I'm really glad you posted this. I saw someone's referral link here a few days ago and was going to check it out because the word "lending" was used, and there are legitimate Bitcoin lending businesses out there. And had I checked it out I would have no doubt reached the same conclusions you did, so thanks for saving me the time. These HYIP sites are a dime a dozen, seriously, they're everywhere. I look for the same characteristics you listed: bad spelling, unheard of (and impossible to sustain) returns on investment, some sort of "secret" knowledge or formula--usually it's trading or mining--and generous referral compensation.
Glad to help! Regarding people not getting scammed, you might want to report Craig Grant's YouTube video in the comments section of this post, where he states he thinks it's not a scam and he provides his referral link in the description, which is shameless.
I went ahead and flagged that video. It looks like it cost you (in terms of voting power) the same to downvote as it does to upvote so that was also interesting info for me.
FYI, I wanted to let you know about a coin that I think legitimately does provide a more passive income stream. I'm not trying to promote it at all, but it might be good for you to know about as a way to compare to these HYIPs you write about.
So the coin is Diamond (DMD). Its website is bit.diamonds. The developers do provide a "cloud mining" option that people can invest in and it works as advertised (I spoke extensively to the operator about it and I've been a small investor in it for more than a year so I know this). However, ignoring that, the coin itself currently mints in a POS wallet at a rate of 25% APY. The wallet is easy and straightforward to set up and once the initial 9 days have passed on the first deposit, it will mint out new coin like clockwork. I personally have a good amount of them, and every month I sell off the minting proceeds and that's the money I play with, invest in other things, etc. Right now I'm putting half of those earnings into Steem, but that is subject to change depending on what I want to do at the time.
Of course the risk is that the value of the coin could drop into oblivion, and that's actually happened with at least two other minting coins I invested in hoping for the same result. Diamond has a decent track record in terms of price and has been around for a few years, so I consider it to be more stable, but still watching the price and other fundamentals just to be sure. Other than that, I control the money, as in I run the DMD wallet on my computer, and I control those funds at all times (unless someone steals my private key or something, which is a risk across the board). The benefit to me is what it is regardless of whether or not other people invest in the coin or not, other than if a lot of people invest in it, that will raise the price. But I have no need for the price of the coin to go up, I just use the proceeds that I get and that's that, so I don't need "referrals."
Anyway, I wanted to throw this out there for you, just so you (and others) know that there are some decent investments that can be had in crypto, even opportunities that can approach giving the investor a passive income stream. It's just that you have to kind of look for them, and then you have to do your due diligence, and those opportunities are kind of limited. For example, I get a certain amount of income stream from minting Diamonds, but it's not huge. The coin couldn't support influxes of investments where people are hoping to get thousands and thousands out of it monthly. That could come in the future with some organic growth, say if the price were to go up to $100 apiece, rather than the current 60c apiece it is now, but since it's in the future, that's an unknown, and not something you can bank on.
My point in sharing all this is that I wish more people would take the time to learn about and experiment with opportunities like this one, rather than these HYIP schemes that, although they are clearly getting more sophisticated and longlasting, are still not sustainable in the long run. To be honest, the investment opportunities that truly do work don't need to be promoted. In fact, investors in those opportunities are more reticent to share because they like reaping the benefits for themselves and know that the gains might dilute if too many people got involved. In fact I'm part of another crypto-investment where the owner is in the process of buying out all the small shareholders for that very reason: it's more trouble to keep track of numerous small accounts than it's worth. It seems to me that those are the investments you want to try to hunt down and join, not the ones that need some infinite number of "investors" that they try to reel in with heavy promotion and overly generous referral reward structures.
I have not gone into the pros and cons of the diamond coin you mention. It’s fair to say small coins can be extremely volatile, and if things work for you, you may make a ton of money. On the other hand, the risk of losing it all is higher.
There are a few alt-coins with extremely good stories, and I am tempted by them, but on the other hand, I feel that bitcoin has the greatest certainty of long term positive return, even if some others look like they will perform better.
Bitcoin is the “Gold” of the crypto world. Some of the other alt-coins are also “precious metals”. Equivalent to silver, platinum or palladium. The majority are not even that. They are like commodities, equivalent to wheat, copper, lead, oil or barley. Some are just equivalent to sand, or sea-water, i.e. of no real value at all.
That about sums it up, with the caveat that I personally have done far better in alts than Bitcoin. You have to choose them carefully, though, and be prepared to sometimes lose.
I agree that most good investment opportunities are not promoted like crazy. I'll check out Diamond.
Where do you see your voting power?
https://steemd.com/@thegrinder
Look down all the stats on the left. You might have to scroll down once. Your voting power is currently at 100% :)
Thanks!
By the way, you are welcome to participate in my little initiative if you want. Details here.
I'm checking it out now.
I'm not sure if I'm going to report it or anything, but I agree with you and would add that Craig Grant is not a voice to be trusted in the Cryptosphere. I got scammed by one of those outfits early on, and I learned. It was one of the first lessons I learned in the Cryptoworld. I've since checked out many of them and they all look the same to me. If you can't recognize these schemes for what they are, then no one should listen to you about anything else related to crypto, or any kind of finances for that matter.
Sorry, not report, I mean flag (on this site, not YouTube). I agree with you on that one.
Oh gotcha! I think I was in too much of a hurry before :)