Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

blog.chainalysis.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 364 posts

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#31

Post by mszcz »

headmelted wrote: post #27
psychlops wrote: post #23

Unless something changes dramatically, DeFi will remain a haven for scams. It tries to mimic an actual economy which has loans to businesses to pay returns (etc), but DeFi actually is a giant circular digital economy which doesn't create real world wealth.

> but DeFi actually is a giant circular digital economy which doesn't create real world wealth. Isn't this true of the entire cryptocurrency cult though?

I've used DeFi and haven't been scammed. Fees being what they are now aside, I liked the experience.

As not being scammed goes, I just avoided everything that was super new (like a project 3 days old that already has $3b in TVL), avoided things that sounded super scammy (Most recent one coming to mind being SQUID token. I mean, come on), avoided things that had no real reason to be, avoided things that I didn't really understand despite research.

My most successful investments are those made in crypto winters, during "see? crypto's over".

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#32

Post by twox2 »

nradov wrote: post #26

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.” -Gordon Gekko I have zero sympathy for the victims. Stealing from cryptocurrency weenies is almost a public service, like confiscating booze and car keys from teenagers.

Hey, so is stealing from the elderly alzheimer's patients right? They're not going to remember anyway! Dick.

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#33

Post by MengerSponge »

BoppreH wrote: post #24

This is my biggest complaint against cryptocurrencies in general. I'm happy with my bank's fraud protection. How can crypto users protect themselves without recreating traditional banking? Bitcoin was released ~13 years ago, and wallet/transaction security has been one of the most important requirements since then (along with scalability, but let's not go there). If trillion dollar market caps and god-knows-how-many…

We've seen oppressive regimes shut down cryptocurrencies when threatened by them. The remaining argument in favor of crypto boils down to "the problem with traditional currencies is that people who aren't me have too much of them"

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#34

Post by wsc981 »

BoppreH wrote: post #24

This is my biggest complaint against cryptocurrencies in general. I'm happy with my bank's fraud protection. How can crypto users protect themselves without recreating traditional banking? Bitcoin was released ~13 years ago, and wallet/transaction security has been one of the most important requirements since then (along with scalability, but let's not go there). If trillion dollar market caps and god-knows-how-many…

Well, in Germany perhaps soon some banks will hold cryptos for their clients [0]. I would imagine these banks would offer some kind of fraud protection for the crypto assets they will hold, likely at some cost.

I believe in the USA there was already some legislation passed some time ago that would allow banks to be custodians of crypto-currencies?

---

[0]: https://bitcoinethereumnews.com/crypto/two-german-banks-comm...

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#35

Post by literallyWTF »

Yeah but like, it’s going to revolutionize fiat currency via blockchain fundamentals and decentralized, high fidelity, p2p transactions!

Also, I accidentally sent money to the wrong address, is there a support number I can call to reverse that?

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#36

Post by pjc50 »

idiotsecant wrote: post #28
BoppreH wrote: post #24

This is my biggest complaint against cryptocurrencies in general. I'm happy with my bank's fraud protection. How can crypto users protect themselves without recreating traditional banking? Bitcoin was released ~13 years ago, and wallet/transaction security has been one of the most important requirements since then (along with scalability, but let's not go there). If trillion dollar market caps and god-knows-how-many…

I think the way you protect yourself is the same way people protected themselves before credit cards were widely used. By not spending your cash on things that are scams. Somehow people managed to survive before banks offered their rent seeking / fraud protection and I think they'd be OK without them if push came to shove.

Commercial banking is four centuries old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banca_Monte_dei_Paschi_di_Sien... ; the modern world is built around banking as much as it is around the limited liability corporation. The basic borrow short/lend long business of a bank is not going anywhere.

Mind you, it's worth noting that MPS had four centuries of independence before listing itself on the stockmarket and losing its independence comparatively shortly afterwards in the 2008 crisis.

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#38

Post by seoaeu »

nradov wrote: post #26

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place.” -Gordon Gekko I have zero sympathy for the victims. Stealing from cryptocurrency weenies is almost a public service, like confiscating booze and car keys from teenagers.

Taking someone's keys isn't a public service if you also steal their car.

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#39

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #30
zozin wrote: post #13

The DotCom Bubble/scam led to investor losses in excess of $5 trillion.

I guess that's from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble ? That's reported as a drop from the peak. But it doesn't necessarily reflect the real losses, in terms of initial investment. It's a number larger than the total amount of "real" M0 money in 2000, for example! Feels more like "an unrealized gain that never materialized" than "loss". I remember that time, it was just after I graduated. There was a lot o…

[deleted]

Re: Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”

#40

Post by SQueeeeeL »

pjc50 wrote: post #21

So, the question is, what's the scalability of this like? - is there exponential growth still to go, so that we might expect $70bn lost in 2022? - or is there a finite amount of victims to be scammed, after they've lost all their money the rate of scam will decline? - or is it more likely that there will be some kind of intervention?

There is always a finite amount of victims to be scammed, that is the fallacy of ponzi schemes over genuine investment strategies
Post reply on HN