Live data from Hacker News

Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

justice.gov

111–120 of 328 posts

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero because its untraceable(real world industry - underground drug markets) IRS wants to crack it and awarded $1.25 million contract: https://cointelegraph.com/news/chainalysis-and-texas-firm-wi...

This doesn't really shift my priors that the only practical use of crypto is illegal transactions.

El Salvador legalized Bitcoin for use in fee-free cross-border remittances.

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new enough to confuse people that what you're doing may be valuable?

I do thousands of transactions with thousands of people every day without committing financial crimes and without paying any fees. It's extremely valuable to my businesses. Wrenches can be used as weapons but they are also essential for plumbers.

Curious - what is your use case?

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new enough to confuse people that what you're doing may be valuable?

I do thousands of transactions with thousands of people every day without committing financial crimes and without paying any fees. It's extremely valuable to my businesses. Wrenches can be used as weapons but they are also essential for plumbers.

And fiat money can be used to deal drugs.

I mean I don't defend crypto, the way things are going is that they'll be just as regulated and centralized as digital fiat is, and a lot of it is people getting rich, or hoping to - I mean I'm one of those people, still waiting for my handful of dogecoin to go up 10.000% so I can retire. But I also have a regular job, regular savings, and regular stonks because savings account interest is a joke.

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#114
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc actually do /something/ Big if true.

You might think that the "something" "legit" crypto does isn't a good solution even though it IS doing "something". Bitcoin works as a distributed ledger, depending on your view that might be a solution in search if a problem but it's still something.

"Working as a distribute ledger" is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It's a tool.

What is that tool useful for that isn't better served by other tools?

That is the question that has never been answered, at least not to my satisfaction.

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new enough to confuse people that what you're doing may be valuable?

I do thousands of transactions with thousands of people every day without committing financial crimes and without paying any fees. It's extremely valuable to my businesses. Wrenches can be used as weapons but they are also essential for plumbers.

[deleted]

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#116
post #26

Crypto may well be the biggest solution looking for a problem I've ever seen. Apart from the obvious issues (eg energy expenditure) the one myth that needs to die about crypto is that it is extragovernmental and indictments such as this and the Bitfinex laundering case recently should underline that. The simple fact is that the developed world could shut down what little utility cryptocurrencies (and NFTs) have tomor…

there is that expression, morality is how people think the world _should_ be, economics is the reality of how it _really_ is the problem = lack of investment options, stagnant wages, inflating cost of living, being priced out solution = gambling on crypto and making some money speaking as a millenial. honestly crypto is the only way could ever dream of buying a house. ive been working 15 years and saved 150k. average…

Everything is inflated and has been bid up. Cryptos are certainly no exception, it's only gotten worse in the last two years with all the FOMO they fostered and salesman that gathered to profit off my disillusioned generation. To each their own, but I think the idea that TINA to crypto is plain silly, yet I know more people (am millennial) owning crypto than stocks, always with this notion that TINA. At least with stocks you're still entitled to legal ownership of cashflows, with cryptocurrencies today you merely get a late entrance ticket to a digital commodity that might have monetary value, but trades like just another risk-on asset.

The S&P500 will always look like a 90 degree angle on a long enough timeline, that's just how exponentials work. And it is by definition exponential as earnings compound, a quality cryptos do not possess. But it is ironic to hold that against it when 5-year charts in the crypto world look as they do.

Time will tell which way it resolves I guess.

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#117
post #44

Nice job. Now if only some people would see the difference between an actual ponzi scheme like this one and bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. That would be nice.

The common characteristic is that "early adopters" get disproportionately large returns compared to later adopters. Indeed those later adopters are financing the exit of the participants who "got in first". In this way it's like a Ponzi scheme, but the same could be said for stocks. You might call the above a simplification; that is fine -- my point is that this is a (inaccurate) linguistic shorthand -- calling somet…

If we compare crypto to stocks, then Bitcoin is Apple and Bitconnect is Theranos.

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#118
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can argue about what constitutes a proper Ponzi scheme, but the idea that the promotion of crypto thus far has existed to allow early adopters to cash out at the apparent expense of later adopters, while bringing essentially no other utility to any of its backers or the public at large, is pretty obvious.

This is just plainly not the definition of a ponzi scheme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

That’s just semantics at this point. I would encourage you to address the statement being made and ignore the technical definition of the phrase. To restate without the offending phrase:

[T]he idea that the promotion of crypto thus far has existed to allow early adopters to cash out at the apparent expense of later adopters, while bringing essentially no other utility to any of its backers or the public at large, is pretty obvious.

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll ask you the same question I ask everyone who spouts nonsense - when it turns out you're wrong, will you care? Or is possessing this worldview somehow intrinsically satisfying to you, regardless of reality?

1) What exactly would I be wrong about? A good test for cognitive dissonance is comparing your predictions to reality, and I do not believe that I ever stated that BitCoin is inevitably going to become the most important currency in the world. I think crypto is great conceptually (which will never be not true) and that it may or may not succeed in the marketplace. Bitcoin itself may not succeed long-term even if cryp…

> If crypto fails because it's effectively legislated out of existence, that would be hard to see that as anything but a vindication of the concept.

If the concept is "decentralized payments are resistant to government intervention", then wouldn't the government killing crypto be proof that the concept failed?

Re: Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cryptocurrency is the solution for a very valuable problem. How do you commit financial crimes and frauds in a way just new enough to confuse people that what you're doing may be valuable?

I do thousands of transactions with thousands of people every day without committing financial crimes and without paying any fees. It's extremely valuable to my businesses. Wrenches can be used as weapons but they are also essential for plumbers.

What these critics don't tell you is that the transactions of these cryptocurrencies are traceable and transparent making the majority of many cryptocurrencies pointless to use for 'committing financial crimes'.

Otherwise, why do you think that these criminals are turning to privacy coins like Monero and MobileCoin, etc?

Post reply on HN