Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

wired.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 326 posts

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#21

Post by JohnMakin »

leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

But the biggest scandals had nothing to do with the "tech" - the tech at its core is exceedingly simple and the idea has been around forever. This isn't just "tech being tech," this is tech mixing with unregulated finance + hucksters. This isn't just some overvalued tech stock going to zero, its people losing their entire livelihoods and capital based on blatantly false or misleading promises.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#22

Post by ceejayoz »

wustangdan wrote: post #13
colesantiago wrote: post #5

And too right the critics like Molly are about crypto. There is no need to kid ourselves here anymore to even entertain crypto. Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody. I only wish crypto died sooner and that nobody uses it. We have other systems that are more robust than crypto that is used in the order of hundreds of millions such as UPI, PIX, Wise, Mpesa, S…

No legal use case? Really? Honest question are you legitimately excited for FedNow? What problem will it solve? What does FedNow have to do with cryptos downfall? Does FedNow fix our 120% debt to gdp ratio? Estimates of inflation required to get our debt to gdp back to 50% is 4-5 years of 12-20% inflation. You don't want inflation? Well then I guess the US is going to default on our loans. 98% of countries in the las…

> 98% of countries in the last 120 years that had a debt to gdp of 130% has either defaulted or had massive inflation

Sounds impressive, but this stat relies heavily on a) developed world nations and b) nations back when we had the inflexible gold standard. The US also benefits dramatically from being able to issue debt in USD, which it controls.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#23

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

I really don't see any reason why someone working in cryptocurrency, but clear eyed about the possibility of down sides would "cross swords with Molly". She is an incredible source, as far as I can tell the *best* at finding and highlighting what's going wrong. That's incredibly valuable.

rekt.news is also quite good, but skewed towards less reporting but more in depth.

IMO Molly should be getting public good funding from the ETH ecosystem for being such a good & reliable source, regardless of if there's a difference in belief of whether crypto is eventually worth it, if you want to build for the long term you must know what is going wrong.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#24

Post by jezzamon »

leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

"messy" meaning like, oh people try business ideas and they fail, or "messy" as in many people are actively scamming other people with no intent of actually providing value?

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#25

Post by shagie »

blakesterz wrote: post #8
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

The site in question: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

I can't help but be reminded of Fucked Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same?

My favorite bit about Fucked Company is there are archived captures of it from 2002 in the Library of Congress.

https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0020126/

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#26

Post by chasing »

leashless wrote: post #9

I've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.o…

The Web hit the scene in 1991. By 2003 how we shopped, worked, consumed media, communicated with friends and family, and interacted with information was in the process of changing radically. A million "little ambitions" to replace catalogue shopping and how hotel reservations were made were transforming how the world worked.

Bitcoin hit the scene in 2011. By 2023 crypto's mostly a failed get-rich-quick scheme with a couple actual possibly legitimate uses that you can see if you squint just right.

So not only did crypto have much smaller goals than the Dot-Com era, but it failed pretty hard at those goals. And the deep dark secret at the heart of crypto is that — apart from the get-rich-quick stuff — it's neither particularly interesting nor useful. And it takes a lot of set dressing and hand-waving to make it seem like such.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#27

Post by scottiebarnes »

colesantiago wrote: post #5

And too right the critics like Molly are about crypto. There is no need to kid ourselves here anymore to even entertain crypto. Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody. I only wish crypto died sooner and that nobody uses it. We have other systems that are more robust than crypto that is used in the order of hundreds of millions such as UPI, PIX, Wise, Mpesa, S…

Your mistake is in understanding that crypto (Bitcoin) isn't just a transmission network, it is protocol with a defined supply rate.

Your payment pipelines become less valuable when nobody wants those Liras, Bolivars, Argentine Pesos, etc. transmitted over them.

And if you don't think that the US dollar is at risk of debasing itself, you should qualify why.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#28

Post by wustangdan »

ceejayoz wrote: post #22
wustangdan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No legal use case? Really? Honest question are you legitimately excited for FedNow? What problem will it solve? What does FedNow have to do with cryptos downfall? Does FedNow fix our 120% debt to gdp ratio? Estimates of inflation required to get our debt to gdp back to 50% is 4-5 years of 12-20% inflation. You don't want inflation? Well then I guess the US is going to default on our loans. 98% of countries in the las…

> 98% of countries in the last 120 years that had a debt to gdp of 130% has either defaulted or had massive inflation Sounds impressive, but this stat relies heavily on a) developed world nations and b) nations back when we had the inflexible gold standard. The US also benefits dramatically from being able to issue debt in USD, which it controls.

Yes exactly, on gold standard they would default, now they inflate.

The US can issue debt in USD and even print 1 trillion USD coins. But what happens to the value of the currency when they repeatedly do that?

Crypto (and other assets obviously) can act as a hedge against such bad government behavior.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#29

Post by EGreg »

I reached out to Molly White to have her on our show, but she declined.

Hi Molly. I was listening to Majority Report today and they had their old producer, Matt Binder on. He mentioned interviewing you about Web3 recently.

I had been meaning to reach out. Like many people, I've occasionally popped onto web3isgoinggreat.com to see the latest cringefest in crypto and adjacent to it. Unlike many people, though, I run a software company that builds decentralized applications on blockchain, but tries to be as responsible as possible.

Back in 2018, we raised around a half-million dollars, treating the tokens as securities. With that, we built a lot of Web3 software for communities around the world. We also grew a podcast/show where I interview people like Noam Chomsky, and Patri Friedman (grandson of Milton Friedman), on sociopolitical issues around technology, decentralization, freedom of speech, etc. I also interview community economists, former regulators, some of whom are our advisors.

I was wondering if you'd be interested in coming on the show sometime to discuss what you see in Web3, the good and the bad. This February, I'm doing a panel with Noam Chomsky and David Harvey. I'd love to invite you on the show as well.

There is an important conversation to be had. Sadly, most of the Web3 world has been dominated by ponzi schemes and zero-sum games. But as crazy as it is, there is a real need for open source, decentralized platforms. The alternative is all around us, and it has been problematic. Our public forums are privately owned by small groups which are close with state governments. Twitter is privately owned by Musk, Facebook by Zuck, while WeChat and TikTok had a meteoric rise thanks to the Chinese government. WeChat has all but replaced cash, and the CBDCs only accelerate centralized control of the economy, as well as systems that increasingly coerce individuals, like social credit systems. Our mainstream media is also top-down controlled, and under capitalism, the news anchors are often no more than mouthpieces. This leads to wars, to support for forcible internment and re-education of various groups. So there has to be an open-source, decentralized alternative. On the show, I like to have these conversations and discuss the substance of what is good and bad about the space.

Hello,

I appreciate the interest, but I will respectfully decline.

Alright, sure. Would you be willing to share with me the reason? Is it because we are focused on a positive way forward for cryptocurrencies?

This is what a typical discussion on the show looks like:

1. Crypto and Securities Regulations with Sara Hanks, author of Regulation S at the SEC 2. Voluntary Basic Income with Thomas Greco, community currency economist 3. Web3 Identity and Civic Engagement with Eric Starr and David Boulet

She never replied.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#30

Post by jahsome »

scottiebarnes wrote: post #20
jahsome wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off-topic rant: it seems (at least in hn circles) all the crypto buzz generation has found a new target in AI. Whereas prior to GPT-3 _every_ problem's solution according to a certain crowd was a hefty dose of web3/crypto, it seems now the consensus among a comparably sized crowd is that AI is actually the answer to all of humanity's pressing issues.

Social media is media. Media surfaces to the top any subject which draws attention.

I'm more taken by the degree of apparent fervor and unceremonious abandonment for the next shiny thing.

I'm not surprised, I am just disappointed. Perhaps it's ego, but I expect better out of hn participants.

Post reply on HN