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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?

#31

Post by jimt1234 »

version_five wrote: post #3

Same as another poster. It's so obviously a scam I have nothing to do with it. I'm increasingly amazed how screwed up the world is getting, like how more and more people and businesses jump onto something, obviously out of greed or fomo, that is so objectively a huge scam. There was a post not long ago about our obligation as people who know better to speak out about this stuff. Thankfully I've explained to my parent…

At least drug dealing provides a product: drugs/inebriation/escapism - it's something. After all these years of crypto, I still haven't figured out what the product is. The crypto zealots talk about government-free financial transactions, but none of the crypto commercials/marketing ever mentions that.

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

#32

Post by ciguy »

I've worked with a number of crypto startups over the last few years and have friends involved in many more. So far at least 99% of what's I've seen in the space is a scam, not even well disguised. People are just desperate for any kind of return right now and will throw money at the dumbest things.

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

#33

Post by version_five »

nodesocket wrote: post #23

Frankly, this is the wrong audience. While, I love HN for technical advice and learning about new technologies and startup companies the vast majority of HN comments on finance and investing are flat out cynical, wrong, and the opposite of what I've done. There is a potent anti-capitalist sway to HN that misses the point about how to accumulate wealth. I'll be the first to admit, I lean fiscally conservative, and I g…

Maybe it's because HN is actually a technically savvy demographic that sees through the bullshit?

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

#35

Post by j2j2j »

Well, I do get you in the sense that most bitcoiners (assuming btc is the main crypto used in ur company) religiously believe that this is the actual new way of storing monetary value. It may be the case,without the problems of money printing/inflation and so on, but yeah it's still yet to be proved by the entire world as an effective means of doing so. My company is also really into btc, and I've felt like I'm in a cult lol, but at least in the short term it feels like it's gonna go well - expect at least 30% profit if u buy low sell high within a year (that happened to me). Is the bubble gonna burst? Maybe yeah, because of governments against a new form of money that can't be printed, maybe because its structure is destined to fail when in world scale, or maybe there will be an actually better protocol which is greener and allows instant transactions with the decentralized safety btc provides (there probably already is something like that out there and just need s more marketing/visibility). I guess the feeling comes from the uncertainty of crypto: everybody following something nobody knows it's the actual future or not. I think the people that make me feel most like I'm in a scam are those fundamentalists of bitcoin because they all run into darkness with an unexplainable confidence haha. My take is: short term is actually safe, buy stocks for long term.

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

#36

Post by randomhodler84 »

jlcoff wrote: post #11
randomhodler84 wrote: post #4

Most things in the cryptocurrency space are scammy. Bitcoin is not.

Bitcoin is just as much as a scam as CDO or other financial derivatives. Dog shit wrapped is cat shit is still shit.

Oh dear. 13 years in and you compare it to FDs? Hmmmmmm…

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

#37

Post by chillpenguin »

Almost every competent and experienced developer I know thinks most crypto stuff (such as NFTs for example) is bogus. Out of the people that I know that ARE into crypto, most of them are recent bootcamp grads or not very experienced (but somewhat techie).

Anecdotal, I know. But, I think if you look around at the respectable people in the tech field, you will see that most of them are staying away from crypto for a variety of reasons.

Crypto is the worst kind of pop-culture fad tech.

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

#38

Post by readthenotes1 »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #29
mardiyah wrote: post #9

It's one of the "out of question" questions As, of course, it's outright yes Cryptocurrency is one of the looniest forceful actions and movements by the elite Americans cabal, strongly tightly rooted so longtime ago to New World Order

I’m sure someone said the same thing about paper money when it first came out. You still remember older generations crying that would should go back in the gold standard for US currency/

Iirc, lots of paper money was only as good as the company that printed it

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

#39

Post by version_five »

jlcoff wrote: post #11
randomhodler84 wrote: post #4

Most things in the cryptocurrency space are scammy. Bitcoin is not.

Bitcoin is just as much as a scam as CDO or other financial derivatives. Dog shit wrapped is cat shit is still shit.

CDO at least had an underlying asset. They went wrong because they became a tool to game the rating agencies. Crypto is something else, it's like a way to circumvent any common sense and past learning about securities, and let the common person buy in to a mlm and / or ponzi scheme with some confusing words to make it sound legit.

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

#40

Post by gregjor »

version_five wrote: post #30
gregjor wrote: post #20

Would you let your parents or grandparents invest their life savings in whatever you’re doing? Or in any crypto “asset?” If the answer is no it’s probably a scam. I wouldn’t try to sell junk bonds or penny stocks or Beanie Baby futures to my parents either, but the obvious fact that scams exist independent of crypto doesn’t make crypto any more credible.

I think I get your point, but for clarity, I wouldn't have wanted my parents investing in startups I've worked at, or in my current startup, even though those are not scams - they are just high risk and suited only to a certain profile. "Crypto" is different because it's a scam - the potential return is undefined in a sense, because it's based on the greater fool theory and how long the scam can keep up rather than a…

All investing is gambling. Investing in startups, with a 70%+ failure rate, is only for gamblers with a big bankroll, lots of nerve, and probably inside information.

Investing in crypto is like gambling at a game where you don’t know the rules, the house is cheating, the game can shut down (rug pull) at any time, and you can’t go to the police.

I wouldn’t advise my family to invest in startups, or to take their life savings to Vegas and blow it on roulette. I think most people know those are not safe investments. Crypto has a huge amount of hype and nonsense swirling around and since it depends on finding more greater fools the crypto scammers can take advantage of FOMO, ignorance, and what looks like the future of money.

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