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Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

theguardian.com

51–60 of 170 posts

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#51
post #21

It's interesting how the transfer of wealth to a Goldman Sachs executive via cryptocurrency invokes a feeling of mild jealousy and amusement, whereas the transfer of wealth to 'bankers', just like him, just doing their damn jobs and providing a service , invokes revilement in the eyes of the general public. I do think the psychological (is that the word I'm looking for?) aspects of the frothy financial climate drivin…

Crypto could easily be the largest pyramid scheme in history, I have zero interest in participating even if returns were guaranteed - that's not how I want to make money, I see no value being created in these "investments". Recent developments on the stock market kind of killed the market idealism for me. I don't know what's a better alternative, but from where I'm standing the financial system is rewarding wasteful…

> Crypto could easily be the largest pyramid scheme in history, I have zero interest in participating even if returns were guaranteed - that's not how I want to make money, I see no value being created in these "investments".

Yes! Exactly!

I have a friend who's doing well from crypto. He bought an NFT for $800 and it's not worth $8,000. Where is the (social) value in that? Except for the social experimentation this is all providing, it's not solving a problem AT ALL!

This is how I feel in a nutshell: if I make $1m today, I want it to be because I solved a hard problem for a lot of people, not because of some meaningless, intangible wishy thinking currency.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the case for pretty much all exchanges? How is that different than in the stock market?

There's a distinction there. In the stock market, your decision to buy leads to a price increase which improves the ability of that specific company to raise money. Your investment decision directly impacted the prospects of that company over others. In an ideal world, speculation in the stock market means that the best companies receive funding and the worst companies are unable to and therefore appropriately go out…

> the best companies

you mean, those which generate the most ROI ?

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the case for pretty much all exchanges? How is that different than in the stock market?

The stock market has other mechanism of value creation, one of them that the company distributes dividends which is money outside the stock market. Companies also use it to fund themselves to grow. It is not a zero sum game. Crypto currency is a zero sum game and i think this is what OP was implyining.

Seems like any currency conversion or speculation of any kind is a zero sum game then. But ostensibly if it's spent like any currency it's not zero sum

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the case for pretty much all exchanges? How is that different than in the stock market?

> How is that different than in the stock market? For at least the USA exchanges, the USG has made it clear major companies will never fail and is printing so much money that has to go somewhere.

A lot of that money also flows to crypto, real estate, etc.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know who you think 'the man' is, if it's not a Goldman Sachs executive?

If they a quit their job because they have a few extra million then they were working class (ie they needed to work to survive).

The leader of the U.K. is having financial difficulties despite his multi million wealth, 6 figure salary and practically free accommodation.

Apparently that’s not enough when you have expensive tastes.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#56
post #24

No wealth was created or destroyed in the making of these millions, the millions simply changed hands. Think about that before purchasing a cryptocurrency. You're basically handing your money to an earlier "investor" in the hopes that a future "investor" will hand a greater amount to you. This is all there is to it.

Any scam could be defended this way. What does differentiate a scam from a legit investment ?

Most cryptocurrencies are cartoon characters particularly tailored for gambling machines. I haven't seen a single use case other than enabling masses enter a massive pyramid scheme constantly manipulated in social media.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a distinction there. In the stock market, your decision to buy leads to a price increase which improves the ability of that specific company to raise money. Your investment decision directly impacted the prospects of that company over others. In an ideal world, speculation in the stock market means that the best companies receive funding and the worst companies are unable to and therefore appropriately go out…

Yes, but in the real world people are makong jsut as much if not more money on comaoniea that they think other people will later invest it, rather than companies that they think are good companies. That makes it little better than crypto.

There's a bubble now in speculative stocks, and it's not good because it means billions in funding are going towards failing companies. That's why I said "in an ideal world".

I do believe this bubble will pop eventually and the stock market will return to its appropriate primary function (which it still is doing ex-retail hype stocks) of allocating capital to the most productive companies.

Note also that I was responding to the statement that no wealth was created or destroyed by speculation in the stock market. My point is that this statement is false because it makes a real world difference whether it's GME versus MRNA that gets to raise money.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#58
post #2

Good for him! Now, he can do whatever he wants with his time rather than work for the man, life is short after all.

Honestly, it seems to me like this may be a case of having some insider knowledge or knowing ahead of time that the coordinated pump and dump was going to occur. Any rational person would have looked at DOGE over the past however many years and seen it for the true joke it was. It barely made any meaningful movement on pricing until very recently. I can understand if someone may have mined it for fun and forgot about…

Any rational person sees the market is irrational.

Putting $10 on dodge back in January, or on spiffcoin today, is no different to putting $10 on a horse at the 3.15, except the excitement probably lasts longer.

The bookie wins on aggregate, but you are buying the hope and excitement and that has value.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do liken cryptocurrency as a sort of voluntary "redistribution of the wealth" but from the peanut gallery to early adopters and the already objectively "rich". This really feels like a kind of "screw you, I've gotten mine" form of capitalism.

So like all forms of capitalism for 95%+ of under 40s

Perhaps... but cryptocurrency makes this far more blatant and obvious. It really is sold as some kind of pipe-dream and a miracle financial instrument.

Yet tell that to those who lost their shirts on Mt. Gox, Binance, any of the black swan events within the past few years, etc.

It's really a technology-packed MLM.

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