BitConnect Scam: How Many People are Involved? Post 4
How many people are involved in the Bitconnect Scam? Is it growing? When will it fail?
I was intrigued at the idea that someone could run a pyramid scheme on the open block chain. It would seem too easy to know what was happening and when to go out. So I decided to do a little looking.
BitConnect is a pyramid Scheme. That has been covered in post 1
https://steemit.com/fraud/@cryptick/is-bitconnect-a-ponzi-scheme-post-1
I point out funny bot manipulated market volume in post 2
https://steemit.com/bitconnect/@cryptick/bitconnect-scam-inside-the-bitconnect-trading-bot-post-2
I am taking bets when it will blow up in post 3
https://steemit.com/bitconnect/@cryptick/when-will-the-bitconnect-scam-implode-post-3
I found a really interesting block chain exploration site.
https://chainz.cryptoid.info/explorer/bubble.dws?coin=bcc
You can see who is involved.
The first thing you might want to notice is that the top 100 people control about 97% of the BitConnect Coin. That means they make the market.
The next interesting number is the all 7,417. That is all addresses/wallets. Some people might have multiple addresses. Some may be out already. Some miners have addresses. However that gives us the best number I have seen to date on how many people are involved.
7,417 people with 7,810,904 coins.
About two days ago that number was
7191 people with 7,796,644
That is an increase of 226 people in about two days.
For simplicity lets call it 100 people a day.
The scam has been going on since the beginning of the year. 7417/270 days is 27.5 or lets call it 30 people a day have joined.
I also found a reference where one American on you tube had about 2,300 people under him on BitConnect. So we may be in the area. If someone has better numbers please share!
A Ponzi scheme will continue until you run out of money and new people to get money from. If we assume this scheme pays 1% a day. It needs 74 people a day. It is currently getting about 100 people a day so it is doing ok.
Now if all of the people invested the minimum $100 this scam is up to 741,000. If they all did $10,000 it would be 74 million. If the all bought in yesterday. It would be like 800 million-based on inflated market cap. I guess the right number is down in the 1 to 10 million range. Others Thoughts?
It might actually be possible to tell, how much "money" every account has by 1) when it was opened 2) how much BCC was in the account at that time 3) what the price was at the time of the account was opened or 4) how much return has been paid on the account. If those numbers were gathered we could predict the exact date of implosion! We could also potential track every interest payment to see if it was reinvested. We could also tell when people sell and know when the stampede happens.
Now one could look at the coin totals; but I warn against that. I suspect the coin totals are artificially inflated as the coin prints money to pay subscribers. The coins have also dramatically shifted in value. Shooting up from around $0.17 to 118.
When you have complete control over the currency. You can also set your own price. Because everyone buys the coin as a intermediate step; which is both very confusing and allows for more manipulation, they can put the price wherever they want it.
I like others have called this a Ponzi Scheme. Well when old people cash out they are give coins; which the new people have to buy to get it. Yep. It is a Ponzi Scheme. A good one. But a Ponzi Scheme.
Lets look at some more pictures.
Here is a bubble Chart of of the richest 1000 excluding the top 100.
It is sort of cool to see the distribution on who is in on the scam. You can see one dot there represents 2,000 BCC. Such an even number probable does not represent a "real person."
Sense the basis and dates are not really considered, there is not a whole lot of meaning in the numbers. It is cool to play around with it though.If you have money it it you could find your account.
https://chainz.cryptoid.info/explorer/bubble.dws?coin=bcc
You also can explore the block chain. I invite you to see if you can figure it out! We could know when everyone got in, what price they got in at and when the scam is going to blow up. I have not been able to figure it all out. Some of these features are experimental. I did find the bots driving up trading volume. It also bothers me when I see things like this...
https://chainz.cryptoid.info/bcc/block.dws?178680.htm
To me that looks they are are just printing money. The address is the same, but the money goes up! The Bot goes by and increases the amount of money in the account! I must be in the wrong business! I mean this is like printing money without having to deal with dirty paper or ink!
Yeah. I would like more public scrutiny on the BitConnect Block chain. Maybe someone could explain this to me. But that looks like printing money to me. I don't see results of a legitimate trading bots. I do see bots driving up the price of Bitconnect Tokens. I think I have found the secretive BitConnect trading bot. You just inflate your way to success. Before you think printing money is a good long term plan look at Venezuela!
Please, take advantage of the open source block chain to check out BitConnet. To me this smells like a scam.
Now I am not the only one hear who has heard of a block chain.
What do you think?
Let me know in the comments!
Edit:
Post 5 Inside the Facebook Profile of a Scammer.
https://steemit.com/bitconnect/@cryptick/bitconnect-scam-inside-the-facebook-profile-of-a-scammer-part-5
I have had some interesting discussions with others who think these numbers may be too low. There is a high probability that all the numbers are made up and there is no meaning to them. That said, here we see the number has grown to 7866. That is roughly 100 people a day joining recently. A Ponzi scheme that pays 1% a day has to grow at one percent a day. This growth is also compounded. So if you see these numbers. in a month, they will be very out of date. A 1% growth daily means 10,000 in a month and 14,000 in two months and 46,000 in 6 months.
Well it keeps growing about 8,240. Price of BCC is up to $141 that is 1.1 billion fake mar cap
$160 Interestingly the price continuted to rise today while almost all of the alt coins took a big hit.
Oct 15 2017
Slowing down?
I am also a little suspicious that people join faster on the weekends. I haven't really tried to break it down; but as a network marketing company it would make sense that people would have more time to tell their friends on weekends than they would during the week, but I haven't pulled in data to prove that.
You make a great observation! While we don't have perfect numbers for seven days people joined at 65 people a day for 4 days people joined at 100 a day for 3 days people joined at 191 a day and for 7 days people joined at 25 a day. Take all these numbers with a grain of salt as date/time is not real consistant. Then I actually pulled my own numbers, not that I don't trust yours, but I noticed they went DOWN! I am not quite sure that that means? Are people leaving?
It is up to 12,000. Interestingly coin market cap adjusted the number of shares because it was beginning to look ridiculous.
Wow. It seems like ages since I wrote these articles. I see there are 27,000 people on BitConnect now. I really have not been following any news about Bitconnect recently. I see they have a new ICO. "BitconnectX" I also see texas regularators have finally woken up and issued orders/warnings against the currency. Maybe someone will finally wake. up.
Wow. I will say the BitConnect people know how to throw a party (and hire a promoter) this big show makes things "look" "legitimate". There are all sorts of show organizers who put on corporate events. From BitConnect's standpoint to hire the very best and put on a good show -which I am saying they did- makes total sense. It makes the company look legitimate (which it is not). It is cheap advertising. Unfortunately for those on stage; when this comes crashing down they will be near the top of the investigations lists. I couldn't tell how much of the confetti was money and how much as glitter, but either way, what a way to get people to their feet. Thanks for sharing.
I like your articles a lot. I just made an article that shows how to calculate the maximum profits of the Bitconnect Trading Bot. I would love your feedback: https://charlestines.com/2017/10/10/proof-of-bitconnects-profits/
I think your math and reasoning is sound, but I don't think the logic holds up. Let me start by saying it is very hard for anyone outside to know what is going on so all I have is speculation based on what we put together. See I was under the impression this imaginary bot traded bitcoin not BCC. Most of the BCC is and has never traded. (just assume all top 100 people are founders of the scam. There is a good number of accounts that all show BCC has sat at those addresses for a long period of time and that has never traded.) That means only 7% of the BCC coins are involved in the scam. The main purpose of the BCC is to make it easy for new traders to pay old traders. It will also make it easier for the founders to dump all BCC coins right before it "fails." I am going to guess the founders will "lose" their Bitconnect loans -while on the side in another account selling the BCC coin they have. I was looking at the BCC block chain with the above linked explorer and I am highly suspicious of everything. I think it is mostly for show. The daily volume is fake. It wouldn't surprise me if it was all for show. I also -after publishing these posts spent several days in the Bitcoin blockchain looking at how they move the money. The bitcoin goes in circles through accounts. There are multiple payout accounts that sends daily payout money daily to every Bitconnect bitcoin account. You can go on you tube and watch people "sell there BCC and then transfer the money out." It all happens too fast. Bitcoin transactions take 10 minutes to an hour to process. Yet "selling BCC for bitcoin" is suppose to happen "instantly." If they really sold BCC, it would take 10+ minutes to get the bitcoin. Instead the company just deposits daily bitcoin withdrawls at all addresses ahead of time and then they are -"reinvested" or they are "withdrawn" once a customer sees them -at the appropriate time- on the website. Since these are real bitcoin addresses you can see these with a bitcoin block explorer. (note: i think each customer account actually has several bitcoin address, I think bitconnect switches them every week or two.) That said to keep us confused the for every one real daily interest bitcoin payment, the system makes about 5-10 fake payments which are swept back up into the payout stream as well. -back to your article. You make a legitimate point of theoretical returns, but I don't think there is any real trading going on. To your charilie coin example, I can program a simple bot that tries to bid up the price of your charlie coins 1% every day. The trading bot by buying ever smaller fractions of charlie coins can push the price higher and higher.
So I have been trying to guess the number of people and amount of money involved in Bitconnect. I see 7,540 active addresses. Using the $1,400 per subscriber; that means an estimate of $10.5 million US of cash has gone in. I wonder if the crytpocoin is not being used like a Pump and Dump. This used to happen a lot in the stock market (and still does) and now the alt coins are the new area. What is interesting is that with only 10.5 million US; they have been able to get $860 million dollar market cap. I guess when you only allow 2% of the company to trade; that is easier to do.
You don't get 1% every day.. but you get certain amount based on how volatile BTC has been that day... for example if BTC moves 7% either way the bot can catch the top/bottom lets say to 4%... BCC then pays you a % of that.. lets call it 2%... they still make extra 2%..
You dont need referrals to make money here BUT EVERY SINGLE BUSINESS IN THE WORLD is looking for referrals and promoting it - easiest and cheapest type of advertising....
I'm sorry but I don't agree with you - however I could be wrong and I would not invest all my money into it.
I am so glad you stopped by to look at the warning signs. Here on steemit we try to look out for each other. We are all adults, and can live with the consequences of the choices we make. I feel better better knowing people are aware of the risks.
Obviously you dont get it.. and 9/11 is also inside job...
The fact that you have had over 600 views and only 9 upvotes tells the truth. Nobody agrees with you.
That is a really interesting observation. And I appreciate you mentioning it. Time will tell. You see I think Bitconnect will fail and when it does people will be like "why didn't we see this coming" well some people did. However, if they ever come back to the post and see your comment which will be even mare valuable! Micheal Lewis's the Big Short explains the subprime financial crisis and the one guy who most saw it coming (and knew how to make millions) was ridiculed. (Lots of us saw it coming, most of us did no know about the credit default swaps or realize we could, or had the investor credential to be able to bet against it.) His investors were screaming for money back. (We are not just talking about he was under pressure, he was under absolutely huge pressure.) Well, We know how that happened. I have been involved in the stock market for a long time so I understand investors sentiment. I am not afraid to go against the crowd. I could be wrong. I have been in the past. I don't have that much pride to admit it. But I have done my research which I have presented. In the future it will be interesting to see how this turns out. I think it is fixed I would also like to point out that this post has $0.11 in rewards.
In Fact just for the record my 6 part series current is:
Post #1 Rewards: $1.61 Upvotes: 11 Comments: 10 Views 381
Post #2 Rewards: $1.24 Upvotes: 11 Comments: 8 Views 436
Post #3 Rewards: $2.12 Upvotes: 8 Comments: 12 Views 433
Post #4 Rewards: $0.11 Upvotes: 9 Comments: 29 Views 667
Post #5 Rewards: $1.90 Upvotes: 6 Comments: 4 Views 320
Post #6 Rewards: $0.27 Upvotes: 14 Comments: 9 Views 377
I will fully admit this doesn't make it worth writing the posts. I did the investigation more out of my own curiosity. I could write several more posts and have considered it; but with such little interest it is not worth it. The truth however is not determined by public opinion.
Bitconnect does not promise ANYTHING accept your money back. They are cash rich from holding bitcoin since 2016. They allow reinvestment daily. Compounding interest daily is HUGE! This is all done with software and trading bots. Bitconnect is not doing anything brilliant, just compounding your interest. Bitcoin is doing the Brilliance! Compounding interest daily at 1% will turn $100 into $5,000 in 12 mos. Bitconnect is not paying that 5000% ROI, just 1% per day, on average. Not sure if you heard but Bitconnect just announced their referral fees were being reduced to 3 tiers paying 5%, 3%, and 1%. You can make that adjustment on referral fees when your product is trading bitcoin, not signing up new initiates. Can you imagine the backlash of announcement like this for a multi level marketing company? Would be suicide. See my point(s)? Your post spawned my post:
Bitconnect - Compounding-interest-daily-is-not-magic-just-brilliant
Printing money? Isn't that the same as what all central banks are doing? :-)
There's new one on the go called Regalcoin. Looks like a cross between Bitconnect and EcoinPlus (which disappeared back in June).
Regalcoin seems to operate in a very similar way to Bitconnect with mining, lending and affiliate/referral system. The affiliate system smells a lot like EcoinPlus though.
Wow. Yeah I hears Regalcoin (likely fraud) is going to be the new BitConnect. Just looked up Ecoinplus. Interesting...
You took up like 10 pages and showed no real factual proof that bitconnect is a ponzi scheme. All speculation.
Yep, The evidence is all circumstantial. Each reader has to use his or hers good judgement in evaluating the evidence. There is really no way to reach the standard of evidence some people would like to see. I am glad you stopped by, and I hope you saw the entire series. (I have like 7 posts now).
CryptoNick has 2579 people on his team. Video 3:08
Crtypo Nick
Crytpo Nick claims 2.5 million in referral volume; 86K in referral fees and 1,783 in the downline for an average investment of $1400. each.
in this video
So CryptoNick now claims 4,933 people in Bitconnect with 12.4 million in volume. It is notable that referral payout structure has changed to level one 5%, level two 3% and level three 1%. I do not know how this effects the numbers. That said It would appear that Bitconnect has not slowed down yet.
And as a datapoint if we take the $12.4 million and divide it by 4,933 people we get an average loan amount of $2,500. This is up from the 1,400 number I have use previously used.
If you look at the screen shot from the videos we can deduce more numbers.
For those people involved in the fraud or pyrmid scheme under Cryptonick. This shows his downline by volume. Dividing the volume by $2,500 for the person we can see
Level one: 1,608 people
Level two: 1,120 people
Level three: 585 people
Level four: 404 people
Level five: 248 people
Level Six: 317 people
level Seven: 331 people
Level Eight: 186 people
level nine: 60 people
Level ten: 30 people
Beyond ten: 72 people.
We can also look at this and see the average idiot in level one has a 70% chance of having some underneath them (level two) and for people in level 2 they have a 52% chance of having someone underneath them. Level three 69% chance or average of .69 people. Level four: 70% chance. I would like to just summarize this data by saying roughly there is a 65% chance someone has someone underneath them or each person has .65 people beneath them. I don't know that there is a lot of practical good for this information, but it does shine a little light into the bitconnect network. It would be fair to assume that those in the system longer have more invested. It would also be same to assume the longer you are in the more downline and better chance of building a downline you have. These factors should be taken into account, but are not as I don't have good guestimates at which to adjust for them. That said. This is a little peak into the downline that is enlightening.
Well it has been several months on... I haven't really been following this that closely as I have moved on to other things, but here is a most recent screen shot there are 23,000 people.
