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Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

bitprime.co.nz

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Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#51

Post by kd913 »

Johnny555 wrote: post #30
650REDHAIR wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s all a house of cards. I spent a little time in the industry and the most prominent voices are just snake oil salesmen and charlatans now. Anyone who truly believed from the beginning made so much money that it’s not worth the risk for them to be publicly involved in the community. It became an MLM for bros and basement-dwellers alike to gamble their stimulus checks on.

At least a house of cards has actual cards supporting it, it's not clear what's supporting cryptocurrency.

The latter answer is simple. Tether and other stable coins printing money from nothing. They have statements that they are backed as equivalent to dollars but it is utter nonsense.

Just yesterday tether printed another billion usdt.

They were openly proven to have only 3% of their currency backed by USD by the NY AG but everyone just ignores that judgement.

They never held under audit, have proven to not be backed by USD and refuse to disclose their holdings. Their CFO is an Italian surgeon who sold pirated copies of Windows.

When eventually that falls, the entire space I figure will implode.

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#52

Post by pavlov »

mikeyouse wrote: post #41
grapeskin wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin alone was apparently given a market cap of over 2 trillion recently. That’s roughly the entire GDP of France. If France’s economy poofed out of existence or halved in value, that’d be a huge shake up.

It helps when you understand that "market cap" has no meaning in the crypto world and that their "trillion dollar" numbers are completely imaginary. The market cap of a stock (shares outstanding x share price) makes sense because each share represents a piece of the profits of the company and an ownership stake. If you took away half of the shares, the price per share would ~double and the market cap would remain the…

And for a practical example of how the crypto operators weave “market cap” out of nothing, read this revealing interview with Sam Bankman-Fried:

https://www.ft.com/content/eac0e56c-f30b-4591-b603-f971e60dc...

He’s the CEO of one of the largest and most established crypto exchanges. The interview is stunning.

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#53

Post by variaga »

adamnemecek wrote: post #37
beezle wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly less than Apple's market cap.

GDP is annual. Market cap is not. It’s like comparing income with net worth.

It's the classic mistake of comparing stocks and flows

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#54

Post by koolba »

Nursie wrote: post #31
_Nat_ wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From [this page]( https://www.bitprime.co.nz/how-it-works/#fees ): > Our fee structure is different to that of a brokerage or exchange. As a retailer, our expenses are generally higher than a sole crypto trader’s. So apparently not an " exchange platform ", but rather a " retailer ". Presumably they're trying to cater to less-technical folks who'd pay extra for the convenience/ease. > What you see is what you get! Ou…

Yeah, as a retailer their business is far more at risk from market fluctuations I guess. They can ride high in the bull market but a drop in asset price puts everything at risk. OK, well that does explain things more neatly.

Sounds like a market maker. In traditional finance the market maker hedges their large liquidity position through options to limit any risk from wild fluctuations in either direction. In defi, I guess they just hodl and then go bankrupt.

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#55

Post by Lerc »

mdoms wrote: post #33
rco8786 wrote: post #26

“Small startup closes after running out of money” is not a terribly catchy headline I guess.

It's also less descriptive, accurate and precise.

I don't know about that. They include the word small. Judging from the original headline and HN story position, how big would you estimate this business to be?

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#56

Post by [deleted] »

soared wrote: post #16

Would someone mind calming me by explaining why this is not a huge red flag, this isn’t the beginning of the end, and a theoretical crypto crash won’t throw the market into turmoil (or why the current market turmoil ain’t so bad)? I don’t have any kids to feed, just young dumb and tired of market crashes.

[deleted]

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#57

Post by trophycase »

soared wrote: post #16

Would someone mind calming me by explaining why this is not a huge red flag, this isn’t the beginning of the end, and a theoretical crypto crash won’t throw the market into turmoil (or why the current market turmoil ain’t so bad)? I don’t have any kids to feed, just young dumb and tired of market crashes.

Nobody who uses crypto has ever heard of BitPrime

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#58

Post by the_gastropod »

peyton wrote: post #47
version_five wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe... from what I see (which is limited), "crypto" is feeling the same downward pressure that other stocks like tech are feeling (someone just posted an article about that). But people still haven't come around to the "this is just BS" phase yet that needs to happen. All crypto under current operating models is worth zero, it doesn't need to be marked down, it needs to (and will) be recognized as a scam and writte…

I don’t understand the go-to-zero case. Surely an open source, permissionless financial system has some value? There’s tons of value being captured in closed financial systems.

Surely an open source, battle-tested, massively widely used operating system like Linux has some value? There's tons of value being captured by closed operating systems.

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#59

Post by majormajor »

pavlov wrote: post #52
mikeyouse wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps when you understand that "market cap" has no meaning in the crypto world and that their "trillion dollar" numbers are completely imaginary. The market cap of a stock (shares outstanding x share price) makes sense because each share represents a piece of the profits of the company and an ownership stake. If you took away half of the shares, the price per share would ~double and the market cap would remain the…

And for a practical example of how the crypto operators weave “market cap” out of nothing, read this revealing interview with Sam Bankman-Fried: https://www.ft.com/content/eac0e56c-f30b-4591-b603-f971e60dc... He’s the CEO of one of the largest and most established crypto exchanges. The interview is stunning.

How you can be in business selling this shit as non-shit when admitting the truth without having some crazy legal liability exposure problems is amazing to me. Like, FTX literally advertises "you don't need to know anything about crypto." But he says you should here!

Re: Cryptocurreny retailer BitPrime closes trading after running out of money

#60

Post by labster »

mckirk wrote: post #15
llamataboot wrote: post #8

It has only just begun...

Refreshing HN to find more signs of the cryptocalypse has definitely become a guilty pleasure of mine the last few days. I really don't wish for it, because so many people would get caught in the crossfire, but there's still that fascination for the 'train wreck in slow motion'.

As a climate scientist (currently non-practicing) the cryptocalpyse is something I deeply wished for. If you want to make Ponzis that’s fine but there’s no reason to ruin the environment to do it. Tulips were a truly green asset bubble, maybe we could do them again. I feel sorry for the folks losing money, but not really because they still have more assets than I’ll ever have.
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