For those that do not already know, HYIPs are high yield investments programs that promise very high returns in a short period of time. There are a bunch of them available out there. Most, if not all, of these are simply ponzi schemes started by scammers with only one intention - to steal and hodl your precious bitcoin.
I got into bitcoin mid 2016 and around the time the price of bitcoin had started to consolidate. I was not making the returns I was expecting to make and there wasn't much price action. It is at this time that I found these HYIPs that promised me an opportunity to increase the number of bitcoin I held. Imagine being able to increase the number of bitcoin you hold whilst also benefiting from the increase in the price of bitcoin.
I decided to do my research and found a number of other HYIPs. Most of these HYIPs have fancy well-designed websites which seem legit and they also claim to be using trading bots etc. i differentiated them according to:
- the time intervals for the accruing of interest (e.g. hourly, daily or weekly);
- whether they had a lock-in period for an investment or whether you could withdraw at any time; and
- whether you were entitled to your capital back after the investment period.
I believed that the best HYIPs to invest in were the ones which accrued interest hourly (for the compounding effect) and the ones where there was no lock-period and I could withdraw any time. The question of whether the capital amount invested could be returned was not that important depending on the rate of return that was promised. I understood that these things were unsustainable and I needed to be able to get my profit and jump ship as soon as I could.
As I was aware of the risks involved, I decided to 'reduce' the risk by participating in a number of HYIPs which met my criteria. I chose five and I invested a bit of bitcoin into each. These deposits were reflected on the HYIP sites and started accruing the promised interest. However, the problem started when it was time to withdraw. It was only on one of the HYIPs that I was able to withdraw the bitcoin and only for a certain period of time. The rest of the HYIPs just reflected a positive balance on my account but my withdrawals are still pending even today. These HYIPs had no intention of ever making any payouts.
Got a hard reality check at this point in time and I lost a bit of bitcoin. I decided from there on that these type of risks were definitely not worth it and no amount of diversification could mitigate those risks. It is always better just hodl your bitcoin.
Even though I have been able to make up the losses, it still pains me to think of today's value of those lost coins.