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Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

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Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#171

Post by sgammon »

karamanolev wrote: post #134
tossl568 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't steal my Bitcoin if I don't deposit them with a custodian. This is like blaming gold itself if the owners of a gold bank run off with the gold.

> You can't steal my Bitcoin if I don't deposit them with a custodian. Many people have lost their BTC and other coins to hacks, phishes, hardware failures, software failures and so on. So in the sense of the people from the general public, yes, I can steal your Bitcoin. > This is like blaming gold itself if the owners of a gold bank run off with the gold. You can keep it under the mattress and expose yourself to one…

But you can blame gold itself for that. Gold is inherently valuable; and one flaw of inherent physical value is that it can physically change hands forcibly and, well, the bearer of that value now controls it in complete and total form.

Cryptographically verified exchange is a different kind of exchange, and it has its own benefits and drawbacks. one of the benefits of this kind of exchange is that mere custody of the currency in question does not relate to ownership.

Does that make gold worse or better than bitcoin? No, it just makes them different.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#172

Post by [deleted] »

tossl568 wrote: post #96
jedberg wrote: post #33

Oh hey look the consequences of a monetary system that isn't backed by a legal system (that is backed up by people with guns). The reason fiat money works is because at the end of the day if you run into trouble you have the legal system to make things right. And if the perpetrator of the crime doesn't listen to the legal system, there are people with guns/violence to back that up. That's why the whole system works -…

You can't steal my Bitcoin if I don't deposit them with a custodian. This is like blaming gold itself if the owners of a gold bank run off with the gold.

[deleted]

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#173

Post by woodruffw »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #136
woodruffw wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I convinced them to pay real money for fake money, stole the fake money, and exchanged it afterwards for real money" is not an argument that is likely to convince the SEC (or a jury).

not an argument that is likely to convince the SEC (or a jury). Mainly because your argument is wrong all the way around. Celsius never accepted any "real money" from anyone. Any "fake money" they allegedly "stole" came from their own account, not those of their customers.

That doesn't pass the sniff test: people clearly entered the market with actual money (even if they didn't directly pay Celsius), and left with none.

You can argue (perhaps correctly) that they shouldn't have traded their real money for funny money, but it's ultimately no different from any other financial instrument.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#174

Post by yieldcrv »

jedberg wrote: post #163
yieldcrv wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that copypasta you found has nothing to do with the asset involved….. it is not likely what Celsius did was legal (or consequence free via the legal system) , so that has nothing to do with the matter that their company held crypto assets adding clearer fiduciary duties to company’s that hold crypto assets is entirely possible and so also has nothing to do with crypto

Not sure why you're calling it copy pasta given that I wrote it. But it does have to do with crypto, because the company involved was holding crypto like a bank, but aren't regulated like a bank because it was crypto.

I'm calling it copypasta because your response wasn't specifically about Celsius, it was looking for a reason to write your pre-existing beliefs about the entire asset class in a place where it wasn't relevant. A lot of people do this, but one of the bigger problems is that it lets poorly run companies get a free pass on bad business practices. "Our unscrupulous behavior won't matter because people will conflate it with crypto. They won't apply scrutiny to us, they'll just try to reduce access"

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#176

Post by pcthrowaway »

CharlesW wrote: post #147
pazimzadeh wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The people who benefit the most from the current system are the already rich, who can afford to the legal fees and come up with creative defenses. Crypto also benefits the rich (like everything), but not as disproportionately as the current legal system. This debate reminds me of the nature vs nurture debate in biology. It's a mirage. In reality, it's nature via nurture. Similarly, there is no inherent divid…

> Crypto also benefits the rich (like everything), but not as disproportionately as the current legal system. Are you sure? The WSJ says that 0.01% of all holders control 27% of Bitcoin, vs. the top 1% of households who control about a third of all U.S. wealth. https://www.wsj.com/articles/bitcoins-one-percent-controls-l...

That article (from the URL) appears to be about Bitcoin, not "crypto"

And the distribution of Bitcoin might be skewed because one of the largest holders (Satoshi) is possibly dead, and many others would be custodial addresses (centralized exchange addresses, and large funds like microstrategy).

Furthermore, many of the addresses being considered would be inactive addresses by people who have moved on to new addresses. In that case, you have many addreses with "dust" balances which are not claimed by anyone, perhaps as much of 80% of addresses which have ever been used. I have gone through at least 6 such addresses myself, and I no longer use the Bitcoin network (or have funds on it)

It's a lot different than the dataset used for considering wealth distribution among a known population number, whose monetary declarations are necessarily exposed to a government which can publicize this kind of data in a more accurate way.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#177

Post by redox99 »

itake wrote: post #146
redox99 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't crypto. You didn't own any crypto. Some company owned your crypto. The whole point of crypto is that you can own it (ie you and only you have your keys). We hear stories here every now and then about how their bank/paypal/etc froze their money and they are fucked. Crypto allows you to actually own your stuff. With fiat unless you hold cash, you can't do that. Crypto is about being trustless. If you give aw…

> The whole point of crypto is that you can own it (ie you and only you have your keys). I've also heard stories where people were locked out of exchanges during crashes, preventing liquidation, because exchanges stopped or delayed deposits during high volume trading. Its super cool that you can keep your own crypto, but if you can't trade that crypto, whats the point?

That's why I think Bitcoin is outdated (yes, get your pitchforks), and you really need something that can do smart contracts.

Bitcoin you can hold it, transfer it, and not much more. Having smart contracts (like Ethereum) allows you to have something like Uniswap, which is decentralized and allows you to trade your coins.

Yes, it's not a fiat on/offramp, but if stablecoins are actually good and backed, in the scenarios you describe you would just buy/sell stablecoins and at a later point exchange those stables for cash.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#178

Post by s_ting765 »

jedberg wrote: post #33

Oh hey look the consequences of a monetary system that isn't backed by a legal system (that is backed up by people with guns). The reason fiat money works is because at the end of the day if you run into trouble you have the legal system to make things right. And if the perpetrator of the crime doesn't listen to the legal system, there are people with guns/violence to back that up. That's why the whole system works -…

Not sure the supporters of the Freedom Convoy over in Canada would agree with your strong faith in the legal safety of fiat money.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#179

Post by redox99 »

cwkoss wrote: post #156
redox99 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't crypto. You didn't own any crypto. Some company owned your crypto. The whole point of crypto is that you can own it (ie you and only you have your keys). We hear stories here every now and then about how their bank/paypal/etc froze their money and they are fucked. Crypto allows you to actually own your stuff. With fiat unless you hold cash, you can't do that. Crypto is about being trustless. If you give aw…

This is a no true scotsman fallacy. It is crypto. It is the shallow, lazy, dangerous way of using it it, but it is still cryptocurrency.

People have been saying "not your keys, not your coins" for over a decade. This isn't anything new.

Re: Celsius Execs Cashed Out $40M in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers

#180

Post by redox99 »

Bloedcoin wrote: post #148
redox99 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't crypto. You didn't own any crypto. Some company owned your crypto. The whole point of crypto is that you can own it (ie you and only you have your keys). We hear stories here every now and then about how their bank/paypal/etc froze their money and they are fucked. Crypto allows you to actually own your stuff. With fiat unless you hold cash, you can't do that. Crypto is about being trustless. If you give aw…

Funny how other crypto bros would say the opposite. But hey now you got my interest: if it's not for normal people for whom is crypto then in your opinion?

I'm not sure, it depends on how good the UX and trustless/low trust custodial services get[1]. I don't think crypto will ever be for "my grandma" for example. But I could see it being easy and safe enough for my dad, who knows what phishing is, would understand what private keys are, etc.

[1] This is too long to explain but basically something similar to multisig and time locks to add extra security. Nothing like this exists at least easy to use right now.

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