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The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

economist.com

141–150 of 179 posts

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#141
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could look at the absolutely factual statement that since Bitcoin isn’t a productive asset (in fact it’s the opposite it’s expensive to create) then every single dollar that will ever be taken out of Bitcoin is a dollar that some other person put in. This is not true of normal investments. For example the dollars you get from selling McDonald’s stock 30 years after purchasing it come from people buying hamburg…

> ... it come from people buying hamburgers So from money someone else put into this whole hamburger thing and won't get it back? > For example the dollars you get from selling McDonald’s stock 30 years after purchasing it come from people buying hamburgers. Some dollars not all, and most likely bot even the most. So the Bitcoin doesn't have this merchandise based mechanism for sucking the money out of the rest of th…

> So from money someone else put into this whole hamburger thing and won't get it back?

They got a hamburger and ate it. People need food.

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#142
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely looks pretty bad - but on the other hand, an accelerator not making any bets in crypto is not a sensible accelerator. You need to make bets everywhere and hopefully some stick. The other side of that is some don’t stick, and some go proper pear shaped. Make enough bets, it has to happen. I’ve got no idea what their original pitch is, I certainly wouldn’t back a crypto startup that ostensibly aims to do som…

> not making any bets in crypto is not a sensible accelerator. You need to make bets everywhere and hopefully some stick. Thats not how it works; VC's are allowed to pass on anything they want, and it turns out they dont cut a fat cheque to every idiot who knocks on the door.

And how many Porn companies has YC funded? Zero as far as I know, is that because porn related companies have zero chance of being profitable? Or is it that they take a moral stance against that industry?

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#143
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re financially backing and providing direct hands on strategic guidance to an active and blatant scheme to commit securities fraud then you are doing something you should not be doing. The previous sentence isn’t and shouldn’t be particularly controversial.

It isn't particularly controversial, but who is to say that the founders in question took the advice being given, or even showed up for the feedback sessions? Has anyone ever been kicked out of YC? Given the number of companies that have gone through the program, I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one that completely ignored everything the founders didn't want to hear or do.

Yes companies have been kicked out of YC. I don't know whether these allegations are true and have no opinion on which party was in the right here.

"Dark CEO Paul Biggar said YC booting him for tweeting about internal posts on skipping COVID-19 vaccine lines.

Prolific CEO Katia Damer said she was cut after calling out misogyny by YC founders.“

https://www.businessinsider.com/ycombinator-katia-damer-paul...

https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/09/does-what-happens-at-yc-st...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27399581

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is literally not a single thing true in this comment. I would advise you seriously revaluate where you are getting your (mis)information from. Lightning is a way of using bitcoin. A way of cooperatively creating bitcoin transactions with multiple parties, in such a way that you can minimize the number of on-chain transactions required. It is bitcoin. It has the same security model as bitcoin. It uses the same t…

If you and I have a lightning node and a channel between us, and I send 1 BTC to you, this transaction is NOT secured by the bitcoin network, nor any similar technology. It's basically just a regular ledger that my node and yours keep track of (there's a little more cryptography in place, but not much more). Even worse, if you saw my transaction, then sent me 1BTC worth of goods, then your node becomes offline and I…

It is almost like 99.999% of the crypto people don't have computer engineering or computer science degrees or have never built a production system that requires concurrency and fault tolerance over a persistence layer.

A system that validates new entries into a database can either be "very cheap and very fast" or "very fault tolerant and very decentralized". The speed of light in networking and the speed of modern CPUs make this unavoidable.

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not making any bets in crypto is not a sensible accelerator. You need to make bets everywhere and hopefully some stick. Thats not how it works; VC's are allowed to pass on anything they want, and it turns out they dont cut a fat cheque to every idiot who knocks on the door.

And how many Porn companies has YC funded? Zero as far as I know, is that because porn related companies have zero chance of being profitable? Or is it that they take a moral stance against that industry?

Nor as far as I know are they in the asphalt industry, likely because they are focused on tech. I am sure some people out there find asphalt a moral issue (I personally dont) but I suspect they are not spraying some funding around in that industry because it isnt really of interest to them or their investors.

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many Porn companies has YC funded? Zero as far as I know, is that because porn related companies have zero chance of being profitable? Or is it that they take a moral stance against that industry?

Nor as far as I know are they in the asphalt industry, likely because they are focused on tech. I am sure some people out there find asphalt a moral issue (I personally dont) but I suspect they are not spraying some funding around in that industry because it isnt really of interest to them or their investors.

Implying that the Porn industry has no overlap with Tech is a stretch. Over 30% of internet traffic is adult content.

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#147
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could look at the absolutely factual statement that since Bitcoin isn’t a productive asset (in fact it’s the opposite it’s expensive to create) then every single dollar that will ever be taken out of Bitcoin is a dollar that some other person put in. This is not true of normal investments. For example the dollars you get from selling McDonald’s stock 30 years after purchasing it come from people buying hamburg…

> ... it come from people buying hamburgers So from money someone else put into this whole hamburger thing and won't get it back? > For example the dollars you get from selling McDonald’s stock 30 years after purchasing it come from people buying hamburgers. Some dollars not all, and most likely bot even the most. So the Bitcoin doesn't have this merchandise based mechanism for sucking the money out of the rest of th…

McDonald's stock (MCD) pays a 2.39% dividend yield based on people buying hamburgers. That's hard cash paid out every year. Bitcoin doesn't pay any dividends.

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor as far as I know are they in the asphalt industry, likely because they are focused on tech. I am sure some people out there find asphalt a moral issue (I personally dont) but I suspect they are not spraying some funding around in that industry because it isnt really of interest to them or their investors.

Implying that the Porn industry has no overlap with Tech is a stretch. Over 30% of internet traffic is adult content.

I implied nothing of the sort. Porn is 99% tech these days. Ashpalt laying is 1% tech.

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Implying that the Porn industry has no overlap with Tech is a stretch. Over 30% of internet traffic is adult content.

I implied nothing of the sort. Porn is 99% tech these days. Ashpalt laying is 1% tech.

Lots of asphalt tech opportunity, just not so much electronic tech. And timelines are long.

I’m disappointed that we still do cold patches instead of heating the surrounding asphalt when filling potholes. That’s where I’d transfer soldering technology into asphalt.

Re: The cryptocurrency sell-off has exposed those swimming naked

#150
post #124
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is only if you bought Bitcoin when it was > Just an example last year I had a target of $150k when it was at $50k, and also (like most people) I got a BTC based loan (it made sense for tax purposes as well). That doesn't sound like a good idea in the middle of a bull run and everyone being in profit on Bitcoin when it was at $50K last year or even $69K. I have a different strategy - taking profits and taking adv…

You can't buy the dip during a peak . PP got a loan at 50 which is a bearish trade, halfway to shorting.

It's completely different, OP still owned the BTC, it was just collateral to a loan. The loan currency was presumably USD, so they were short USD but still long BTC.
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