Why is @Craig-Grant being censored?
What happened to Craig Grant?
By Helodrgt (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
For anyone who was on Steemit from the early days you know who @craig-grant is. He is one of the most prolific bloggers on Steemit and probably brought thousands of bloggers to Steemit while also inspiring the next generation of bloggers. What do I see when I look at his blog? All his posts demonetized and censored.
What happened and is Steemit really for censorship? In particular I find it an ugly state of affairs because he's not some new blogger who did nothing for Steem but has probably brought a lot of investors to Steem, a lot of new bloggers to Steem, and has built a large following on Youtube. Something is definitely wrong if Craig Grant can be censored or "blacklisted".
To whoever blacklisted Craig Grant:
- How was this action justified?
- When will it be removed?
Finally a website is available which tracks all our trades for tax purposes. Cointracking.info has the most features of any similar service. I recommend it for people who want to earn their money and keep it without having to look over their shoulder. Sign up with my link to get a 10% discount: Link Here.
I think once Steemit adds communities @craig-grant will come back.
Of course you would upvote something to give you a little plug you pig!!! I am pissed off that you pissed me off and are causing me to even comment on your hustler ass.
https://steemit.com/bitconnect/@sunshine247/bitconnect-craig-grant-what-does-this-mean-photo-of-your-computer-screen-pop-up
I am glad they flagged you because it sickened me to see people upvote and give you any part of their steem (of which I have early on but learned real quick to mute you) - and your better half, POSER!!!!!! I think you should give back your steemit funds to all that were fooled by you. I only wish you well Friend .. seek your next journey :)
Maybe he getting flagged for promoting Bitconnect? The known ponzi scheme.
But what does that have to do with Steemit and can't we see how wrong this is? What if Youtube demonetized all posts about Bitcoin because some bankers say it's a Ponzi?
Craig Grant didn't create Bitconnect. Also I don't see what his activities outside of Steemit have to do with his pro-Steemit activities. So are you saying that bloggers have to be role models and politically correct?
I don't know enough about Bitconnect to know whether it is or isn't a scam. Is it decentralized or centralized? Even if it is a scam, it's on Craig Grant not Steemit.
He was pushing the known scam through Steemit. That's why I think the Whales flagged him.
Has there been any definitive proof it's a scam? Is it centralized? I see a lot of videos saying it's a scam but no one has answered whether it's centralized or decentralized.
yes, there's proof its a ponzi scheme
Bitconnect is a known ponzi scheme. Craig, Trevon and all others that promote it are being flagged by Steem Whales from what I see on Steemit. This is self regulation at its finest. Scam is a scam. Better to self-regulate before the government regulators come in. BCC is proven scam.
So if Youtube does the same because a leading banker says Bitcoin is a scam would you say it's "regulation at it's finiest"? Or if China bans ICOs is this regulation at it's finest?
What does it take away from Steem if BitConnect is a scam? I just don't see what it has to do with Steem. If it's a scam then Craig Grant is the one who loses his money, and he's the one who has to explain to his audience.
This is not the case! The best way to earn money with BitConnect is their referal program and thats why Craig is advertising it that much. Just check his videos:
He started that early that I am pretty sure he is already sitting on good amount of money, but for all new people starting/"investing" the risk is really really high to loose everything.
BitConnect will only work as long as new users can pay the fees for the older ones... I am sure that they will leave from one day to another without saying a word.
And even if you were right and BitConnect is no ponzi scheme than craig could just stop to post about this for now - But he keeps advertising the platform while 90% of the people here know its scam.
While I understand what you are saying BCC is proven and known Ponzi. Its not made up with no proof like the way Bankers try a label all crypto currencies a scam. The rule on Steemit is just don't hurt others and you are good.
So is it proven centralized? Show me. All the videos I saw didn't offer any proof one way or the other. So far everyone has put money in and got money out. I've seen no evidence that anyone has been scammed.
So this is like saying BTC-E was/is a scam because in theory they could run off with the money? Because BTC-E is centralized I can agree with that interpretation at least.
Is Bitconnect centralized?
Bitconnect has a blockchain. That part is decentralized.
You can stake the token in a qt wallet that keeps the blockchain.
The lending aspect is centralized.
In about three weeks, they will have debit card available where you can use BCC to US Dollars and other currencies.
Bitconnect makes money off their internal exchange, and then they will make money off the debit card when that comes ready.
BRAVO!!!
Also if government regulators do come in for BCC, that is on BCC not Steemit. I don't see how Steemit has the job to do that in particular even if I hate scams.
My opinion is for scams if people do run away with the money then lock them up. But that has not happened yet and might never happen.
No idea if it is or not; however I would disagree that it's on Craig and not Steemit. The fact remains that we are a new platform, so if (and I really mean if) somebody is promoting a scam, and is also really popular, then they will be found very easily and thus Steemit could be associated with nefarious activities.
Obviously on more established platforms like Facebook or Reddit the point is moot, because they have been around for ages. However if a scammer is trending loads, then it's not unfeasible to think that people could think; "pah, everytime I come to Steemit I see X scammer making loads of money, ergo Steemit is for scammers."
Now I'm not saying Craig is/was a scammer, however if people believed he was then that could be why he was flagged.
In a lot of ways it sucks because it is one or two people who have made that decision (or maybe not, maybe there where behind the scenes complaints. Maybe people were too scared to openly oppose such a powerful account.
Or maybe it's a personal vendetta... Like I say, I don't know if he was a scammer, however if he is, then I'm glad he's gone. If not, then like you I am dismayed that he has been hounded from the platform.
It's funny, we rail against the government when it comes to censorship, however we have to accept that that is part of the decentralised environment. People are free to promote and censure as they please. The downside on Steemit I guess, is that censorship doesn't necessarily have to happen by consensus.
Cg
I don't think it's possible or ideal for Steemit to try to police the behavior of bloggers on this level. Bloggers should be able to blog about what they want as long as they aren't directly hurting or threatening to hurt others.
Craig's posts haven't cost anyone any money or hurt anyone. He posts about Bitconnect and his experiences with it because he made a lot of money with it and continues to make money with it. He took the risks to get the reward, just like many do with ICOs which many people think are scams but they don't get censored for promoting ICOs.
I just don't see why we need to care about BitConnect. If it's a scam then it's a scam but it has nothing to do with Steemit as Steemit isn't the crypto government is it?
I did not see him as a scammer. In fact he tipped a lot of people off to a lot of ways to make money. An argument could be made that he wasn't moral in the popular sense of being moral, but he wasn't causing harm to anyone either. People can say promoting what community consensus determines as "scam" to be immoral, but it's not directly harming anyone any more than promoting an ICO.
If I am wrong, and I could be wrong, and Bitconnect shows itself to be a scam, then Craig Grant will have to answer to the angry comments on his Youtube from people who put their life savings into it. It's not in my opinion on Steemit to be concerned but I guess I don't get it. I don't get the interest in Bitconnect even if people think it's a scam.
I guess that's true right up until the point Bitconnect collapses and people lose their money. If he talks about how great the platform is, then he is promoting it and getting people excited about it.
As you point out a lot of ICOs have been considered scams, and I'm sure people have been flagged, it's just they're less high profile than Craig so we don't notice them.
Anyway time will tell if it's a scam; I'm guessing it probably is; as @brianphobos points out in his video about it. If you are being paid more to recruit people (suckers) than the actual product pays out, then it is a scam.
I myself never flagged him, however I would have if I felt he was using Steemit to promote a scam. Because I don't want to read the headline: "Steemit blogger steals millions" or words to that effect.
Interesting though, it's definitely got me thinking, so thanks for drawing my attention to it.
Cg
Woah! Huge record scratch!! That post you linked about Craig leaving, was posted 3 months ago, and he posted 9 days ago, so you know, he hasn't gone.
Cg
I looked into the math of BitConnect and whether or not it is a scam it's not going to be sustainable indefinitely because there isn't enough money in the crypto space to support it's growth at this rate. I do think P2P lending is a huge market, huge market, and untapped, but the compound interest promised by Bitconnect according to mathematics is economically unsustainable.
Nice idea, but the evidence which changed my mind about it was the fact that Bitconnect reduced their pyramid levels. Once I saw that, it was a data signal that the creators of the platform are no longer confident that it can sustain itself.
They do pay back for now, but it cannot last forever, and I have a feeling if Bitcoin crashes so will Bitconnect along with it because I see too much correlation between the Bitcoin price, the Bitcoin forks, and Bitconnect price. I could of course be wrong, and honestly I congratulate the people who made money from it because I'm not a hater, but it's too risky for me.
Whether they can pay it up or not is irrelevant they guarantee returns, the only people who can guarantee an interest rate is the government bonds at less than 1% a year, the reason being that they will print out the money to pay your interest. (devaluing the whole economy with it).
There is always a risk but in their case there isn't a hint of a profit making activity, they have just been lucky to have to pay back USD value for the BTC they received while BTC value has appreciated greatly.
No offense - watch his recent video - this guy is talking out both sides of his ass. Craig says .. I lost $150K and I have been working on this all day but I have not been concerned enough to call tech support about it???? 2 months ago I had information about changes with BitConnect but I did not care enough to share any information with the public ' .. Sick!!!! Sick!!! This guy is obviously no longer in his $10K apartment, he has posted this latest video in a hotel room!! Look at his videos from yesterday, his old apartment had no furniture left in it??? Looking a little tired there Craig .. Trevon, you better hope they do not leave you holding the bag!!!! Craig - my opinion is that the account you are showing in this latest video is probably not even yours - you are trying to make yourself look like a victim but really you are a fricken theif .. You hopefully will be singing that tune you were singing from a jail cell - how about you give back the money your followers will loose - take lessons from jsnip4. I am no expert but I can pick everyone of your videos apart and find inconsitencies in every on of them. ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!!!!
Why are you so upset at Craig that you wish him to be in a jail cell? Did he actually break a law or cause you harm in some direct way? You say he is a thief, so who is he stealing from and how?
It is true that this is probably just gambling but I'm trying to understand why you seem to take it so personally. Originally I discovered Bitconnect right after Craig but I decided not to pursue the obvious profit because I was concerned about how it could damage my reputation. But it seems Craig has way more followers than me right now, and his reputation while not perfect is still some how some way growing in the trading community because he's getting referrals hand over fist. This is why so many people are watching and thinking he must be doing something right to have to much success at least from the financial and marketing perspective.
Because he's a fucking scammer and a known criminal.
That's enough even if he didn't spend all his time pushing ponzi schemes and putting out word-vomit posts at Facebook-quality, if that, that nobody with an IQ above room-temperature could derive any value from.
https://steemit.com/crypto/@cryptofinancial/bad-people-in-crypto
"From the article above “One man in New York spent $50,000 and then killed himself when he realized he'd been scammed.”"
Weak evidence
That is not definitive evidence. First what country is Craig Grant from? If he was born in Africa or is from Nigeria this would make a bit more sense but if not then why would random Africans have any reason to pay a foreigner anything and how exactly do you expect Craig Grant to get his money if they decide they don't have to pay him? I just don't see why Nigeria Scammers would pay anyone a fee for "doing no work".
So that part I find far fetched and Craig was probably talking out of his ass. As far as the rest of the post, it is about his wife hustling for money. Why is it our business if she was a stripper? A lot of girls have done that or are doing that and it doesn't make a bad person. What is more believable to me is that scammers stole her photos and used it (they do this to a lot of women on the Internet), and Match.com for whatever reason was sued, and maybe she won some sort of settlement.
As far as her having a history of being in referral marketing, that part I definitely believe. She is extremely good at selling stuff as we can see from Bitconnect and those are skills which are not learned over night. It takes a person years to do marketing that well so I do believe the part about her being involved in the MCA.
Now, the part which wasn't very smart was Craig posting on Facebook that he made money off Nigeria scammers. Even if somehow this were true it makes no sense to blog about it on Facebook unless the desire is to attract criticism. Most of what I see in the so called "bad person" evidence is just people hustling for money, which is what most people tend to do until they get an opportunity to make money in more legitimate or socially acceptable ways.
I have no problem with referral marketing. I think people need to be careful before parting with their money but I don't really get upset at the middle men in it. The people who set up the scam or pyramid scheme I think are responsible for the scheme and all that came from it, but the people who followed the scheme to make money didn't set up the scheme. So the same with Bitconnect, it's Craig following a scheme which we have no evidence that he had anything to do with setting it up. As for Yuliana, her history is a bit darker but again there isn't any evidence directly connecting her to anything illegal that I can see.
If they are master criminals why hasn't the FBI simply arrested them?
She denied the allegations. So why should I believe the accuser side over her side when there is no direct evidence linking her to any crime? If there is then why hasn't the FBI simply arrested them on the charges? Something about this doesn't add up, if they are master Internet criminals how are they able to blog while on Youtube without having their door kicked in by federal agents? Either what they are doing isn't really illegal or for some unknown reason the FBI (and CIA) isn't doing a global investigation into their ties to African scammers.
All I can see clearly from the evidence is that Craig Grant is an extremely skilled marketer. Probably to be honest one of the most skilled in the crypto space. When he was marketing Steem people did not have a problem with his past, and when he brought thousands of people onto Steem people seemed okay with it, so why demonize him now? Even if some of us believe he is a demon criminal, does it mean he is not allowed to post on Steemit as long as he is not posting anything illegal? The content he posts isn't illegal even if he has a criminal past or is currently a criminal.
There are actually methods used to do cybersecurity investigations, or to investigate scams. Those methods require more evidence than just the opinions of some posters on a blog. There has to be a digital trail and then some direct link between Yuliana and the scammers. If it is true that she communicated with Nigerians then there would have to be evidence of that, such as IP addresses connecting her computer to computers in Nigeria, or perhaps some meta data, or just anything other than a blog post with an opinion.
Journalists are not investigators. So the Miami Times isn't producing any evidence which could be used in court or used to prove guilt. She put up a Western Union and now people claim she's a criminal? Couldn't people say the same about anyone using Dash? Scammers are a problem and if it's proven that they are behind a scam which effects members of the Steemit community then they must be voted down. Bitconnect doesn't seem to be something they are behind but more something they are taking advantage of as participants, and in the case of Bitconnect it has not yet been proven a scam even if I myself don't see it as being sustainable.
Again, if it's truly criminal what he is doing then criminal investigators will be on the case, not journalists, and not the job of Steemit bloggers in my opinion to try to investigate crimes unless the crime victims are Steemit bloggers. If not then where is the line going to be drawn? Are gambling sites going to be called criminals by Steemians because people are losing their money to it? I can see arguments which can be made about a lot of questionable content and posts on Steemit so where do we draw the line?
I remember when I first joined I watched a few of his videos he made on YouTube , his blog was incredible and something that a lot of people would dream to have . I feel like with success comes a lot of people that would bring you down or want to take your spot
It sucks. People got demonetized on Youtube and Steem/DTube was advertised as being better than that. Look at what is happening? The exact same shit.
Success is what attracts people to Steem. People want to blog because they see successful bloggers who inspire them. The loss of Craig Grant is a huge loss for Steemit in my opinion.
I agree to that , it's a big loss . I hope he can somehow recover from it
me recover, I think steemit recover, I'm doing great :)
A lot of crazy talk in this post... bitconnect is paying every day... I told craig about bitconnect and he jumped all over it 1-2 days later... he forgot to put me as sponsor... but I still love him :)... PEACE!
I can't find evidence that Bitconnect is a scam. In fact, I found that it is at least partially decentralized. Their mistake is unlike with Steem they have only one main website which everyone must trust. People would have thought Steemit is a scam if there weren't the many other development projects around it.
I think Bitconnect theoretically could fund itself using a bot. I think it works like this:
By having relationships with exchanges it becomes obvious how Bitconnect theoretically could use a bot to pay back the people who lend money. In essence it could just be a liquidity pool.
The problem is, it's not very transparent, and there is a shady nature to it, but we also don't know for sure who created Bitcoin either so for all we know it could be the originated behind Bitcoin who are also behind Bitconnect. It's really hard for me to reach a conclusion but congratulations on your success as I hear it made you a millionaire.
Compound interest will keep you a millionaire for the rest of your life with or without Bitconnect at this point.
I started to watch Craig's YouTube channel on Bouncy castles as this is something i do in NZ as well, then i noticed he had another channel which is where i saw him talking about steemit so i joined this platform, he has helped me on a couple of occasions which was great, i think he is being censored on Steemit due to him promoting Bitconnect and those that do not like that platform will flag his arse, i personally think Bitconnect is a scam but if i dont like like something on Steemit i would rather un follow or mute - not flag.
I agree he has probably brought a few people to Steemit and the whole flagging system is not one of a truly decentralized platform which needs to be looked at
I'm not passing judgement or commenting on him as a person; however a lot of people said he was a scammer. I know he was a prime mover in bitconnect, which I've heard is a Ponzi, however I really know nothing about it.
I personally didn't see any particular evidence of him scamming people; however I didn't investigate or spend any time looking into it. The only thing that turned me off him was I watched a video back in the early days where he talked about gaming Steemit. I didn't like the vibe so I unfollowed him.
So yeah, maybe he did nothing to deserve it; or maybe he had that rep for a reason, who knows?
Cg
I miss my daily "Steeeeeem Report!!!!" of 2016 and 2017 with a Steemit mug of coffee... miss the good time with @craig-grant :(
Well Craig is a hustler... I sponsored him on Bitconnect and he choose another sponsor, costed me many $10000 in lost referal payouts... anyway I like the necklage he did for me and my son... I think most people envy his success .,. but he is also a hustler by his own words :)
I muted him early on because of his pseudo-intellectual, new age, cotton candy metaphysical bullshit.
Maybe he just O.D.'d?
I seem to remember one of the posts that helped me decide to mute him was the one where they were going out to pick up new girls for the strip club.
Or do I have him confused with someone else?