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

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

#31

Post by wustangdan »

jahsome wrote: post #10
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…

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.

IMO you just found another area where Sturgeon's Law applies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law).

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

#32

Post by ceejayoz »

wustangdan wrote: post #28
ceejayoz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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?

Thus far, not all that much of consequence.

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

Objection, Your Honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.

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

#33

Post by bscphil »

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…

Part of the issue is that rightly or wrongly, all of its strengths have effectively been regulated out of existence.

I needed to quickly send some money internationally for a perfectly legal purpose. I have an old Coinbase account I wanted to use for the purpose that I hadn't left any money in (because crypto is not a good investment vehicle). Thanks to changes in KYC laws, I found myself completely unable to do this. I had to give them a very uncomfortable amount of information just to unlock the account (including a scan of my driver's license and my social security number). At this point, they still wouldn't let me deposit any cash without further verification. They then proceeded to refuse to let me verify every payment method I tried using (including debit card, PayPal, checking account... they were "unable to verify" any of them). There was some third party service they wanted to use that would literally log into my bank account to provide verification (??!!), but I drew the line there.

So I just ... gave up. Forget any of the more interesting uses of crypto. We're not even talking gray market goods here (it would be interesting for people who need cheap insulin to be able to order it from international pharmacies in countries with lax laws, for example). We're talking boring ordinary transfers, effectively made impossible by regulation.

And yes, there are a lot of scams in crypto. It's not very economically or environmentally efficient (usually). Maybe it deserves to be regulated out of existence. But I do know that for a while it was able to do some things that were difficult or annoying to do in other ways.

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

#34

Post by dingusdew »

EGreg wrote: post #29

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…

[dead]

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

#35

Post by drewbeck »

EGreg wrote: post #29

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…

I'm curious what you're trying to get at here, and your intent for posting this. Can you elaborate?

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

#36

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody

It’s gambling. It should be regulated and taxed like gambling. It shouldn’t be banned, and academic exploration should be unfettered. But anyone making money off it should be monitored by the public and the law, and pay for that oversight.

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

#37

Post by bombcar »

chasing wrote: post #26
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…

The most "legitimate" use for bitcoin and its friends is transferring funds electronically with people that others don't want you transferring funds with (e.g, avoiding payment processors, laws, etc).

However, it remains to be seen if cryptocurrency could survive doing only that (e.g., without speculators) - because if there's no speculation how do you unload the currency? Only to others wishing to do the same. It's possible, but will it work out?

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

#38

Post by rideontime »

EGreg wrote: post #29

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…

> treating the tokens as securities

It's rare that someone openly admits to this.

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

#39

Post by bentcorner »

super256 wrote: post #14
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…

I tried wise some time ago. I wanted to send Euros to them, convert it to USD and then send it from my wise account to an American Bank account. To my dismay, I found that wise doesn't do Swift transactions in USD to bank accounts in the USA. I actually thought that was the whole idea behind wise, but apparently not? The other option was to pay my bank an additional 40€+ fee for each Swift transaction, which is too m…

I'm not a banking person but if you have a US bank account can't you do an ACH transfer from Wise to your bank?

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

#40

Post by goodpoint »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36
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…

> Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody It’s gambling. It should be regulated and taxed like gambling. It shouldn’t be banned, and academic exploration should be unfettered. But anyone making money off it should be monitored by the public and the law, and pay for that oversight.

It's much worse than that. It's a huge enabler for ransomware and other crimes with a side serving of environmental impact.
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