The stimulus for writing this was a rejected splash page! The splash page was submitted for rotation in a traffic exchange, but the owner, in his wisdom, judged it as "inappropriate" for his members.
Even though he did not go as far as calling me directly a scammer, he did actually imply it. He categorized the completely free program I tried to promote as a Ponzi/Scam! The program is called CryptoTab and is a handy browser add-on that is using Coinhive's JavaScript miner to generate some cryptocurrency for its users!
A Ponzi scheme, for those who are not familiar with the term, is a fraudulent investment plan where the initiator generates money for the older investors through revenue paid by new ones. That's the widely accepted definition, and, to protect unsuspected people from losing money, in most jurisdictions Ponzi schemes were deemed illegal!
As derived from the definition, the single most fundamental element, for something to be called a Ponzi, is the presence of a monetary investment. Because though someone could argue that time is also money, and before we examine CryptoTab, let's broaden the definition and consider the time you allocate to a program as an investment.
Is CryptoTab then a Ponzi?
Well, for one, it's 100% free, with no expenses involved and no "upgrades" available whatsoever! So there is a complete absence of monetary investment. In other words, you don't have to pay anything to use it, now or ever!
So, what about valuable time then? How much of it do you have to dedicate to CryptoTab to be able to earn some money? The answer is again nothing!
You don't have to click on ads nor do you have to view videos. Forget about annoying pop-ups or pop-unders and nerve-breaking captcha verifications! You just add it to your browser and then you carry on with your usual activities.
As long as your browser is working, it will generate some money for you. It's like feeding two birds with just a single seed!
So why did an experienced, and honest I might add, traffic exchange owner ban it from his exchange? Where did this notion, that CryptoTab is a Ponzi, come from? The most obvious answer would have to be, the multi-level commission plan that the add-on is implementing! CryptoTab is paying its users a percentage of what their referrals are earning, up to 10 levels deep!
Confusing a Multi-Level Marketing plan with a Ponzi scheme is actually quite a common mistake. The truth though is that there are hundreds of legal businesses that are successfully using, both online and offline, an MLM marketing plan to promote their products or services!
However, the misconception that all MLMs are Ponzi is not completely unjustified! Not only a lot of illegal pyramid schemes attempt to present themselves as legitimate MLM businesses, but statistics also show that near 99% of all the people who join an MLM company will eventually lose money!
And here, cryptocurrency mining enters the scene...
For the first time in internet, everybody can make some money without investing either money or time. Let me be clear about this. There are myriad of other crypto-mining ways that you have to invest to make a profit, and that's perfectly fine. CryptoTab though is not one of them! Everybody who is using it makes some money, without investing anything. Some users will make a lot..and some will make less. No one though will ever be in loss, and that alone is enough to steer it clear from any Ponzi accusations!
How much can somebody earn?
Ok, before I get into that let me first set some things straight. As I have mentioned at the beginning, CryptoTab is using Coinhive's JavaScript miner for the Monero blockchain. The Monero that it mines are then exchanged and saved in user accounts as Bitcoins. Users are always paid in Bitcoins!
The reason for mining Monero instead of Bitcoin is because of Cryptonight, which is Moneros chain algorithm. This algorithm was designed to run well on consumer CPUs. Running it on GPU does not offer a significant advantage (about 2x compared to 10000x for the algorithm used by Bitcoin) and this makes Cryptonight a nice target for JavaScript and the Browser.
So how much can an average user, with an average PC that is using just a few hours every day should expect? Not much, I am afraid. As little as it is though is not less than earnings from Bitcoin faucets. And without all the fuss!
The real potential of CryptoTab, of course, unfolds to those who can recruit others. A 10 level downline can be something very powerful indeed! Isn't it?
Anybody who has been on the internet more than few months is impossible not to have seen the high-pitched MLM scenario. You recruit five... and each of them recruits five more ...who in their turn get their five each...and so on...and in no time at all, half the planet is in your downline! Well, trust me on this one. The above scenario is just wishful thinking, to say the least. In reality, it never works! In most MLM programs that require an investment, an above average promoter would be very lucky if he manages to get 3-4 referrals every month. Most of those, not being able to recruit others, will quit in a couple of months! That's the dim reality of MLM marketing, for the 99% of people involved!
With CryptoTab though things get a bit....hmm...let's say interesting. Being completely free and effortless, this "set and forget" browser add-on is attracting new users with a rhythm unparalleled to anything I have ever seen! On top of that, attrition is also minimal! I am not going to try to fool you, by saying that the everybody will end up with a huge downline. A lot of different factors come into play! Recourses, effort, knowledge, experience, and even luck! Sometimes your referrals will not even bother to promote, and other times a single referral can create a huge team for you, just by himself!
So, here is my recommendation. Add it to your favorite browser, by clicking here, and give it a try. If you like it, register it by pressing "login" and signing-in your Facebook or Google account. After that your Bitcoin balance and referral network will be automatically saved and can be restored at any time and on any device. If you don't like it, just delete it.