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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

#241

Post by jemmyw »

EGreg wrote: post #210
jemmyw wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engagement is not always easy. You've had other public figures, but they want to be public figures. There could be a myriad of reasons for her turning you down from not caring, being busy, not liking you personally, not wanting to be more public than she already is. That she has posted something about the topic is not a compelling argument that she must take it further. I think you posting about it and posting the em…

I agree, and I could be wrong. After all, there can be a myriad of reasons for why I would want to have her on the show yet people on HN assume it is out of my desire to somehow become famous or advertise my coin or do a scam. They can’t imagine someone being genuinely in it for the tech and improving people’s lives. Or maybe they say those assumptions to “fit in” with what’s cool on HN right now. In any case, given…

I didn't say anything about what the insights are, I guess it's up to each person. However, you haven't done yourself favours with long rambling comments. If you had originally just said "I was interested in interviewing her on my podcast [link] but she declined." That would have been fine, folks would draw their own conclusions. Then there would be no look of disrespect on your part or people thinking you're trying to "call her out" or whatever it is you're doing.

> They are doing the equivalent of standing on a street corner with a megaphone

It's revealing you find it that in your face. Most people discover it via a link on hn, read, have a chuckle, move on.

> expect someone to politely approach them

Well indeed. And hopefully not see them splurge all over the place when they refuse to engage.

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

#242

Post by JumpCrisscross »

wustangdan wrote: post #229
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gold and crypto are already taxed the same and on the same level (capital gains)...It's really expensive to secure my own gold Gold bugs pay for their own security. Crypto outsources investigation, enforcement and regulation onto the public. > how is crypto packets flowing preventing you My taxes pay for investigation and enforcement. > Don't you wish you could see JP Morgans or the Pentagons books laid bare like t…

Good dialogue so far but you've lost me with this. When I buy a big vault, extra door locks, a pitbull, and a gun to protect the gold I store at home to go full gold buggery, am I paying for the investigation, enforcement, and regulation of gold? This is what I mean by its expensive to secure my own gold. When I store gold at a business that specializes in such services, am I paying for the investigation, enforcement…

> When I buy a big vault, extra door locks, a pitbull, and a gun to protect the gold I store at home to go full gold buggery, am I paying for the investigation, enforcement, and regulation of gold?

No, you’re paying to secure it. That minimises the fraud around gold.

> When I store gold at a business that specializes in such services, am I paying for the investigation, enforcement, and regulation of gold?

Id.

> don't really get what you are subsidizing that you don't also subsidize for pokemon cards, private equity, or any collectable

Private equity is subject to some reporting standards under the ‘40 Act because it is a haven for fraudsters. Pokémon cards are not similarly problematic so they’re not. Crypto, like securities and gambling, has proven itself a haven for fraud.

I don’t demonise crypto. But we need visibility, laws and enforcement, as well as a stream of revenue to pay for it.

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

#243

Post by neilk »

leashless wrote: post #188
neilk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to see what "crossed swords" meant, so I searched for what leashless might have meant. Some examples of threads that I felt were representative. https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1513184187498569729 https://twitter.com/molly0xFFF/status/1516610542588284931 I think the most generous summary of these interactions would be that leashless is solidly convinced of two things: blockchains are the answer to pres…

On the modern slavery front have a read of the transcript of the podcast from our modern slavery expert discussing how all this fits together. Serious policy people who are worthy of respect are doing this thing. Molly can snark all the likes but all that she’s demonstrated is arrogance, poor judgement, an unwillingness to admit when she is out of her depth on real world issues like modern slavery, and a willingness…

No, I will not.

“You just have to do more research to understand” is the crypto founder’s refuge from all criticism.

You have not demonstrated that your claim is worthy of investigation.

While I am not the most intelligent person you have met, I am a very smart person. Someone who claims that the CAP theorem proves the inevitability of blockchains has understood neither, or is perhaps deliberately using words to bamboozle mildly technical people. But perhaps you are ahead of your time and merely look like a scammer. Nevertheless, if you are unable to explain the idea to others who are not as smart as you, at minimum you are incompetent as a visionary or founder. Educating is your job, not mine.

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

#244

Post by wharfjumper »

mattdesl wrote: post #211
retornam wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wise is near-instant it doesn't take multiple days. Even Western Union has money in minutes to over 200 countries [1]. Almost all delayed transactions are due to fraud. The delay is often implemented to protect the sender from losing funds. How does crypto handle fraud? [1] https://www.westernunion.com/us/en/restrictions-money-in-min...

My numbers are sourced from Wise’s own website. 1K GBP to CAD has a £5.02 fee and takes two days. > How does crypto handle fraud? Not every transactional system needs to adhere to the same set of antiquated and arduous AML checks and balances; which often break (either by allowing fraud to occur or incorrectly flagging and delaying valid transactions). For comparison, Cash App has no dispute mechanism: https://cash.a…

I think the logical flaw is in the assumption that AML checks are a bug in traditional money transfer systems when in fact they are a government-imposed feature (largely following on from September 11 and the expanded scope of the FATF[1]). Therefore the same rules will eventually apply to cryptocurrency financial transactions negating many of the advantages that an unregulated process has when compared to a regulated one.

So the real question is: what is the technological benefit offered by decentralized ledger-type technologies versus traditional ones? The answer for many is that the technology is much worse in fundamental ways. Additionally the governance issues of a decentralized system or organization are very challenging to address.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Action_Task_Force

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

#245

Post by EGreg »

jemmyw wrote: post #241
EGreg wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and I could be wrong. After all, there can be a myriad of reasons for why I would want to have her on the show yet people on HN assume it is out of my desire to somehow become famous or advertise my coin or do a scam. They can’t imagine someone being genuinely in it for the tech and improving people’s lives. Or maybe they say those assumptions to “fit in” with what’s cool on HN right now. In any case, given…

I didn't say anything about what the insights are, I guess it's up to each person. However, you haven't done yourself favours with long rambling comments. If you had originally just said "I was interested in interviewing her on my podcast [link] but she declined." That would have been fine, folks would draw their own conclusions. Then there would be no look of disrespect on your part or people thinking you're trying…

Hopefully. But I think “the place” is a thread about this very blog. And refusing to engage is pretty relevant!

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

#246

Post by leashless »

quickthrowman wrote: post #157
p4bl0 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get how people can believe a single second that this kind of projects can make any sense. What is the purpose of a blockchain for this? You cannot get rid of a central authority, because the transmission of land or really anything that exists outside of the blockchain you're planning to use cannot be transferred by simply writing something on the said blockchain. That only works for crypto-tokens becau…

> I really don't get how people can believe a single second that this kind of projects can make any sense. I don’t either, given that > writing anything else on a given blockchain only guarantees that this something else is written on this given blockchain, and if you don't have any external authority that can make it true (for example, the justice system to which you can go if the person to whom you have paid for a…

If you actually want to know:

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Speech-M...

That’s from the UK head of civil justice. Read points six through nine.

Then https://medium.com/humanizing-the-singularity/the-best-of-bo...

Which explains how we get real world facts on to the blockchain in an economically secure way.

No, you cannot do this with a database.

Bear in mind I’m also http://myhopeforthe.world and http://guptaoption.com/2.long_peace.php and several other projects.

I’m spread thin across a surprising variety of fields working on problems that to most people look disconnected, but to me look like aspects of the same thing.

https://medium.com/humanizing-the-singularity/by-the-end-of-...

This is what I wrote the morning we launched Ethereum.

My mind is not particularly deep, but it is exceedingly wide. If you can find my equal in this regard let me know. I should like to meet them.

What I’m putting together is the technology platform to take the edge off the global humanitarian clusterfuck which is coming when the international refugee system collapses under the weight of climate refugees.

* blockchains and legal contracts get us aid transparency - if we can track the underlying physical assets say with 2D barcodes.

* correctly deployed insurance gets us biometrics without centralised databases. (Guptaoption.com/cheapid)

* unconventional approaches to civilian military cooperation are required to roll out aid on this scale https://web.archive.org/web/20120127093132/http://science.do...

Yes that is an archived version of an official DoD blog post about me.

* I worked for these folks for years https://akvo.org/wash-and-water-quality-data-solutions/ which is how we figure out where the food and water etc. are

I’m mapping and prototyping the systems for keeping hundreds of millions of people alive when the shit finally hits the fan on climate change.

Two molecules thick over a territory the size of a university.

You either see it or you don’t, but what I’m knitting together here is the only remotely viable global plan for managing the worse aspects of the humanitarian damage we are going to take from climate change.

I didn’t say “once in a generation transformative intelligence” lightly. This is about half of the shit that I’ve done in the last 20 years.

I started working flat out on this knowing it would take 30 years or more to develop in 2002.

Do you remember worrying about climate change in 2003? Do you remember how insignificant it looked? A little respect, please.

Shit has to get done. Something bad is coming.

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

#247

Post by [deleted] »

EGreg wrote: post #148
EamonnMR wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> relying on centralized entities which clearly is a problem More or less of a problem than out and out scams? > Web5 Did I miss web4? Overall your complaint would be similar to if I complained that Bryan Krebs was one-sided in his coverage of cybercrime, in that he's never pro-crime.

We used to call it Web4, in fact. Jack Dorsey was the reason we went back and renamed everything to Web5. I was always thinking how 2 + 3 = 4, but then Dorsey went full 5 and we wanted to make sure when people google "Web5" they find us. Our soft goal is to have Intercoin rank higher than Bluesky for "Web5". > relying on centralized entities which clearly is a problem >More or less of a problem than out and out scams…

[deleted]

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

#248

Post by leashless »

Animats wrote: post #93
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 early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Carnage, yes. I ran "downside.com" back then. (It's still up, but I stopped updating it around 2006.). In the first dot-com boom, everybody went public. So you could track their numbers from SEC filings. I just took their cash flow numbers and computed when the cash would run out as the "death date". That wa…

The scams were dressed as massively inflated IPOs for companies that absolutely never stood a chance.

They needed Goldman or somebody like it in on the deal. Everybody had to put on a suit. It was industrial.

Now it’s a cottage industry of petty grifters exiled from multi level marketing, plus a few big Silicon Valley institutions that turned to the dark side: A16Z springs to mind.

Not much has changed, only the direct to consumer nature of the scams without needing an investment bank in the mix.

Same old game.

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

#249

Post by leashless »

neilk wrote: post #243
leashless wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the modern slavery front have a read of the transcript of the podcast from our modern slavery expert discussing how all this fits together. Serious policy people who are worthy of respect are doing this thing. Molly can snark all the likes but all that she’s demonstrated is arrogance, poor judgement, an unwillingness to admit when she is out of her depth on real world issues like modern slavery, and a willingness…

No, I will not. “You just have to do more research to understand” is the crypto founder’s refuge from all criticism. You have not demonstrated that your claim is worthy of investigation. While I am not the most intelligent person you have met, I am a very smart person. Someone who claims that the CAP theorem proves the inevitability of blockchains has understood neither, or is perhaps deliberately using words to bamb…

If you don’t want to understand there’s no point trying to justify it.

Move on.

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

#250

Post by leashless »

neilk wrote: post #243
leashless wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the modern slavery front have a read of the transcript of the podcast from our modern slavery expert discussing how all this fits together. Serious policy people who are worthy of respect are doing this thing. Molly can snark all the likes but all that she’s demonstrated is arrogance, poor judgement, an unwillingness to admit when she is out of her depth on real world issues like modern slavery, and a willingness…

No, I will not. “You just have to do more research to understand” is the crypto founder’s refuge from all criticism. You have not demonstrated that your claim is worthy of investigation. While I am not the most intelligent person you have met, I am a very smart person. Someone who claims that the CAP theorem proves the inevitability of blockchains has understood neither, or is perhaps deliberately using words to bamb…

On the CAP theorem specifically, I refer you to:

https://medium.com/humanizing-the-singularity/why-global-tra...

I think you will find that if you think carefully the blockchain presents an opinionated solution to building useful globally distributed databases.

This breaks it down more explicitly. https://ancapalex.medium.com/a-cursory-introduction-to-byzan...

You actually have to think about this to understand it. From first principles.

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