So I have a friend putting his Crypto into Nexo.io and I am 100% sure these are scammers as well, promising of up to 20% yields per annum.
How can I find out and warn him (with more data)?
The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
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Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a huge fan of the the current cryptocurrency scene, but I think it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange and store of value in unstable parts of the globe for years to come.
> it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange The only current usecase I'm aware of for crypto as a medium of exchange is for criminals, i.e. ransomware / extortion / etc.
When your country's currency is shit. you would probably view it differently.
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a huge fan of the the current cryptocurrency scene, but I think it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange and store of value in unstable parts of the globe for years to come.
> it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange The only current usecase I'm aware of for crypto as a medium of exchange is for criminals, i.e. ransomware / extortion / etc.
I see this point rehashed on HN over and over. I'd love if there was a more productive discussion of cryptocurrencies. I don't think they are going away anytime soon. Too many technologists and others are thinking about them now. I personally think store of value is a strong use case, at least for those of us who consider them to have value.
Just wondering, what would it take for you (and others who share similar views) to change your mind about crypto? How long does the technology need to be around to be validated? Would you feel better about the space if it was regulated (which would bring scams, manipulation, and illicit activity down), or would you still think it's all nonsense?
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#74We keep expecting crypto to die but then again, we still have antivirus software that is spyware (avast), a scammy vpn industry, and a thriving anti vax movement. No matter how absurd it is, it might stick around for a long time now
I look at it like the lottery or casinos. I'm not a gambler exceptthe occasionalpoker game with friends, and I abhor casinos, but they make billions(?) Of dollars. Everyone has got Crypto figured out! They've read all the reports, and keep up with the graphs and this time! This time! The funny thing is, I clicked on a few articles about NFT's and the metaverse because I was interested in the programming behind it and…
except the business model for casinos and lotteries is pretty simple: straight-forward mariginal odds that favour the house and maximize throughput. This is not the case with crypto.
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#75Crypto and NFT is one big ponzi scheme. Who on earth is spending $000,000s on a virtual ship? I sense it is a case of somebody close to the NFT or virtual world buying the asset and making out it is a great thing and then selling it on quickly. Many a scam involves somebody from the group buying something so the unwilling feel like it safe. As always, don't be left holding the baby.
Why do people on HN assume that if they don’t find something valuable, others shouldn’t either.
I think of NFTs like car titles.
Having the car title in your name is the only way to prove you own a car. Someone can burrow your car, and have it in their possession but that doesn’t make them the owner - the title does. When you buy a car, what you’re really buying is a little paper that says you’re the owner - without it, you’re just renting.
NFTs work the same but for digital items. When you buy an NFT, you’re really buying the title for that artwork. Sure, people can copy and paste a JPEG, but they can’t take the title from you - Just like possesing a car without a title doesn’t make you the owner.
The concept of an NFT isn’t absurd, it’s a digital version of a real world use case we all rely on daily to prove ownership.
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#76We keep expecting crypto to die but then again, we still have antivirus software that is spyware (avast), a scammy vpn industry, and a thriving anti vax movement. No matter how absurd it is, it might stick around for a long time now
I'm not a huge fan of the the current cryptocurrency scene, but I think it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange and store of value in unstable parts of the globe for years to come.
Yep agreed, and other underlying applications (NFTs as evidence of group membership or ownership that can be easily owned and transferred, an auditable historical record) have a lot of value.
The ability to hold decentralized state is a resilient way is pretty cool and a lot of the finance applications are better than legacy stuff - try sending large amounts of money around in the legacy system, expect to wait several days for every action.
HN people can continue to cynically dismiss it, but the nice thing about economic bets is it doesn't really matter. Those that see the value will become rich anyway. There are always people dismissing any new thing - the value of that signal is near zero.
I'm excited about what kind incentive alignment we might be able to achieve with programmable money. The city coins stuff I think is pretty cool, maybe a way out of NIMBY type incentive problems. There's a ton of stuff that's being figured out on the frontier - it's exciting. Like I imagine the web was like in 1999 (with the good, and as potentially the case in the OP's article, the bad).
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#77I'm not a fan or user of Celsius, but this is an incredibly inflammatory title with very little evidence to back it up. Claims like that demand greater proof. This is an incredibly lazy article
The author pretty much failed to do any research on DeFi investments (point 3 in the OP). Compound and Aave are just 2 of many places investors place their assets, and are definitely near the lower end of APYs. Badger, which Celsius has already said they used, offers much higher returns. So do other projects like e.g. Convex Finance.
Where do these high APYs come from? Well a lot of it is coming from incentives of these protocols and speculation in those native assets. But the author doesn't even know that, so I won't bother steelmanning his argument
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a huge fan of the the current cryptocurrency scene, but I think it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange and store of value in unstable parts of the globe for years to come.
It will remain a very useful medium of exchange? Are you saying that today it is a very useful medium of exchange? Are you using it that way?
it's really great at that compared to competing products
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#79Crypto and NFT is one big ponzi scheme. Who on earth is spending $000,000s on a virtual ship? I sense it is a case of somebody close to the NFT or virtual world buying the asset and making out it is a great thing and then selling it on quickly. Many a scam involves somebody from the group buying something so the unwilling feel like it safe. As always, don't be left holding the baby.
You obviously don't understand any of this. Is USD not a ponzi scheme? Is Quantitative Easing not a ponzi scheme? Is MMT not a ponzi scheme?
So, what your saying is cryto needs an army...
Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a huge fan of the the current cryptocurrency scene, but I think it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange and store of value in unstable parts of the globe for years to come.
> it will remain very useful as a medium of exchange The only current usecase I'm aware of for crypto as a medium of exchange is for criminals, i.e. ransomware / extortion / etc.
Having raised this point in the past, the other example of where goods are priced in crypto that has come up recently is NFTs.