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Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

theguardian.com

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Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wager once people have to start going back to work and all the free government money dries up, there will be a run on crypto to realize their gains en-masse, and this will trigger a massive wipe out for many latecomers. Frankly, cryptocurrency being invented and created was a huge mistake for society at large. I hope the comeuppance isn't super destructive outside of cryptocurrency circles.

> I hope the comeuppance isn't super destructive outside of cryptocurrency circles.

This is one of my concerns too. I sock away a healthy % of my income in to traditional investments, and I aspire to one day own a home I can raise a family in.

The current asset bubble, which I personally believe is the wedge driving cryptocurrency apart from reality, is really hurting those of us with these rather mundane aspirations.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#62
post #44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only the case for pump&dump schemes. In case of a sustained growth of a company (think Apple over the past 20 years) what the shareholders gain comes from the earnings of the company. Apple shareholders have gained trillions in the past years - no one has lost an equivalent amount.

I’m not sure what your point is. Are you talking about a small fraction of stocks that pay dividends? Because otherwise the stock market is completely based on this: money changing hands.

You’ve conveniently ignored reinvested dividends that in turn fund future growth, splits, reverse splits, mergers and acquisitions...

That’s a very weak strawman.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#63
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.

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?

Stock holders own the underlying business and businesses do create wealth—all the inputs that are used in making a product are worth less that the product itself.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#64
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…

> ultimately none of these cryptocurrencies are any more useful than they were in 2019

If you really think this, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Don‘t base your opinion on DOGE. There are plenty of cryptocureencies with actual use cases that provide value.

I think it‘s pretty clear why you are convincing yourself of the opposite though:

> having considered putting a tiny % of my portfolio in to crypto not long before the pandemic and deciding against it

Don’t let that taint your judgement.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#65

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.

I was under the impression that dividends were essentially forced value selloffs, given that stock prices drop the exact amount of the dividend the moment it is paid.

How is value created during dividend payment?

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#66
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do feel jaded by all of this, but I can only hope that people who lose their shirts on all of this actually learn not to try this mess ever again. Greed really can be our biggest downfall.

In 10 years another bunch of 20-30 year olds will join some new attractive 'get rich quick' scheme before they lose anything they got in the following crash if pyramid. Recycle and repaeat.

20-30 year olds outside of those few with $300k jobs on HN don’t have anything to lose.

Same reason people play the lottery

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#67

Are these paper millions or is the money in his bank account? How easy is it to cash out crypto?

To truly "cash out", I think you would need to trade into stablecoins or various other coins with low transfer fees (tether, neo, ada) then transfer to a multitude of crypto exchanges who have high enough limits to start converting to fiat. Those with KYC would then report earnings to the IRS. There are some without KYC (KuCoin) which you might be able to hide some earnings. 3rd option is get it into bitcoin, fly offshore and start cashing out from Bitcoin ATMs or offshore banks.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#68
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…

No need to be jealous, since it's still the very early days for crypto in the grand scheme of things. It's far from having hit any of the real success metrics (much broader usage, significant % of wealth stored, transferred, etc). They may prove to be a lot more useful than you imagine and one thing for sure is they are here to stay at this point. The big difference compared to 2019 is that we had a Bitcoin halving i…

Everyone in crypto and sat on a 5x gain tells you its the "early days" because they can afford to lose 80% and still shrug it off. It's easy to be chipper right now.

Go back to between early 2018 and early 2020 though and look at r/bitcoin and you'll see a bunch of people running themselves in to early graves with anxiety, following every twitch in the market and hyping up every news story about crypto to try and justify to themselves why they bought in.

Bitcoin could go to $1M/coin, but it might do that over a 3 month period 10 years from now after a decade of going nowhere.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#69
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure what your point is. Are you talking about a small fraction of stocks that pay dividends? Because otherwise the stock market is completely based on this: money changing hands.

You’ve conveniently ignored reinvested dividends that in turn fund future growth, splits, reverse splits, mergers and acquisitions... That’s a very weak strawman.

Money changing hands changing hands that makes it look like it’s totally legit. Copy that.

Re: Goldman Sachs executive quits after making millions from Dogecoin

#70
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But isn't there value being created in actual legitimate blockchain projects like Filecoin and Storj (dropbox replacements)? For these slower growing coins, isn't the value coming from the utility of the product?

> But isn't there value being created in actual legitimate blockchain projects like Filecoin and Storj (dropbox replacements)? For these slower growing coins, isn't the value coming from the utility of the product?

No. Cryptocurrency valuation is 100% driven by narrative, categorically.

Your post in and of itself exemplifies the narrative pumping rhetoric which is at the core of all cryptocurrency valuation. There are absolutely no exceptions to this, and that is not an exaggeration in any way.

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