It’s the financial equivalent of a game of chicken: Put money into a likely Ponzi scheme, get paid for a while, and then try to get out before the collapse. That’s how some people seem to be using online “high-yield investment programs,” or HYIPs. The sites promise ludicrous returns—the equivalent of 1,000 percent or more annually—based on vague investment plans involving, say, bitcoin or currency trading. In reality, many are just passing money from new investors to old ones, and they’ll fail once they run out of recruits. Dozens of sites pop up every week; HYIP aficionados can track them on aggregator websites that purport to rank the schemes. “Ten years ago, people didn’t know” that HYIPs...
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