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Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme

justice.gov

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

#251

Post by everfree »

NeutralForest wrote: post #60
samarama wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why the vast majority of L1s are not proof of work.

Yet Bitcoin is still considered the OG token and a "true" cryptocurrency as mentioned above and not old dangerous tech. Also in the last 10 years, only a handful of tokens have had a somewhat usable blockchain which grinds to a halt anytime people share pictures of cats or monkeys and we're told to wait for another year or two for an update to whatever protocol is trendy at the moment. Rinse and repeat every year. Al…

> Yet Bitcoin is still considered the OG token and a "true" cryptocurrency as mentioned above and not old dangerous tech.

The solution to that is to educate people on how Bitcoin is old dangerous tech, not to throw out all other blockchains along with Bitcoin.

> a somewhat usable blockchain which grinds to a halt anytime people share pictures of cats or monkeys

These chains don't "grind to a halt" in any sense of that phrase, they dynamically price a scarce resource (block space). The chain runs at 100% capacity during these spikes in demand.

> we're told to wait for another year or two for an update to whatever protocol is trendy at the moment. Rinse and repeat every year.

Every few years, cryptocurrencies upgrade their capacity using new technology, and every few years, enough new people start using them to saturate the new, higher capacity. There's nothing contradictory about that.

> Also also, every other year a cryptocurrency comes along and professes to be the second coming of God with solutions to problems with don't have.

Every other year a traditional tech company also comes along and professes to be the second coming of God with solutions to problems we don't have. But we don't judge Apple based on the failure of Juicero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

> So no, not interested.

You have a right to not be interested, but you're choosing to share your take, and your take is incorrect.

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

#252

Post by everfree »

rsstack wrote: post #27
cinntaile wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're moving the goal posts. It's fine to be against cryptocurrencies, but I think it damages your credibility when you claim bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. Since it shows a lack of understanding of what a ponzi scheme actually is. By you I don't mean you in particular, I mean it in a more general sense.

From Wikipedia: A Ponzi scheme (/ˈpɒnzi/, Italian: [ˈpontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors.[1] The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can mainta…

> The scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds.

I think that's the key part that contradicts Bitcoin. Nobody believes that Bitcoin is a business that generates profits, and everyone is aware that when they cash out, other investors are the source of funds.

There's no illusion of a business, and no assets that are promised to exist but don't.

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

#253

Post by CPLX »

throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #209
Hallucinaut wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's grossly untrue to say it's a Ponzi scheme "like stocks" which are part ownership in companies that actually sell things in the real world and are valued by the present value of their future expected cash flows, rather than cryptocurrencies which have no such relationship to the real world, and some would argue are valued entirely on the premise of returns that can only be sustained by finding the next sucker.

Blockchains (like eth and its alternatives) sell blocks (compute with a ledger). Those blocks "have value" to the people who build things on them like NFT's, defi, ponzi schemes, etc... One can argue that those applications don't have value, are scams, are unethical but people are paying a lot of money for those blocks on a daily basis; and holders of those L1 tokens benefit from that value. If you think of eth as a…

But the product being sold in this example is a season ticket, not an NFT.

The NFT part of the product has no relevance to why it’s valuable. The valuable part is the promise by the event organizer to save a spot for you.

Every major sports team has had this product for decades. It’s literally the same thing as having season tickets to the White Sox or something. The blockchain has added no value to the transaction.

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

#254

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29
deadalus wrote: post #11

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...

Do you need to crack it if the government can be a majority hashrate of the miner pool? One need not crack it to control it. You'd be able to double spend, mine empty blocks, orphan blocks from other miners, etc. Just need to get to and sustain 51% of the hash pool, which sounds trivial considering nation state compute resources.

[deleted]

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

#255

Post by everfree »

mdoms wrote: post #216
cinntaile wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely cryptocurrencies out there that are scams, but big ones like ethereum and bitcoin for example are not. This is besides the point though.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are scams.

Why?

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

#256

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #254
toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need to crack it if the government can be a majority hashrate of the miner pool? One need not crack it to control it. You'd be able to double spend, mine empty blocks, orphan blocks from other miners, etc. Just need to get to and sustain 51% of the hash pool, which sounds trivial considering nation state compute resources.

[deleted]

[deleted]

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

#258

Post by leeoniya »

CPLX wrote: post #253
throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blockchains (like eth and its alternatives) sell blocks (compute with a ledger). Those blocks "have value" to the people who build things on them like NFT's, defi, ponzi schemes, etc... One can argue that those applications don't have value, are scams, are unethical but people are paying a lot of money for those blocks on a daily basis; and holders of those L1 tokens benefit from that value. If you think of eth as a…

But the product being sold in this example is a season ticket, not an NFT. The NFT part of the product has no relevance to why it’s valuable. The valuable part is the promise by the event organizer to save a spot for you. Every major sports team has had this product for decades. It’s literally the same thing as having season tickets to the White Sox or something. The blockchain has added no value to the transaction.

> The blockchain has added no value to the transaction.

it does make it impossible to make and sell fakes?

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

#259

Post by codebje »

pid-1 wrote: post #230
tenuousemphasis wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exchanges can be regulated, but good luck trying to regulate a global peer to peer network!

Look at bittorrent. While it's impossible to kill it, targeting agregation platforms definitely made the protocol immensely less relevant than it was 20 years ago.

BitTorrent made itself less relevant by relying on end to end networking and symmetrical links, neither of which panned out.

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

#260

Post by Ekaros »

cinntaile wrote: post #2

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.

I keep being annoyed that people keep throwing ponzi at things that really aren't that. Words has meaning and Ponzi describe certain kind of scheme. Not a scam in general...
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