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Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

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Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#31

Post by ryanlol »

dboreham wrote: post #27
ryanlol wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We receive up to six figures in cryptocurrency payments every week for multiple perfectly legal products. If that’s not a “legal use case”, I don’t know what is. Are we going to argue next that credit cards have no use case because other forms of payment exist? Another example: I just bought a watch off of a guy on a forum using bitcoin, bank transfers or WU would have been a far bigger pain in the ass.

Care to say what kind of product you are selling, and to which kinds of customer?

Most of our revenue comes from proxies, customers range from SV startups to individual “SEO” people.

We do accept other payment methods from established clients.

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#32

Post by geraldbauer »

FYI: Beware Investors! At the Bits & Blocks Press Bookself I've collected books/booklets to warn about blatant crypto frauds and fudge. See Best of Bitcoin Maximalist - Scammers, Morons, Clowns, Shills & BagHODLers - Inside The New New Crypto Ponzi Economics [1] or Crypto Facts - Decentralize Payments - Efficient, Low Cost, Fair, Clean - True or False? [2] or Get Rich Quick "Business Blockchain" Bible - The Secrets of Free Easy Money [3]

[1]: https://bitsblocks.github.io/bitcoin-maximalist [2]: https://bitsblocks.github.io/crypto-facts [3]: https://bitsblocks.github.io/get-rich-quick-bible

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#33

Post by ricksanch88 »

lotyrin wrote: post #22
ryanlol wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No legal use case found to date How do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

Do you have counter examples? Anything using the currencies as stores of wealth or mediums of exchange seem to be better suited by traditional finance which are less volatile and capable of higher volume. Anything using the ledger as a distributed datastore seems like it would be better suited by a datastore that wasn't wrapped up in a currency ledger and uses a consensus algorithm less costly than proof-of-work.

Uhh, Verge is currently being used for payments for online services, subscriptions, and ad-buys. They have a debit card coming out backed by a major bank. That's legal.

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#34

Post by AdamM12 »

gooseus wrote: post #15
fredgrott wrote: post #9

To be fair, How many startups listed on Angel list ar in fact frauds? No, not just illegal stuff like intershipsp for no pay but more major stuff like outright fabrication of founder bios, etc.

Legitimate frauds? Or "Fake it till you make it" type frauds who think their idea is legit and just inflate some numbers and their capabilities to get the money they need to prove it? What matters more, it seems to me, is that both the cryptocurrency and tech startup world are filled with bad investments which are going to make the next economic bust exponentially worse.

I think the difference here would be that Angel's List and SEC rules in general provide/create/act-as gatekeepers for investment and thus can better filter outright fraud (note: not fake it till you make it "fraud") and limit investment to those who can afford to lose money. ICOs are circumventing that and allowing outright fleecing of small time investors on an unheard of scale and velocity. Obviously a snake oil salesmen is nothing new and you would only have to watch American Greed to see small time investors getting fleeced well before ICO's ever existed.

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#35

Post by ricksanch88 »

bsenftner wrote: post #3

It's the gold rush that killed crypto-currencies. They are dead, but their gold rush enthusiasts are going to hang on for a decade hoping to recoup their pride.

Really? That's strange. Show me another financial asset that has grown 686% this year.

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#36

Post by favorited »

gooseus wrote: post #15
fredgrott wrote: post #9

To be fair, How many startups listed on Angel list ar in fact frauds? No, not just illegal stuff like intershipsp for no pay but more major stuff like outright fabrication of founder bios, etc.

Legitimate frauds? Or "Fake it till you make it" type frauds who think their idea is legit and just inflate some numbers and their capabilities to get the money they need to prove it? What matters more, it seems to me, is that both the cryptocurrency and tech startup world are filled with bad investments which are going to make the next economic bust exponentially worse.

> think their idea is legit and just inflate some numbers and their capabilities to get the money they need to prove it

how is that not "legitimate fraud?"

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#37

Post by codegeek »

hudon wrote: post #6

- The space is littered with fraud. - Wallets have bugs that lose hundreds of millions of dollars - Energy consumption forecasted to hit 0.5% of the world’s electricity consumption by end of 2018 - Promoters yelling “decentralize everything” while exchanges, development teams and mining are all highly centralized - No legal use case found to date Blockchain is a parasite on society.

Not to mention that it has become more of a speculative tool than an actual currency for general and everyday use.

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#38

Post by johnpowell »

Liquix wrote: post #30
tramGG wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last gold rush for crypto was in 2013 so ~5 years.

There was definitely a substantial influx of new (often clueless) investors in the past 12-18 months.

When Bitcoin hit around 14K my mom had heard all about the rise on MSNBC/CNN. So she asked me how to buy bitcoin. She needed to replace her radiator. She had about 500 and needed 1200 so she thought it was a reasonable gamble. So I had her send the money to me and I told her I would invest for her.

I did not..

But I did inform her that when it crashed I just stuck her money in my savings account. And nothing was lost. I was willing to eat the loss if it had gone up when she wanted to cash out.

And I did buy her a new radiator. I don't have to give a shit about mothers day for the next decade.

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#39

Post by tenaciousDaniel »

Viker wrote: post #21
ryanlol wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No legal use case found to date How do you expect anyone to take you seriously?

He does have a point. Adoption of crypto is falling while more and more coins are sprouting...

I think adoption is falling in the right places. I think it's wildly premature for a crypto-currency to be used in everyday transactions. So if, say, Amazon decided to accept bitcoin but is now moving away from it, I think that's a good thing.

Cryptocurrencies need to solve several issues such as energy consumption, price stability, and scaling before we see anything useful.

Re: Hundreds of Bitcoin Wannabes Show Hallmarks of Fraud

#40

Post by kbody »

hudon wrote: post #6

- The space is littered with fraud. - Wallets have bugs that lose hundreds of millions of dollars - Energy consumption forecasted to hit 0.5% of the world’s electricity consumption by end of 2018 - Promoters yelling “decentralize everything” while exchanges, development teams and mining are all highly centralized - No legal use case found to date Blockchain is a parasite on society.

- You could say that for cash and internet as well, but I hate it too that currently the majority of the space is overrun by scammers & useless ICOs.

- As for wallet bugs: if you're talking about Ethereum or low-quality software projects yes, but for Bitcoin it's been a long time since that was an issue

- Regarding power: setting aside all those sensationalistic headlines. Crypto-miners are a way that enable renewables to be optimized when there are imbalances on the demand/supply on the powergrid. Contracts with renewables enable further development of that infrastructure. Of the top of my head BitFury, one of the big crypto-mining firms are in majority if not completely powered by renewables.

- Also compare that to the multiples of power used today by gold mining, or infrastructure that Bitcoin aims to replace.

- In the end, it's like any other power usage, the market will decide if it's viable, govs could probably tax power usage on cryptocurrencies, but it won't matter since the market will adapt.

- There are decentralized exchanges trying to break through along with various different type of projects, albeit the space is crowded by scammers/ICOs like any new space it's the unfortunate nature of the people.

- Although it's illegal in Venezuela, Venezuelans protecting their wealth from the dictatorship is quite a use case. Also, what's the legal use case for owning gold? I do commerce legally just fine with Bitcoin although the tech is still evolving on that front.

Judging on a tech based on its current state is being blinded to the evolution of tech and I'm surprised to see it from an HN user.

I personally don't care about Blockchain or the ICOs, scams etc. unfortunately pop everyone, but I see value on Bitcoin, using your money completely permissionlessly with other people is a great feeling in our days.

I also see great applications in the future where we can have more native money on games/apps.

Like internet, people will abuse, scam and it can be dangerous but thing how it would have been if there was no free internet to browser any website you want, but only a regional app store.

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