Ask HN: Is anyone else glad the crypto market is crashing?

I’m not glad, I’m a little bit disappointed that such marvelous software tools (blockchain, crypto, algorithms, protocols…) are being used as profit/investment tools, like stocks, forex, commodities and all the rest. I wanted a market/ecosystem where the cryptocoins would be used to make our lives easier, free from banking restrictions, cheaper than existing systems and serving a good cause. Instead I see people investing in every shitcoin/NFT that pops up, with the hope that will get a 1000x return :-(

I agree with this. I hate that I actually tried to use bitcoin as currency. My first transaction, I bought a bag of weed on silkroad early enough on that those coins would be worth ~$1m right now. But I smoked it.

I'm sick of this meaningless word "bro" being tossed around to condemn every kind of stereotypical archetype. Crypto bro. Tech bro. These phrases are completely meaningless and sexist.

> I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich.

Envy is fairly toxic

Amazing that this is the top comment on this thread. HN is so anti-crypto now it's almost comical

I don't particularly like cryptocurrency. It's clear that the utopian vision has not panned out: these aren't currencies, they're securities.

But seeing people lose their life savings is just sad. I completely understand people's rationale for taking the crypto bait. Many people bought into something that they didn't understand, motivated by the "standard" financial system failing them completely.

Read some of the replies to this status: https://twitter.com/stablekwon/status/1524164780189126657

"I put my life savings in because I trusted you. Putting good yield on binance for locked period, now that billions of dolar have been locked this happens and thats the day before my locked period is over. now i put two stakes of max 30.000$ =60.000$ an thats my life savings ... I feel terible now. I really hope you can understand, I trusted you. No one is telling me now what is going on. I took a loss,my life is ruined"

Another

"please hear me Do kwon tell me everything will be okay if I just keep DCA Luna is not going anywhere it was my choice. I spent two years putting everything I had into it and my family and I suffered because of it and I have a few hundred left I'm not selling. Just give me hope"

Another

"Too late, everything built up, from 15k invested to 75k, to 45k end of last week to final 0 today and a fkin credit card debt for the final roll of the dice, no bear market DCA for me now fk"

Another

"I lost everything my apartment my house my money everything is gone someone help me"

This isn't joyful to watch, it's sad. As it turns out, the return on cryptocurrency isn't good, when you factor in the risk. The biggest bummer about this is that it was entirely preventable: we have an existing framework of securities regulation, created when all of this (suicides included!) happened with traditional financial instruments 100 years ago in 1929.

In the US stock ownership is ... complicated. Effectively all shares in all public companies are owned by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation[1].

When you buy a share of a company, you hold that share at a broker. That broker in turn uses a clearing company which then in turn moves shares around between accounts at DTCC on a net basis between brokers. The only company in this chain that knows what shares you own is your broker. To everyone else in the world your share is held by, for example, Fidelity or Vanguard.

You retain every economic right to the share, you just don't _technically_ own it. This gets more complicated with margin accounts, where as part of the margin agreement you agree to allow your broker to lend your shares to shorts, so for some periods of time you may not actually own the shares you think you own.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Trust_%26_Clearing_...