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Is the P2P party just getting started or what? Kuetzal, Envestio, Monethera have shut down, Grupeer is still burning, but without much hope. So how are P2P bloggers doing? Let’s find out.
Kuetzal
When I started looking at the blogs, who promoted shady P2P platforms, the picture was not that bad. Although 68% of the bloggers lost money in Kuetzal, on average it was only 3.1% of their portfolio:
Read more: How much did the P2P bloggers lose in Kuetzal?
Envestio
Situation got much worse after Envestio - when it shut down, 100% of bloggers lost money and the average losses climbed to 14.3%:
Read more: Are P2P bloggers the worst investors?
Monethera & Grupeer
And with 2 more platforms going down on Friday, the losses are just increasing. The average loss is already -20.04%:
Note that I added 2 more popular P2P bloggers:
crowdlendingrocks.eu likes to do live visits Jorgen style
colminey.com is the guy, who tells everyone else not to raise panic
Both lost money in Envestio and Grupeer.
Why are P2P bloggers so bad at investing?
Some have no idea what they are doing, but in general there is a big problem with conflict of interest. Many want to clone Jorgen’s business model - promote as many P2P platforms as possible, with focus on those that promise high returns, unbelievable guarantees and pay high affiliate commissions. Of course - nothing is free, and typically it means to promote either bad investments with very high risk or scams.
In the end investors and bloggers will lose money from their “investments”. But if you are a blogger and can make much more from affiliate income, the business model still works. Just look at Jorgen - he has lost 20%, almost 80k EUR - but still can afford to live without a job and a portfolio worth over 300k EUR. Thanks to all the investors who followed his advice, clicked on his affiliate links and lost money just like him.
How to avoid losing money?
Check my ratings - they might help to find answers to important questions, but don't rely on that alone, do your own research.
If you have doubts, don't invest. Don't try to find reasons why “it will be fine“, do the opposite - if you see some red flags, skip it.
In stock market diversification makes sense, in unregulated & risky P2P platforms - it does not. Spend more time on due diligence and invest in less platforms, but have more confidence about where you place your money. 2-3 good platforms is a much better idea than 10-15 random platforms from which half will collapse later.
What do affiliate networks think about investors?
The most popular affiliate solution used by Baltic P2P platforms is Circlewise / Target Circle, they are also organising Riga’s P2P Conference. I was invited to participate as a speaker, but because I am critical of bloggers and according to Karlis Levensteins words - “destroying this industry“, then I got uninvited yesterday with these texts:
Kristaps as we all liked your critics at the start (we even wanted to invite you to p2p conference but you got nothing but ban looks like) and hate what has happened right now and this time you are not right blaming other not guilty people. Not talking here about criminals and fraud.
Well well, Kristaps I think it's your time to fuck off if you want to do business someday in an ethical way... Let's see why and answer questions your self:
First of all your comments and actions are in criminal law under blackmailing and you can get up to 5 years about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail
1. Why you are scammer: not because of the critical point of view, not because you want to do good and lead by example, but because you are con man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
2. Can you show Kristaps your all bank account statements with your business income, family, investments and crypto farms? Are your Max traffic business regulated and bitcoin Crypto farms? If you are this high telegram transparent influencer?
3. 2. Can you show Kristaps your all bank account statements with your business income, investments and crypto farms? And why would you? There is specific law protecting even it for your information.
4. Kristaps you know that you can get sued as well for this?
5. We all won't be so arrogant in your case
6. Answer simple question Kristaps why you blackmail other people and neighbor instead of chase Criminals and own to local TAX agency with your business and do investments still?
Why was Karlis so angry? His comment and context described below:
An interesting way to do business from his side. He was happy to invite me to his conference because I have a big following of investors, but as soon as I was not behaving well in Telegram according to his standards and calling out a blogger on his bullshit, then Karlis thinks - it is a good idea to call me a scammer and con man?
According to my info, I have saved some investors from losing more money in shady platforms, but Karlis and his company Circlewise / Target Circle is happy to cooperate with any P2P platform that comes to them - Kuetzal, Envestio, Monthera, Grupeer - all used their solution & their access to publishers. And as long bills are paid, who cares - what later happens to investor money, right?
They not only ignore all the red flags and problems and don't do any research on platforms that they promote, but even have Grupeer as one of their main sponsors for their conference. So who is the scammer here?
2 speakers from Grupeer, 3 speakers from their own affiliate company, couple of bloggers. What a nice way to spend 250 EUR for ticket - listen to guys, who will:
promote shady platforms
help you lose money
meet bloggers, who lost money in Envestio & Grupeer
You think I am joking about “losing money“? Just check out what Karlis answered to one of investors:
Of course, I am not making many friends in this “industry“ by being critical of bloggers, platforms and affiliate platforms, but if it helps others to avoid bad decisions, it is good enough for me. I am happy to received feedback like this:
Hello Kristaps, thank you for uploaded that picture with the comment of Karlis to me. He deserves!!
Despites people say about you, i think you are doing a great job digging in theses shit platforms. For me it was late to withdraw the money from Grupeer when i saw your rating (because it was already invested), but at least i could take the money from fast invest, and that's was thank to you! Thank you!
I really aprecciate your point of view, and I also think that is neccesary to point those people who still promotes promocional links like Jorgen because, he does not give a shit about the rest of the people!
You have my support!
Key takeaways
P2P bloggers have no idea about investing and promote shady platforms
Affiliate platforms don't care about investors, will sell you anything
Diversification in P2P does not work
P.S. Join “High-risk investments“ Telegram group for an informal discussion.
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Ido from Colminey here.
My net investment (deposits minus withdrawals) was around €7350 in Envestio and €11200 in Grupeer. The rest of my account balance is unactualised profit.
On Grupeer, most of my funds are invested in legit loan originators like StikCredit, Ibancar, CubeFunder and DoZarplati. Some of it is likely to be recovered even if Grupeer collapses.
Even if we accept those investments as loss and deduct them from my overall earnings, my remaining profit from P2P since I began documenting my earnings is over €7500 (not counting affiliate income, which is much smaller).
As you know, I have written critically about Grupeer in the past. I don't encourage people to invest in anything, but merely document my own investment journey. Affiliate links are not a key element in my blog, nor in my motives.
Yes, sometimes I feel the need to calm people down. And yes, sometimes my trust is misplaced. But at least, myself and other bloggers operate on the belief that human beings are decent, and thrive on spreading hope. Meanwhile, you operate on the assumption that all people are bad, and you thrive on spreading resentment.
You may be a better investor, but I'm a better person.
Cheers.
Hi Kristaps - Georg from Crowdlendingrocks.eu
First of all, thank you for adding me to your list and now having me on your radar. I think it is important to tell the whole truth, good and bad. Visiting platforms we have often discussed if there should be regulations on bloggers as well as on the platforms. You provide some kind of regulation like that and I have to say that I actually like it. Keep up the good work and please call me out if you think I am crossing the line.
It is true that bloggers make affiliate income. In about the year I have been blogging about P2P I have made an amount equal to what I made working two weeks as an IT consultant. So it is not an income I can retire on and play golf in Portugal. However, if I would run Google ads telling people that P2P are safe investments, then I could have made a lot more. I, like you, do not like the "it's fine" attitude of some bloggers. P2P is 10% of my total investment portfolio I consider high risk and I have not been hiding that.
Please don't compare me to Jørgen. I think we are very different. I do not rehash the information I get from the platform. I have been doing direct transcribed audio interviews, so whatever was asked and answered is what is in my interviews. Before each interview, I have been asking the community if they had questions for the platforms, so I could ask them under the visits. So my intent was to try to add value for investors with my articles. I will give you one thing, my pictures like very much like Jørgens. Haha. You are right about that! But that is just a lack of imagination from my side. I visited platforms with affiliate agreement but did not write about them because I thought they would be bad investments.
I lost money in P2P. True. Today I actually know very few people in baltic P2P who did not.
But that is part of the game. If I want to blog about it, I have to put my money where my mouth is. Do I have an education in doing due diligence on fintech platforms? Absolutely not! Have I been asking all the right questions? Clearly not! That is also why I have been asking for help. I am in no way an expert. I am just a private investor trying to learn and sharing whatever I find with the community. The truth is, none of the bloggers or even the most experienced P2P investors know half of the truth about any of these companies. But that does not mean we should stop trying. I will be happy to sit down with you in Riga and fins some better questions for me to ask the next time around if all is not burned to the ground before I get there.
About the conference and my participation on stage, can I really offer anything? Maybe not. But if you look at what I have asked to be part of it is a panel discussion regarding the topic "Finance bloggers and our role and responsibility in the P2P ecosystem". It is moderated by Target Circle.
Especially the word "responsibility" and that target circle was attending that I think is important here. The responsibility of bloggers. Could bloggers be excluded from earning affiliate income if they were stepping over the line or being too positive (blogger regulation)? What about Target Circle? What minimum requirements should there be in order for them to take a platform in? In my opinion, not all platforms should have this privilege. What could be done to improve the current system so platforms/bloggers could no longer take advantage of investors freely if they were dishonest? This was actually why I asked you if you were attending the conference. I think you and your big mouth could be a good addition to this panel discussion. However, it now seems that your big mouth got you banned from attending. Don't worry, I will be very happy to take some of your input to the panel discussion so you can still have a voice there.
One thing, though. I actually don't think Bernhard deserved to be called out for "promoting Grupeer" in the way you did on the Telegram group. He asked exactly the right questions and was very critical. He did a really good job even though he still has invested in Grupeer. That exactly how it should be done.