Bithaul

Oct 17 2017

99 Days of Bitconnect

UPDATED ON NOVEMBER 2 – Bitconnect is still cool, but we’re striking through all the text about Bitpetite, which is a scam.

Here on the site, we’ve talked quite a bit about the concept of “Passive Income,” and, specifically, Passive Income Platforms (PIPs) where you can invest your coins or tokens and watch them make money for you.

We’ve also tried to be as upfront and transparent as possible. This approach, we think, lets us share with you a “warts and all” look at these PIPs and whether or not they might be worth your hard-earned Bitcoins.

We started our journey with Bitconnect (AFFILIATE LINK), and we’ve also tried a couple duds – “scams” is actually more accurate – like Bithaul (the image over there is what they SAY we have in our account right now, though we haven’t been able to withdraw for almost a month), or Control Finance (another dead site), or Ambis (SCAM).

(The only other platform that we’ve tried and can still vouch for is Bitpetite (AFFILIATE LINK), which continues to have a great track record for us. And we promise to try more of these in the days to come, with a report on them as we proceed.) Bitpetite is a SCAM.

Bitconnect remains the leader for us because of a couple of factors:

It is backed by an actual coin;
That coin has a large market cap;
There is a wide distribution, throughout the world, of Bitconnect users;
The track record of payouts is pretty strong (see chart below).

99 Days In…

Okay, the image we’re about to share will take a little scrolling on your part. It’s a screenshot of our Excel spreadsheet that tracks the amount of interest paid each day we’ve been part of the Bitconnect system. SO it’s 99 days of history, going back to July 10, when we got started. Let’s take a look:

Before we psychoanalyze this spreadsheet, we should probably give you a refresher on the basics.

For instance, you need to invest a minimum of $100 to get started. You need to convert Bitcoin into BCC, their coin, and then invest a round number in an increment of $10. We landed on $110 to get started because of exchange rates and whatnot on the day we invested.
$10 is a pretty important number for the site, too, because you can only reinvest in multiples of $10.
You are given the option to cash out your interest whenever; but we have chosen to reinvest it at each step of the way.
Since we’re not “whales” on the site – at least not yet – our investments and reinvestments are locked down for 299 days; to get your money back sooner, you will need to invest a minimum of $1010.

We’ve tried to manage this spreadsheet so that it’s obvious to us when we reach a milestone: the “Reinvest” column is highlighted when we reinvest into the system. Another key milestone for us was September 14: that’s the date we took some affiliate commissions from Bitpetite (AFFILIATE LINK; you, too, can sign up and get affiliates on the site and get commissions should you so choose) and invested them into Bitconnect. (That’s why the upper right corner, where it says “initial investments,” reads “$310.”) (ALSO, ignore the “Today’s Total” figure; we’ll fix once the coffee consumption is at normal levels.)

Pluses and Minuses

One thing you’ll need to consider here: are you better off parking some of your coins somewhere (like Bitconnect) or just keeping them in Bitcoins and doing nothing.

This is a legitimate question – we look at our own approach as “risk management” and we aren’t planning on putting all of our eggs in any one basket. Still…

This chart shows the Bitcoin price on July 10 – the day we got started on Bitconnect – and tells us that we would have also done well had we just taken $110 worth of Bitcoin and parked it in Bitcoin. At today’s price of around $5640, that’s more than a 132% return.

BUT, if you see look at our Excel chart above, you’ll see that we did just as well, in a shorter time frame, with our original investment; $110 had turned into $260 on Sept 13, the day before we dropped another $200 into the platform.

In addition to the other concerns that you should have with any Bitcoin-related investment – that you could lose your entire principal, that the site could disappear on you, that you’ll invest your time and money in something you’re better off avoiding – another concern is whether you are better off with the core coins (like our BRED Portfolio) as opposed to these passive income platforms.

This is a legitimate question – might end up being a “minus” in the grand scheme – if you take some of those Bitcoin estimates that are floating around and tease them out. For instance, one prognosticator we found on the internet made a semi-legitimate case for Bitcoin to hit $27,000 at some point in early 2018. By then, our original Bitconnect investment would be worth around $1500, but would pale in comparison to the same amount just parked in Bitcoin (which would quintuple in Q1 2018).

As Always, Watch Your Eggs

The multi-basket, disciplined approach is a good one; and there’s also something to be said for the fact that parking your Bitcoins at Bitconnect actually parks them for 299 days. It’s not like there’s a “substantial penalty for early withdrawal,” since there is, more accurately, “no possibility of early withdrawal.”

So we should summarize the same way we summarize all of our discussions of these platforms: Do Your Own Research, don’t invest more than you can afford to lose, manage your risk appropriately, and…good luck.

Sep 25 2017

BREAKING: Bithaul Won’t Let You Withdraw; Likely a Scam

Once again, the team at Metacoin is likely “taking one for the team.” We “invested” a little into the Bithaul platform and, while the site is still operational, what’s going on is really not a good sign.

We revisited our own Bithaul dashboard this morning, saw that we were racking up the Satoshis, and waited until 24 hours after our last withdrawal to take out more Bitcoins. (Or fractions of Bitcoins; we’re experimenting but not going crazy.)

However, our attempt to withdraw was met with an “ERROR” message, followed by another. And another.

We’ve been trying all morning and we’re not alone…

https://youtu.be/Uq5tmkThbqs

Seems like the folks at MakeBitGrow had the same problem; only, to their credit, they thought they’d test the following theory…”If they’ll take deposits, they’re likely a scam.”

Sigh.

What’s Next?

We’ve reached out via email AND we’ve even Tweeted at the company. However, the odds of anyone seeing their money again are pretty slim.

While we wait for any response, it probably makes sense to go back to a couple old saws:

A fool and his Bitcoins are soon parted;
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is;
Returns that sound unsustainable in the long-term will end up crippling any platform in the short-term.

By that last one: sure, platforms are throwing off interest and you can withdraw, so everything seems hunky dory. Until it isn’t.

We had our own strategy worked out with this site – we were going to be in for a little while, adding some and taking some profits, and then we were going to just take profits and stop adding. This way we could offset any long-term issues with a short-term win or two. But, sadly, it doesn’t appear that we’ll be able to get back what we put in.

Our Recommendations…

We’re doing our best to try out these platforms and to recommend the ones that are paying out and are legitimate. Right now, only two in this category (passive income investment/lending platforms; separate from mining pools like Genesis) still get the green light from Metacoin:

Bitconnect – that’s an AFFILIATE LINK – which is backed by a the Bitconnect coin;
and Bitpetite – another AFFILIATE LINK – which we actually wrote about in a head-to-head vs. Bithaul last week.

We have not tried a big chunk of these…give us time.

Right now, we can only tell you the ones that we’ve tried that have gone belly up:

Ambis
Microhash
Control Finance (which we actually wrote about earlier today).

One Other Note…

We would suggest pulling down as many records as you can from any platform you use, and make a habit of doing so on a regular basis. This way, you can best account for what you did actually invest in – and, sadly, you can account for any losses – come tax time.

Sep 20 2017

Bitpetite vs Bithaul: Who Wins?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bithaul, as we reported on Monday, September 25, is likely a scam. Withdrawals are virtually impossible. We have updated the text below, and have removed our affiliate links. TREAD LIGHTLY.

We joined two “Passive Income Platforms,” or “PIPs” as we call them, within the past few weeks. Both have been pretty fruitful – but both are also potentially risky, too. If you’re looking to get started on the passive income journey with your Bitcoins (and, in one case, with other currencies, too), here’s a breakdown.

What is Bitpetite?

Sounds simple, right? Money transfers. Cutting-edge technology. Okay…they’re doing something that really isn’t all that new to the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency world. Let’s scroll down a little more to find out what they mean:

Now I get it – they anonymize the transactions by pooling your coins with the coins of others; they charge a fee for doing this service. By “investing” in their platform, you can share in those fees through a daily interest rate.

There’s one catch – we’ve talked about it before and we’ll continue to talk about it here; we are part of their AFFILIATE PROGRAM (here’s the link: Bitpetite Affiliate Link) and we pride ourselves in being as up front with you on all facets of all of these programs. That catch is that your “investment” is treated like a lease or rental fee. Think of it like investing in Genesis Mining (use our AFFILIATE CODE – waVTYG – to save 3%): you buy the mining capacity, but you will not get your initial investment back.

The returns can potentially be great – but, and this is important, they are NOT as great as they tell you on the site, because you DO NOT get your initial investment back.

When we started in the program, we only started with a tiny amount of Litecoin. As you can see from this screenshot, we are “in the black” and our profit is more than 20%. Not a bad return for what will, at the end, be a six-week term.

It’s the Affiliate Program, Baby…

Where we’ve had the most luck with Bitpetite is with its affiliate program. It’s potentially pretty lucrative – and if you know a “whale” or two that might want to try this program out, heck, sign up with this link and then invite them with your link.

Here’s the Affiliate Payout Plan:

Again, those whales: actually, it doesn’t take much “Level 1” activity to lead to bonuses.

Bitpetite’s Long-Term Potential?

We realize we’ve been bitten before – see our results from Microhash, Ambis, and Control Finance – and, as with all things crypto, you have to operate under a few assumptions:

If you don’t have the keys, you don’t have the coins;
A fool and his Bitcoins are soon parted;
Do Your Own Research.

However, that being said, we have been able to withdraw both our earnings from our original LTC investment AND our affiliate commissions rather easily and quickly. So far, zero issues with website downtime. We remain cautiously optimistic – but we feel it necessary to point out to you, once again, that you are not investing in the way that you’d buy a share of stock and get the dividends; you are, in effect, sending them your share of stock and letting them send you rich dividends.

AFFILIATE LINK one more time: Bitpetite Affiliate Link.

What Is Bithaul? – LIKELY A SCAM

Bithaul (AFFILIATE LINK REMOVED) is so new that, when we signed up, the site was on day two of its existence. That was two weeks ago.

That screener will show you not only that they’ve been online for just 16 days, but they also have 158-plus Bitcoins under deposit. (And, in the top center of the image, that’s what I’ve thrown in there. A couple hundred dollars worth as of right now.)

Bithaul is closer to a mining platform than anything – it has a bunch of “behind the curtain” elements that remind us more of the three sites we mentioned above than the more trustworthy outlets like Bitconnect (THAT’S OUR AFFILIATE LINK) and Bitpetite.

However, we can give them this: we have successfully made a series of small withdrawals without any issues.

REMOVING OUR RECOMMENDATION – IT’S A SCAM

See our article from Monday. It’s a scam.

Is There A Winner?

Yes, for now – Bitpetite is the winner. Better platform, better history, better-looking site. And Bithaul is a SCAM, so there’s that. So stay tuned – we’ll keep tracking these platforms, and keep you updated. Those are both our AFFILIATE LINKS and we’d appreciate it if you support our site by using those to sign up – if you choose to sign up.

Thanks so much for reading.