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Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

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Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those confused about the difference: A Ponzi scheme "pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors" A pyramid scheme "recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products"

Can anyone outline how either of those are different than pre-IPO investors in WeWork etc cashing out on the retail masses? Or pretty much any non-dividend stock that exists?

If wework took the money from new investors and used it to pay dividends to previous ones, that would be much more like a ponzi scheme. Using the money to try and grow a business and a share of that business being deemed to be worth more is very different.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those confused about the difference: A Ponzi scheme "pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors" A pyramid scheme "recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products"

That isn't much difference. If there is a promise of payments for enrolling others, that is still a subsidy from later to earlier investors.

So any SaaS startup that offers referral fees is now a pyramid scheme?

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those confused about the difference: A Ponzi scheme "pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors" A pyramid scheme "recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products"

That isn't much difference. If there is a promise of payments for enrolling others, that is still a subsidy from later to earlier investors.

There's a big difference between "If you join, you can try to sign up others" and "Pay me $X and get a return of Y%".

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#24
post #14
post #4

I've been playing with https://euphoria.money which is a 'fork' of OHM on the Harmony block chain. It brings back memories of high-yield investment programs (HYIP), which are a type of Ponzi scheme. I don't want to accuse them of anything, but it's a little "if it's feels too good to be true, then it probably is" So much of the DeFI yield farming comes across somewhere between Ponzi scheme and the insanity that prece…

Just looking at that home page, they are saying the APY is 725,002.4%. If that isn't an insane red flag, I don't know what is.

plenty of ohm forks/ponzis with 6 figure apy, until they rug/the reward token plummets ofc

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#25

> Andreessen Horowitz’s cryptocurrency fund made one of its largest investments to date in Sky Mavis, leading a $152m financing that valued the company at $3bn. > Sky Mavis, which takes a 4.5 per cent cut of transactions within the game, has made about $1.2bn of revenues I mean, say what you want about this being a scam, ponzi scheme, etc. That is some real cash. I saw this game popping up on Twitch a few months ago…

Just because something makes a lot of money doesn't make it ethical.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those confused about the difference: A Ponzi scheme "pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors" A pyramid scheme "recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products"

Can anyone outline how either of those are different than pre-IPO investors in WeWork etc cashing out on the retail masses? Or pretty much any non-dividend stock that exists?

With an IPO, there's the expectation of eventually paying dividends from real revenue.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#27

> Andreessen Horowitz’s cryptocurrency fund made one of its largest investments to date in Sky Mavis, leading a $152m financing that valued the company at $3bn. > Sky Mavis, which takes a 4.5 per cent cut of transactions within the game, has made about $1.2bn of revenues I mean, say what you want about this being a scam, ponzi scheme, etc. That is some real cash. I saw this game popping up on Twitch a few months ago…

Just because something makes a lot of money doesn't make it ethical.

It's way more ethical for people across the world, primarily in 3rd world countries, to be able to share in the success of a company via its tokens than just being mined for data so some asshole in San Francisco can be paid 10 million dollars a month in rent.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#28
post #15

I wonder if, in the future, a significant portion of the population will have a full time job playing one of these crypto games. They'll be paid based on their in-game social achievements, which will include things like "cares for the (virtual) environment", "demonstrates commitment to diversity", "encourages others to follow health mandates", "uses de-escalation techniques in conflicts." New mission types and achiev…

It could be a neat way for crowdsourcing and gamifying labour. Instead of 'kill 5 gryphons' an AR game could require the players to 'take 5 pictures of such-and-such' or the like. Sites like Taskrabbit and Mturk already do something similar but tying it to geography and a fun interface might pay dividends.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#29
post #4

I've been playing with https://euphoria.money which is a 'fork' of OHM on the Harmony block chain. It brings back memories of high-yield investment programs (HYIP), which are a type of Ponzi scheme. I don't want to accuse them of anything, but it's a little "if it's feels too good to be true, then it probably is" So much of the DeFI yield farming comes across somewhere between Ponzi scheme and the insanity that prece…

It seems like we are really going fast towards game regulation based on what I saw. Gambling with real fake money for teens in a game designed to be basically a pokemon clone with all ways to keep users engaged?

It may not be a ponzi scheme, but if it keeps growing, we will hear about it as a new panic in US.

Re: Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

#30
post #15

I wonder if, in the future, a significant portion of the population will have a full time job playing one of these crypto games. They'll be paid based on their in-game social achievements, which will include things like "cares for the (virtual) environment", "demonstrates commitment to diversity", "encourages others to follow health mandates", "uses de-escalation techniques in conflicts." New mission types and achiev…

This is impossible because the money has to come from somewhere. The 1% aren't going to pay people to play games.
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