In the second half of 2015, various promotions related to 3M sprang up across the city like mushrooms after rain. Even in my city, many friends joined in. Did they not realize this was a Ponzi scheme?
Of course they knew! But under the temptation of daily returns of 1% and monthly returns of 30%, they all gave up resisting and joined in. In my city, the number of participants reached tens of thousands.
The investment rules of 3M are: a minimum investment of 60 yuan and a maximum of 60,000 yuan. As long as you send money to others, you can receive 130% 'charity returns' after a month. However, this involves the issue of transferring money — if money is transferred back and forth, there is a great risk in the financial environment at that time, and accounts could be frozen at any moment. Therefore, the 3M team came up with the best financial solution — Bitcoin!
The decentralized nature of Bitcoin was perfectly exploited by the 3M team. Although 3M is an obvious Ponzi scheme, it was precisely because of 3M that countless people became aware of Bitcoin and recognized its 'power'.
An important wallet that allows 24/7 trading, has transfer functions, and provides anonymity had a tremendous effect at that time. At least nearly ten thousand people learned about and used Bitcoin because of 3M!
To put it broadly, a significant portion of today's cryptocurrency community consists of players from that time.
After 3M had been operating steadily for a few months, around October 2015, the 3M team grandly launched an exciting upgraded version — Super 3M!
The rules of Super 3M are: a monthly return of 100%, withdrawals can be made at any time, and the returns are more than three times the previous amount. However, various 'interactive tasks' need to be completed, which at the time involved appearing on large social platforms, tweeting, and posting videos to promote 3M, in order to deceive more people into joining.
People in 2015 were still quite naive; they had never seen such a situation. So they rushed in like crazy, fantasizing that as long as they played for a month, they could get back their principal and then roll the profits into further investments, making a fortune. Thus, this funding scheme continuously attracted a large number of players.
This trend began in 2015 and drove Bitcoin's price up — it was less than $200 in September, but exceeded $500 by early November.
On December 26, 2015, MMM announced: all measures taken to save and stabilize had failed, and the crisis could not be overcome, thus announcing a restart. Some players pointed out that this meant all investors who had not withdrawn their funds could no longer retrieve their money, and all previous investments were lost. Ultimately, 3M left countless families destitute.
PS: You can embrace Bitcoin, but you must stay away from Ponzi schemes!
