The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding • Hacker News Board

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#81

Post by _vdpp » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

sebmellen wrote: post #20

0xB31B1B wrote: post #13

The best crypto grift was the neobank startups that were front ends for investing in anchor, a 20%APY crypto ponzi. Anchor crashed with Luna and all those startups kept their money in failed stable coins and have folded and failed to make payroll. They lost all of their money and all of their customers money. Woof

How are the founders of these apps not in prison? I remember getting hundreds of “replace your savings account” ads that abruptly ended with the Luna collapse.

What laws did they break? Legitimately curious.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#82

Post by woodruffw » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

datadata wrote: post #67

woodruffw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great point: even above speculation, a core part of cryptocurrency's "stickiness" is that it's effectively unregulated gambling with extremely large upsides. I think that points to the best recourse we have, after the next crash: it needs to be regulated into the dirt.

It seems rash to wish for regulation to be weaponized to the effect of banning something, rather the actual meaning of regulation to define and enforce orderly, fair, predictable functioning of something.

Much like a puppy-kicking machine, the "orderly, fair, predictable" functioning of cryptocurrencies is something much closer to "nonexistence" than to the current state of affairs.

Less facetiously: there is nothing orderly about our current schemes. There is nothing particularly fair about them either, unless your definition of fairness is something closer to Thucydides' than a modern one. And predictable? Cryptocurrencies handily defeat our stock market in unpredictability. Not a great set of qualifications.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#83

Post by throwme_123 » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #34

DANK_YACHT wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC is down 53% from ATH. NFLX is down almost 75%. PTON is down over 91%. You'd actually be better off investing in BTC than in many tech darlings. I don't own any crypto, but I don't think it's fair to single out crypto in the middle of a broad tech downturn.

If you're going to cherry-pick stocks why don't we compare Luna then?

He didn't say Enron.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#84

Post by arcticbull » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:50 AM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #73

dpweb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a creation of government, and frankly, the dollar ain’t so bad. If my bank goes under I’m protected by the FDIC. If Coinbase goes under they have the right to use my money to pay their creditors.

Keeping crypto on an exchange is like keeping gold at the gold dealer. Just why.

Nobody keeps bricks of gold at home. Just why would they. Way too much risk.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#85

Post by arcticbull » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #72

4pkjai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's a little biased because he's heavily involved with Solana

TBF Solana is the future of crypto. Disclosure: All of my crypto is in Solana :D

Yes I love how decentralized it is, and how like any good decentralized system it has to get rebooted every few weeks.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#86

Post by guerrilla » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #66

gfodor wrote: post #62

Crypto crashes every couple years and of course it has grown immensely since the last crash so the scale and scope of these kinds of “analyses” grow with it. I’d imagine in 5 years in the next big crash it will be the top news around the global for many weeks.

No, I think there is a natural limit - eventually you have enough people burned by the scams, crashes, hacks etc. who will keep away, to the point that you don't have enough new entrants to put enough money in to have continuing growth. Unless there was an actual crypto economy, but at this point, there's not much more than speculation.

True, pyramid schemes always have an upper limit since they depend on people not already knowing about them.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#87

Post by Nursie » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

landa wrote: post #12

formerkrogemp wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

If you really believe it doesn't have "any value at all" then I invite you to sell it short. That's a free $30,000. The nice thing about markets is that you can express your opinion, and that market opinions without corresponding positions can be ignored.

> I invite you to sell it short

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Shorting for any decent stretch of time is not free, and you more or less have to do it on one of the many rigged casinos operating in the crypto space. It's a fool's game.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#88

Post by _vdpp » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

notch656a wrote: post #73

dpweb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a creation of government, and frankly, the dollar ain’t so bad. If my bank goes under I’m protected by the FDIC. If Coinbase goes under they have the right to use my money to pay their creditors.

Keeping crypto on an exchange is like keeping gold at the gold dealer. Just why.

Same reason you don’t keep all your savings under the mattress. There have been a number of stories about people losing or corrupting their crypto wallets. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#89

Post by datadata » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

adam_arthur wrote: post #59

Nav_Panel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with greenbacks tho EDIT: let me elaborate before you downvote: the value of a US dollar is not "intrinsic", it's the result of the strength of the US government and military, i.e. due to social factors that cause it to be accepted as a medium for exchange. Crypto is no different: any crypto asset that has an exchange value (i.e. for which there's a liquid market) is backed by social proof of some kind, although…

Remind me again what the price of BTC is most commonly quoted in?

The answer to this question does not demonstrate that USD has any intrinsic value, it merely demonstrates that USD is the most valuable and well circulated of the currencies. These currencies still have zero intrinsic value.

Re: The Great Crypto Grift May Be Unwinding

#90

Post by gabereiser » Thu, May 19, 2022, 3:51 AM UTC

jmcgough wrote: post #69

Godel_unicode wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm extremely skeptical that this silent majority exists because I don't see crypto being used for anything other than hodl-ing. Do you have indicators you can point to of cryptocurrency being used as a real currency?

its only real use cases are in transferring money internationally and buying drugs off the darknet

Some big yacht dealers take BTC as well.