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Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

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Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#111

Post by randomhodler84 »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #69
dubswithus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was ransomware really not a thing before Bitcoin?

It may have, but crypto allowed it to become truly scalable. Before, you had to coordinate with each of your victims about how to receive the ransom while trying to evade the authorities. Now you can just take over a random machine, paint a Bitcoin address on the screen, and voila, you're done.

Except it doesn’t really work that way these days. The bad guys run onion payment sites where you exchange an id and get a unique address — they still need to coordinate with the victims.

And before cryptocurrency was big, it was shady credit card gateways in non-friendly jurisdictions. You cannot blame cryptocurrency any more than you can blame onion routing, encryption or the internet. It’s all just tech that is evolving and getting more efficient.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#112

Post by [deleted] »

benreesman wrote: post #80

HN hasn’t been this rabidly, vocally mad at something since levels.fyi outed FAANG comp. Ads? Evil, useless, fuck those people making 10x me. Recommender systems? Evil, creepy, fuck those people making all that money. You can short this shit. You can short Google stock. You can short Bitcoin. So if it’s all one big phony ads tracking machine learning Ponzi scheme scam? Don’t bitch and moan to the choir, profit from i…

[deleted]

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#113

Post by paulpauper »

stouset wrote: post #108
paulpauper wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main value proposition of crypto is cryptographic security. You cannot confiscate crypto like you can other assets (unless obv. you have the key or miners somehow collude). Is this worth $1 trillion? Probably not.

> You cannot confiscate crypto like you can other assets. You're correct. In most cases it's dramatically easier to confiscate the crypto. See: the horde of people who've had their cryptocurrency and NFTs stolen. To say nothing of the uncountable Bitcoin billionaires who've had a hard drive crash, lost their keys, forgotten a password, etc.

this is not the same as the cryptography being broken

losing crypto due to hardware failure or forgetting keys is not the same as someone taking it by breaking the cryptography . If this were possible, there is tons of crypto right now for the taking. It's a self-funding bug bounty.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#114

Post by bigbillheck »

benreesman wrote: post #80

HN hasn’t been this rabidly, vocally mad at something since levels.fyi outed FAANG comp. Ads? Evil, useless, fuck those people making 10x me. Recommender systems? Evil, creepy, fuck those people making all that money. You can short this shit. You can short Google stock. You can short Bitcoin. So if it’s all one big phony ads tracking machine learning Ponzi scheme scam? Don’t bitch and moan to the choir, profit from i…

> Don’t bitch and moan to the choir, profit from it!

I'm not going to throw away whatever little dignity I have left in order to try and profit off of anything relating to cryptocurrency.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#115

Post by randomhodler84 »

TimPC wrote: post #66
dubswithus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was ransomware really not a thing before Bitcoin?

It was far rarer because it was much more difficult to collect payments.

It was rarer because we had less computers and less interconnectness. Major incidents are caused by supply chain compromise, or very targeted attacks, all of which gets worse as the population grows.

Taking payments over the internet has been fairly easy for decades. If not, do you really think we would be where we are today.

I get you like to blame cryptocurrency on crime, but it is but a component, of which other components are just as critical and yet we cannot have a modern digital society without them.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#116

Post by tdub311 »

everfree wrote: post #90
Jerrrry wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The reaper didn't come today, so he won't tomorrow"

For technology, that assumption is more likely than not, in a general sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

Value of an asset doesn't really count as technology though. The technology of UST/Luna still "works" even though the value crashed.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#117

Post by sanderjd »

photochemsyn wrote: post #11

I'd like to see someone like this really try to explain the global non-crypto currency system as it exists today in similar detail. This after all was one of the touted reasons for crypto - it would allow people around the world to hold wealth in a stable currency that wouldn't be subject to market crashes and currency devaluations. There are so many interesting questions that remain undiscussed - such as, to what ex…

> If investing in crypto is a scam, why isn't investing in these other currencies also a scam?

Isn't the answer to this that other currencies are backed by the might (both economic and military) of nations? I don't think mainstream blockchains like bitcoin and ethereum are scams, but this is an important distinction between sovereign currencies and cryptocurrencies.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#118

Post by randomhodler84 »

bigbillheck wrote: post #114
benreesman wrote: post #80

HN hasn’t been this rabidly, vocally mad at something since levels.fyi outed FAANG comp. Ads? Evil, useless, fuck those people making 10x me. Recommender systems? Evil, creepy, fuck those people making all that money. You can short this shit. You can short Google stock. You can short Bitcoin. So if it’s all one big phony ads tracking machine learning Ponzi scheme scam? Don’t bitch and moan to the choir, profit from i…

> Don’t bitch and moan to the choir, profit from it! I'm not going to throw away whatever little dignity I have left in order to try and profit off of anything relating to cryptocurrency.

There is no dignity in watching your life savings evaporate from inflation caused by politicians and governments beyond your control.

Inflation is the cruelest way to invalidate the fruit of the labor of a man’s life.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#119

Post by syzygyhack »

stouset wrote: post #107
syzygyhack wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. UST hasn't existed for 5 years, the others have. 2. "Algostable" coins are experimental, and this one was propped up by ponzinomics on Anchor. It is not comparable to collateralized stablecoins, and claiming otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

1. The beanie baby craze lasted a bit shy of 5 years. 5 years is nothing . 2. Collateralized stablecoins are stable insofar as they actually have enough liquid collateral to redeem. None of these coins have even remotely been tested yet.

You don't think USDT holders have been scrambling to exit USDT over the last few days? Actually the sensible ones started cashing out around 1-2 months ago. You say that they have "not been remotely tested?" How are you quantifying that claim?

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#120

Post by nyolfen »

alexb_ wrote: post #61
nyolfen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your talking points are from like 2012 man. off the top of my head: remittances, online retail, trustless decentralized computational systems

Remittances and online retail is already done quite well with centralized systems. "Trustless decentralization" is only relevant when you are doing things illegal. Which, as it turns out, is the main usecase of cryptocurrency.

this is the exact same argument as politicians saying that encryption is only useful for child pornographers
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