Is Steemit a Ponzi? Lets investigate!
Warning Signs of A Ponzi:
The following set of rules are the classic warning signs of a Ponzi.
Unclear Business model with a lot of smoke and mirrors where the business withholds information on profits and how the business is run.
The developer of Steemit was also the developer of BTS, which he seems to have completely abandoned. The whitepaper is 44 pages long which means that everything is made overly complicated, for reference: the Bitcoin whitepaper is 10 pages long and that changed the world. I can also not find any business structure behind Steemit.
Aggressive sales techniques that use testimonies of others who got incredible returns on their money with no other substance.
Aggressive sales technique can be argued. I did find testimonies below. What is not up for argument is the incredible returns. 2-3 line posts can get over 1,000 usd which makes no sense and is obviously unsustainable.
Investment opportunities that asks you to spread the word and bring in more investors
Well this one is obvious, just look on Twitter/Reddit and other social media, this is being heavily marketed to make the price go up and it's in an obvious bubble.
If it sounds too good to be true... it is. You can't generate double digit returns year after year regardless of how the market is doing.
The first part is obvious, it is too good to be true. Some people who write 10 min blog posts getting 10,000 usd or more is literally insane. The last part was probably written before crypto.
If you are promised guaranteed returns. There is a risk with any investment and that should be made clear.
You are promised guaranteed returns. The idea is that you put as much Steemit in your Steemit account and get guaranteed returns. However noone takes into account the price of Steemit on the exchanges which could crash really hard. Then everyone who invested and was promised guaranteed returns is still getting burned hard.
If you feel bullied when you ask too many questions.
Try to ask the dev some questions, he is known in all of crypto as very aggressive, hostile and uncooperative. One example was only releasing a Linux wallet saying that Windows was for losers.
Stalling when you ask to withdraw funds.
This is the most important one. Your Steem is locked, you can request a bit every 7 days but only about 1% worth. This is a huge issue, it means it takes you 2 years to cash out. In crypto 2 years equals 20 years in normal life. The whole crypto landscape could be different.
Conclusion:
I will not make a conclusion for you but make your own conclusion. If you've been in crypto long enough you know that if something looks like its too good to be true, it always is.
7 US machines printed, printed every day billions of dollars. This is not a Ponzi?
That doesn't mean there's only one Ponzi scheme.
I would not tell that Steemit is a ponzi-scheme.
Why you may ask?
Because you dont need to deposit anything,to get started.
Obviously it does not mean that steemit could not be a ponzi,but for me it looks like the devs of it couldn't set a ponzi like this,because of advertisers,who pay them.
Adding one more thing,i would not call this an investigate.
It's more like a discussion with yourself i would say,investigation would be checking real connections,structures etc.
If you want to know if steemit is real,just find employees,names of them etc.
only steem power is locked up, oh no... he thinks windows is for wussies lol well we kind of are mental midgets compared to someone who knows how to run linux, compile wallets... or build coins... lol I mean I can't do any of that. I'm sure someone will make a windows wallet soon enough.
time will tell, the site is still in beta and running awesome... who the heck would abandon "the mothership" most of us in crypto have been waiting for for so long? If they do this site right they'll be Zuckerberg rich
From the devs point of view they are doing it right. They are taking lots of money from us, that is their plan.
I think the means to protect yourself is not to invest what you cant afford to lose. I too have doubts about what will happen with Steemit, I powered up with a small amount of BTC that was just hanging around doing nothing exciting and I have 'made' 20x. As you say whether I ever get to realise that is a whole different story. I may just power down to see what happens!
Have you actually managed to make your money back? Until you have converted the pretend Steem Dollars into something you can spend in a shop you have made nothing.
yeah, it seems like a strange investment for a cryptocurrency that requires you to keep it locked up. It's play money if you can't withdraw it and spend it, or convert it
This deserves more upvotes honestly. Voted
It's only been up for 3 minutes.
Post who does not follow the steemit thought tend to get a decent amount of upvote but no so much dollar!
Let's see what happen!
I love your post and conclusion!
When no new blood comes in, steem will go below sub zero levels :P kinda feels like the "ponzi" model. but i'm sure that's not the motivation behind the project. it's unsustainable, anyways imo.
The news that the developers have been involved in a previous scam is a big red flag, as I suspected they are just spending our money and don't care about the long term future.
:o what scams? thx in advance for the info ^^
I realize this is an old post, and you may have jumped ship, but if you're still around, what is your opinion of Steemit now please? I just started (19 days ago), and haven't invested any cash, but I also have made very little by writing articles, and curating. I want to believe it's going to takeoff like the next Reddit or something, but the amount that is paid for some articles and videos seems unsustainable. Thanks.
The problem is they allow bots to game the system:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@run-to-win/steemit-one-giant-decentralized-ponzi-scheme
A lot of good points. Thx.
Thanks for posting this, it helps to balance all the positive vibes around here. However a lot of blockchain tech seemed to good to be true and a couple of years later we are still at it. Crossing my fingers here ;)