711–720 of 746 posts
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He simultaneously played League of Legends when pitching to VC on Zoom call. That indicated to VC how serious and responsible he was. They unanimously and immediately signed off funding merely out of awe.
Ok. I saw this interview months ago and thought something looked off. Now I swear he is playing LoL in this interview: https://youtu.be/xVaSSTEHB0Y
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And what are they good for there?
It's a democratic decision. Everyone agreed that chain is no good. Just like everyone agrees on the current state of the chain.
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That post was indeed flagged by users, not mods. The rule that we moderate less when YC or a YC startup is part of a story ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... ) is about mods, not users. Users are free to flag things that they think don't belong on HN. I understand if you have a disagreement with how flags work on HN—you're not alone in that. But it is a separate issue from the point rai…
Can I suggest having [users flagged] and [mod flagged]? right now i just assume mod flags.
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Yes, this is exactly the point that needs to be made. A few weeks ago I think it was quite easy to argue that it was riskier not to have it on an exchange because when it's not on an exchange you can't convert it back into USD when significant market moving events take place. But more importantly a lot of these people chose to keep their crypto with FTX specifically because it was seen as the safest pair of hands. If…
Uhm, yeah, people made the wrong bet because they fell for another hyped up tech company. But let's put a fine point on it -- that specifically fell in with a rent-seeking company capitalizing on a decentralizaed space with a centralized platform and then surprise-pikachu'd when they did the same thing as every one before them. > because when it's not on an exchange you can't convert it back into USD when significant…
I highly doubt most people with crypto on FTX were day trading. My guess is most just held their crypto with FTX because like stocks and bonds it's generally easier to hold them with a broker.
The same argument could be made about cash in the bank. Do you keep all your money in cash under your bed or do you trust your bank isn't going to do illegal crap with it? Oh wait, let me guess, I bet you're day trading your cash for food and shelter instead of keeping it locked in a safe buried 10 feet under ground?
My point is in any normal market the government would have stepped in if this were to happen. Crypto investors deserve similar protections as investors in other asset classes. They also deserve our sympathy. These weren't the degenerate gamblers you're paining them as.
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> Visibility or accountability of what? Many blockchains are public. I don't know how you ask these questions if you read the parent's post. Clearly, the parent lays out situations where going off/on blockchain dilutes visibility. The cross-collateralization of FTX assets wasn't on blockchain.
I read the parent's post. "No blockchain can ever guarantee there's any visibility or accountability." Ever? Any? Clearly this sentence is false. It takes only one counterexample to prove it. Here's the counterexample. If someday all the world's money are on a single blockchain and there are no banks, the blockchain guarantees visibility and possibly accountability. Do you see the meaning of ever now? Please don't be…
Fine. Let's agree to two premises:
1. all the world's money are on a single blockchain
2. there are no banks
Your conclusion, doesn't necessarily follow!
The problem is I can still contract rights to the blockchain outside of the blockchain, e.g. where on the blockchain did it track FTX's cross collateralization? That's not visible unless I express my right somewhere in the public record.
This scenario (and others) underly the broad point made by the parent.
As far your ad hominem on negativity, I have no idea what you're referring to.
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It's more accurate to say they loan out a multiple of deposits based on the inverse of the fraction (the "money multiplier"). If someone puts 1 million in the bank and the fractional reserve is 20 percent, they can now create loans of up to 4 million. Such that the reserve is 20 percent of their total assets of 5 million (= 4 million loans + 1 million cash).
No, fractional reserve means that they can lend out $800K of the $1M deposited, even though the $1M is still counted as the depositor's money and also $800K is a available to lend. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking
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U.S. reserve percentages have been 0% across the board since 2020. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/reservereq.htm
I believe this is misleading, yes, reserve requirements are at 0. Capital requirements are not - https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/large-bank-cap... Reserve requirements are about how much cash they must keep as a percentage of their assets, where capital requirements (which are non-zero) are more relevant to the fraction held in fractional reserve systems and are about ensuring solvency.
As FTX showed, if most of your capital loses its value then you are insolvent. The banking system is just a little more insecure than it was with fractional reserves.
I'm happy to be shown that I'm wrong, since I am not an expert.
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The issue is that it's very abstract, and all the mechanics of banking are accounting operations, whereas people don't tend to think that way. The deposits themselves are entries on the liability side of the bank's balance sheet. The bank doesn't store money for customers, they take whatever asset you give them and give you basically an IOU in return. So the "customer deposit" is not what you gave the bank (say if yo…
I think the answer to my question from this is that the money in my Citibank account is part of all the other money Citibank can lend out. There is no specific pile anywhere that is "my money", but if I withdraw $10k, the bank has $10k less to lend out.
Deposits are liquidity that help grease the wheels, so it’s necessary, but it’s actually more the transfers of money moving in and out that they need, not liabilities sitting on their balance sheets.
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Since when is bad spelling a meme?
It must be a meme, especially since a quick search reveals that joe_the_user wrote it correctly 1 year ago!
Overall, I'd suspect people not immersed in the crypto world would easily fall into a spelling that "sounds" like they remember it - spelling phonetically is a lousy way to spell but some percentage of the world does it.
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I believe this is misleading, yes, reserve requirements are at 0. Capital requirements are not - https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/large-bank-cap... Reserve requirements are about how much cash they must keep as a percentage of their assets, where capital requirements (which are non-zero) are more relevant to the fraction held in fractional reserve systems and are about ensuring solvency.
The major difference is that banks can be highly leveraged (and cross-leveraged) under capital requirements only. I think this has to be the case or there wouldn't have been a need or reason to reduce fractional reserve requirements; if banks had been holding their capital as currency or deposits in other institutions then the fractional reserve requirements would have been trivially met since the percentages were lo…
Further, from the announcement that lead to this, it seems that the reserve requirement is zero because the mechanisms have changed. The reserve requirements appear to have applied specifically to reserve accounts held centrally at the federal reserve.
To me this looks very much like a ‘scare’ factoid that can be latched onto and shared in order to persuade people that the banking system is way more fragile than it is, and that it’s collapse is either imminent or inevitable.
OMG zero reserves! Dig a bit deeper and that’s partially true and perhaps not all that important, and represents a technical change in operations rather than the massive risk increase it gets portrayed as.