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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

#81

Post by hluska »

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.

I don’t like crypto and in all truth, I would love to use this as evidence that I’ve always been right. However, at its core, this story is about some random startup running out of money. It doesn’t mean a thing and I can’t possibly use it to slag on crypto.

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

#82

Post by woodruffw »

pavlov wrote: post #69
majormajor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

For a lot of people, the game seems to be simply to grab the cash now and if regulators eventually come knocking, lawyer up, settle and keep most of your profits. I remember a guy on HN a year or two ago who was very proud of the ICO he ran in 2017. The token was useless, investors lost their money, and he was fined something around a million dollars by the SEC. But to him that was a mark of pride, like he fought The…

At the risk of starting a flamewar: I wonder about the relationship between the degraded practices of many startups and this sort of "got mine" mentality. The dominant pattern for startups over the last 10-15 years has been to soak up VC money, obtain massive valuations, flood the market with supply, and establish yourself as a hegemon once you've wiped out all of the stable but cash-poor competitors.

Perhaps it's excessive pattern matching, but it's hard not to see a civic relationship between the (correct) perception of startups as underhanded and the rise of an entire industry of scammers who will do and say anything to get ahead.

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

#83

Post by thematrixturtle »

kd913 wrote: post #51
Johnny555 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The good news that their bank Deltec's chairman created Inspector Gadget, so when trouble looms he can just "go go Gadget helicopter" and fly out of trouble!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-07/crypto-my...

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

#84

Post by claytonjy »

phire wrote: post #72

Hmm... Bitprime have grown since the last time I was paying attention. 20 employees.... For some context, a few years ago, they only did OTC trades (you ask for a quote and have a few hours to confirm the price and send the funds), with quite a large minimum of a few thousand. You only really delt with them if you wanted to on-road or off-road large amounts of New Zealand dollars. They didn't even run their own crypt…

Who is the target market for such a service?

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

#85

Post by shadowgovt »

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.

I haven't seen a market crash since the housing crisis.

Of course, I didn't move my money into crypto so that might be the reason.

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

#86

Post by jimmydorry »

ascendantlogic wrote: post #68
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.

It sounds like it's a business that has run out of its own money at exactly the wrong time. There's no customer deposits on this exchange in terms of crypto accoording to their FAQ so this is a case of "startup runs out of money", not "crypto is going to zero"

My speculation:

It looks exactly like Robinhood (a liquidity issue), but without the faceless an unaccountable entity sitting behind them telling them to suspend trading.

These guys appear to be acting as middlemen between their New Zealand customers and several exchanges. Bank transfers take days to finalize (and weeks to settle), so their business appears to be built around capitalizing on that time opportunity and allowing their customers to lock-in quotes without having to wait for their funds to appear in their exchange account if they dealt directly with an exchange.

While the crypto markets are stable and the volume is predictable, everything is fine and they can maintain a balance on their exchanges and in their bank account. A sudden surge in volume (due to a massive price swing) means having to close shop and suspend trading while the transfer from exchange to bank account (or the other way) finalizes.

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

#87

Post by samstave »

claytonjy wrote: post #84
phire wrote: post #72

Hmm... Bitprime have grown since the last time I was paying attention. 20 employees.... For some context, a few years ago, they only did OTC trades (you ask for a quote and have a few hours to confirm the price and send the funds), with quite a large minimum of a few thousand. You only really delt with them if you wanted to on-road or off-road large amounts of New Zealand dollars. They didn't even run their own crypt…

Who is the target market for such a service?

yes

...?

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

#88

Post by john_moscow »

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.

Not a crypto optimist at all, just trying to be objective. For both crypto and gold, the price is supported by the amount of people willing to buy it as a store of value (yes, gold is also used for jewelry and some manufacturing, but that's a secondary use).

Crypto is new, so it's mostly recognized by early adopters - people that are more likely to change their mind in the changing circumstances. There's also a lot of the "get rich quick" crowd, money laundering, illegal purchases, and other activities there, but these are all the factors that support the price of crypto.

So yes, it's extremely volatile. Yes, its price depends on the mood of lots of moody people. But it's still a valid commodity backed by human greed.

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

#89

Post by samstave »

phire wrote: post #72

Hmm... Bitprime have grown since the last time I was paying attention. 20 employees.... For some context, a few years ago, they only did OTC trades (you ask for a quote and have a few hours to confirm the price and send the funds), with quite a large minimum of a few thousand. You only really delt with them if you wanted to on-road or off-road large amounts of New Zealand dollars. They didn't even run their own crypt…

No post body was provided.

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

#90

Post by Spooky23 »

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.

Sure, but it’s value is half of what it was this time last year.
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