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Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

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41–50 of 127 posts

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it fraud if the smart contract allowed it? Actually curious what makes it fraud. Just because one group wants the money back?

Lawful intention. What the smart contract dictates isn’t necessarily the final authority, but what the intent was (per legal interpretation of state contract law).

This kinda belies the whole premise behind "smart" "contracts", doesn't it? I've always heard that the point of smart contracts is that we don't need the legal system to settle issues, because the code itself enforces the contract.

Apparently code can have bugs, and people can make mistakes? Whoops, wish we'd known those things before pouring millions into this stuff.

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sender did not mean to send it, making it misappropriation or unjust enrichment. Edit: (Re Revlon) https://www.npr.org/2021/07/23/1019909860/banque-worms (NPR piece on the Revlon incident) > Elisabeth de Fontenay is a professor at Duke University's law school, and she used to be a corporate lawyer. > DE FONTENAY: When payments are made, for example, from banks to individuals like all of us in error, we have to gi…

Look at the Citibank Revlon case from last year [0]. In a clerical error, Citi sent $900m to a bunch of hedge funds, related to some Revlon debt. It asked for it back. It got about $400m. It sued for the other $500m… and lost in court. I’m not saying this is identical to that case, which depended upon New York law. But it is far from clear-cut and I think you are being way too confident in your view, since nothing li…

The document you cited actually supports toomuchtodo’s position:

“The law generally treats a failure to return money that is wired by mistake as unjust enrichment or conversion and requires that the recipient return such money to its sender. Under New York law (which applies here), however, there is an exception to this rule: The recipient is allowed to keep the funds if they discharge a valid debt, the recipient made no misrepresentations to induce the payment, and the recipient did not have notice of the mistake.”

I’m assuming no debt was owed to these random people.

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#44
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rai Stones worked really well, for a long time. Well, except for the one that fell off the outrigger.

I thought it worked even better because you didn't actually have to move it anymore.

A early variant of trading gold or pork futures!

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#45

Obvious scam is obvious. Previous DeFi scams have seen founders just openly walking away with the money. This one involved some "random users" getting the money instead. Totally random, I'm sure. Totally unpredictable.

Doubt it. Compound is a very well-established and successful protocol.

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#46

I might start getting into crypto after this. No, but on a serious note, I don’t think cryptocurrency will ever be a sufficient replacement for the US dollar, but I can imagine the infrastructure going into it will produce new, helpful financial tools.

Most of the value in defi is in stablecoins and most prices are quoted in dollars. Some crypto stuff will have good value accrual mechanisms, others wont. The idea crypto displaces the dollar as a reserve currency is insanity.

The US dollar is inflating at 40% year/year as measured by M2 money supply and there seems to be no end in sight. The US government is considering minting a $1 Trillion dollar coin to keep this debt-spiral going a little longer.

The idea of using the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency is an insane 50 year old experiment that won’t end well.

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#47

This bug happened to the crypto project Compound. I work for a crypto company that has a DeFi product that uses Compound. So I've been deep into following this since it started. The funds sent to users were "rewards" for using the platform. Compound didn't actually lose any user funds, it was Compound's "governance token" that was given out. Although user funds were not affected, billions of dollars have been pulled…

The fact that you can give away millions by mistake and do nothing about it then break the systems then do not much about it says a lot about crypto currency practicality ;) I wonder when this madness is going to stop.

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#48
post #6

Hmm turns out trustless and decentralised might not be the best model for all financial infrastructure.

Good thing precisely zero people are proposing this for "all financial infrastructure". It's an opt-in alternative, nothing more. If you don't want to use it, nothing forces you to (unlike existing retail banking).

It's mandatory in El Salvador. That alone is a QED. However, I'd highly recommend listening to any of the thought leader talking heads.

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#49
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the value in defi is in stablecoins and most prices are quoted in dollars. Some crypto stuff will have good value accrual mechanisms, others wont. The idea crypto displaces the dollar as a reserve currency is insanity.

The US dollar is inflating at 40% year/year as measured by M2 money supply and there seems to be no end in sight. The US government is considering minting a $1 Trillion dollar coin to keep this debt-spiral going a little longer. The idea of using the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency is an insane 50 year old experiment that won’t end well.

Wow that would be amazing if it were true or sensical or really even grounded.

Inflation in the real world isn't defined by supply but rather purchasing power as measured by CPI. Your definition is closer to the Austrian definition, long debunked because what people do with that supply is as important as its existence. The M2 supply increased 15X since the 70s but purchasing power only dropped by a factor of 7, meaning without a doubt that supply isn't the be all and end all.

TL;DR: The M2 supply is not a measure of inflation. It's just not.

Re: Crypto CEO threatens customers after mistakenly sending them millions

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it fraud if the smart contract allowed it? Actually curious what makes it fraud. Just because one group wants the money back?

Lawful intention. What the smart contract dictates isn’t necessarily the final authority, but what the intent was (per legal interpretation of state contract law).

I wonder if the argument will become what is the contact - essentially, is it specific transfers as implemented by the smart contract, or is it to be bound by the smart contract, even if these transfers weren't in the contemplation of the parties at formation?
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