Metacoin

Covering Bitcoin, the Blockchain, Altcoins, and Fintech

Microhash

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

Bithaul 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.

Bithaul Sep 25

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…

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:

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:

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.

UPDATE: Microhash is Down and Likely a Scam

Editor’s Note: We’re bringing down our original Microhash post. Why? It’s a scam.

We told you about it over the weekend, and we’ll keep up the information we had at the end of our post…which is this:

A Highly Asterisked Endorsement

As with everything in this crypto space, with Bitcoin, with all of the surrounding currencies, and with all of the surrounding businesses, we strongly encourage you to…

  • Do Your Own Research.
  • Seek Legal advice.
  • Talk to financial advisors.
  • Be sure to have a tax person at the ready.

Thus, our endorsement comes with asterisks:

  • With any and everything on this site – you don’t hold us responsible for gains or losses.
  • This is not to be considered investment advice.
  • Past performance is not indicative of future results.
  • Only invest that which you can afford to lose.

What Happened?

#Crypto Twitter is abuzz with the fact that the Microhash website appears to redirect to Bitpetite – that’s what happened to us – and that all hashing power and mining platforms appear to be lost. In other words…sayonara.

This is not a tremendous surprise: 10% added in BTC to your account each day doesn’t seem sustainable, unless they have some sort of really interesting edge. They don’t appear to have one.

Meanwhile, if it is redirecting to Bitpetite, and if there is a connection between the two sites, that might begin a “run on the bank” at Bitpetite, too. We’ll watch that. We’ve pulled down our affiliate link for Bitpetite from last week.

$20 Worth of Egg On My Face

I mentioned last week that this stuff is an experiment – and I stand by that, as well as the warnings issued above. Note that I’m out twenty bucks of cash, maybe a little more in spare BTC here and there that was pooled and sent over to the Microhash account. I’ll live.

What About the Other Passive Income Platforms?

We’ll point you to our post from last week – Passive Income is still the most popular one we’ve run – and we promise to keep as up to date as possible on the developments with those sites. (We’re keeping the affiliate links active for those sites; rest assured that we will yank down any affiliate links at the first sign of a problem.)

AND we cannot stress this enough:

  • Do Your Own Research
  • Use these sites – and ours – at your own risk
  • Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose
  • Seek professional, legal, and other assistance.

 

On Testing and Learning

If you think you have all the answers, you probably haven’t asked the right questions.

I don’t know where I first heard that maxim, but boy does it apply to cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and this learning experiment of ours.

What…you don’t think this is an experiment? This entire space is an experiment: the whole concept of Bitcoin is only eight years old, and the goal posts continue to move. We’re ten days into August of 2017, a month that began with The Great Fork and launched a new currency that seemed headed for the stratosphere – and then came back down to earth – and then the mother ship that launched it decided it would reach for new heights.

Altcoin Couple

If you’re not Testing and Learning, then you’re probably doomed to fail. And if you think you have all the answers, start asking more questions.

Exhibit A: Altcoin Du Jour

Each day brings with it a new “Altcoin” that will take off – if you believe the Twitter experts – and if you don’t get in on the ground floor of this coin, be prepared to cry a river once those early adopters pump it and sell it for their Lamborghini. (We’ve taken to calling them “Lambo Coins,” because that seems to be the auto of choice for the crypto people.)

Pacer Coin

But…

The prevailing wisdom – and I tend to believe this – is that, of the hundreds of coins and tokens out there, once we’re past bubble territory, a handful of them will be worth something. The rest? Dust. Vapor. Ones and zeros.

We’re not near bubble territory yet, though – and that still creates opportunities for even the most casual of traders.

Which is where the “test and learn” concept comes in. If you’ve been following this site at all, you know we have a couple of hypothetical portfolios; these experiments have ranged from one that does okay (the Hedge Fund) all the way up to one that would have made tons of money (the BRED Portfolio).

You also know that we’ve shared some other experiments – posts on coins that COULD go stratospheric, and lists of coins that we think might be good fits for a more speculative portfolio.

And these range in success from okay down to meh.

Because it’s an experiment.

Exhibit B: Passive Crypto Income

That’s probably the best category to call these other things, lending/interest platforms like Bitconnect (which we told you about a couple of times and which we’re still monitoring; use that AFFILIATE LINK to get started if you want to try it out for yourself) and its competitor Control Finance (which we’re investigating as we speak; it appears to be free to sign up, so we have an AFFILIATE LINK over there for that one, too). Or there’s a mining program called Microhash that we just signed up for yesterday. (AFFILIATE LINK.)

Since we’re still learning, we’re asking some questions about these particular platforms:

  1. Are they legitimate?
  2. Are the revenue projections realistic?
  3. What’s the potential for anyone to take their blocks and go home?

Answers:

  1. Well, they appear to be…as far as we can tell from what we’re finding on the internet…but things aren’t always what they seem, right?
  2. Well, that’s an interesting question…we don’t know, and it might take a while for us to find out.
  3. We’re quite familiar with Mt. Gox – that’s ALWAYS a risk.

The issues, for this site and your intrepid reporter/guinea pig, stem from sustainability – are these platforms really creating systems that can allow someone to passively, casually, create the kind of income that could be life-changing? And, if they do, can they continue ad infinitum? Or will there be a crash and burn element that is going to get ugly?

The more that I study this space, the more I believe the following:

Bitcoin, the blockchain, and the cryptocurrency industry together create the potential for the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

But…it is still an experiment.

What’s The Point?

Sitting on the sidelines may be an option for you. Some people do prefer just casually going about their business while small changes happen around them; and maybe those small changes won’t turn into big changes.

But for us…the answers are out there, and we plan on testing and learning and asking more questions as the days go by.

Join us.