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The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

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Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#211

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

selestify wrote: post #148
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Picasso is truly scarce. The NFT is artificially scarce.

That is only true at a superficial level. In terms of high-quality art, the Picasso is artificially scarce in the sense that there are reproductions so high-quality that only experts can tell the original apart from the reproduction. Clearly it's no longer the quality of the art that matters, because the reproduction visually looks just as appealing as the originally, but the provenance. There are only so many "origi…

> In terms of high-quality art, the Picasso is artificially scarce in the sense that there are reproductions so high-quality that only experts can tell the original apart from the reproduction.

Except that those are also scarce because they take the labor of expert hands to make too. People actually would pay money for known forgeries because of it. Absent copyright law and a desire to fund the artist, no one would pay for digital art because copies are as close to free as makes no difference.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#212

Post by micromacrofoot »

initialized wrote: post #113
moron4hire wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they do it without NFTs. So what does the blockchain add here?

composability, security, persistence, liquidity

if the company that serves the image your NFT links to goes away you can completely lose access to it

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#213

Post by selestify »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #197
selestify wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because you're rich as hell and will hire an actual expert to validate the origin of the painting. Come on, you think art history experts are the ones actually buying these paintings, as opposed to rich folk with too much money?

You think just because you're rich you can't have any taste in art? Look - MBS bought that fake Da Vinci for $450M or whatever. I don't think the majority of people buying $50M+ paintings are complete morons. Maybe they are.

When did I say the rich don't have taste in art? I said the rich won't know whether they bought an original or a fake, because the fakes are high quality enough to pass as the real thing to the untrained eye. The art is worth that much not because of the aesthetics qualities, but because of the provenance and the high-status signaling and bragging rights that come with said provenance.

> Look - MBS bought that fake Da Vinci for $450M or whatever.

Case in point. That's why you hire an expert (or perhaps even a team of experts) to help you out.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#214

Post by lardo »

_xnmw wrote: post #202

For those who believe "crypto is too big to fail", or the genie is out of the bottle, or that crypto concepts have become so engrained and popular that it's not possible to stop, I'd like to point out that Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scam lasted for 30+ years. People built entire lives on his very professional-seeming "business". Scams can go on for a very long time, and very large numbers of people can build their whole l…

What about legal drugs?

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#215

Post by dustintrex »

sakopov wrote: post #195

Another interesting thing of note is that Tether made loans worth billions to Celsius with bitcoin as collateral. [1] Now, whether that's good or bad depends on whether you think Tether itself is a ponzi but it definitely has an colorful history. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/crypto-my...

It is, of course, complete coincidence that it would be really easy to offer 10% APY if somebody is selling you dollars for 90 cents each.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#216

Post by asdfsd234234444 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #112
tomp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is spending $1 000 000 on a "virtual image" (NFT) any different than spending it on a Picasso? There are equivalent/superior copies of both readily available, but some people value provenance ...

The Picasso is truly scarce. The NFT is artificially scarce.

What does that even mean? You can produce a copy of Picasso that is indistinguishable from an original. You can produce counterfeits of most "real world" items that are indistinguishable.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#217

Post by nraf »

astoor wrote: post #65
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I sometimes liken cryptocurrency coins and tokens to casino chips. They have no intrinsic value, but they do serve a purpose for some people, and drive a multi-billion industry. There are even some people who collect casino chips (exonumismatists). This analogy also suggests that they might not ever completely go away.

You could say (almost) the same thing about fiat money though...

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#218

Post by notahacker »

pjc50 wrote: post #123
hackingforfun wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vie…

> store of value is a strong use case The "change my mind" criterion for this would be actual price stability. That is, a significant market for goods and services which can be bought at a fixed crypto price over a period of a year or more with zero price variation. People getting paid salary in fixed crypto denominations. People taking out 10-year mortgages in fixed crypto denominations at interest rates comparable…

Yep. Stability is really the only gap in the market for a "store of value". Shares are fairly fungible and have a "number go up" tendency as well, but there's actual reason for their numbers to go up other than convincing more people to believe they're a share of value than believed last year.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#219

Post by [deleted] »

selestify wrote: post #148
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Picasso is truly scarce. The NFT is artificially scarce.

That is only true at a superficial level. In terms of high-quality art, the Picasso is artificially scarce in the sense that there are reproductions so high-quality that only experts can tell the original apart from the reproduction. Clearly it's no longer the quality of the art that matters, because the reproduction visually looks just as appealing as the originally, but the provenance. There are only so many "origi…

[deleted]

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#220

Post by bluehorseray »

I think people underestimate how long fraudulent / ponzi schemes can last. Madoff's ponzi scheme ($65B) went unnoticed for ~50 years until a whistleblower got the SEC to take notice, and it could have potentially gone on a while longer if that hadn't happened. There's a lot more money in the crypto-sphere, and no great way to regulate. I wouldn't be surprised if lots of these entities are able to run on for 100+ years before they implode.
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