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

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191–200 of 327 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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 -- because of the threat of violence." How many people were prosecuted for the 2008 financial crisis though? Neither did the "…

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…

That's trading "some people being protected better" to "nobody is protected"

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

#192

Crypto is pretty much speed running our existing financial institutions’ past history.

What it's doing is giving techno nerds a free crash course in government, monetary policy and regulation --- or rather the lack thereof.

Can you point me to any "crypto nerds" affected by this? The article is precisely about how the insiders still come out on top. It's precisely the blindsided non-nerds that are (hopefully) learning now and custodied their funds with Celsius.

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

#193
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 -…

That big disadvantage isn’t just “people with guns”. It’s the value of an entire stable society. The reason the USD has reigned supreme for so long is because the US has been a relatively peaceful and stable country for so long. Their fiat value are 1:1.

Crypto, unless it receives the backing of a country (that is, the US decides to switch to bitcoin for some reason), will _never_ have actual value.

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same with coins. However fiat money must be protected by people with guns against forgery. With one exception: people in power are allowed to counterfeit it, thus robbing the common people, under protection of people with guns. Gold and Bitcoin are immune to both types of forgery.

Gold is not, and has never been, immune to forgery. Science has made it harder, but still happens all the time. See: gold plating, gold alloys, etc.

I'm not aware of any way to actually increase the total amount of real gold in/on the earth in any meaningful way in an ECONOMICAL matter (i.e. you have a net positive income from producing it). The government can make more REAL MONEY for far less than the value of the money.

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

#195
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 -…

It's not a monetary system problem, it's a banking problem. The cryptocurrencies themselves are fine. The problem is people keep reinventing traditional banking on top of them. Everything started to go wrong as soon as exchanges showed up. All of the drawbacks of centralized banking with none of the regulatory benefits.

This isn't decentralized cryptocurrency, this is sending coins to some centralized corporation and expecting that everything will be fine.

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

#196
post #151
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I think you missed the whole point. Celsius, centralized exchanges, etc, you don't actually own the crypto. You have an account on a site. If you want to own your crypto and also trade between currencies, your better off using something like Uniswap

I think you've missed the point as well. Nobody owns anything with crypto. When you give your crypto to Coinbase, there is no $250,000 FDIC insurance that comes along with it. You don't even get to know what wallet it's in, and if Coinbase decides to go sideways, they can snatch up your money with no legal consequence. You're right that part of the problem is the US failing to regulate them, but there's nothing to regulate. A public ledger does not a currency make.

Your parents will never have a custodial wallet. The fact that traditional banking is easier than 'doing crypto right' should give you all the adoption metrics you need.

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

#197
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What it's doing is giving techno nerds a free crash course in government, monetary policy and regulation --- or rather the lack thereof.

Can you point me to any "crypto nerds" affected by this? The article is precisely about how the insiders still come out on top. It's precisely the blindsided non-nerds that are (hopefully) learning now and custodied their funds with Celsius.

Seriously. The "nerds" aren't the ones dumping their keys into other peoples custody to yield farm obvious ponzi schemes

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

#198
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political theater, the money isn’t missing. In order to prevent fraud and obscure details from spies, the pentagon is setup to hand out money via multiple archaic systems rather than a single computer system. This limits the possible damages, but means audits are really slow and will report massive discrepancies before their complete.

I am not aware of a successful GAO audit of the defense budget in the US. Do you know of one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

That’s really outdated, referring to things in 2018 as occurring in the future.

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/20...

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

#199
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 -…

The problem is the people in the government with guns tend to work against the people (or at least certain people, last time I interacted with one of them they were serving me an absurd perjurious warrant). I trust the crypto-anarchists with guns far more than the fiat-authoritarians with guns.

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

#200
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the whole point. Celsius, centralized exchanges, etc, you don't actually own the crypto. You have an account on a site. If you want to own your crypto and also trade between currencies, your better off using something like Uniswap

I think you've missed the point as well. Nobody owns anything with crypto. When you give your crypto to Coinbase, there is no $250,000 FDIC insurance that comes along with it. You don't even get to know what wallet it's in, and if Coinbase decides to go sideways, they can snatch up your money with no legal consequence . You're right that part of the problem is the US failing to regulate them, but there's nothing to r…

>I think you've missed the point as well. Nobody owns anything with crypto. When you give your crypto to Coinbase, there is no $250,000 FDIC insurance that comes along with it.

No, it is you who missed the point yet again. If you give your crypto to Coinbase it isn't your crypto anymore. You are entrusting Coinbase with your crypto. FDIC insurance may be helpful if your bank has financial difficulties, but any money you entrust to the bank can be seized just as easily as Coinbase can seize your money. Ask a truck driver who participated in the lockdown protests in Ottowa how secure their fiat money was in the bank after it was unilaterally seized by the government.

> The fact that traditional banking is easier than 'doing crypto right' should give you all the adoption metrics you need.

Does anyone go into crypto because it is "easier" than traditional banking?

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