I have been invested with BitConnect now for a few months and I sit on the fence in regards to whether or not its a scam. I agree with a lot of people that say its unsustainable and it has a limited life span but at the same time I give it much more respect than clear scam programs such as Bitlake, Control FInance and Ambis. This post isn't intended to promote the company but I wanted to have a healthy discussion with others about why they think it is a scam or why they think its legitimate and also raise some key differences between them and other companies in the HYIP space.
I think the fact that they have a currency and exchange for their product sets it apart from the rest. When you want to purchase BCC to invest in their lending program you need to do so from an exchange which is being utilised by the other investors. That means that the BCC from existing investors is being sold for BTC from new investors. This is a much better alternative than say Control Finance where you are just giving them money and hoping they return you a % per day. In the BitConnect scenario you are actually transacting with another person with an interest in the program. It also reduces the burden and liability of BitConnect in regards to paying out your proceeds.
The returns generated from BitConnect whilst extremely high compared to non crypto investments do seem possible for someone using a trading or volatility bot. The returns also mirror the fluctuations that occur in the BTC price. For example the plummeting crypto market at the moment has caused huge volatility which is a good thing for BitConnect as you can see from the daily returns chart below.
So its actually a hedge in some respects against the fall of BTC and while the pain is being felt in portfolios at the moment BitConnect is putting in some solid returns to help soften the blow.
My concerns with the product are that I worry what will happen when the supply from the people wanting to cash out exceeds the demand of new investors. While I think there will be many that continue to invest for quite some time it will cause an issue if there are thousands trying to cash out with not many wanting to jump on board.
There is also the issue of having no set limit to how much you are allowed to invest in the platform. As many on the net have shown with spreadsheets using compounding interest you could be a millionaire in a short matter of years starting with a small deposit simply by compounding every day. This cannot be sustainable and there is no such thing as a free lunch.
My strategy with the program is to slowly build it up while taking out my original investment slowly as well. I am not a fanboy or BitConnect diehard but I do like the program and on the off chance they can fix some of the issues I mentioned up it could be a fantastic platform going forward.
I think they need to do something about limiting how much is allowed to be invested for starters as I have seen accounts with over $150,000 invested. It wont take long for that amount to build up into unsustainable levels.
I expect there will be plenty of people just calling it out for a scam but I have seen some great articles and videos put together explaining how if they can fix up some of their issues it could actually work.
The referral program is not to generous and I think it is viable as it takes the cost of employing / advertising away from BitConnect and allows others to help them grow their product. I thought I would throw in a referral link for anyone interested to test it out with the promise of returning 100% of whatever commission I receive initially. I like doing this so the initial investor feels like at least they are getting something back right from the start. https://bitconnect.co/?ref=stuartm82
This equates to 7% of your capital back straight away.
If the company is a scam or Ponzi or whatever you would like to call it they are a long term one rather than short term and I have seen them planning on holding events and being sponsored at Blockchain expos coming up in the near future.
Now for the strategy I am using and for anyone currently invested. At the moment you are receiving USD into your lending wallet daily and these funds will sit as cash until you either reinvest or decide to exchange into BCC. While the value of BTC is low it actually makes sense to take the BCC or BTC. This is the equivalent of buying Bitcoin now while the prices are low and if you were planning on taking funds out of BitConnect as you go then now is as good a time as any!
Hopefully a lot of the above makes sense I want to talk with others about the program and how they feel they will go into the future. I don't think its outrageous to suggest they could have a bot generating returns close to 1% a day as others in the crypto world are doing this right now. At the same time with so many of these companies failing I can understand the skeptics point of view as well.