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Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

bloomberg.com

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Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#41

Post by hendzen »

mpeg wrote: post #32
philbarr wrote: post #10

So cryptocurrency is the new Gold Rush. As the story goes, the only people who reliably made money during the original gold rush was the people who sold the spades. What are the "spades" here?

The ICO coins are the spades. They're raising ridiculous amounts of money on completely unproven markets, with unproven teams. These are mostly teams that would struggle to raise a tenth of that money with a traditional VC where they'd have to be accountable for their product.

They are also getting paid in Schrute bucks.

These ICO raises need to be huge since selling X00m of ETH or BTC moves the price... its absolute madness.

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#42

Post by richardknop »

Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction. I know some people who were paper millionaires based on their BTC during the days before Mt Gox collapse.

They lost their entire savings once Mt Gox collapsed, since then they have spent years working hard to recover their savings and now they are investing all of it in ICOs.

This won't end well. Seems to me like the story is repeating.

On a side note, the brigading/shilling here on HN is becoming quite annoying. I suppose it's a lot of computer nerds who are heavily invested in these tokens who are trying to get more new people invest their real money into these tokens so:

1) they can get rich quick

2) or recover their losses (lots of people heavily invested in crypto are underwater)

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#43

Post by repomies691 »

hendzen wrote: post #15
dustingetz wrote: post #3

Who are these people spending real money in all these ICOs? Is this all just money made from bitcoin speculation being thrown around? Or is this real people spending real cash money?

Money laundering.

Well, didn't realize it previously, but the following might work:

1. Earn bitcoins with some serious crime (ransomware, drugs or something) 2. Organize ICO and invest the criminal proceeds to your ICO anonymously. 3. "Clean" funds as investments to your somewhat legit-looking company.

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#44

Post by CodeCube »

jondubois wrote: post #22
lmm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now a lot of people are making the mistake of investing in an ICO that they don't understand enough. Like with any kind of investing; it's their responsibility to do their research. That's not how it works. Many kinds of securities can only be sold to accredited investors for just this reason; you may not like that law, but it is the law.

It's a silly law. The entire finance industry rests on the principle that well informed people are allowed to make money off of poorly informed people. I think ICOs are more fair because unlike in mainstream finance, there is much less information asymmetry because the code is all there for anyone to see. Anyone can access all the information they need.

Whether some of these ICOs are a fraud or not has nothing to do with how transparent the ledger technology is. Regardless of how well the ledger of what you "bought" is maintained, "what you bought" could still be a farce ... it could be some guy who set up a blockchain, and beckoned you from his white van with promises of candy ;)

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#45

Post by tonyedgecombe »

golergka wrote: post #37
jondubois wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. All the information is out there in the public domain; in fact, most cryptocurrencies are entirely open source so it couldn't be any more transparent than that. Everyone should be aware of the risk and the reward potential. If ICOs are a fraud, then surely our entire financial system is a fraud because there is much less transparency there. Right now a lot of people are making the mistake of investi…

Your answer is based on logic. When the bubble will burst, angry mob will look for someone to blame and politicians will look for initiatives to protect them. Decisions will be made, and laws enacted. This thing will be emotional, not logical.

I don't know why you are being downvoted because you are absolutely right.

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#46

Post by thisisit »

philbarr wrote: post #10

So cryptocurrency is the new Gold Rush. As the story goes, the only people who reliably made money during the original gold rush was the people who sold the spades. What are the "spades" here?

The spades are the base currencies - ethereum or bitcoin. People who got in early were believers in the technology for whatever reason. Now they are able to unload some of the coins to people who want to strike it rich by investing in the next-gen technology called "blockchain" and ICOs. They are the "enablers" for the gold rush.

Once the house comes crashing down, it will be the same people who scoop up the coins back even at lower prices. Because of their belief in the coins unlike others who are just chasing cryptocurrency for the "1000%+ rise".

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#47

Post by hendzen »

phkahler wrote: post #35
lambdadmitry wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is 2-tier: - "whales" (early adopters with tons of BTC) spend their BTC; - common folks believe in BTC hype, "invest" real dollars in the market and provide liquidity for ICOers. In the end the bubble bursts, "whales" don't loose much (only their BTC) and the common folks loose their "investments".

In the end, the continually growing computational requirements to maintain the ledger become infeasible even for the ASIC folks and the currency dies. It's all a ponzi scheme.

It's a hyperponzi. A ponzi combinator.

As much as I find the actual technical details of blockchain technology interesting (it's basically nerd crack) - the severe lack of utility to general society and the constant price bubbles are really astounding.

There are multiple levels of bubbles... the short term ethereum-led ICO bubble we are currently in, which is kind of overlaid on top of the long term bubble of cryptocurrency as a whole, which is itself overlaid on the tech bubble (where a lot of the disposable incomes getting poured in to crypto come from), which is itself overlaid on the broader world asset bubble caused by years of ZIRP.

Cryptocurrencies, BTC, ETH, ICOs, ZCash, Monero, etc - it's all just a giant blackhole of waste, greed, and criminal activity so ingeniously designed that it almost seems like some kind of weapon designed to harm society. But it's so much fun to work on and think about... that it is just hard to look away.

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#48

Post by FLUX-YOU »

lambdadmitry wrote: post #20

Above all, I feel sorry for the small guy. Sure, ICOers are raising money for their dreams . And the "whales" "investing" in those ICOs are mostly lucky tech-ish folks who behave irrationally (like investing-1/4th-of-Whatsapp-in-a-service-with-a-few-hundred-users-irrationally). Whales will not suffer much in the end and ICOers will drive their Ferraris. It's those who believed in "invest in cryptocurrencies" hype in…

That's pretty much what banks were doing with tech IPOs anyway (maybe other IPOs?).

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#49

Post by cm2187 »

philbarr wrote: post #10

So cryptocurrency is the new Gold Rush. As the story goes, the only people who reliably made money during the original gold rush was the people who sold the spades. What are the "spades" here?

To me this is more akin to a ponzi scheme or to a tulip bubble than a gold rush. Anyone can pull a new blockchain out of their ass. They generate no cash flows, have no intrinsic value, are only worth anything because someone will want to buy it from you for more, in the hope to sell it to another sucker for even more. At this stage people are trading thin air.

Re: Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches

#50

Post by VMG »

philbarr wrote: post #8
dustingetz wrote: post #3

Who are these people spending real money in all these ICOs? Is this all just money made from bitcoin speculation being thrown around? Or is this real people spending real cash money?

And more importantly, how do I create an ICO and get these people to buy into it?

Copy an existing ICO website, change the name, the color scheme and the deposit address.
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