Heed the wise words of Kirk Lazarus in Tropic Thunder: never go full retard, man.
This statement can just as easily be extended and adapted to the gambit of “cloud mining” companies which have flourished in the Bitcoin space in recent months. Many of these companies teeter dangerously on the brink of ponzi schemes. The basic gist is:
1. You pay $X amount of Bitcoin for “managed” mining hardware — hardware you never get to hold in your hands, but whose existence is guaranteed by the hosting companies
2. You receive $X amount of Bitcoin per day from your virtual mining hardware, minus a maintenance fee
3. Your payout schedule is such that it is highly unlikely you will ever see an ROI on your cloud mining
When examining cloud mining from the triad above, it’s likely that many companies in the space are orchestrating a techno tour de heist that would make even Madoff green with envy. Given that there are no guarantees of profits, and with Bitcoin difficulty on a vertical ramp up, it’s accepted that the cloud mining product ultimately boils down to a ponzi fit for a gambler’s tastes.
Are you a betting man? Josh Garza, CEO of GAW Miners, certainly is. He recently purchased the domain name www.BTC.com for $1.1 million dollars.
Are you feeling lucky? Josh certainly is. So lucky, in fact, that he has decided to cook up a brand new creation for the GAW umbrella : HashCoin.
Now, no one knows exactly what HashCoin is (there is no whitepaper publicly released, EDIT: Whitepaper has been released: https://hashcoin.com/white-paper and HashCoin isn’t guaranteed to be its final name), however there is already quite a few interesting “Get Rich Guarantees” being made to all the hapless cloud mining customers eager to turn their failing mining hardware ROI into a quick pump and dump.
A recent post by the company details this interesting tidbit:
Our Market Analyst and our banking partners have released their final market numbers for HashCoin. I will save the juicy stuff for later, but the
summary is this:
• HashCoin will go “public” for just over $20 a coin.
• Our customer ICO HashPoint round, for our mining members, will be at “less” than $4 a coin.
Legal note: Remember, this is NOT the FIAT round. This round, at these prices will be limited to purchases with HashPoints only. Our banking partners will NOT allow more coins to be purchased than with the available pool of HashPoints.
“HashCoin” is the code name for the coin, not the actual name that it will bear. We purchased the rights to the most popular name an online currency could ever have. That deal finished today.
To sum it up, GAW is releasing a new coin, which will be made available to their “banking and market analysts” as well as GAW Cloud Mining customers for a mere $4 a coin, with a target “ITO” price of $20 / coin. Josh, you should’ve listened to Kirk. Perhaps you’ve had too much a taste for the good life, buying million dollar domains and flying around on private jets without even having reached the ripe old age of 30.
It’s time to step back and realize that just by swapping the P for a T in “IPO” you are not avoiding regulatory scrutiny. Couple this with very suspicious nature of the cloud mining scheme and you have a recipe for disaster.
We don’t need another GOX, another BFL, another Mintpal. Take heed, hold your Bitcoin tight. There are snakes on this private plane.
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@Jennifer
Please do you homework before flaming others for speaking their mind.
OP – You hit the nail on the head. In my opinion, MANY MANY things GAW/ZEN related do not add up and are not reflective of how stuff happens in the real world. The bottom line is BUYER BEWARE.
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The fact remains, for just about any “get rich for zero effort” scheme. If such things actually worked, they wouldn’t be advertised.
If GAWMiners were producing real cash profits in excess of what they cost to build/buy and run, then the people making them would be keeping VERY quiet about it, and just raking in the dough themselves. Every penny they spend on advertising would be a penny they aren’t spending on a device that supposedly pays for itself. That’s just not how you actually run a profitable business.
Just step back and say to yourself. Where are these guys spending money, with the expectation of making more? Are they spending it devices to make money? Or are they spending it on advertising, to get yours?
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While I agree with the premise, and understand the writers concerns, I am somewhat reluctant to buy into the argument because no data or facts were provided. It was nothing more than a personal attack on the CEO (Josh), sprinkled with sophomoric nonsense about private jets. DID YOU AS if the plane belonged to one of the investors, who flew Josh into Las Vegas? Private jets in Vegas are as common on buses in DC. Fact – I made more in one month at GAW than my financial advisor made me the entire quarter. Josh is one of those rare and natural leaders who will be a success. Btw, age isn’t the issue. Ask Ian Mackaye of Minor Threat-Dischord Records. A millionaire on his own terms. Josh has that same aura.
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I have been with GAW since the beginning of the Hashlet. Let me tell you how GAW really operates: like a kid who just figured out how to use his first computer. He will be “working” on a new game idea and tell all his friends about it, but when he is ready to premiere it to his friends, he does so in a hasty manner. He doesn’t finish programming it completely, and he looks like an ass because he churched it up so much. Then he apologizes for the shortsightedness and goes back to the drawing board with another promise for a better game on another day.
They are supremely inadequate over at GAW, and they never deliver on any promise – they just keep tacking on different schemes to distract their customers. If you are a customer of GAW and don’t see this, then you are as tech-tarded as they are.
Sell those stupid miners and walk away with your bitcoin. THERE IS YOUR ROI! And that’s all you will get.
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I think you’ve hit the nail on the head, James.
Today, The Day When All Is To Be Revealed, GAW’s forum conveniently is down. The mindless idolators are tweeting, “GAW crashed the Internet,” when the only thing not working is GAW. Josh’s Twitter feed is silent, other than to say “It’s time for some new forum software.”
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I am new to bitcoin and the crypto currency business, i have seen gawminers advertised alot, and I wanted to do some research on them before considering any investment in this company. Thank god i did do the research, what I found out about these clowns is not pretty, Josh Garza, CEO of Gawminers has no qualms about advertising and showing how glamorous it is to be the head of one of the biggest Ponzi Schemes online today. Not only did we find several reviews and complaints about how Gawminers Josh Garza has manipulated forums and falsifying articles and reviews, but we also found plenty of write-ups and evidence showing just how dishonest, deceitful and greedy Josh Garza and Gawminers has become, here are just a few very interesting url links; please be aware Gawminers, Josh Garza and his group will probably try to sabotage or attack some of these websites to try and prevent people from seeing these urls: https://coinfire.cf/2014/11/22/is-gaw-miners-lying-about-partnerships/
http://www.misleddit.com/p/2nvtrr/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2nk9ns/gawminerscom_paycoin_josh_garza_has_the_potential/?sort=new
http://www.reddit.com/r/litecoinmining/comments/2e6wx6/proof_of_dishonesty_and_lies_inside_about/
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