It has been two years since e-Zubao ran away. Why are people still investing in Qianbao.com?

Just after Christmas, there was big news in the crowdfunding circle. According to Ping An Nanjing’s Weibo, the actual controller of Qianbao.com turned himself in. This website, which was once widely questioned by the media for "making money by completing tasks", has come to nothing.

At present, the incident has not been officially characterized, but the annualized rate of return on the deposit paid by participants through signing in and completing tasks on Qianbao.com is as high as 70%, which is ridiculously high. With the previous cases of Ezubao and a number of P2P platforms running away, the media has carried out countless bombardment propaganda, "Super high returns are very dangerous", why would anyone still invest in Qianbao.com? Qianbao.com positions itself as a micro-business platform. Will the collapse bring new impacts to the Internet financial industry?

There are many questions worth pondering.

Qianbao.com is not P2P, so what is it?

Given that many big P2P-focused accounts exposed the Qianbao.com incident at the first opportunity, it inevitably gave people the illusion that another P2P platform had collapsed. In fact, Qianbao.com was not a P2P.

According to public information, Qianbao.com was founded in 2012. In the early days, it mainly relied on the model of earning income by signing in and completing tasks with a deposit. Later, many projects were derived, including distribution, WeChat business, red wine, games and various offline physical enterprises. It is reported that Zhang Xiaolei, the actual controller of Qianbao, serves as the legal person of more than 70 companies and as a shareholder of nearly 60 companies.

There are many organizations, but for participants, the main way to make money is by signing in and completing tasks. Taking the model of earning commissions by watching ads as an example, the official propaganda is:

"Qianbao.com charges merchants advertising commissions in the form of 'watching ads and earning extra money', attracting users to register and click on ads, thereby promoting merchants and their products. Ultimately, a 'win-win-win' situation is achieved for advertisers, Qianbao.com, and registered members."

Paying a deposit, completing tasks, and earning income, there is nothing wrong with the model alone. The real problem is that the amount of money earned is not the more you work, the more you earn, but is proportional to the total assets invested. The higher the total assets, the more money you earn for the same task. This is ridiculous. If you take a task to watch an ad, the advertiser looks at the number of clicks. Can someone with a total asset of 1 million earn 100 times the income for the advertiser than someone with a total asset of 10,000? This doesn't make sense.

Therefore, once the commission income is proportional to the total assets, it implies "earning capital gains", and the so-called "completing tasks and earning commissions" is more like a cover.

The question is, how does capital achieve self-appreciation? Where does the capital ultimately flow to? Is it related to Qianbao.com's complex chain of affiliated companies and ecological system? It is unknown.

According to the income statement posted by a participating user on Qianbao.com, if one invests 1 million yuan in "deposit", one can earn 57,000 yuan by signing in and completing tasks every month, with an annual rate of return of about 70%. Just looking at this rate of return, there is no need to discuss the path of self-appreciation of capital. Because there is no legal model that can earn such a high rate of return for a long time and on a large scale. If there is no reasonable model to support it, it is a Ponzi scheme.

As for Qianbao.com's use of the guise of micro-business or even industry, it is just a routine, just like when Ezubao raised funds under the guise of "Internet finance + financial leasing", it always has to tell users what it is before convincing them to participate. Whether it is or not is not important.

I know it's a trap, but I'm reluctant to come out

After the Ezubao incident, everyone's awareness of fraud prevention has improved qualitatively. For many people, the problem with Qianbao.com is not that they can't see through it, but that they are unwilling to give up the high returns and bet that there will be someone to take over.

There are also some people who, even though they have already jumped out, still can't help but jump in again, wanting to make another wave of money.

Of course, there are some people who hypnotize themselves. For example, there is a saying that

"Qianbao.com is equivalent to a financing platform. After providing financing to users in the form of margin, it throws the funds on hand into industries with profits beyond normal investment areas, and earns interest that is several times higher than its financial cost, which it returns to customers."

This statement has implicitly acknowledged that Qianbao.com is not a WeChat business, but a money-making business. As for whether the extremely high rate of return is logical, no one is willing to delve into it. I guess they are afraid that if they delve deeper, they will find that they can no longer numb themselves.

It all comes down to human nature. Some people take risks for money, while others ignore risks for money. When a person pretends to be asleep, no one can wake him up.

How will it end and what will be the subsequent impact?

After the explosion, many people began to discuss the ending and the subsequent impact.

In fact, how else can it end? It should be the same as the Ezubao case, with the public security organs carrying out asset recovery work, transferring the recovered assets to the enforcement agency, and finally returning them to the fund-raising participants in proportion. As for how much money can be received in the end, it depends on how much assets are recovered. In the case of Ezubao, the judgment shows that

"After trial, it was found that most of the funds raised by the defendant were used to repay the principal and interest, acquire offline sales companies and other platform operating expenses, or were squandered on illegal and criminal activities, resulting in the loss of most of the funds raised."

As for the impact on the industry, some people compare it to the second Ezubao incident, but in fact, they are completely incomparable.

Putting aside the issue of the amount of money involved, which requires law enforcement agencies to publish accurate figures, from the perspective of industry impact alone, the Ezubao incident is an important trigger for the strong regulation of the entire Internet finance industry and an important turning point in the development of the industry. As mentioned earlier, Qianbao.com is not a P2P, let alone an Internet financial platform. It is just raising funds under the guise of a micro-business. Many such fundraising incidents can be investigated and dealt with every year. As long as the human nature of greed for high returns remains unchanged, such incidents will not be stopped.

Therefore, in my opinion, Qianbaobao is destined to become just a simple Internet hot topic. After a few days, netizens will be attracted by the new Internet hot topic, and the only ones who really care about the results are the participants themselves.

As for the Qianbao.com employees who lost their jobs due to this incident, some people feel sorry for them, while others think they are not worthy of sympathy. No one knows which is true or false. However, in an avalanche, no snowflake is innocent.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.