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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

#31

Post by stathibus »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #27
smoldesu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ponzi schemes don't become ethical when they temporarily enrich people who are lower on the economic totem pole. I would argue they actually become less ethical.

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

#32

Post by enterthecrypt »

reggieband wrote: post #20

> 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…

> To write off this activity as a scam or criminal seems to be missing a bigger picture that we don't quite understand yet.

That’s how a lot of scams fly under the radar, _it’s not a scam, you just don’t get it_.

Outside of cryptocurrency you can look at Theranos, it raised close to a billion dollars and was fraud from top to bottom. Within the cryptocurrency world you can look at Tether.

A few hundred million in funding from cryptocurrency investors means nothing when it comes to credibility.

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

#33

Post by adnzzzzZ »

stathibus wrote: post #31
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ponzi schemes don't become ethical when they temporarily enrich people who are lower on the economic totem pole. I would argue they actually become less ethical.

People sharing in the success of a new company is not a ponzi scheme. If a company is started from nothing, is providing value, and early adopters are paid with tokens as a way to jump start the business the tokens are simply being used to extract future value into the present. In some cases there's no actual value in the future because the product isn't good, but that doesn't make it a ponzi scheme, just a poor business.

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

#34

Post by hogFeast »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #11
sodality2 wrote: post #6

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?

Saying that a non-dividend stock is a Ponzi is like saying a private business that doesn't pay dividends is a Ponzi...it misunderstands how a company works at a fundamental level.

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

#35

Post by whykun »

smoldesu wrote: post #25
reggieband wrote: post #20

> 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.

why do you think this is unethical?

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

#36

Post by hobs »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #33
stathibus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ponzi schemes don't become ethical when they temporarily enrich people who are lower on the economic totem pole. I would argue they actually become less ethical.

People sharing in the success of a new company is not a ponzi scheme. If a company is started from nothing, is providing value, and early adopters are paid with tokens as a way to jump start the business the tokens are simply being used to extract future value into the present. In some cases there's no actual value in the future because the product isn't good, but that doesn't make it a ponzi scheme, just a poor busi…

"Providing value" is doing some serious heavy lifting in that sentence - MLM/Ponzi schemes can definitely argue they "provide value" and its telling that its your metric for not being a con.

In a traditional ponzi scheme many people get paid, until the last people are left holding the bag.

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

#37

Post by anm89 »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #11
sodality2 wrote: post #6

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?

You just conceptually don't like markets. If you think the whole concept is a scam then just don't put your money in financial markets.

According to history this is not a wise move.

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

#38

Post by vmception »

enterthecrypt wrote: post #32
reggieband wrote: post #20

> 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…

> To write off this activity as a scam or criminal seems to be missing a bigger picture that we don't quite understand yet. That’s how a lot of scams fly under the radar, _it’s not a scam, you just don’t get it_. Outside of cryptocurrency you can look at Theranos, it raised close to a billion dollars and was fraud from top to bottom. Within the cryptocurrency world you can look at Tether. A few hundred million in fun…

Yeah but they clearly said revenues after the funding, which far eclipse the funding, which moves this far beyond any comparison to Theranos or high flying companies you might actually respect

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

#39

Post by bena »

wmf wrote: post #30
daenz wrote: 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.

Organized sports disagrees.

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

#40

Post by kevingadd »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #29
vertis wrote: 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.

China has already been aggressively regulating games for the last few years, in part due to how exploitative lootbox/gacha games got over there. The worst of monetized games in the West are already as bad as things were there before regulation if not worse - to a degree, any good guidelines we have here are enforced by Google and Apple for parity with Chinese rules (requirement to publish rates, etc.)

Chinese Genshin Impact players are actually more protected from exploitation than players in the US. It's wild. I suspect we'll probably see regions like Europe adopt similar regulations over time.

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