Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 170 posts

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#101

Post by piracykills »

Carioca wrote: post #91
piracykills wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >6-7% annual returns I wouldn't say quite that low, even S&P averages are often higher than that. But 48% monthly is going to be something like a >1000% yearly interest rate. You really don't get much more of a dead giveaway than that, at that point you're either a fool or you're gambling and hoping you get out before a greater fool does.

>>> 100*1.48**12 11044.360771961152 That's ELEVEN THOUSAND percent a year. 110x your money every year. That's enough to turn a dollar into 16 billion in 5 years.

Yeah, I managed to miss a digit when I ran the numbers myself so I was off by an order of magnitude when I wrote my post. Glad you checked it. Fucking hilarious what these guys will say - of course, I think that's a goal, to shock anyone remotely reasonable or who even tries to do back of the envelope math out of interest in it.

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#102

Post by squaresmile »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #54

I'm also skeptical about the $660M number. To put that in perspective, Vietnam's GDP is $232B, so this is about 0.3% of Vietnamese GDP. 0.3% of the US GDP would be about $50 billion. FWIW most articles I'm finding source the $660M number to the linked Tuoi Tre News story. Their quote is "The victims said the company had conned them out of VND15 trillion (US$660.79 million)." https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/business/20180…

I just searched around and there is a fair chance the number might be legit. In the first paragraph of this article [1], it says that the amount in VND is converted from 650MM in USD, taken from the ICO organized by the Modern Tech company.

I think a comparison to the wealth is fairer than to the GDP. There are quite a lot of under-reported revenue streams in Vietnam. It's definitely still a sizable chunk though and any dollar amount assigned to cryptocurrencies should be taken with a big grain of salt but I can definitely see it happening.

[1] https://kinhdoanh.vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/doanh-nghiep/nha-dau...

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#103

Post by rhizome »

wpietri wrote: post #98
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have stopped at ”ICO” .

It's just fascinating to me to see the cryptocurrency world gradually rediscover how financial regulation came to exist in the first place. The US's capital and commodities markets started out very wild west. Over time, they've become highly regulated. Not because of mean, bad government, but mainly because market participants wanted regulation to drive out bad actors and increase market trust. That high level of amb…

I suspect the crypto$ world will wind up as history's biggest exploration into NIH Syndrome.

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#104

Post by akvadrako »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99
akvadrako wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not speculation - it’s a continuous income stream. Of course loan rates may go down but there is no risk about “performance”.

> loan rates may go down but there is no risk about “performance” They can default. Twino is a Latvian LLC [1] that walks back its “guarantee” in section 7.4 of their User Agreement: “TWINO shall not be held liable neither by the Investor, nor by the Assignee, or their legal successors or heirs, or any Third Parties in the event that the Loan Agreement is not performed by the Borrower completely or in any part thereo…

Nobody is arguing they can't default; even banks can default. The point is 7% interest isn't absurd.

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#105

Post by Sangermaine »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #17

At this point you really can feel no sympathy towards anyone who gets suckered into these types of scams. Same thing with facebook scams or instagram/snapchat pyramid schemes. If you really are that nice word for lacking intelligence or any ability to think for yourself , then you deserve what you get in terms of financial loss or social backlash. There isn't even a target demographic for this, people from all over t…

>EDIT: Getting down voted for being blunt. Sucks to lose rep because people don't like to hear the truth.

Because it's not the truth, it's just you being a jerk.

It's not one person being scammed over and over. It's people reading about the stupid rates of return we've seen on cryptocurrencies over the last few years, reading about some 19 year old who's now a millionaire overnight, and thinking this might be their way to financial security when they might not have many options.

Considering how these technologies are sold, in almost religious terms, as the inevitable financial future (especially by a certain hacker-themed website) and the people involved are touted as super geniuses, it's not hard to see how people who don't really understand them get pulled in.

I recall a few weeks ago being in a diner and overhearing a conversation between old men where one asks the other if they've heard of Bitcoin and then explaining how he's heard how much money people make off of it. I guess I could point and laugh at them but it's really more sad than anything that people are being sucked into this bubble of hype.

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#106

Post by ben509 »

quadcore wrote: post #85

Again we find that the current, unregulated, ICO market is the most interesting system for parting fools from their money in recent history. Jokes apart, I think it's a good thing. It's 2018, if people are exposed to that kind of scam today, they will evolve quickly, especially the kids. They will develop critical thinking and bullshit detectors. They will stop believing in advertisement and, more importantly, propag…

Yup, this is a natural market correction of stupidity. We need more idiots to get bit, not to protect them from themselves. "Capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without hell."

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#108

Post by notfromhere »

wtvanhest wrote: post #61
pibefision wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take look at Argentina's market. You can get 20% of return on yearly bonds in dollars. Yes, its a bubble but its more mature than any kids ICO

I know nothing of Argentina finance, but if I take your sentence a facevalue, my assumption is that they have a high rate of estimated future inflation. There is no free money in finance.

Argentina is legendary for bad credit, so that's why returns have to be so high

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#109

Post by JumpCrisscross »

akvadrako wrote: post #104
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> loan rates may go down but there is no risk about “performance” They can default. Twino is a Latvian LLC [1] that walks back its “guarantee” in section 7.4 of their User Agreement: “TWINO shall not be held liable neither by the Investor, nor by the Assignee, or their legal successors or heirs, or any Third Parties in the event that the Loan Agreement is not performed by the Borrower completely or in any part thereo…

Nobody is arguing they can't default; even banks can default. The point is 7% interest isn't absurd.

> 7% interest isn't absurd

It does require asking intelligent questions. Like what has been the historic default rate amongst TWINO’s borrowers? Is the borrower quality for recent cohorts higher or lower than for earlier cohorts? How might one enforce their claims in a Latvian court? Cryptocurrency gamblers don’t do this.

If you’re earning 7% in U.S. dollars or Euros and not reading and thoroughly understanding the prospectus, you’re being a chump. (Not making specific claims regarding TWINO. Seven percent may be reasonable compensation for the risk involved. But claiming there is “no risk about performance” is absurd.)

Re: Exit scammers run off with $660M in ICO earnings

#110

Post by Kiro »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #74
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have stopped at ”ICO” .

I stopped at the 'C'. Even if you accept that bitcoin has some legitimate worth there is no justification for all the rediculous Coins that pop up constantly. Why do people buy them? Are they trying to collect them all like a young person's version of Franklin Mint?

It's fun.
Post reply on HN