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FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

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Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#471

Post by himinlomax »

douglaswlance wrote: post #133
YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #116

Regardless of whether you are pro- or anti- crypto, the collapse of FTX, SBF's bubble bursting in a rather extreme fashion, and now this hack are more nails in the coffin for mainstream support. I am no fan of crypto myself, but it's interesting to think what would have to happen for crypto to burnish its image. Would key people have to voluntarily form some sort of coordinating council and self-regulate? Would they…

This isn't a crypto failure. Crypto works. This is a human failure. FTX didn't collapse because of the technology. It collapsed because of human error. The fix is rather simple. If an organization looks like a bank and quacks like a bank; it should be regulated like a bank.

Bad user interfaces have caused catastrophes (see for example Three Miles Island or the Mont Saint Odile Airbus crash) that have also been labeled "human error", but those catastrophes wouldn't have happened without the bad UI.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#472

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

przeor wrote: post #455
ForHackernews wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

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Because we're tired of a dumpster fire of scams and fraud being sold as the revolutionary future of all finance and money.

We do not want that future. We don't even want the bitcoin present. We think it's bad and will cheer as it implodes.

There was a time I thought something like bitcoin had a useful role to play in the world, never as a consumer/retail thing, but more a zero trust alternative to existing clearing houses used by businesses. The mania around getting rich quick on crypto coins has utterly destroyed that possibility.

You can call it hate if you like. I don't particularly care. I do think spreading this criticism to counter the hype and straight up fraud pitches is justified, including being rather emphatic about it.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#473

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

paul80808 wrote: post #467
easytiger wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. IN particular, William MacAskill[1] is worth particular interest. Closer to abstract low tier cult than serious philosophy. The fact he changed his name (his real name is William Crouch) to sound more like a marketable philosopher should be indicative enough to anyone with an ounce of sense that one should be guarded engaging with this supposed philosophy. That so many people at FTX called themselves "EAers"…

I hear a lot of critiques around effective altruism that boil down to attacks on people who practice it as being immature, naive, or cult like. At its core, EA asks what the most effective way to contribute to humanity is. Some of the thinkers are mature and have produced amazing projects, givewell being an obvious example. There are definitely some weirdos affiliated with the movement, but I don't think that that di…

It's performative in exactly the same way I grew up among with evangelical extremists. You can't reduce moral decisions and ethics to some sort of karmic account balance. Functionally EA allows its promotors to rebrand self interest as actually altruism. It becomes an all purpose end to justify any means. A thought ending cliche to avoid engaging with the actual complexity.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#474

Post by rchaud »

trophycase wrote: post #110

Where are the regulators and enforcers when we actually need them? How is any high up in this institution not arrested yet? What the hell are they doing? Like is this a psyop to destroy crypto? Is this preferential treatment of SBF due to his donations/regulatory capture? Imagine if there was a mass shooter in a crowd of people and they just let him continue firing until he ran out of ammo, that's analogous to what's…

interesting hypothetical with the mass shooter. crypto regulations being what they are, you would need some equivalent of a "good guy with a gun" to take out the bad one.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#475

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #127
iblaine wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s unfortunate that what started out with altruistic motives, a method for decentralized anonymous asset exchange, is being derailed by opportunists. There was a time where a 51% attack was the biggest concern. All that said, I’m not surprised at where we are today.

Most of the rules of civilization are centered around preventing the 20% predators from devouring the 80% normal people.

There's a line describing this in a failed US version of the cop drama Prime Suspect... I forget the exact wording but it's some grizzled cop talking about how their job is to protect the herd from the carnivorous sheep in it.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#476

Post by WanderPanda »

iamacyborg wrote: post #464
przeor wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

People dislike crypto because for many it has become incredibly obvious that it’s nothing more than a vehicle to scam and commit fraud. Yes, these things happen elsewhere but crypto is perfectly designed to facilitate these bad behaviours.

Bitcoin is neutral and almost uninfluentiable by any single party. It‘s neutral, all the rules are out there, nobody has an information advantage. With Ethereum it‘s a bit more difficult because it has a history of being very transparent but there is still Vitalik as the BDFL. Almost everything else in „crypto“ is a mostly centralized system with the same points of failure as traditional financial systems (IoUs => bank rund). It is dishonest to conflate Bitcoin with all these possible scams. I hope Ethereum can establish itself as a neutral, natural law kind of system as well (removing Vitalik from the equation). Because on top of Ethereum more people can built trust less systems that can have bugs but that can‘t really be scams because all the mechanics are public and nobody can have an information advantage.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#477

Post by jerpint »

iamacyborg wrote: post #464
przeor wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

People dislike crypto because for many it has become incredibly obvious that it’s nothing more than a vehicle to scam and commit fraud. Yes, these things happen elsewhere but crypto is perfectly designed to facilitate these bad behaviours.

It’s also funny that in certain instances crypto is perfectly designed to easily catch these behaviours (since the ledgers are public)

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#478

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

dzink wrote: post #287
YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #116

Regardless of whether you are pro- or anti- crypto, the collapse of FTX, SBF's bubble bursting in a rather extreme fashion, and now this hack are more nails in the coffin for mainstream support. I am no fan of crypto myself, but it's interesting to think what would have to happen for crypto to burnish its image. Would key people have to voluntarily form some sort of coordinating council and self-regulate? Would they…

1. Crypto and web3 is so tarnished in consumer minds, it cannot recover. The next big thing in this space needs stay away from those terms like the plague. 2. Energy has become so valuable these days and Crypto tech has become so WASTEFULLY, UNNECESSARILY energy intensive, that the next iteration needs to be as cost efficient and effective as software. Transaction costs need to begin and remain extremely low to none.…

All reasonable points, and potentially insurmountable challenges. Also whatever it is, needs to have incremental utility, otherwise there's no road from the present to the future for it.

Also to repeat a minor rant of mine, anyone designing a would be successor to Etherium should think very deeply about programming language theory and consult/engage with experts in that community. Much pain could be avoided by finding types and semantics appropriate to automated contracts.

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#479

Post by notahacker »

irusensei wrote: post #448
notahacker wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure gamers have over-specced their gaming machines to the extent they're using more electricity than a medium-sized European country...

Are you suggesting the combined power usage of gamers specing their machines above average recommended system requirements is less than the power used by mining industry? I’m skeptical about that. And its beside the point because again its none of your business.

> Are you suggesting the combined power usage of gamers specing their machines above average recommended system requirements is less than the power used by mining industry? I’m skeptical about that.

Yes, of course, I am absolutely suggesting that overspecced gaming PCs played by a minority of gamers in their spare time don't use more electricity than a medium sized developed country (or indeed the 24/7 running of industrial scale server farms deploying chips designed because even the most powerful gaming chips weren't anywhere near energy intensive enough to win the energy-burning competition). Why would you possibly consider the small number of people using high spec gaming PCs a few hours a day use more electricity than a developed world country?

Re: FTX faces potential hack, sees mysterious outflows totaling more than $600M

#480

Post by zeroclip »

maccard wrote: post #460
zeroclip wrote: post #438

Restating my comment from Celsius unwinding one month ago: Three clear and obvious outcomes of this unwinding: 1. The crypto mantra "not your keys, not your coins" rings true. 2. Entrusting your personal financial data with a private company is sure to end in disaster, either by hack or court order. Privacy should be a basic and legally protected feature of blockchains. 3. Centralized Finance or CeFi is mostly a sham…

> The crypto mantra "not your keys, not your coins" rings true. Until crypto has a workable solution to this that doesn't rely on me keeping paper copies of my master key in a safe, it's not really viable for the masses without exchanges like coinbase and co. > Entrusting your personal financial data with a private company is sure to end in disaster, either by hack or court order Hard disagree here. In all my years o…

See social recovery wallets, paper wallet isn’t only solution. Masses might prefer a custody on exchange but with that comes risk like in Celsius, FTX. Regulation needed to curb this risk so that those services feel just like the other “safe” CeFi services you are used to.

> In all my years of interacting with private companies they have always protected my money, even when it was taken from me fraudulently.

I was talking about data. On a long enough timeline, all financial services holding user data will be vulnerable to a breach. Money maybe also vulnerable but less so if regulated, I guess you are lucky to be interacting with regulated exchanges.

> If we require legal protections for blockchains what value does that prove over a centralised regulated system?

Regulate the companies, like Celsius and FTX. Users can use these on and off ramps into blockchain with more regulatory oversight and assurances their assets won’t be leveraged without their consent.

Your last point seems like misunderstanding. I say we haven’t yet seen FTX user data and privacy be breached.

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