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Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

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Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#281

Post by 2devnull »

cs702 wrote: post #150
youreincorrect wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people talk about Bitcoin's potential demise, they are referring to its price and perceived value, not whether it will cease to exist necessarily. Madoff also was not ultimately caught and his scheme ended because of the accounting fraud being revealed (i.e. the fraud was not that important). That happened later. He was caught because a market downturn resulted in him being unable to acquire new victims for the…

The longer Bitcoin's network continues to function, more and more people will become aware of its resiliency . Governments may topple; banks may fail; exchanges may go bust; Bitcoin keeps on ticking. As long as the network continues to function, Bitcoin will have a price.

Well, I think what you’re talking about is perception of risk. The perception of the risk that it goes to 0 is probably decreasing over time. But the expectation of future gains based on past performance is also decreasing over time. Most of the investors I feel are worth listening to see this and conclude two things: it’s here to stay but probably can’t go much higher without the broad market also going higher.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#282

Post by travisjungroth »

otoburb wrote: post #97
cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

>> If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and so far all have been utterly wrong Bernie Madoff pulled off one of the largest (literal Ponzi) scams and evidently stated that he started in the 1990s for a run of just over 15 years until being arrested in 2008, although some investigators thought that his fraudulent activities started as far back a…

Something collapsing isn’t an example of the Lindy effect not working. It literally predicts when things will collapse. It’s just a life expectancy for things with a power law distribution.

A healthy 20-year-old can fall over dead from a brain aneurysm. Doesn’t mean actuarial tables aren’t useful.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#283

Post by progrus »

cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

It’s bigger than the US. People are starting to get it.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#284

Post by cyanydeez »

otoburb wrote: post #97
cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

>> If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and so far all have been utterly wrong Bernie Madoff pulled off one of the largest (literal Ponzi) scams and evidently stated that he started in the 1990s for a run of just over 15 years until being arrested in 2008, although some investigators thought that his fraudulent activities started as far back a…

Think of Bitcoin like the martingale betting method.

In theory, it does win. In practice, few people have enough liquidity to keep up and even then, they need to know when to quit.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#285

Post by favflam »

waynecochran wrote: post #45

With crypto trading platforms, the SEC lacks any sort of oversight and access — and has scant ability to detect, investigate and deter fraudulent conduct. As a result, the crypto marketplace operates without much supervision Isn't that the main idea of a decentralized currency? No doubt this has/does/will harbor criminal activity, but it will also foster the ability to exchange goods and services without third partie…

Regulations mandate a surveillance module attached to the trading system to detect suspicious trading patterns, and I guess also check the stability of the overall market place. Regulators get visibility into a trading platform through these mechanisms.

Unregistered crypto-firms do not have to allow SEC access.

This thinking does not apply to decentralized exchanges, only CEXs.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#286

Post by peoplefromibiza »

mabcat wrote: post #274
thworp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is an absolutely ass-backwards argument. To be a currency or a store of value or money (read: to be of any use) it has to be exchangeable for goods and services . Now we can see transactions on the blockchain but we have no idea what that transaction was for. *Nobody* can tell you what a bitcoins worth of wheat is without resorting to exchange rates of bitcoin to actual currencies. But because the entire exc…

You do need to separate medium of exchange from store of value. Real estate is useless as a currency while being the primary store of value for most people. Most of your objections also apply to real estate: can't know how much wheat a house is worth, houses are notoriously illiquid, price discovery is difficult and quite opaque, the sector is rife with misrepresentations. I wouldn't go so far as to say fraud, but wh…

I guess the difference is that you can live in a house. For the majority of people that's the real value.

Real estate market is also heavily (heavily) regulated, to the point that buying and selling houses require so much paperwork that it's not really convenient for scammers.

It's also quite stable, loans are secured by mortgages on the properties, I'm not sure anyone would accept bitcoins for the same purpose.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#287

Post by __loam »

cs702 wrote: post #58

Three highly speculative predictions: 1. The courts are more likely than not to rule that many crypto-assets -- but not all -- should be regulated as investments. It won't be fun for a lot of crypto traders. 2. Over time, the usual giant financial institutions are bound to become the dominant market makers in crypto-assets. In all likelihood, one of them will end up buying Coinbase. Those giant financial institutions…

> as a store of value

Bitcoin is fundamentally a terrible store of value thanks to how fuckin volatile it is.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#288

Post by lmm »

cs702 wrote: post #102
otoburb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If this sounds far-fetched, consider that many smart and smart-sounding people have predicted Bitcoin's demise, and so far all have been utterly wrong Bernie Madoff pulled off one of the largest (literal Ponzi) scams and evidently stated that he started in the 1990s for a run of just over 15 years until being arrested in 2008, although some investigators thought that his fraudulent activities started as far back a…

The comparison to Madoff is not apt. Madoff hid losses by committing accounting fraud, whereas every single transaction in the Bitcoin network is visible to everyone and, moreover, cryptographically verifiable by everyone. As long as the distributed consensus algorithm continues to function, Bitcoin will continue to exist. Period. (Government regulations cannot kill it; they can only drive it underground, as with gol…

> Anyone who predicts Bitcoin's demise must explain precisely how and why its network would stop functioning.

I've been saying for years that Bitcoin will go down like Second Life. Remember when there were news stories about Sony or whoever buys an island for X million dollars? And now... I mean it's still there (presumably), I don't think they've turned off the servers or anything, but no-one cares and it's obviously not a good investment (and that's with it being propped up by a few people who actually enjoy the game, which Bitcoin won't have).

The ability to actually buy stuff with Bitcoin is already past its peak (more places are removing Bitcoin payment options than adding them). It's less in the news than it was. There probably won't be a specific collapse moment (when Tether's reserves get exposed as fraudulent and they stop withdrawals I expect Bitcoin's price will crash, but it's crashed before and there are still true believers left over). I mean eventually the last miner will turn off their rig, but it will be irrelevant long before that happens.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#289

Post by ProjectArcturis »

alphanullmeric wrote: post #165
Hermitian909 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - and the question is - do we as a society want to allow that, do we think it's worth the tradeoffs? Five years ago I think the answer was still "wait and see", I think it's reasonable by now to say "actually, no, it's not worth it".

Allow what exactly? Consenting individuals to risk what they want to risk with each other?

Speculation. Ransomware. Dark-net markets. These are the top 3 use cases for crypto.

Re: Former US SEC attorney: 'Get out of crypto platforms now'

#290

Post by darth_avocado »

mabcat wrote: post #274
thworp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is an absolutely ass-backwards argument. To be a currency or a store of value or money (read: to be of any use) it has to be exchangeable for goods and services . Now we can see transactions on the blockchain but we have no idea what that transaction was for. *Nobody* can tell you what a bitcoins worth of wheat is without resorting to exchange rates of bitcoin to actual currencies. But because the entire exc…

You do need to separate medium of exchange from store of value. Real estate is useless as a currency while being the primary store of value for most people. Most of your objections also apply to real estate: can't know how much wheat a house is worth, houses are notoriously illiquid, price discovery is difficult and quite opaque, the sector is rife with misrepresentations. I wouldn't go so far as to say fraud, but wh…

You can live in a real estate investment or grow food on it or run a business in it. Bitcoin is a bunch of 1s and 0s that is same as a blank canvas hung in museum and is priced at $20M. It is essentially useless, but people believe it’s worth something, so it keeps holding value. Until one day, it doesn’t.
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