361–370 of 544 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> normal tech has already found its use cases and does real things for real people in the real economy For all the problems with gig economy companies, they're not crypto. Uber fell from its high, but it's still facilitating rides and deliveries.
And still loses money, right?
Somehow these guys peaked at about 900 employees, according to linkedin ( https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockfi ) They've raised about a billion dollars of VC - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/blockfi-inc/investor... (note, CB lists $1.4b, of which 400M is debt from FTX, which I imagine they never got) Unbelievable the amount of destruction of value here... it's just total carnage.
Given the amount of handwringing we've seen over the past couple of weeks in re: Twitter's headcount, it astonishes me that we haven't seen anything close to that for these cryptocurrency firms. Twitter ran one of the world's largest social media networks with around 7000 people; what in the world is Kraken doing with ~3400[1]? [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/company/krakenfx
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For a highly technical and intelligent group that is HN, being blanket negative on crypto is the battle cry, but pointing out how fiat is largely based on fiction as well ("faith" written next to a stone mason eye in a pyramid) is not tolerated.
> but pointing out how fiat is largely based on fiction as well ("faith" written next to a stone mason eye in a pyramid) is not tolerated. Or maybe it is just not useful, and acts as a distraction. Getting into another 'why fiat backed by the USA works while monopoly money from the boardgame (or cryptocurrencies) does not' is pointless because no one who makes that argument really cares about the difference, they jus…
- one of the main advantages of crypto is lack of centralized regulation, which is also why no one stopped FTX from having back doors to loot the vault
- if one can print their own coins at will (like FTT), its value is at the whim of the printer
- inflation is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be used responsibly.
- a credit card has almost no risk and can crank out transactions as much as necessary
- fiat is accepted all over the place whereas crypto as a transactional currency is more similar to trading gold and cowhides
We have seen how many bad actors control USA fiat and are deemed "too big to fail". That is a failed system and we have seen its ugly face plenty of times. Much of crypto challenges that. How successful it is so far is up for debate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are using a very non-standard definition of capital. > As a result creating and destroying money doesn't create or destroy wealth. I'll give you a MacBook, which is a durable good you can use to produce goods and services, if you go to the bank, withdraw all of your money, and then set it on fire. This is a good deal for you. Your wealth will not change from setting the money on fire, as destroying money does not…
If you set your own money on fire, the amount of wealth in the economy won't change. However you'll be worse off, because your share of the total wealth is now smaller (and everybody else's share is bigger).
So you're worse off because your share of the wealth is smaller... if only we had a way to describe that. Perhaps you could say that you're less wealthy and by burning your money, you've destroyed your capital?
Look, I get what you're trying to say. The value of each currency unit is roughly the total amount of economic value divided by the number of units of currency. So the sum of the value of all the currency units doesn't change as you add to or subtract from the money supply. The piece you're missing, though, is that the VCs didn't create the money they invested in BlockFi. The money came from investors and partners. So in a very real sense the capital of those investors and partners was destroyed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is one "small" problem - NFTs are NOT in any way related to the items/files someone is collecting. And collecting NFTs is about as interesting as "collecting" numbers from the random number generator.
NFTs are probably the most interesting and legitimate use of these kinds of computer systems. For example, I could see a lot of value in specialized Yu-Gi-Oh projection card tables installed at game stores that only worked with officially issued NFT virtual cards. Players could rent out their virtual cards to other players and turn their purchases into assets. There are already companies in the MTGO space that rent o…
It's like saying that clapping with your hands at the gas station is somehow equivalent to the purchasing fuel. Sure, BP for example, can demand all fuel buyers to clap their hands once and claim that hand clap = fuel. But really it's just a dumb addition to the real transaction which does nothing.
NFTs are such hand clap when buying digital (or real) objects. The only difference is that they are served with metric ton of technical and pseudo-technical jargon, to the point when even some people in IT are starting to have doubts. But then you think about NFTs again and the mist of bullshit dissipates leaving only bare facts.
Somehow these guys peaked at about 900 employees, according to linkedin ( https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockfi ) They've raised about a billion dollars of VC - https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/blockfi-inc/investor... (note, CB lists $1.4b, of which 400M is debt from FTX, which I imagine they never got) Unbelievable the amount of destruction of value here... it's just total carnage.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is the model, as I currently understand it: 1) some people are rich and want to get richer 2) Ivy educated VCs invest money for group (1) in start-up companies, while paying themselves handsomely with that same pool of money 3) Ivy educated kids start companies using money from group (2), while paying themselves handsomely with that same pool of money 4) sometimes, through a combo of hard work, skill and luck, t…
Wait. What happened to all the middle class chumps who got tempted by "influencers" and reassured by rich people saying "I'm in!" in your model? This model of yours suggests that rich people played with fire and rich people got burned. Is that what is happening? That doesn't seem to be a complete model.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry for your hardship. My understanding (which is not a professional or legal opinion) is that individual creditors probably come near last in these kinds of bankruptcy proceedings. It's possible that after a prolonged settlement process you may receive some of your money back, but that's not an outcome that I would place substantial faith in. I say this without an ounce of judgement, explicit or implied: can y…
> can you speak to some of your motivations for putting your life savings into these kinds of vehicles? For sure. My rationale was that keeping crypto in cold storage was effectively currency speculation and didn't really do anything to add value to the world. By instead keeping it in an interest-earning account it could be earning interest independent of the exchange rate with USD and providing some value to the wor…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest "adult in the room" by far, whom was pushing for regulation, turned out to be another scammer that was simply trying to regulate away his competitors and enshrine his own fraudulent crypto scheme as the only sanctioned one. The crypto community's truest Scotsman proved to be just as terrible as everyone outside perceives the crypto space to be. Benefit of the doubt simply can't be given for what "reasonab…
> biggest "adult in the room" by far, whom was pushing for regulation, turned out to be another scammer SBF was far from an adult in the room. He got zero policy to even a serious discussion phase. To the degree we see meaningful calls for regulation, it comes from Banking and Financial Services committee members who not involved with crypto pushing draconian rules.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what in the world is Kraken doing with ~3400 Kraken is one of the OG cryptocurrencies exchange. Maybe the oldest still around. They're in the business since 2013 or so. Since then the Crypsy, Quadriga, Mt Gox, FTX, etc. have all come and gone (with their customers' money) but Kraken is still there. If they are on a scam, it's a really long con: a decade and a half of a con? They're not "Binance big" but they do nea…
> They're in the business since 2013 > If they are on a scam, it's a really long con: a decade and a half of a con? How is 9 years "a decade and a half"?
But yup, I got my math really wrong there!