The premise of the site is simple: In a series of games, players would make bets according to the minimum and maximum investment limits.
As more players made bets, older ones would be repaid at 120% of what they put in. The more players who invested, the quicker and more payouts were made.
If there was no payout for 1 hour, the game would be reset, with all deposits lost.
There had been six previous "rounds" of what amounted to a form of gambling - and winners had actually been paid out.
But last night, PonziCoin organizer Vortuarackne posted a new set of rules to the game: The max deposit was raised to a full Bitcoin (more than $600), the final depositor in the round would be paid out at 200%, and it woudl be from Vort's own wallet. "We need to get this party started again - it's slowed down too much!" he said.
The round began - and five minutes later it was over.
And there was no payout. You can see the panicked posts starting to flood the forum:
Bitcointalk
By one estimate, the PonziCoin creator or creators took home about $7,000. Not an enormous amount, but a decent chunk for practically no effort.