Live data from Hacker News

Insider Trading at Coinbase

twitter.com

141–150 of 348 posts

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you make a personal attack based on a discussion about an industry? I didn't think this was a flame war, more a discussion about the crypto industry - I'm not upset, I'm just bored because I'm stuck in hospital with little to do. This is a tech forum, so is it not the right place to discuss tech industries and opinions thereof? I'm not even in the minority in thinking the crypto industry is unproductive and…

> I guess you could have that opinion if you wanted. Yes, and that opinion of mine, WITHOUT USEFUL EVIDENCE, is worthless. It's no benefit to this community That's exactly my point, this mode of discussion is totally unproductive. It's spam. It's just tribal ranting. Sorry to hear you're in hospital. Hope you're feeling better soon

I guess that depends on the point of the community - to my understanding, the point is to discuss. Reasoned discussions are based on arguments and observations, not just evidence and citations. I don't even know what kind of evidence you can bring up for something of this scale - it's not like the are metastudies on where people allocate capital within the crypto market, and what the outcomes aside from wealth transfer. It's a more systemic thing.

I don't even understand how people can argue against this. Do you have the perception that most people are buying coins for reasons other than to sell them again for profit? The only types of studies I find are self-referential in that they report on market size.

The reason I discuss the subject at all is I'm hoping that one day somebody gives me the piece of information I'm missing that shows that the crypto industry isn't just everybody trying to get rich while burning tons of fossil fuels, that there are reasonably positive outcomes from it. So far I just get a lot of angry reactions and accusations of having no proof, despite this not being a court case. Like, show me something good that's been made because of crypto! It's the easiest argument in the world to win.

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#143

Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. You really can’t make this up. Embrace this. It’s exactly what crypto is all about.

Coinbase is an SEC “compliant” company. What specifically about this company is “deregulated”?

There are very few compliance rules to begin with for this space. I'd imagine that the compliance department at Coinbase is just a dead goldfish

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think crypto fans want transparency and an equal playing field, and are more afraid of things like regulatory corruption and markets that are not open to them. It is not clear that "regulated finance" prevents comically unfair outcomes either. You still have insider trading that is legally protected, discriminatory rules like accredited investor qualifications, and abuse of the legal system by the rich to avoid reg…

Um, being an accredited investor gives you exposure to investments that aren’t transparent. You don’t get the same access to financial statements as with public companies. If you want more transparent investments then you should be advocating for reforms that will encourage companies to go public sooner. This would be reversing the trend in recent years where companies stay private longer, which allows them to not di…

Accredited investor rules was an example of not having a even playing field. The market is not open to everyone which contributes to unfair outcomes. I'd welcome reforms to transparency as well there, as lack of transparency also contributes to unfair outcomes (the company can exploit investors).

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#145
post #24
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern society would collapse if insider trading was legal. It would about as well as making bribery legal.

> It would about as well as making bribery legal. You mean like how lobbying is legal in the US?

We don't just have a system of legalized bribery, we have a system of mandatory bribery. Campaign finance says: haven't collected your bribe quota from well-heeled causes? No public office for you.

Nice.

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. I’m curious as to where you’ve seen this sentiment from crypto fans? It seems most of the people getting angry about this are people who already disliked crypto and are using this event to add more fuel to the flames.

I doubt non crypto fans are doing investigatory research into Coinbase insider crypto purchases and complaining about it on Twitter, Reddit, and HN. Just a hunch.

Do you think cobie is mad here? Or implying he wants more regulation?

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#147
post #128

Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. You really can’t make this up. Embrace this. It’s exactly what crypto is all about.

A lot of the rah-rah boosterism of "decentralization" is coming from VCs that saw how much money there is to be made by ignoring laws and regulations for long enough. Airbnb and Uber are the most brazen examples of this. What's left unsaid of course is that the only interest deep-pocketed investors have in dismantling elements of the financial system (MC/Visa dominance, KYC/AML checks, suspicious transactions disclos…

I think this is the expected cycle of business long term.

1. Entrepreneur notices an opportunity to avoid overzealous regulations and provide better value to customers

2. Everyone wants a piece of the action, bad actors start to move in and updated regulation is required

3. New regulations get out of hand and start to become extremely costly to comply with (see banks)

4. New entrepreneur comes along with a novel way of avoiding said regulations, providing better value to customers again. Repeat.

At any given point in time the industry is either in cowboy crypto mode, or crusty overregulated bank mode. Both have drawbacks, and it’s just a pendulum that swings back and forth.

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Calling me names is definitely not something that gets your point across. Pretty sure as we stand you have zero proff for your anti-crypto statements and are resorting to name calling. Definitely something frowned upon by HN.

If you want to say I have no proof that's fine, but I draw the line at sarcastic insults. So don't do that and I won't insult you back.

I haven't collected evidence for my point because I'm not trying to make a court case - I've observed that most people seem to use crypto as a speculative investment, buying coins just to sell them to somebody else who's doing the same. Have you seen otherwise? Like, I don't want to have this negative perception of the industry, I generally prefer to see positive outcomes from these things, but I haven't observed much positive being produced from the industry. Surely if you're a big fan of the industry, you can demonstrate something good about it?

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#149
post #128

Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. You really can’t make this up. Embrace this. It’s exactly what crypto is all about.

A lot of the rah-rah boosterism of "decentralization" is coming from VCs that saw how much money there is to be made by ignoring laws and regulations for long enough. Airbnb and Uber are the most brazen examples of this. What's left unsaid of course is that the only interest deep-pocketed investors have in dismantling elements of the financial system (MC/Visa dominance, KYC/AML checks, suspicious transactions disclos…

The concept of visa/mastercard was also largely unregulated at the time they launched. Take a look at the history of visa article on wikipeida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.#History

Visa was not the first, and other tries to do a credit/charge before them were much worse or limited in scope. This is similar today to what is happening in web3/crypto. If you don't think the ingenuity of humans will get us somewhere productive with these technologies, then I don't know what to say to you.

Quotes from the article about the launch of visa:

> In the weeks leading up to the launch of BankAmericard, BofA had saturated Fresno mailboxes with an initial mass mailing (or "drop", as they came to be called) of 65,000 unsolicited credit cards

> By March 1959, drops began in San Francisco and Sacramento; by June, BofA was dropping cards in Los Angeles; by October, the entire state of California had been saturated with over 2 million credit cards and BankAmericard was being accepted by 20,000 merchants.[18] However, the program was riddled with problems, as Williams (who had never worked in a bank's loan department) had been too earnest and trusting in his belief in the basic goodness of the bank's customers, and he resigned in December 1959. Twenty-two percent of accounts were delinquent, not the 4% expected, and police departments around the state were confronted by numerous incidents of the brand new crime of credit card fraud.[19] Both politicians and journalists joined the general uproar against Bank of America and its newfangled credit card, especially when it was pointed out that the cardholder agreement held customers liable for all charges, even those resulting from fraud.

Re: Insider Trading at Coinbase

#150

Crypto fans want deregulated finance. Crypto fans get mad when deregulated finance is comically unfair. You really can’t make this up. Embrace this. It’s exactly what crypto is all about.

Coinbase is an SEC “compliant” company. What specifically about this company is “deregulated”?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN