This is What A Real Ponzi Scheme Looks Like

in mmm •  8 years ago  (edited)

Bitcoiners are very quick to warn people about the dangers of the "Steem Ponzi Scheme". It would be nice if they would expend the same energy to protect people from a very real and active Ponzi Scheme going on within the Bitcoin ecosystem right now.

Take a quick search on Youtube by following this link:

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=mmm&sp=CAI%253D

You should see something like this:

Watch one of the videos. Participants are given scripts to talk about how much money they made (on the order of 30-50% compound interest per month, completely unsustainable expectations).

Once you're done with the video, go back and refresh the search. See how many new videos there are already. This thing has completely taken over in Nigeria. And it's the reason for the explosion in interest in Bitcoin which I documented the other day:

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@demotruk/hockey-stick-chart

If you have any friends in Nigeria, if they are yet unaffected by MMM please warn them to thread carefully. If they are already actively involved, it may be hard to explain the danger due to our normal cognitive biases. The best approach may be to ask how much money they expect to have each month, to encourage discovering the unsustainability for themselves. Another approach would be to ask if they always know the person to whom they send their investment to is, ie. is it truly always another MMM participant, or is it possible they sometimes send their Bitcoin to Mavrodi?

mmm bitcoin ponzi nigeria scam
8 years ago by

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    • [-]
      ·  8 years ago 

    Just uploaded.
    Described as a "financial aid and donation exchange"
    Driving up the bitcoin price...
    I wouldn't want to hold bitcoin while this is going on...

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    3 votes
    [-]
      ·  8 years ago 

    Just reading your last statement and wondering if it makes sense....
    There is a price stimulus in the form of increased demand (from whatever cause) and you say you are you want to offload you bitcoin? #smh

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      [-]
        ·  8 years ago 

      Driving up the bitcoin price...
      I wouldn't want to hold bitcoin while this is going on...

      Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Everything made sense except that part. If price is going up then I would want to hold BTC.

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        [-]
          ·  8 years ago 

        Thanks for the warning. There was a real Ponzi scheme called MMM that ran in Russia in the mid-1990s, making promises ominously similar to the ones made by MMM Nigeria.

        МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s.[1][2] By different estimates from 5 to 40 million people lost up to $10 billion. The exact figures are not known even to the founders.

        MMM Ponzi Scheme Company.

        More:

        MMM created its successful Ponzi scheme in 1994. The company started attracting money from private investors, promising annual returns of up to one thousand percent. It is unclear whether a Ponzi scheme was Mavrodi's initial intention, inasmuch as such extravagant returns might have been possible during the Russian hyperinflation in such commerce as import-export.[citation needed]

        MMM grew rapidly. In February 1994, the company reported dividends of 1,000%, and started an aggressive TV ad campaign. Since the shares were not quoted on any stock exchange and the company itself determined the share price, it maintained a steady price growth of thousands of percent annually, leading the public to believe its shares were a safe and profitable investment.[citation needed]

        An important factor in the scheme's success was word of mouth, but most of the company's success came from its extremely aggressive ad campaign, which appealed to the general public by using "ordinary" characters that viewers could identify with. The most famous of them, a "folk hero" of early 1994, was Lyonya Golubkov. Another notable marketing effort was a giveaway of free Metro trips to all Moscow citizens on a particular day. MMM also was one of the first well-known companies in Russia with a logotype and slogans ("Flying from shadow to the light" and others).[citation needed]

        FYI, Nigeria is the home of those notorious 419 scams.

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          2 votes
          [-]
            ·  8 years ago (edited)

          Closing with that FYI is so low and I dont see how Nigerian 419ers connect with a ponzi that you say was founded by a Russian.
          Pu-leez!
          With a population of over 200 million, bad eggs are guaranteed but permit me to ask, the HYIPs that suck the bitcoin out of people - those are run by Nigerians too? Or the Silk Road was a Nigerian invention too?

          I am a Nigerian steemer and I do tell people about the risk. So does the MMM websites - yes plural for websites. There are MMM platforms for over 10 countries. All using Bitcoin!

          I am just grateful for all this interest in bitcoin. More and more Nigerians are asking about other uses of crypto-currency. Be prepared...we are coming for Steem, the trading exchanges like poloniex, etc.
          That's when the world will feel the might of 200 million HONEST, creative minds......and a few 419ers.

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            1 vote
            [-]
              ·  8 years ago 

            Indeed it is run by the same guy, Sergei Mavrodi.

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              1 vote
              [-]
                ·  8 years ago 

              It is?? Oh crap...

              I sure hope there's a Nigerian Steemer her who can pass the word along!

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                [-]
                  ·  8 years ago 

                This was a scam that was going on last year around this time don't fall for it they won't pay you back anything. Trust me I tried..

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                  1 vote
                  [-]
                    ·  8 years ago 

                  My dad is in a 401 Nigerian scam too, can't convince him out of it either. It's not the bitcoin one but the one were there is a large amount of money in an unattainable fund. The only way to get it out is by paying the charges on it to withdraw it. Then once you put your money into it supposedly you'll split this 10 million bounty 50/50% with this "nigerian governor"!

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                    [-]
                      ·  8 years ago 

                    In this case at present, Nigerians are primarily the victims of the scam, not the perpetrators.

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