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Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

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Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#131

I've followed Coffeezilla for a while. I was doing an AI course from another youtuber named Siraj Raval in 2019. The course ended up being totally amateur and full of empty promises. Mr Zilla did a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jmBE4yPrOs 'AI Guru makes $238,800 with misleading paid course. doesn't credit developers. | Siraj Raval FGF' Then Zilla started exclusively focusing on crypto/NFT scams. Th…

I guess crypto videos get him more views. Most of the videos are super boring, like yeah who would have thought that some shady YouTuber promoting a token on Binance Smart Chain would turn out to be a scam.

Coffeezilla himself is invested in crypto, so this type of content is now very much in his wheelhouse.

After all, being a youtuber is all about monetizing your hobbies.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean “fully backed”? The last time I checked on USDT (which was a while ago) I thought they admitted it was a fractional reserve, primarily denominated in undisclosed commercial paper. Additionally, they had not yet received an unqualified audit report from any of the big four. Has something changed in the last year or so?

As I said, Tether (USDT) is an arguable exception. You seem to be arguing that exception. I don't disagree with you.

Tether is the largest stablecoin in existence. If you are intent on arguing that the biggest example of your mentioned category is an exception, how do you propose the average person goes about find out what's an exception and what's following the norm?

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#133
post #77
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, past performance is indicative of future behavior. This is why statistical modeling in social sciences works somewhat okay. But there are extrapolation regions or shorter memory missing prior events that cause behavior to deviate from status quo expectation.

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

... is a pretty good approximation.

The problem is that you don't care if a stablecoin collapses tomorrow; you care if it collapses in the next 50 years and "the stablecoin hasn't collapsed in 50 years so it won't collapse in the next 50 years" obviously doesn't apply.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, but being cryptographically broken is not matter, does it? First rule of computer security is any system is no more strong than its weakest link.

Relevant xkcd [1]: why worry about breaking advanced cryptography when you can just socially engineer the passphrase out of people?

[1] https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#135

Blockchain has two proven use cases: 1.) Speculative investment assets. 2.) Moving value outside of a financial system. Unregulated stable coins have proven to be as stable as the titanic was unsinkable. Number 1 is really a problem because of Number 2. Number 2 is a fancy way to describe a primary use case being money laundering. Of course though there are some instances where that’s helpful like backing a foreign g…

> Unregulated stable coins have proven to be as stable as the titanic was unsinkable. When in the last five years have you had difficulty cashing out USDT, USDC, or DAI at dollar value?

> When in the last five years have you had difficulty cashing out USDT, USDC, or DAI at dollar value?

Wow, naming USDT was a bold choice since Paolo's answer as to why they can't tell you what backs it was almost verbatim what Skilling said when asked why Enron couldn't provide a balance sheet. [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp5kv7aENxw

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#136
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "proof of work" concept regarding crypto is a sham. Normally, the expenditure of energy produces tangible products or services. In the case of crypto currency, massive amounts of heat is wasted to produce a number with questionable "value". I just can't wrap my head around this.

It produces objective immutability of the transaction history.

It's a terrible way of doing that, and it isn't even necessary to produce an immutable record of transactions. Seriously, spend some time thinking about other models for distributed transaction records.

Blockchains are designed the way they are to prevent governance and oversight, meaning, if someone scams you or steals from you, there's no way to get your money back. "No backsies" is the most fundamental principle of their design.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#137
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because past performance is _always_ indicative of future performance, am I right? > When in the last five years have you had difficulty cashing out USDT, USDC, or DAI at dollar value? You could have said the exact same thing about Terra/UST right until sometimes last week. It works until it doesn't.

Typically, past performance is indicative of future behavior. This is why statistical modeling in social sciences works somewhat okay. But there are extrapolation regions or shorter memory missing prior events that cause behavior to deviate from status quo expectation.

Have you heard the tale of the inductivist turkey and thanksgiving?

  This turkey found that, on his first morning at the turkey farm, he was fed at 9 a.m. However, being a good inductivist, he did not jump to conclusions. He waited until he had collected a large number of observations of the fact that he was fed at 9 a.m., and he made these observations under a wide variety of circumstances, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, on warm days and cold days, on rainy days and dry days. Each day, he added another observation statement to his list. Finally, his inductivist conscience was satisfied and he carried out an inductive inference to conclude, “I am always fed at 9 a.m.”. Alas, this conclusion was shown to be false in no uncertain manner when, on Christmas eve, instead of being fed, he had his throat cut. An inductive inference with true premises has led to a false conclusion. (via Alan Chalmers, What is this thing called Science, 2nd edition, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1982)

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

USDT can only be redeemed by non-US-person "authorized participants" as determined solely by Paolo Ardoino per their terms and conditions. Just who do you think these APs are? Best guess, they're exchanges, whose existence depends on USDT continuing to hold it's peg.

Yes, I do think the holders have been scrambling to exist - one guy lost $4M trying to swap for USDT - but I think it's not Tether cashing it out, but instead exchanges eating the losses.

That can only get you so far. The failure mode is a step function.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because past performance is _always_ indicative of future performance, am I right? > When in the last five years have you had difficulty cashing out USDT, USDC, or DAI at dollar value? You could have said the exact same thing about Terra/UST right until sometimes last week. It works until it doesn't.

no, terra is an algorithmic coin, the ones that are 100% backed by IRL assets are flawless

Depends on the assets doesn't it.

Re: Coffeezilla, a YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link a couple of sources that show companies that successfully leverage this use cases?

i run a small retail business that only accepts crypto and it's been doing fine

Is it a small laundromat, or do you just not want to accept money from all customers?
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