsible for avoiding investing in something that will possibly defraud people (albeit legally)

My rationale is to invest in something I believe to have long term value to society. So i've argued myself out of tobacco companies. But it's still grey. What of AI companies that take service sector jobs away ? Good for some countries or social strata, bad for others. Technical progress is an inevitability and will improve mankind. But AI might destroy mankind too if you listen to Stephen Hawkings and other scientists

This thinking took me to the following conclusions:

1. I will not invest in something that has as its first order effect something in its design that will harm lots of people (ruling out tobacco, ponzi schemes). Alcohol and sugar seem to me to be grey. Millions more people enjoy alcohol in limited doses that don't harm them so I'm ok with that. I don't think all entertainment or pleasure is bad. I'm not sure what i think about the current war on sugar driving obesity and diabetes - what do you think ?

2. If there are second order effects of my investment that harm some people (like the impact of automation on jobs or the fact that bitcoin or even the dollar can be used to buy drugs or arms or that too much sugar or alcohol can be a dollar for people) I will ignore those unless and until it is is seen to be a primary driver at scale of something that is bad for society and then I will reassess the benefits vs the threats

3. I will also seek out some investments (in time or money) that actually help some poorer communities in the first or third world - not for all my investments -but for some of it. For example Green energy or micro loans. However i will only invest in those schemes I believe will be successful. Do any of you have suggestions for blockchain schemes you think will help some struggling sectors of society and are also likely to give good investment returns ?

The above isn't supposed to be a template or doctrine I want to convert people to so much as an attempt to solicit comments and open up a debate about what an ethical investment strategy might look like without sacrificing the ability to still make some attractive returns. I think it would be great if such a debate were live on sites like these as I'm getting sick of seeing memes on message boards about lamborghinis and schadenfreude delight in the possibility someone won't get out of the market in time so the writer makes lots of money and the reader loses money. I've also seen videos saying they think bitconnect is a ponzi scheme yet advertising their affiliate marketing link to it - it seems odd!

Can't we aspire to come up with something better than this in the crypto community - it should be really easy when the baseline has been set quite so low on so many message boards!

Would you upvote this and re-steem it so others notice the post, and join the debate by leaving comments so we can collectively start thinking about these issues and beginning to discuss them ?

Thanks

Katy x