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Coin Geek
5 days ago
- Business
- Coin Geek
How to scam everyone
Homepage > News > Editorial > How to scam everyone Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The mechanics of a Ponzi scheme are not complex, but they are devastatingly effective. First, you lure investors with the promise of consistent, above-average returns. You collect capital from early believers and then use that very capital to fabricate 'returns' for the earliest participants. These returns create buzz. Soon, trusted voices and respected figures begin to vouch for the system, amplifying your scheme through the echo chamber of credibility. The money doesn't come from the success of the investment; it comes from other investors. And so the pyramid grows until it bursts. This model has been around for centuries. I have written about the South Sea Bubble in the past, but in summary, the South Sea Company was a debt-restructuring and speculative play created to service England's war obligations and stabilize finances. It promised absurd profits based on colonial trade potential. But it had no real profits. To cement its image, the company seduced one of its fiercest critics, Isaac Newton, into investing. His involvement brought credibility. Eventually, even the king and the British Treasury got involved. The result? A national catastrophe. South Sea Company can't be a scam because Isaac Newton got the King to invest! — Kurt Wuckert Jr (@kurtwuckertjr) April 23, 2025 Charles Ponzi's name has become synonymous with the scheme itself. He promised investors 50% returns in 45 days by exploiting postal arbitrage. It was all a lie. There were no real profits, only the illusion of success built on inflows from fresh victims, but he was a talented marketer and ruined a lot of people with his scheme. Bernie Madoff did the same thing on a larger scale. Madoff, a respected figure in New York's financial world and a trusted member of the Jewish community, built his entire empire on the trust of people who believed he would never scam his own. But he did. With nearly $65 billion in fabricated returns, his fraud became the largest of its kind in history. The saddest part is that it took his own children's disgust to bring it all down. When they discovered that he had scammed his own community, including charities run by people in his real life, they couldn't stomach doing anything but turning him in for his crimes. Bernie Madoff died the same day as the Coinbase IPO. And you don't think there's magic. #PassTheTorch Sam Bankman-Fried ran the 21st century's first crypto mega-scam. FTX was a house of cards built on a token (FTT) with no intrinsic value, propped up by artificial liquidity and incestuous accounting. By wash-trading FTT against BTC and Tether, reallocating fake paper profits, and cycling it all through Alameda Research, he made an illusion of success so powerful that it lured in celebrities, regulators, and major venture capital firms. Tom Brady. Sequoia. BlackRock (NASDAQ: BLK). It was all a lie, and when it came crashing down, SBF was sentenced to die in prison for his crimes. The best thing about the FTX situation is that it strengthened my thesis about 'crypto.'The gains & the losses are basically all fake, real businesses just say 'who?' about the SBF news, and bitcoin is still almost completely untested opportunity. What a joke! — Kurt Wuckert Jr (@kurtwuckertjr) November 15, 2022 So here we are again. And this time, the face is Michael Saylor. Saylor, formerly known for one of the biggest single-week losses in stock market history (approximately $14 billion in erased value due to MicroStrategy's (NASDAQ: MSTR) accounting misstatements), has reemerged as BTC's evangelist-in-chief. He lost his credibility once and then lost his tax residency in a more recent scandal involving fraudulent claims about his primary home address. But rather than face disgrace, he pivoted. And it had him under water for quite some time, too. Fun Fact: Michael Saylor might be the single worst investor in history. He lost more money than anyone else in the Dot Com crash. Now, he is under water over a billion dollars on the best performing asset of all time because he timed it wrong and bought the top with leverage. — Kurt Wuckert Jr (@kurtwuckertjr) June 30, 2022 By rebranding MicroStrategy as a 'Bitcoin treasury company,' Saylor leveraged the same playbook as Ponzi, Madoff, and SBF. He borrowed money to buy BTC, told everyone BTC was going 'up forever,' and encouraged others to invest in his company: a leveraged BTC play wrapped in the facade of tech legitimacy. As long as BTC rises, he looks like a genius. But if BTC falters, the entire MicroStrategy house of cards crumbles. And it doesn't stop there. Jack Mallers, once heralded as the everyman of Bitcoin, is actually the third-generation heir to a Chicago TradFi dynasty, and he's running the same book of business. He is starting a direct competitor to 'Strategy' and hoping to create FOMO among as many businesses as possible to create a demand curve to pump BTC forever. But it can't pump forever, and you know it! None of this is accidental. It's the scam. It's always the scam. You front-load the scheme with influencers. You pay off critics. You create a trusted mythology about the project. And you extract capital from believers while propping up the illusion of momentum. When the bubble bursts, you're either gone or you pivot to the next grift. Bitcoin wasn't supposed to be this. It was created as a tool for freedom. A bearer asset that real people could hold like a gold bar and spend like global, liquid cash at a moment's notice. Peer-to-peer electronic cash, not wrapped derivatives, smart contracts, and custodial magic shows. It took a decade of social engineering to convince people to trust custodial BTC, to lock their holdings into platforms with no proof of reserves, and to relinquish their own keys in exchange for paper promises, but it happened, and we're watching the product of the first real paper BTC pump. This isn't just another cycle. This is the bubble. This is the moment that every lesson in financial fraud has been trying to warn you about. And if history repeats itself again, the collapse will wipe out trillions in paper gains and real capital alike. And instead of blaming Saylor or the other people who convinced them that bad ideas were good ideas, too many people will blame Bitcoin itself. And, I think that's the real goal: make as much money off of 'Bitcoin' the meme, while destroying the trust of Bitcoin the idea. You've been warned. Watch | Certihash Sentinel Node: Improving cybersecurity with blockchain
Coin Geek
27-05-2025
- Business
- Coin Geek
Bitcoin, state of mining, why digital gold may be failing
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Last week's guest on the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream was YOU. Kurt Wuckert Jr. hosted an AMA on Bitcoin covering mining profitability, the digital gold narrative of what Calvin Ayre is up to, and whether he's bullish or bearish about the future of BSV. title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""> Is GorillaPool still supporting ElectrumSV using a recovery seed phrase? Yes, it's still working, Wuckert confirms. GorillaPool is currently in flux and moving things around, recently bringing a new sysadmin on board. If the support for ElectrumSV changes, they'll give everyone three months' notice. In the meantime, Wuckert will try to convince Root, the sysadmin, to come on the show. What's happening with the Binance court case in the USA? It's a class-action lawsuit, and Wuckert is an advisor to some parties, so he can't talk about anything that isn't known publicly. A recent public update claimed the damages claim may be excessive. The premise of the case is that U.K. BSV holders were unjustly put in a position by predatory delistings. Is Calvin Ayre still backing BSV or not? While Wuckert is not inside Ayre's inner circle, he has seen no indication that he has abandoned BSV. As well as being a key investor in many pivotal companies in the ecosystem, he's still extremely enthusiastic about Bitcoin in conversation. There's no indication he's going anywhere. Will USDC be here when the end times come? USDC, like all stablecoins, involves trust. Circle is owned by Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN), Goldman Sachs (NASDAQ: GS), and other firms, none of which are impenetrable. For example, Coinbase recently outsourced customer service to a third-world country, and some of the agents sold customer information, possibly including identity documents. Ultimately, fiat tokens are just one layer above fiat currency itself. USDC will probably be around for a long time, but there's always a risk that it could vanish. 'Hedge your bets with stablecoins,' Wuckert advises. Are BTC advocates realizing the 'digital gold' narrative is failing? Perhaps for some, Wuckert replies. Those who got into BTC in 2012 and got out in 2017 made 1,500x their money —an astronomical return. People like Michael Saylor, who got in later, need the entire market cap of gold to move into BTC for a 10x return. Since Saylor is already in his sixties, the chances of him making 10x his money before he retires are slim to none: no money movement across asset classes has ever happened on this scale. On the other hand, BSV is only $35. While Wuckert isn't advising anyone to buy it or any other digital asset, making a 10x return on BSV would be much easier than on BTC. There are many other 10x opportunities, including building businesses with real utility, which Wuckert favors and has been doing in the industry. When BTC crashes, where will the hash power go? BTC isn't profitable to mine, and most miners are making money from carbon credits, curtailment agreements, and other financial games. As a result, the price of BTC has been driven absurdly high, and if it dropped 90%, many miners would be in trouble and have to switch off their mining rigs. Their next pivot is to sell computing power to AI companies. This may actually be useful, but it shows that the BTC mining economy isn't as lucrative as it would be if the fundamental economics of Bitcoin had been respected. What is Wuckert bullish about with BSV? While BSV isn't in the industry spotlight, Wuckert has noticed a shift in interest from serious developers and others. The recent BSV Hackathon in Austin drew many people from outside the ecosystem, and many of them were impressed by the tooling and technical capabilities. 'We're just one killer app away from changing the world,' Wuckert reminds us. To hear more about GorillaPool's plans, the Coinbase x402 standard, and how the MNEE stablecoin is changing the game for BSV, listen to the livestream via this link . Watch: What is blockchain-powered gold and can you buy coffee with it? title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="">
Coin Geek
19-05-2025
- Business
- Coin Geek
Exchanging Bitcoin with Orange Gateway
Homepage > News > Business > Exchanging Bitcoin with Orange Gateway Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... On this episode of the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream, Orange Gateway CEO Hlynur Thor Bjornsson sat down with Kurt Wuckert Jr. to talk about making Bitcoin easier and more accessible for everyone. title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""> Iceland, BSV liquidity, and off-ramps Orange Gateway is based in Iceland simply because the founders live there. They first discovered Bitcoin in 2009 after the financial collapse. In 2013, they spun up a company and started trading coins. Things progressed from there, and they began Orange Gateway with a pivot to BSV. Wuckert points out the problem with BSV liquidity; there's a limit to how much trading one can do as a result. He thanks Bjornsson for providing a service that addresses this and asks why he chose the small number of pairs he did. The answer is simple: they wanted to stay true to the BSV vision and had no interest in trading many other coins. A decade-old banking relationship is one of the keys to Orange Gateways' success. Due to this and strict regulatory compliance, they can act as an off-ramp, allowing people to withdraw fiat into their bank accounts. They now even offer buying Bitcoin with credit cards. KYC compliance, customer activity, and stablecoins What's the threshold for KYC compliance, and what does the process look like? The threshold is €1,000 ($1,118) per month, Bjornsson says. This allows casual traders playing with that money to escape full KYC checks. After that limit, all documents are required. Are there any day traders, or are people using it as an on/off ramp? They're seeing more and more traders. They welcome it, but it will come slowly. They have a third-party market maker to operate the order book, and they're looking for a more sophisticated partner to handle that role. Wuckert mentions a few BSV stablecoins; MNEE on 1Sat Ordinals and the CHF one via the Centi platform. Is Orange Gateway looking to support them? Yes, they're looking for ways to support these coins and have directly conversed with the MNEE people. The EU MiCA license guarantees license holders have real currency backing them, and Bjornsson believes this will create a lot of trust in these stablecoins. Is there going to be an Orange Gateway app in the future? Yes, it's in the works. As for payment app integrations, Apple Pay (NASDAQ: AAPL) is available for iPhone and Mac users, whereas Android users can use Google Pay (NASDAQ: GOOGL). Real World Assets and alternative withdrawals Wuckert thinks real-world assets will be a big deal in the future. He wonders if Orange Gateway is interested in them. Bjornsson says they'd much rather support 1,000 RWA tokens than 1,000 digital currencies. They're even considering how a tokenized fish market might work in Iceland. As a workaround for direct withdrawals, Orange Gateway is negotiating with its credit card partner to see if people can receive payments as prepaid credit cards. This would shorten the wait and cost of a wire transfer and allow people to spend their funds faster. To hear more about Orange Gateway, the upcoming London Blockchain Conference, and the future of BSV, check out the live stream via this link. Watch: Hlynur Thor Bjornsson maps Orange Gateway's journey so far title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="">
Coin Geek
09-05-2025
- Business
- Coin Geek
Decoding prosperity—Dr. Porras joins CoinGeek Weekly Livestream
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Dr. Eva Porras is the Education Director at the BSV Association. As this week's guest on the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream, she told Kurt Wuckert Jr. about her efforts to educate on blockchain utility and why we should aim for small, incremental adoption rather than hoping to land big projects first. title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""> Wuckert's latest article on the Bitcoin mining industry Before welcoming Dr. Eva Porras, Wuckert talks a little about his latest article on CoinGeek: Bitcoin mining 2025: Is it still worth it? In this article, Wuckert explores how Bitcoin miner revenue is increasingly separate from the Bitcoin economy directly—things like carbon credits and arbitrage are helping them stay afloat. The article explores the opportunities, risks, and fundamental consequences of this setup. Check it out via the link above! Who is Dr. Eva Porras? Dr. Porras may be a familiar face to anyone who has been involved in BSV over the past few years. She's a blockchain educator and advocate with a PhD in Finance for those who don't know her. Dr. Porras discovered Bitcoin while researching for a new edition of one of her books on the cost of capital. After reading the white paper and becoming fascinated with the technology, she focused on educating. What message would Dr. Porras most like to get across? She wants people to realize that blockchain is a tool that can solve problems. However, she first needs a reasonable audience, and the first wave of adopters of any new technology rarely fits that description. Communicating the value of scalable blockchain technology Wuckert asks what two or three key things Dr. Porras considers essential to communicate. She notes that every business has problems and encourages people to focus on those and how blockchain apps can offer solutions. For businesses, this should be about saving money, giving them a competitive edge, etc. Building on BSV or any other blockchain should be framed as an investment to businesspeople, but the approach should always be tailored to the audience. However, no matter who the audience is, be careful to avoid talking about speculation and never give financial advice, she says. Bitcoin or blockchain? Which one does Dr. Porras like to talk about most? She says blockchain is the better option: it's more generic, has a wider scope, and allows her to avoid all of the baggage that comes with the Bitcoin brand, focusing instead on the value of distributed ledgers. Communicating utility effectively depends on who you're talking to: the hammer isn't the right tool for every job. Talking to a technologist will be very different from talking to a businessperson or someone just learning about the technology. Commercial opportunities for blockchain technology Dr. Porras believes that the focus should be squarely on adoption by getting tools and solutions into people's hands that they can intuitively understand. We need to minimize the learning curve, build solutions quickly, and get them into people's hands so they can use and understand them directly. Wuckert says he has realized that trying to score government and enterprise contracts is the hard road with the longest sales cycle. Dr. Porras agrees, saying the focus should be on small, incremental steps. Landing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) or big stablecoin would be a dream, but there's too much friction, too many people need to be involved, and it takes too long for now. Right now, we need something concrete to showcase and get a foot in the door with low-friction, small-scale solutions before moving on to more complex ones, she says. In closing, Dr. Porras emphasizes that blockchain is a tool that will impact the global economy and markets. We should all read, listen, learn, and be open-minded about the opportunities and challenges ahead. To hear more about the Bitcoin mining model, CBDCs, teaching about blockchain, and more, listen to the episode here. Watch | Rediscovering Blockchain: Here's how you build trust at scale title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="">
