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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

#271

Post by notahacker »

marcinjachymiak wrote: post #117
vesinisa wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So instead of actually debunking his arguments you published a handwavy reply? I very much think that if someone is offering insanely high ROIs but does not divulge how the value is created, you can safely assume it's a scam, and simply pointing out the disparity suffices as proof to me at least.

I don't know what happens behind the scenes at Celsius. I do know there are many ways to get those high ROIs in DeFi. With zero evidence suggesting they are lying about returns, the charitable guess I can make is that they are getting high DeFi returns and giving their customers slightly lower ones after taking a cut.

There may well be many ways to get ROIs in excess of 12.68%. There are also many ways to obtain investment capital on better terms than a fixed 12.68% APR, especially if you're really, really good at investing. And if you want as much USDC as possible it's even odder to lend some of it back out at 1%!

I guess the charitable explanation for them raising capital as expensively as possible from randoms on the internet is they're feeling charitable themselves. I seem to remember that was how all the pre-crypto HYIP "investments" explained the generosity of their compounding daily return offers

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#272

Post by berberous »

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.

My friend has a real Picasso. It’s a lithograph print, one of maybe 30+ of that image. It’s worth maybe $5k only. How is that scarcity any truer than an NFT? Picasso could have printed as many as he wanted, and indeed, printed so many that the value today is not very high.

In both cases, an artist merely places their “this is official” stamp on something that is effectively a copy, and limits the number of copies available based on the desired economics for their work. And the fact that the “official” version is worth more than a “fake”, is merely because humans value genuineness and provenance, even when the end product is indiscernibly different.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#273

Post by [deleted] »

twox2 wrote: post #250
ericd wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They forgot to mention the widespread vested interest by the large number of speculators to deny/downplay the issues in every discussion ;-)

Indeed, I'm one of those folks to some extent. I've made good money from crypto. I'm not here to downplay the issues, in fact I admit there are MANY issues. That doesn't mean I brush off the whole thing as a scam or a ponzi. EDIT: PS. I don't know much about celsius, and it might in fact be a ponzi. I'm referring to brushing off crypto as ponzi.

[deleted]

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#274

Post by giantrobot »

rodiger wrote: post #107
marcan_42 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd because if you have a car, someone else doesn't have a car, and the car has intrinsic usefulness. Having the car in your name isn't valuable in and of itself; it's valuable because it allows you to claim the car as your own, and the car is useful and can only be moved, not copied. Having a JPEG as your own isn't valuable, because JPEGs can be infinitely copied at zero cost. The title for the artwork doesn…

It's more about the token than the JPEG. Gated experiences, communities, in-game items, in-game art, etc is the driving force. And for digitally-native art, there's never been a better way to sell/trade it while preserving provenance. People are betting on the fact that we'll spend more and more of our time in digital spaces, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad bet.

> Gated experiences, communities, in-game items, in-game art, etc is the driving force. And for digitally-native art, there's never been a better way to sell/trade it while preserving provenance.

It's a bunch of unnecessary synthetic scarcity. What the fuck is good about that? Why do you want to sign on to a model where you're going to be nickel and dimed for everything you see?

As a consumer why do you want to pay for things that have zero marginal cost? What value do you get for buying an NFT to an image or virtual item that costs nothing to reproduce? You're not buying the copyright or any exclusive license to the things.

Why would anyone ever buy an "experience" NFT for something they didn't experience? So they can be known to be a poser and a sucker so long as the blockchain exists?

NFTs are just a way to enforce a class system in a virtual environment where there's no inherent system of haves and have-nots. Not only that but it's a system where an infinitude of intermediaries can extract payment out of any secondary market. It's sad that you're excited to participate in such needless rent seeking.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#275

Post by namdnay »

_xnmw wrote: post #261
nprz wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Schmidt just joined ChainLink as a Strategic Advisor[0]. If crypto is such an obvious scam like so many hn readers believe to be the case, why would someone like Schmidt ruin his reputation by joining a crypto company? [0] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/former-google-ceo-e...

Even Bernie Madoff had highly respectable people working with him. edit: removed my comment about Schmidt not really joining, I see it announced on his Twitter.

If I understand correctly, Chainlink are selling "blockchain magic" to enterprise customers. Not exactly the same thing as the ponzi lending stuff

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#276

Post by [deleted] »

_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…

[deleted]

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#277

Post by [deleted] »

roywiggins wrote: post #138
popol12 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Plus, if you deposit Eth on Aave, it's not for the 1% returns but because it then allows you to borrow other coins which you can use somewhere else in DeFi, where it can bring you much higher returns (convex/curve for instance). I'm amazed that this guy wrote such a big article on a topic he obviously doesn't fully understand.

The problem is that every Ponzi insists that their critics just don't understand their special sauce that generates their phony returns.

[deleted]

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#278

Post by max48 »

roywiggins wrote: post #138
popol12 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Plus, if you deposit Eth on Aave, it's not for the 1% returns but because it then allows you to borrow other coins which you can use somewhere else in DeFi, where it can bring you much higher returns (convex/curve for instance). I'm amazed that this guy wrote such a big article on a topic he obviously doesn't fully understand.

The problem is that every Ponzi insists that their critics just don't understand their special sauce that generates their phony returns.

The problem is also that people are using the word "ponzi" to describe every investment they think is bad and/or don't understand. offering high rates doesn't automatically means it's a ponzi. With the definition that some of you are using here, literally every single bank, currency, edge fund and all publicly traded companies would be a ponzi.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#279

Post by [deleted] »

roywiggins wrote: post #138
popol12 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Plus, if you deposit Eth on Aave, it's not for the 1% returns but because it then allows you to borrow other coins which you can use somewhere else in DeFi, where it can bring you much higher returns (convex/curve for instance). I'm amazed that this guy wrote such a big article on a topic he obviously doesn't fully understand.

The problem is that every Ponzi insists that their critics just don't understand their special sauce that generates their phony returns.

[deleted]

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#280

Post by notahacker »

asdfsd234234444 wrote: post #216
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You can produce a copy of Picasso that is indistinguishable from an original.

I can't, but will happily pay anyone that can considerably more than the Ethereum gas fees involved in minting an NFT copy of something.

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