This is pure comedy gold. Operator of a bitcoin ponzi website has decided to pull a runner without paying people out:

http://ponzicoin.co/

Reactions: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=474730.1240

I usually don’t laugh at other people’s misfortune but it’s kind of hard not to laugh when someone knowingly invests in a ponzi scheme, loses money and then gets upset.

For those not quite up with all of the ins and outs of financial crime, a Ponzi scheme is named after Charles Ponzi. He started out meaning well (and honestly too) with a little investment scheme in international postal coupons. These were worth different amounts in different countries and by buying in the low priced country and selling in the high priced one it was possible to turn a profit. So he started to take investors money to invest in this. However, the flood of money he got was hugely larger than what the market could absorb: so, he started to pay off the older investors with the cash coming in from the new ones. This is now what a Ponzi Scheme means: it’s what Bernie Madoff was doing all those years for example.

OK, great, so a ponzi is therefore a scam, a fraud upon the investors. So, with all this stuff like Bitcoin going on someone comes up with the name Ponzicoin? Should be a bit of a giveaway right there really but these people fell for it. And then, when the scamster runs with the cash, they’re complaining?

Schadenfreude is such a wonderful emotion, isn’t it?