281–290 of 295 posts
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That’s like saying that banks making risky bets on CDOs in 2008 had nothing to do with housing
i think what they're trying to say is that these firms just look like traditional trading firms, not like defi. opaque backroom billion dollar handshakes go wrong, contagion spreads, ltcm/2008 style. main difference- there's no government bailout coming.
> Prominent crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital has defaulted on a loan worth more than $670 million. Digital asset brokerage Voyager Digital issued a notice on Monday morning, stating that the fund failed to repay a loan of $350 million in the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDC, and 15,250 bitcoin, worth about $323 million at today’s prices. In other words, the $670 million that 3AC defaulted on was ~50:50 USDC…
The real puzzle to me is why anyone would want to make an unsecured loan to such speculators. From 3AC's point of view it may have been a smart bet - heads we are billionaires, tails our counterparties lose.
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They are indeed hate groups, it's a hate symbol, thanks for playing!
The SDP was and is a center-left party. You can look their platform up today, and confirm that it is neither historically nor currently hateful. Their existence during the 1920s and 1930s was primarily defined in opposition to both further left and further right political movements. (There's also no one modern group using the Three Arrows. It's a general symbol of the left, like the wildcat or the "A." It's not even…
I always have mixed feelings when someone is warned about the riskiness / foolishness / stupidity of a course of action, and then suffers for it. On the one hand, there's a certain satisfaction or Schadenfreude in the sense of vindication. And it's pleasant to feel like my own wisdom or self-control has been validated. OTOH, I know that everyone has limited wisdom / self-control / intelligence, including me. So it se…
A fool and their money are soon parted. The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians so it affects the rest of us. It’s not just the extra tax of having to care for the newly impoverished. My former local community went all in on a bitcoin scam, they made commissions on new entrants so I never heard the end of it. I only talked about it when asked b…
The amount of human capital spent on the thousands of hedge funds and financial products the last 30 years is staggering and we basically have nothing to show for it other than unproductive pooling of capital. Given the incentives though it is borderline individually foolish to build anything in the physical world.
I don't even think political corruption is near the worst part. It is the complete distortion of risk preferences and the distortion of what is even meant by "investing".
At least the financial swindlers of old actually laid down thousands of miles of rail in their process of swindling. Now in the name of market efficiency we have a systemic process of trading options on options on options on options in an endless chain to the point the underlie has practically vanished.
At least crypto is honest and doesn't even pretend there is an underlie, just a call option on nothing straight up. Everyone knows that is most of the financial system outside crypto too but with an accompanied financial theatrical performance by the participants. Even complete with Shakespearean bullshit language to make it sound more real.
"I am not trading options on thin air. This is an arbitrage opportunity on a derivatives price that will help to facilitate market efficiency. It is almost like the way a physical bridge facilitates people getting across a river but we don't have to waste years actually building a bridge, take a fraction of the risk of bridge building and the return is 100X better."
I am sure some future Edward Gibbon will come up with a name for this process while writing their historical masterpiece on why the West imploded.
Reminds me of an interview I watched with some hedge fund asshole talking about how they were "creating value" by raising the rent of old people in trailer parks. As if raising the rent of old people in trailer parks is basically like building a bridge across a river.
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Sure, there's no problem donating now 5 months into the war. But what about when the war just started? How would someone from the U.S. be able to donate money and be confident where it was going? It's not like the Ukrainian govt had a well-known paypal address.
No. This was not a problem. The ukrainian central bank and ministry of defense both had official announcements and publicly posted account numbers for swift/iban transfers to accept private international donations. These were setup and directly collecting funds within days. They raised millions of dollars, directly to operational accounts, in short order. You are tilting at a windmill.
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There's no "shaming" happening. My remarks were about the subject of the comment , not an attack on the poster (who is anonymous anyway). I already flagged the comment. The point in adding my own was to help set standards for HN, which both serves the purpose of allowing the poster to realize why their comment doesn't mean HN standards (if your comment gets flagged and dead and it's not clear why, that's not helpful…
Ok, maybe to be a little more direct then. You are incorrect, that comment did not violate any of HN's guidelines. Just because you disagree does not make something unthoughtful (as evidence by it not being removed post flag).
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation[...] Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
For instance, "For instance, "It's all about kumbayah and spreading positive vibes in the "community"" is snarky, not curious, sneering, flamebait, and a generic tangent.
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
For instance, "Part of being in crypto involves suspending disbelief, even your own." is a shallow dismissal.
> Just because you disagree does not make something unthoughtful
Your attempt to try to use a low-effort emotional argument to distract from the fact that the comment does, indeed, violate the guidelines is not appreciated. This is not about "disagreeing" - this is about the comment not having value and not adhering to the guidelines. It's pretty clear that statements like "Part of being in crypto involves suspending disbelief, even your own." and "It's all about kumbayah and spreading positive vibes in the "community"" aren't suitable for HN if you actually read the guidelines.
> as evidence by it not being removed post flag
Which is clearly not evidence - the mods likely don't look at every flagged item, and other users can always vouch for a comment that violates the guidelines but that they agree with (which is the behavior being displayed here).
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There's no "shaming" happening. My remarks were about the subject of the comment , not an attack on the poster (who is anonymous anyway). I already flagged the comment. The point in adding my own was to help set standards for HN, which both serves the purpose of allowing the poster to realize why their comment doesn't mean HN standards (if your comment gets flagged and dead and it's not clear why, that's not helpful…
the comment seemed relevant enough to me.
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No. This was not a problem. The ukrainian central bank and ministry of defense both had official announcements and publicly posted account numbers for swift/iban transfers to accept private international donations. These were setup and directly collecting funds within days. They raised millions of dollars, directly to operational accounts, in short order. You are tilting at a windmill.
"Within days", when your country is being attacked now is a significant delay. No one is saying that the banking system failed Ukraine, but there are times when speed is essential and any delay is costly. Cryptos value is shown in such cases.
https://twitter.com/Ukraine/status/1496817739419295751 ( https://archive.ph/Q1y7l )
It tweeted a BTC address on February 26, but it took a little while before people were sure they hadn't been hacked:
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The SDP was and is a center-left party. You can look their platform up today, and confirm that it is neither historically nor currently hateful. Their existence during the 1920s and 1930s was primarily defined in opposition to both further left and further right political movements. (There's also no one modern group using the Three Arrows. It's a general symbol of the left, like the wildcat or the "A." It's not even…
Symbol was noted and observed by law enforcement during the 2020 terror.
Also, various symbols associated to the GOP were observed in the context of the January 6th incident. So are these all hate symbols? Certainly not and every such notion is utter nonsense. Attributing meaning by incidental association is not how it works.