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Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

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41–50 of 93 posts

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#41
post #40

Aren't automatic market makers with yield farming a thing outside crypto? Let's say Uniswap but with USD and GBP. Are those Ponzi schemes as well?

> Aren't automatic market makers with yield farming a thing outside crypto

Are they the main thing, or the only thing, outside of crypto? Is there much more to the market than that, outside of crypto?

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#42
post #34

It's a Ponzi scheme. He doesn't even seem to push back against the "Ponzi" phrasing. Also -- this is merely a footnote -- his Ponzi scheme is currently the 3rd-largest political donation source in the USA. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?GoToPag... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/-crypto-cash-...

Regulatory capture by a Ponzi scheme was just added to my "list of things that could legitimately destroy the USA from within." Did Bernie Madoff ever do this? I feel like he did, but maybe not so effectively or at such scale.

Madoff was different in that he successfully hid the fact that his was a ponzi scheme for 40 years.

This interview with SBF suggests crypto does not even try and hide it.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#43
post #36

It's a Ponzi scheme. He doesn't even seem to push back against the "Ponzi" phrasing. Also -- this is merely a footnote -- his Ponzi scheme is currently the 3rd-largest political donation source in the USA. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?GoToPag... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/-crypto-cash-...

Calling it a Ponzi scheme is uninteresting and not really the point here. Was GameStop a Ponzi scheme when the stock price soared? I think the interesting part here is the relation to bitcoin and a new theory on how to price things. It’s traditionally been assumed that the price of an asset is related to the underlying value it has or the value it generates (eg cash flow). SBF is pointing out that’s not a complete me…

Whether it’s interesting or not, what the FTX CEO described is literally a Ponzi scheme.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#44
post #36

It's a Ponzi scheme. He doesn't even seem to push back against the "Ponzi" phrasing. Also -- this is merely a footnote -- his Ponzi scheme is currently the 3rd-largest political donation source in the USA. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?GoToPag... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/-crypto-cash-...

Calling it a Ponzi scheme is uninteresting and not really the point here. Was GameStop a Ponzi scheme when the stock price soared? I think the interesting part here is the relation to bitcoin and a new theory on how to price things. It’s traditionally been assumed that the price of an asset is related to the underlying value it has or the value it generates (eg cash flow). SBF is pointing out that’s not a complete me…

> Calling it a Ponzi scheme is uninteresting and not really the point here. Was GameStop a Ponzi scheme when the stock price soared?

I’d argue that the intent of GameStop was not to provide a solid investment as it was just as a collective intent to make short sellers fail.

I have serious trouble seeing how “collective agreements” has any intrinsic value. To me, it’s effectively the same as saying “the value of coin X is that people believe in its value”.

It seems like at least this CEO recognizes it for what it’s worth.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#45

> SBF: Well, okay. So you've got this boxes and it’s kind of dumb, but like what's the end game, right? This box is worth zero obviously. It blows my mind that the people profiting from this are publicly describing the scheme like this, and nobody seems to care.

How much is a share of Amazon worth considering they don't pay any dividends? Isn't this the same thing?

No because Amazon generates earnings but reinvests those in its business to make each share worth more.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#47

It's kind of a Ponzi scheme, but not really since it's not (usually) orchestrated by one malicious entity. Instead, it's a collaborative community effort with the community doing marketing and driving the price. In other words, the dirty work if customer acquisition and advertising is outsourced. It's not so different from crazy startup valuations that are often a result of market forces and competition, with the hop…

> It's a fun game to play, just like casinos are fun. In 99.9% of cases nothing of value is behind these protocols.

It is a lot of fun until people start becoming homeless and consider ending their life.

https://www.reddit.com/r/terraluna/comments/un3w7t/i_lost_ov...

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#48
post #36

It's a Ponzi scheme. He doesn't even seem to push back against the "Ponzi" phrasing. Also -- this is merely a footnote -- his Ponzi scheme is currently the 3rd-largest political donation source in the USA. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?GoToPag... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/-crypto-cash-...

Calling it a Ponzi scheme is uninteresting and not really the point here. Was GameStop a Ponzi scheme when the stock price soared? I think the interesting part here is the relation to bitcoin and a new theory on how to price things. It’s traditionally been assumed that the price of an asset is related to the underlying value it has or the value it generates (eg cash flow). SBF is pointing out that’s not a complete me…

Coming to HN for an unbiased analysis of cryptoasset discussion was your first mistake. Acknowledging this fact was your second.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#49
post #36

It's a Ponzi scheme. He doesn't even seem to push back against the "Ponzi" phrasing. Also -- this is merely a footnote -- his Ponzi scheme is currently the 3rd-largest political donation source in the USA. https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?GoToPag... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/-crypto-cash-...

Calling it a Ponzi scheme is uninteresting and not really the point here. Was GameStop a Ponzi scheme when the stock price soared? I think the interesting part here is the relation to bitcoin and a new theory on how to price things. It’s traditionally been assumed that the price of an asset is related to the underlying value it has or the value it generates (eg cash flow). SBF is pointing out that’s not a complete me…

That's a lacking comparison. The Gamestop stock has not been specifically created for this kind of "investing", neither does it not have fundamentals behind the value.

Of course there's going to be speculation going on with any asset, but GME is not a purely speculative asset, and is not purely based on possible future application which isn't even known yet. There's a corporation behind it, which generates revenue, which provides services, all of this has real value, which then serves as a valuation.

A stock is a small share of a corporation. A token could be comparable, however, if the only purpose of trading this token is speculation, the value of the venture itself is speculative and the value of the token is based on the speculation itself, it's nothing but at best high-level gambling.

If you then factor in a deflationary nature of the asset, and the requirement for constant influx of new buyers to even hold the value with yield farming going on, it quickly becomes a Ponzi scheme.

Re: Sam Bankman-Fried Described Yield Farming and Left Matt Levine Stunned

#50
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it a Ponzi scheme is uninteresting and not really the point here. Was GameStop a Ponzi scheme when the stock price soared? I think the interesting part here is the relation to bitcoin and a new theory on how to price things. It’s traditionally been assumed that the price of an asset is related to the underlying value it has or the value it generates (eg cash flow). SBF is pointing out that’s not a complete me…

> Calling it a Ponzi scheme is uninteresting and not really the point here. Was GameStop a Ponzi scheme when the stock price soared? I’d argue that the intent of GameStop was not to provide a solid investment as it was just as a collective intent to make short sellers fail. I have serious trouble seeing how “collective agreements” has any intrinsic value. To me, it’s effectively the same as saying “the value of coin…

> I have serious trouble seeing how “collective agreements” has any intrinsic value.

Then you probably don’t see value in any form of cryptocurrency. I do, because I think collective agreements are at the heart of how society functions. Fiat money is a collective agreement that works by the backing and enforcement of a central entity (government). It’s at least interesting to me to experiment with a collective agreement that does not have to be backed or enforced by a central entity (bitcoin).

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