Josh Garza's latest maneuver defies logic. One week after burying Paybase, the exchange he presented as Paycoin's foundation, he unveiled Mineral—another trading platform designed to retain the invest
Josh Garza's latest maneuver defies logic. One week after burying Paybase, the exchange he presented as Paycoin's foundation, he unveiled Mineral—another trading platform designed to retain the investors still refusing to abandon ship.
The backstory remains important. Garza, running GAWminers, introduced Paycoin with audacious claims. A $20 price floor, he said. VISA cards would follow. Bill payment functionality too. Major retailers would partner with him. Investors bought the pitch. They paid $4 to $12 per coin. The token now trades at approximately $0.50.
Garza controls an enormous premine—coins minted at launch and kept in house. What he intends to do with these holdings, what role GAW will play going forward, what independence the newly formed "Paycoin Foundation" actually possesses—none of these questions have been answered. He simply transferred development oversight to that foundation and moved on.
Paybase went quiet without ceremony. Garza posted two sentences to the hashtalk forums, the same forums where he operates under the name MrCEO, having previously gone by GAWCEO. He provided no details. He didn't pin the announcement. Paybase's blog, which months earlier had published an article titled "A Message of Clarity: PayBase Is Here to Stay," never issued an official shutdown notice. The site removed its signup page. That erasure served as the only acknowledgment for most users. People trying to withdraw their funds or their Paycoin encountered the same obstacles they'd faced for months.
Mineral launched claiming to be the web's "fastest growing" cryptocurrency exchange. The basis for that claim remains obscure. Five trading markets went live with minimal volume. Garza announced the platform on the forums, again unpinned, and positioned himself as uninvolved with its operations. The exchange operates from Hong Kong. Its operators, its ownership structure, whether it has any real independence from Garza's ecosystem—all unknown.
The new platform resurrects several promises. Debit cards. Bill payment. The ability to stake coins within the exchange itself while users hold them there. Conspicuously absent: any reference to the $20 price floor or the honor program that was supposed to replace it. The launch produced the predictable problems. Users reported signup failures. The forums flickered online and offline.
Hashtalk will close permanently. An archive supposedly transfers to Mineraltalk.com, preserving the conversation history for anyone conducting a future investigation. Maybe that happens. Maybe technical problems prevent the transfer. Maybe the intention all along was to let that record disappear.
The comparison is unavoidable: Paybase suffered endless downtime, never delivered promised features, and created persistent withdrawal headaches. Mineral arrived and immediately encountered downtime, incomplete features, and growing technical problems. The specific details changed. The fundamental pattern did not. Garza's public separation from Mineral constitutes the only real difference.
Coinstand supposedly materializes the price floor Garza promised. Users can purchase items, with each Paycoin counted at $20 value. Garza selected a handful of participants for testing. Invitations roll out slowly. He refers to the current stage as "delta phase"—software development terminology for release candidate, suggesting the product is nearly finished and destined for public launch soon. Some participants posted videos showing themselves receiving laptops and televisions they claim came through Coinstand. Whether those videos document actual transactions or simply Garza providing products from his own stock to maintain momentum—the distinction matters less than the outcome: people continue believing.
The track record tells the story. Hashlets promised returns that proved impossible. The price floor vanished into air. Emails surfaced revealing misconduct at institutional levels. An account labeled Primestakers, controlled by GAW, earned 3500% interest on its coins while regular users received nothing. Users experienced sudden "hacking" incidents; afterward, Paycoins supposedly removed from circulation reappeared in the network. The honor program collapsed. Paybase failed.
I hold no position in Paycoin. I own single-digit quantities of Bitcoin—very low single digits. If Paycoin rises or falls, my financial future stays unchanged. My job is covering cryptocurrency. That's it. Skepticism toward Garza's project gains me nothing materially. Belief in it would cost me credibility. When people dismiss critical reporting as FUD meant to depress the price so critics can buy cheap—that math inverts reality. What incentive do journalists have to lie? Compared to what Garza gains by lying—time, money, legal distance—the question answers itself.
The mechanism Garza operates resembles a religious movement. He has convinced thousands that faith will be rewarded. They believe if they send enough Bitcoin, invest enough time, maintain enough devotion, Garza will lead them to paradise. They believe Paycoin will trade at $20. They believe the VISA card will arrive. They believe the partnerships will materialize. They believe the exchange will function. They've believed each iteration, and Garza has delivered none of it.
Mineral represents the cycle continuing. It mirrors Candy Mountain in updated form. Coinstand is Candy Mountain. The honor program was Candy Mountain. The VISA deal that became a MasterCard deal that became nothing was Candy Mountain. Paybase was Candy Mountain. Someone approached you on the street with Garza's list of promises, and you'd dismiss them. You'd know immediately it was a con. You'd sent that person money already and he'd missed every deadline, broken every commitment, and now returned asking for more—by April, four months in, you'd comprehend you'd been played.
Nobody should expect different behavior from Garza. Swindlers lack concern for their marks. Marks exist to be utilized. The Paybase closing and Mineral opening follows identical logic: transition investors to the next platform, restart the clock, create fresh hope.
The archive question carries weight. Hashtalk's records will either vanish or transfer to a site the same ecosystem controls. If deleted entirely, it erases evidence. If preserved as an archive on friendly servers, it becomes history rather than testimony. Regulators would need to have downloaded everything already. That assumes they're monitoring Paycoin, assumes they'll act against Garza, assumes American authorities treat internet schemes like traditional fraud. None of these assumptions hold solid ground.
One domain hovers over everything: BTC.com. Garza owns it. He regularly hints at integrating it into his projects without specifying how. Someone wiser should have purchased that address long ago. Now, whenever thousands of people search for Bitcoin information, they'll arrive wherever Garza directs them. If their experience matches what Paycoin customers encountered, well—that would be an absolute Gawful outcome.
