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Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

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Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#151
post #48

I work in crypto and have done for the last couple years. To be totally transparent, I worked on Cardano, then a couple random projects including a cosmos DEX and writing test suites for a qa consultancy, and now a startup DEX. I've been active in the scene (investing, reading papers, talking about crypto etc) since around 2016 and worked in it since 2019. I think there's a few things here. I don't believe that many…

Thanks for writing this out! I am in a very similar spot. Just resigned. I think it's ok to enjoy the perks, but at some point hypocrisy it takes is a bit too much

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#152

You’re asking this on HN so are likely to get 95% of people agreeing with you from confirmation bias alone. Median HN hates cryptocurrency. I’d probably suggest this: https://www.matthuang.com/bitcoin_for_the_open_minded_skepti... I think it’s not “all a scam”, but there are definitely scammers in the community which add a lot of noise to what’s a pretty cool new capability to handle decentralized state. https://danr…

The question is though, is it enough of a scam that anyone not looking for a high risk investment or putting a lot of time in should just steer clear of the whole thing?

In terms of the currency aspect of cryptocurrency, what risk adjusted benefit would I get right now attempting to use any of them as a currency rather than dollars?

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#153
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any problem cashing in my 6 figures paycheck when pezzonavantes (from any side since forever) cash out 9 to 10 figures own scams. Honesty is for the poor.

Keep working hard and maybe one day you’ll be one of those upper echelon sociopaths.

Your point being ?

I've already been called Nazi, mysogynist, racist, baby killer, pure evil here (on other now-banned accounts). Do you think "sociopath" is gonna affect me the least ?

For anything it actually strengthen my no-fuck-given stance.

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#154
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"bad things" is a subjective concept. A former roommate was building a website in the mid 2000 for a dildo company. You probably don't care, but a religious zealot might consider it "bad". We're gonna make a deal, I'll let you work in ad-tech, and you let me build tool which allow people to shoot themselves in the foot.

I work in academia. I will never work in ad-tech either.

Academia is even more of a scam than tech...

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#155
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you are subprime rated, you would have to be a complete moron to take a variable loan on you life. And loads of people were that moronic, do they really deserve to have suffered because some other people wanted to profit as much as possible from their stupidity? It's not like these morons had the tools to really assess what the fuck they were doing. Not excluding the fact that many of these loans were basicall…

This thread is a horror show that is pretty hard to watch, and I knew it would be, but I think it’s worth it. But if you we’re wondering what the rich asshole tree vandals were doing earlier in life, this is it.

If you think it's an horror show, you're pretty frail... Toughen up, cupcake.

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#156
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep working hard and maybe one day you’ll be one of those upper echelon sociopaths.

Your point being ? I've already been called Nazi, mysogynist, racist, baby killer, pure evil here (on other now-banned accounts). Do you think "sociopath" is gonna affect me the least ? For anything it actually strengthen my no-fuck-given stance.

That’s the spirit

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi cosmos friend (I assume you mean $ATOM unless there is another cosmos) I agree there are some (how many is another topic) not very long term worthy projects out there being worked on due to this being a new area being explored. However value are given by people and who knows how different projects would evolve and there might be new value created/discovered later. There are definitely BOTH scams and real value pro…

You sound like a bot.

Interesting response.

Would you share what makes you think that?

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#158
I’ve covered the space for years and I think two things are simultaneously true. It’s a huge scam full of shysters and liars who basically found a meaty grift to make a lot of money really fast. I met loads of those people.

What keeps me going, though, is the fact that the technology has some utility and I’m not about to throw out the next tcp/ip because someone will use it to scam an old lady. I like the artistry of the circus but I hate the clowns.

If we are doing analogs, this is the 2000 era of the dot con boom when there were loads of companies doing websites and four guys really doing good work - let’s say bezos, page, brin, and gates. Theil and musk got lucky with their 2k era grift as did a precious few holdouts but only a few really won. Did anyone who bought Netscape early on the retail markets win? Nope. Crypto investors are the ones jumping in after the whales had their taste. They get scraps.

Who is the next FAANG? Who knows. But this is the space where they’re going to be born.

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#159
If people here haven't seen it, Casey Muratori's series of interviews on crypto and blockchain are extremely interesting. This video released after the first series of interviews is very important though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbYutOsrpvs

The very foundation of this space, the blockchain, is a poorly understood "innovation" that many outer layers of this industry just seem to take for granted as actually satisfactorily solving the problems it claims to, when it very likely does not and never will.

Re: Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?

#160
There are many scams in crypto, and there are many people doing it for speculation, but the space/tech/utility/use cases is not a scam.

It's important to delineate between something that's a scam and speculative, those are not the two same things. A scam is a rug, there's an intent involved, you have scams everywhere not just in crypto.

The legit companies working on DeFi and NFTs are not scams, while some of them may be a bit speculative, there are also companies providing real value to end users.

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