IMPORTANT NOTE: This video occurred AFTER Bitconnect agreed to speak but ONLY IF WE ASKED NICE QUESTIONS FROM A PRE-APPROVED LIST. That's why this isn't an interview - it's a confrontation.
Before this video, we attempted a to arrange a quiet, sit down interview, to go over the numbers with them. Bitconnect made this impossible...THEN we decided to talk to them anyway.
Bitconnect is already under official investigation in the UK, and soon may have their operations in that country shut down, and assets seized.
Just in from our Silicon Valley team covering the Blockchain Expo North America today.
My phone chimed with a text message from one of our staff at the event - only reading "check the company dropbox" and behold, this amazing video!
Ross Davis, seen in this video confronting Bitconnect staff about their impossible to sustain business model at their booth is our Editor In Chief, and heads up our Silicon Valley news desk.
The question is simple: With the current business model of Bitconnect, if someone invests $10,000 today, they will be paying them over $4,000,000 just six years from now. They make people believe it's possible because the value of their coin is going up 'just like bitcoin' but what they don't tell you is, virtually no one is buying their coin except their own customers.
I gave Ross a quick call for some background story, he said:
"Yesterday at the expo after getting past the shock that these guys were getting bold enough to show their faces at an event like this, I asked if we could schedule an interview for the following day (today), the reaction set up red flags immediately.
Our team has interviewed somewhere around 30 companies here over the last two days, about half of them reached out to us first, and all we're more than happy to be interviewed.
But only 1 asked for the questions in advance, and couldn't commit to more than a "maybe" for an interview today.
Of course, no reporter gives questions in advance unless it's a fluff piece, and like I said, nobody else wanted them - legitimate companies with nothing to hide welcome questions!"
I asked, why not just let it go?
"The day this comes crashing down, it's going to be in major newspapers and financial TV shows. The general public still hasn't quite figured out what cryptocurrency is all about, and the day they open the New York Times or turn on CNN and hear about what Bitconnect pulled - it's going to be a stain on this entire industry."
In closing:
"We need to draw a line in the sand. There's 'get rich quick' hustlers like Bitconnect and legitimate companies really pushing this tech, and no, we don't need to play nice with eachother."
Bitconnect has been called a ponzi scheme by virtually every respectable person in the cryptocurrency industry. From Ethereum creater Vitalik Buterin, to Litecoin creator Charlie Lee.
I've been asked what I think about BitConnect. From the surface, seems like a classic ponzi scheme. I wouldn't invest in it and wouldn't recommend anyone else to.— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) November 30, 2017
I follow this rule of thumb:
"If it looks like a 🦆, walks like a 🦆, and quacks like a 🦆, then it's a ponzi." 😂
Yeah, if 1%/day is what they offer then that's a ponzi.— Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin) November 2, 2017
We will be following Bitconnects case with the UK government over the next several weeks.
Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk
