Mining and staking a coin does not make it valuable. There are over 1000 crypto currencies out there and most of them are mineable and many are stakeable. Doesn't matter to me because I'm definitely not set up to mine anything. So as far as an investment I was curious about Bitconnect. I have seen some very positive videos such as from @cryptoclover , but I have also seen and heard from some other's who are very respectable who have shared their thoughts on why they think this is a ponzi scheme.

Judging by your reaction you are all in on BCC so I hope for your sake it isn't. You can't compare Bitcoin and Steem fluctuating in price based on investor confidence and speculation to a system that takes your money and locks it in for a period of time before allowing you to use it again. And yes I am aware that people have made money off Bitconnect, both from the actual loaning service, and from buying, mining, and staking the coin.

Ponzi's work by paying their innitial investors with money from new investors. It also has worked in a pyramid scheme which everyone at this point knows they should beware of (unless they are at the top, then it's all ok right?)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1841675.0

I could post a lot more links to other people who are calling it a scam. For me when I say "if it looks like a duck" I mean it has some very similar characteristics to a ponzi scheme. It's suspicious. I think especially with the 30% drop we just saw today on BCC that we may be seeing the true colors very soon.