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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

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto speaks to aspects of humanity which people hold near and dear. Crypto no doubt harbors shady characters, ponzi schemes, scams. You also can't deny that there are ideas which threaten state control, monetary policy, nationalistic ideals, religion its self. Just look at the magnitude of the conversation. Its easy to dismiss me as the ramblings of somebody caught up in the scam. But when has it been a good idea t…

> You also can't deny that there are ideas which threaten state control, monetary policy, nationalistic ideals, religion its self. Phew. Yeah, we all felt that. In 2010. Now while we're reminiscing the past, I know another one! Lets provocatively ask: Isn't the colossal energy wasting worth freedom and all? - So exciting, wasn't it? And don't get me started on Wikileaks donations! Reality has moved on, and nothing sc…

Crypto is not just Bitcoin, and crypto is not just Proof-Of-Work. Other blockchains who can be just as decentralized and censorship-resistant exist.

(In the spirit of DRY, I think it is time we collectively write all an adversarial collaboration about crypto on some wiki page. Then I can at least just respond with a link to the rebuttal of the same tired and lazy arguments that crypto-skeptics make)

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#322
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it's a good rule of thumb to assume that anyone who guarantees returns greater than the historical return of the S&P 500 is a ponzi scheme.

I don't know of a single reputable bank, hedge fund or publicly traded company that does that.

A huge number of places do have high returns from time to time. But any reputable firm points out that past returns do not guarantee future results. No reputable firm guarantees returns that high in the future.

The key is the guarantee.

Anyone who GUARANTEES returns that high in the future is suspect, and therefore must be more transparent than usual in order to clear the bar. The article indicates that Celsius was less transparent than usual in describing exactly how they made their high returns.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

> What the fuck is good about that?

I think it's more an economic incentive for digital creators who have historically been nickel and dimed every step of the way trying to monetize their work.

> As a consumer why do you want to pay for things that have zero marginal cost?

The value for a consumer is less about paying and more about earning (which sounds dystopic to some, but is very exciting imo). And beyond that, layered experiences mean you could get an item / art / skin / etc and carry it through disparate digital worlds. One could imagine a world where no longer are you playing one game with one set of items, but are instead able to carry your stuff into multiple experiences.

Another point here: NFTs don't have to come into existance through some payment. E.g. playing an MMO and boss drops are NFTs, or by watching some sports game you're given an NFT (or in that case more correctly referred to as a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol)). This likely has no monetary value, but is more a social signalling device to show you care about something / did something in the past.

> Why would anyone ever buy an "experience" NFT for something they didn't experience?

Here I'm referring to digital experiences like concerts, parties, tours, AMAs, etc. where there is some set of rules to obtain the entry pass (in NFT form).

> 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

If people could altruistically create high-quality content and earn a living that way I'd agree with you. But, as we've seen with microtransactions, the model is changing as the world spends more and more time in digital 'spaces.' There is value in paying creators, and you're welcome to not participate if this isn't your cup of tea

Overall I think we're coming into this with different images of the future- agree to disagree and I hope it's less dystopic than it could be.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#324
post #69

Lending money (with interest obviously) is a ponzi scheme. It's not surprising to be honest, and this shouldn't be news. We've known this for literally thousands of years now. It has nothing to do with crypto currencies per se.

Ponzi schemes don't lend money to anyone, they just shuffle money from late investors to early investors.

[deleted]

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto speaks to aspects of humanity which people hold near and dear. Crypto no doubt harbors shady characters, ponzi schemes, scams. You also can't deny that there are ideas which threaten state control, monetary policy, nationalistic ideals, religion its self. Just look at the magnitude of the conversation. Its easy to dismiss me as the ramblings of somebody caught up in the scam. But when has it been a good idea t…

There is nothing wrong with the global financial system. I can already send money electronically to anyone by way of bank transfer. In Europe, it's even easier, faster and cheaper than sending crypto.

Indeed, and wiring money overseas has also never been easier. I regularly send money from Norway to family in Africa using online remittance services (there's quite a few to pick from) and it usually takes less than 15 minutes for the money to go through (and they get a pick up notice from their bank). Because of competition, the FX rates are very good. No crypto involved.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

composability, security, persistence, liquidity

>composability Not sure what you mean by this. >security The opposite in fact. If a hacker takes over your second life account and transfers your property you can bug customer support to get it back. If they compromise your secret key and transfer it over the blockchain you have no recourse. Unless the true source of ownership lives somewhere off blockchain and they invalidate and reissue it to the original owner, bu…

>> composability

> Not sure what you mean by this.

Yeah, I wasn't sure, either. My only clue was that there are some NFT proponents that talk about different applications using NFTs as content in the app. But that's just URLs. There's no need for the blockchain to do that. And when you start talking about things that go beyond simple aesthetics, like NFT game items/cards/weapons/etc., there are a lot of problems that either don't go away or are made worse by the fact that there is a supposed "real world value" and "ownership" tied to the objects.

There are a number of NFT Tradable Card Game projects in the works right now. And they sell themselves on the premise that players "own" the cards, and that the cards can be taken "elsewhere". But I think it pretty clearly starts to fall apart when you consider that digital TCG cards have no value outside of a game application in which you can play them, that said value is dependent on the game app not nerfing the card stats or the interpretation of the card stats, or debasing the value of existing cards by releasing new packs of more powerful cards, and that there is no incentive to any app accepting cards minted outside of their own structure.

Wizards of the Coast owns Magic the Gathering. I can't make MtG cards and call them MtG cards without violating WotC's trademark. I can't produce copies of MtG cards or the rules of MtG without violating WotC's copyright. Any cards I create that are not a part of MtG's ruleset are meaningless in the context of the cards inside MtG's ruleset. Regardless of those issues, WotC's incentives are to control the balance of the game in such a way that keeps people buying cards from them, so they have no incentive to interoperate with any of my cards, as they could potentially upset the balance of the game. And finally, WotC is well-known for deprecating old cards (if it's not usable in the game, then what value does it have?) and releasing new decks that make old decks worthless (a card's value is only definable in relation to how well it plays against other cards).

The NFT-ness of any of those cards doesn't change any of those issues. If anything, where MtG players can subvert WotC's shenanigans is in playing house-rules versions of the game. Which, again, won't be possible in an online, digital version because of copyright and trademark issues. So where physical TCGs have an out for groups of friendly players, because you have actual, physical ownership of those pieces of paper, NFT TCGs remove that ability, because they are useless outside of the context of a large, legally-targetable entity capable of deploying a competing application. It's as if you bought MtG cards, but the only place you were allowed to play with them were at WotC-sanctioned events.

And that doesn't get into the concept of the "value" of special versions of cards, like foil finishes, which are no different from standard versions of the cards outside of strict aesthetics. You may have bought a token that says you have access to play that foil card, but you don't have rights to the digital asset file, © WotC.

One of the key components of a concept of ownership is the ability to exclude others from access to the thing that is owned. NFTs do not provide any concept of exclusivity of the actual asset, only of the token. It becomes a Prisoners' Dillema in which the only way the system works is if no actors within it defect and take the assets without acknowledging the "legitimacy" of the token or the blockchain as an authority.

It's particularly funny to me to see the drain-swirling relationship to TCGs that crypto-* has had over the years. First with Mt. Gox (which was not a mountain named Gox, it was Magic The Gathering Online eXchange) becoming a crypto-exchange, then the controversies there, now NFT TCGs ala MtG.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto speaks to aspects of humanity which people hold near and dear. Crypto no doubt harbors shady characters, ponzi schemes, scams. You also can't deny that there are ideas which threaten state control, monetary policy, nationalistic ideals, religion its self. Just look at the magnitude of the conversation. Its easy to dismiss me as the ramblings of somebody caught up in the scam. But when has it been a good idea t…

There is nothing wrong with the global financial system. I can already send money electronically to anyone by way of bank transfer. In Europe, it's even easier, faster and cheaper than sending crypto.

Nothing wrong in your perspective? How fortunate for you.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#328

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…

Crypto is a very volatile asset, it doesn't seem good for actually storing value. It would be great if the demand was organic and driven by consumption. This could stabilize the price. Right now it's mostly speculative.

Do you think that it's possible that as the market cap of crypto grows, the volatility goes down? I believe this applies to traditional markets as well. It just takes more money to sway the price.

Also if people see value in it, vs other assets, wouldn't they want to hold it, so wouldn't value be stored in it? Curious if you have any thoughts about that.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 vie…

To be clear, what I said was that the real-world uses of crypto-as-a-medium-of-exchange are almost all tied to criminal activity.

I didn't say anything at all about crypto-as-a-store-of-value. Like any fiat currency, crypto has value iff people think it has value, no surprises there. At the moment, crypto's value is heavily tied to speculation about massive increases in its future value, which is not sustainable in the long term and is the biggest blocker for the medium-of-exchange usecase.

I have nothing against the idea of crypto - it's a good idea, especially with the stuff built on top of it around smart contracts, and the technology is neat - but until it stabilizes at predictable exchange rates it will never be used by the unsophisticated masses as a medium of exchange.

Re: The biggest crypto lending company is a ponzi scheme

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with the global financial system. I can already send money electronically to anyone by way of bank transfer. In Europe, it's even easier, faster and cheaper than sending crypto.

Indeed, and wiring money overseas has also never been easier. I regularly send money from Norway to family in Africa using online remittance services (there's quite a few to pick from) and it usually takes less than 15 minutes for the money to go through (and they get a pick up notice from their bank). Because of competition, the FX rates are very good. No crypto involved.

You have a comfortable life. Many don't. Side note: what appears to be instantaneous settlement in fact, is not.
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