Note: the following is an opinion piece.

Josh Garza, the embattled CEO of GAW Miners and the man that many in the Bitcoin space believe to be the most successful con artist since Charles Ponzi himself, has decided to deploy his cult-like following in a campaign of harassment.

This was brought our attention by the man himself, in the following e-mail sent to CCN.com’s owner, Jonas Borchgrevink doing-business-as David Parker. All grammatical mistakes were left intact for the sake of authenticity:

I like you Jonas But every time you post a libelous article with no facts, I will call the entire community to hold you accountable. These are people’s investments you’re play with. Hire reporters with integrity.

He then included a link to this page, which I am archiving since I know that HashTalk is going away soon. Among others, CCN.com was listed for the recent article which spoke of Paybase’s failure to allow withdrawals. Interestingly, CoinFire.io did not make the list, though they have done the majority of the muckraking in regards to GAW and Garza. It’s hard to tell, given how little actual detail they provide, if their sources are real, or if they are as delusional as Garza. But it’s interesting that they didn’t make the list, I should think.

What Community?

Garza’s community of loyal followers sure is an interesting bunch. Against all reason, for instance, they believed that he would buy back their Paycoins at a rate of $20 each. This $20 buyback program was supposed to begin at the beginning of February, and I was the one to report as much. Complaints about GAW have been longstanding, with purchasers of their mining products complaining that they’d been sent dirty, used product.

It’s well known that anytime something negative is said about Garza or the company on these forums, they are banned or shadow-banned. It has long been speculated that Garza himself is many of the accounts and that still many others are, in fact, shills cut into the scheme.

This community, if it can be called that, is more like a cult. Worse than any religion I can think of because these people aren’t even promised salvation. They continue to buy into scheme after scheme of Josh Garza. It takes a certain amount of dishonesty with one’s self to keep investing what you can’t afford to invest in programs that never yield the promised results.

It’s interesting to note that these people do not consider rationality a virtue. Rather, the more dedicated the worship of Josh Garza, the more respect these “community members” get.

The Interesting Thing About Coinstand

In an effort to prop up the value of Paycoin, which has been in the throes of steady decline ever since its launch, a well-known scammer by the name of Carson Klock in partnership with Josh Garza has launched Coinstand.com, a website that will accept a Paycoin in lieu of a $20 bill.

One of the claims about this website was that it was an independent store, but in a recent “proof” video, the product was shipped directly from Amazon.com and was apparently done so as a “gift from Homero Garza.” The site is presently in “beta” mode, and only the top tier of the GAW faithful are allowed to place orders. Presumably, in a scheme like this, other members of the Hashtalk community will continue to buy up Paycoins in hopes of then converting them into real world goods.

But here’s the thing: what if they don’t? What if, more importantly, they never get the price up to the coveted $20? Who on earth believes that this is a sustainable business model, to accepting something worth less than half a dollar as being worth twenty dollars? The company cannot then convert them on the market to the value so that they will be hemorrhaging money. Imagine if Overstock.com were to accept Bitcoin at a rate of $1200 each – its investors would surely head for the hills.

Those Tricky Things We Call Words

Garza claims that CCN.com and others have been “libelous,” but this is a characteristic misunderstanding of those tricky things we call words. Libel is when you willfully state something untrue about a person or organization. It is not reporting what is known to be true, or reporting the facts, or even reporting on someone else’s mistaken facts.

Just because Paybase resumed withdrawals, that does not make our reporter libelous. The fact that they ever paused withdrawals makes them suspect. Added to the numerous other “mistakes,” “miscommunications,” and mountains of bullshit spewed by Garza and his ever-dwindling legion of douchebag followers, however, it’s simply not surprising.

If Josh Garza broke into the house of one of his followers and robbed them at gunpoint, I am convinced, they would feel graced by his presence, thank him for doing what he has to do, and hand over everything valuable.

Images from Shutterstock.