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Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

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Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#141

Post by darawk »

jamiek88 wrote: post #123
darawk wrote: post #66

Most of the author's points are silly. I was a customer of Bitfinex, and I lost a significant sum of money in the hack, but they paid me back. I couldn't be happier with their handling of it. I'm upset that their poor security practices led them to get hacked in the first place, but once it happened, their handling was pretty ideal. I don't know anyone who was a customer of theirs and doesn't approve of how they hand…

Are those funds in fiat in your bank account? Or are they Cryptsy points on the exchange?

My funds have been (partially) moved to other exchanges. I regularly withdraw money from Bitfinex though, and it has never been a problem.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#142

Post by darawk »

prostoalex wrote: post #70
darawk wrote: post #66

Most of the author's points are silly. I was a customer of Bitfinex, and I lost a significant sum of money in the hack, but they paid me back. I couldn't be happier with their handling of it. I'm upset that their poor security practices led them to get hacked in the first place, but once it happened, their handling was pretty ideal. I don't know anyone who was a customer of theirs and doesn't approve of how they hand…

Are your funds still at Bitfinex or did you successfully exit?

Some of my funds are, some i've moved to other exchanges. Not because I don't have confidence in them, just because there were opportunities on those exchanges that weren't on Bitfinex. But I have absolute confidence in my ability to withdraw however much I please from my BFX account whenever I want.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#143

Post by darawk »

calcifer wrote: post #67
darawk wrote: post #66

Most of the author's points are silly. I was a customer of Bitfinex, and I lost a significant sum of money in the hack, but they paid me back. I couldn't be happier with their handling of it. I'm upset that their poor security practices led them to get hacked in the first place, but once it happened, their handling was pretty ideal. I don't know anyone who was a customer of theirs and doesn't approve of how they hand…

So you think the author's very intricately written, detailed arguments are "silly" and all you can offer in retort is an anecdote about how you weren't effected by the Bitfinex hack (which was a tiny part of the author's argument).

I started writing a detailed rebuttal and debunking of the author's points, but then I noticed others had done it already, so I didn't waste my time. Suffice it to say that many of the things he says simply aren't true, and for the rest, his reasoning is poor. For details, you can read other posts in this comment thread.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#144

Post by smcl »

dreit1 wrote: post #124
Animats wrote: post #63

Well, we're about to find out if the Bitcoin exchanges in China have all the assets they should. The PBOC told them to stop trading, turn over copies of their records to the PBOC, and refund the balances of their customers. We should know within days which exchanges were stealing customer assets. The exchange executives were told not to try to leave China. (Remember Big Vern? Paul Vernon, CEO of Cryptsy. Took the mon…

People actually knowledgable in the crypto community would have told you literally years ago that the Chinese exchanges were shit. ChangPeng Zhao who now runs binance out of Hong Kong, made a reddit post (now deleted) stating exactly what was going on. The issue of exchanges "investing" client funds was known two years ago, and most people stayed away from these exchanges.

The exchanges investing client money does not surprise me at all. I worked in UK finance for 6 years or so where you have mandatory "CASS" training to warn you what is and is not OK to do with client money. I remember when I first started I was like "well obviously you keep client money and assets separate from the corporate accounts..." and EVERY year in the "refresher course" our Compliance dept gave they had new cases of banks fucking this up and getting insane fines for it [0].

If these supposedly respectable banks managed to repeatedly do this (this is after the financial crisis btw) then it's anyone's guess what goes on in the Wild West that is Bitcoin exchanges. That said, the stupidity and lack of common sense in UK financial industry continues blows my mind.

[0] - https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/why-the-fca-rewrote-the-rul...

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#145

Post by deevolution »

I think cryptocurrency has reached or has perhaps just passed the peak of inflated expectations on the hype cycle chart and is now decending into the trough of dissolutionment. There are some pretty wild claims out there - it does seem like lots of the rhetoric out there is that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology will solve ALL of the problems. But i think blockchain has a ways to go before we see which problems it is particularly good at solving. People will learn, overtime as companies fail in their attempt to apply blockchain to every aspect of life. When a few of these companies to succeed, which im certain at least one will, we will see the real, unhyped value of the blockchain. Edit(spelling)

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#146

Post by pcwalton »

quuquuquu wrote: post #119
swfsql wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's correct it's just numbers in the screen. But this is not to say we can't abstract anything form it, or it's worthless. After all, the internet and yourself are "just stuff flying around".

Child porn is a crime committed via Internet. It is vigorously prosecuted. Identity theft is a crime committed via Internet. It is lazily prosecuted. Stock fraud ("securities" fraud) is a crime that is also vigorously prosecuted. Bitcoin and alt coins, just like WoW gold, are not stocks. Therefore how can the state say Big Vern is committing securities fraud, and that we should spend millions of dollars attempting to…

> Big Vern's only mistake was being born a US citizen. If he was Russian, he would be a free man.

There aren't a lot of crimes you can't excuse this way (by substituting various countries in place of Russia).

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#147

Post by quuquuquu »

gnaritas wrote: post #137
quuquuquu wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Child porn is a crime committed via Internet. It is vigorously prosecuted. Identity theft is a crime committed via Internet. It is lazily prosecuted. Stock fraud ("securities" fraud) is a crime that is also vigorously prosecuted. Bitcoin and alt coins, just like WoW gold, are not stocks. Therefore how can the state say Big Vern is committing securities fraud, and that we should spend millions of dollars attempting to…

> Bitcoin and alt coins, just like WoW gold, are not stocks. Not relevant, securities doesn't mean stocks. A security is basically any financial instrument of value, and crytpo's are most certainly securities and obviously always have been . You need to get over this notion that "new" things are somehow not subject to existing laws. Slapping a new name like bitcoin on a financial security doesn't suddenly make it not…

Bitcoin wasn't a security in 2014

You can't retroactively apply the law. Well apparently the government acts like they can. But in my (biased) mind they shouldn't.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#148

Post by canoebuilder »

dreit1 wrote: post #124
Animats wrote: post #63

Well, we're about to find out if the Bitcoin exchanges in China have all the assets they should. The PBOC told them to stop trading, turn over copies of their records to the PBOC, and refund the balances of their customers. We should know within days which exchanges were stealing customer assets. The exchange executives were told not to try to leave China. (Remember Big Vern? Paul Vernon, CEO of Cryptsy. Took the mon…

People actually knowledgable in the crypto community would have told you literally years ago that the Chinese exchanges were shit. ChangPeng Zhao who now runs binance out of Hong Kong, made a reddit post (now deleted) stating exactly what was going on. The issue of exchanges "investing" client funds was known two years ago, and most people stayed away from these exchanges.

This such an annoying pattern. Something unflattering comes to light(for some greater measure of coming to light) and the predictable response always, "Geez... Everybody already knows this. It's in the wiki!"

Not to mention the richness of implying chinese exchanges are somehow uniquely bad! Exchange shenanigans on the english speaking web are a central part of the bitcoin story to this point.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#149

Post by quuquuquu »

gnaritas wrote: post #136
quuquuquu wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some Googling. WoW gold theft results in Blizzard suggesting you open a support ticket, despite the fact that WoW gold, like bitcoin, has unofficial street value. I will do more digging but I don't know if anyone has gone to the police for WoW gold theft. I'm not sure why WoW gold is treated differently from Bitcoin, which is apparently an honest to god bonafide US security in the eyes of the law. Re: your poin…

> Why are we going after Big Vern when there are more pressing crimes to deeply investigate? This is a silly argument, it's not an either or situation, law enforcement can and should pursue all crimes. By your logic, why go after any financial crimes where there are still unsolved murder cases? Do you see how absurd you're being? > The coins were numbers to me, not dollars. What your feels tell you has no bearing on…

Bitcoin is a commodity of value, but WoW gold is not? Subjectively applying the law. I don't understand how you can't see this.

Law enforcement and governments don't have unlimited resources. Frivolous crimes should not be pursued as vigorously as crimes of violence and physical/financial/corporate victimhood.

Equifax executives are chilling in their house right now. Big Vern is wanted by the feds for loss of fictional assets. Come on, apply the law equally.

53% of prisoners are there for possession of marijuana. Surely you don't want your tax money spent on this victimless crime?

Well, it currently is being spent that way, while many murders go uninvestigated.

Re: Things cryptocurrency enthusiasts probably won't tell you

#150

Post by gnaritas »

quuquuquu wrote: post #147
gnaritas wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin and alt coins, just like WoW gold, are not stocks. Not relevant, securities doesn't mean stocks. A security is basically any financial instrument of value, and crytpo's are most certainly securities and obviously always have been . You need to get over this notion that "new" things are somehow not subject to existing laws. Slapping a new name like bitcoin on a financial security doesn't suddenly make it not…

Bitcoin wasn't a security in 2014 You can't retroactively apply the law. Well apparently the government acts like they can. But in my (biased) mind they shouldn't.

Bitcoin was a security the second it came into existence. The law doesn't need to retroactively be applied, it always applied. New things aren't somehow immune from existing law because they haven't been explicitly named by the law. The law doesn't need to say "crypto's are securities" for crytpo's to be securities. Don't confuse regulators clarifying how they're going to enforce the law with changes in the law. Those clarifications come out to make it clear to "magical thinkers" that existing laws do apply and will be enforced as X.
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