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Dissecting Ponzi schemes on Ethereum: identification, analysis, and impact

Massimo Bartoletti, Salvatore Carta, Tiziana Cimoli, Roberto Saia

2017 · arXiv

PsychologyEconomics
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From the abstract

Ponzi schemes are financial frauds which lure users under the promise of high profits. Actually, users are repaid only with the investments of new users joining the scheme: consequently, a Ponzi scheme implodes soon after users stop joining it. Originated in the offline world 150 years ago, Ponzi schemes have since then migrated to the digital world, approaching first the Web, and more recently hanging over cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Smart contract platforms like Ethereum have provided a new opportunity for scammers, who have now the possibility of creating "trustworthy" frauds that still make users lose money, but at least are guaranteed to execute "correctly". We present a comprehensive survey of Ponzi schemes on Ethereum, analysing their behaviour and their impact from various viewpoints.

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3 selected excerpts · 3 total mentions

elevensies
Neutral mention · rule
I just realized, I'm severely confused about what Filecoin is, and possibly ICOs in general. I assumed "ICO" was analogous to IPO. If a token is essentially a bearer share that is coupled to the payment system. No reason you couldn't create the coin, run it privately until you get some revenue, and then offer it, as IPOs are usually done. But when I search Filecoin's website for "revenue" and "profit", I only see references to the participants in the system, and not the token holders. https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Afilecoin.io+revenue https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3Afilecoin.io+profit I did a quick search of the top 5 tokens on…
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https://coinmarketcap.com/tokens/ and I'm not immediately finding any clear statements on how profit is made and distributed. A question for people who are better informed, is there any kind of list or tracking on tokens payouts? Something like this (https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.03779# ), but for non-ponzis?
Original comment The Transaction Costs of Tokenizing Everything
bayonetz
Neutral mention · rule
So far it's basically a listing of scam sites trying to masquerade myetherwallet.com. It's like 20 pages deep for just for that. I was thinking it would be something more akin to: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03779.pdf
Original comment Ethereum Scam Database
AJRF
Neutral mention · rule
You are categorically wrong about this. Ponzi schemes are financial frauds where, under the promise of high profits, users put their money, recovering their investment and interests only if enough users after them continue to invest money. Further to this, its qualatively provable, as you can look at the contracts and actually class the type of Ponzi scheme they are. * https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/06/01/2189634/its-not-just-... https://stratechery.com/2017/tulips-myths-and-cryptocurrenci... * https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03779.pdf
Original comment Attempt to Reverse a $55 Million Ether Heist

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