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SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

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Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#81

Post by Retric »

everfree wrote: post #69
Retric wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daily trade volume doesn’t represent what it used to as market makers/HFT algorithms get into and out of positions several times a day. What matters for estimating impact is essentially the net flow across the day/week/whatever not the transaction volume. It’s unlikely to precipitate a sell off but a 1+% dip in the short term isn’t unrealistic.

Ethereum has 1% dips regularly, on the hourly. In crypto, that’s generally considered very stable.

By short term I mean weeks to months not minutes.

I doubt anyone would try and liquidate it in a single transaction on public markets.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#82

Post by ChainOfFools »

arcticbull wrote: post #64
everfree wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum's daily trading volume is $7 billion, so it's likely that $1 billion would hardly affect its valuation.

Now subtract out the wash trading. I'm not saying it would or wouldn't affect the valuation, I'm saying that the top-line volume is a known fiction. Remember when "Coinbase Employee A" traded some 99% of the entire global LTC volume between two bots at Coinbase? Sure it's old news, but that's the most reputable exchange. [1, 2] Much of the crypto market is a digital Potemkin village designed to make you feel like you…

Potemkin as an adjective is such a useful tool when talking about the crypto scene. here's a post from when I used it extensively I guess about 8 years ago, in the same vein. Unfortunately as part of the cold war argot it seems to just draw blank stares from a lot of people under 35 or so.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3hrum5/degenerate...>

"Potemkin exchange, Potemkin conversation, it's Potemkins all the way down. Like a matrioshka doll each layer deeper is identical to the one before, but smaller and less articulately defined. "

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#83

Post by chx »

SoftTalker wrote: post #71
delusional wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're both running our own ponzi scheme and you give me $1 worth IOUs to your ponzi scheme, before later readjusting your ponzi scheme to be worth 1000x what it was previously. I would on paper have $1000 of your money, since that's what my IOU in your ponzi scheme is now "worth". If my ponzi scheme then folds before yours, you could claim that I've defrauded you for $1000, but I'd argue I haven't defrauded you in…

Lots of stuff has value, until it doesn't. Tulips, beanie-babies, or pet rocks come to mind. Doesn't mean it's a scam necessarily, could just be a fad -- irrational, but with no fraudulent intent behind it.

oh bitcoin, ethereum and any such crypto"currency" (even the name is chosen to evoke certain emotions) is pretty solidly established to be scams. Read

https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-pon...

https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-pon...

or if that's too long then consider how any of these crypto"currencies" with transaction fees are negative sum games and such they are scams (and no, stocks, gold and cash are not such).

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#84

Post by ChainOfFools »

wonderwonder wrote: post #75

The craziest part to me is that he was so incredibly open about it and people just kept giving him $. He just made video after video showing himself wearing outfits worth tens of thousands of dollars. Not a video about something else where he happened to be dressed up, but the video was literally about how much the items he was wearing cost. On top of that he looked absolutely ridiculous. I have never seen such a rea…

I had the strange luck to have known Richard Hart before he became a crypto huckster. In the year or so leading up to his transition from random spammer nobody to wealthy scamming random nobody, he was pretty aggressively critical and cynical about all things cryptocurrency, especially about the abject gullibility and willful ignorance of the people who sign on to all of the ideological nonsense about the blockchain and decentralization, and people who take all of the obviously manipulated metrics about market cap, volume and activity at face value. He could have been your very standard hn cryptocritic, going by his stated positions.

I'm not sure exactly what happened to him in the year or so between when I last encountered him in certain telegram channels, but I get the sense that his reaction to the shit show of cryptocurrency was rather than settling for being another Cassandra with a lot to say and no money to say it about the dangers of the crypto Ponzi scene, he went full Mirror Universe and decided to simply take advantage of the people who he had contempt for, as openly and boldly and shamelessly and transparently as he possibly could. This way he wouldn't have to feel as guilty about fooling them. Like a Stephen Colbert or Sacha Baron Cohen but with more meanness and less talent, and without any remorse for bilking the naive minnows snagged in the bycatch of his cryptobro trawling net.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#85

Post by ChainOfFools »

artursapek wrote: post #36
rlt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among other crimes against humanity is his incredibly gaudy sense of style https://twitter.com/RichardHeartWin/status/15402954048178831... https://sybershel.com/he-invented-the-crypto-that-gives-inte...

This guy was famous for posting these photos flaunting how much money he was wearing. It blows my mind to think someone could be this open about doing this

I knew this guy from before he was a major league crypto scammer. I assure you although part of this is actual lack of taste, he is quite conscious of how he looks and intentionally turns the tackiness and gaudiness up to 11 even beyond his own sensibilities. It is a filter, designed to screen out people who might have enough common sense the question the legitimacy of his claims.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#86

Post by WorldMaker »

thesausageking wrote: post #77

The SEC is just the wrong organization to be enforcing laws in crypto. This was a scam that was done out in the open and launched 4 years ago. People conned into buying this have already lost their money and they're not getting it back. The founder will use some of the $1B+ he's made of it to defend himself in a long, drawn out court case that the SEC will eventually settle. The SEC's purpose is supposed to be to pro…

If not the SEC then who?

It took decades before Bernie Madoff's crimes came to light under SEC investigation (and then eventual criminal prosecution). Most of his victims had already lost their money and were never getting it back, even with the criminal suits they eventually joined that was mostly to show justice to Madoff not to recover lost funds.

From that perspective, 4 years is possibly a record in speediness for scams of this scale. (Cryptocurrencies sure have sped up the scams, but also seem to have greatly sped up the investigations into the spams, perhaps in a way that some will find ironic.)

The SEC can't protect all investors a priori (ahead of time). There's always going to be a long tail of investigations into past misdeeds and airing the dirty laundry. In theory the more dirty laundry the SEC can air from previous misdeeds the more it educates the public on things to look for and the more it assures would-be scammers that eventually they will be caught and will have to face the American justice system. (Whether or not you think the American justice system capable of doling out enough criminal charges that stick to these sorts of injustices, it is always still worth trying.)

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#87

Post by wonderwonder »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #84
wonderwonder wrote: post #75

The craziest part to me is that he was so incredibly open about it and people just kept giving him $. He just made video after video showing himself wearing outfits worth tens of thousands of dollars. Not a video about something else where he happened to be dressed up, but the video was literally about how much the items he was wearing cost. On top of that he looked absolutely ridiculous. I have never seen such a rea…

I had the strange luck to have known Richard Hart before he became a crypto huckster. In the year or so leading up to his transition from random spammer nobody to wealthy scamming random nobody, he was pretty aggressively critical and cynical about all things cryptocurrency, especially about the abject gullibility and willful ignorance of the people who sign on to all of the ideological nonsense about the blockchain…

He very much took advantage of the adage, "a fool and his money are soon parted". On some level I can't even blame him. People are literally sending hundreds/ thousands of dollars in eth to people that just list an address and give vague mention of getting something valuable back. He probably figured, why not me? He could have just moved to Russia and have been fine. SEC frowns upon blatant scams though.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#88

Post by arcticbull »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #82
arcticbull wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now subtract out the wash trading. I'm not saying it would or wouldn't affect the valuation, I'm saying that the top-line volume is a known fiction. Remember when "Coinbase Employee A" traded some 99% of the entire global LTC volume between two bots at Coinbase? Sure it's old news, but that's the most reputable exchange. [1, 2] Much of the crypto market is a digital Potemkin village designed to make you feel like you…

Potemkin as an adjective is such a useful tool when talking about the crypto scene. here's a post from when I used it extensively I guess about 8 years ago, in the same vein. Unfortunately as part of the cold war argot it seems to just draw blank stares from a lot of people under 35 or so. https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3hrum5/degenerate... > "Potemkin exchange, Potemkin conversation, it's Potemkins all t…

I wish I could take credit for the term, but I'm also a huge fan of 'Sierpinski scheme'.

Also, what on God's green flat earth was that article about? The one you were responding to, lol. I mean the late Mircea Popescu was a real piece of work, but, just, wow.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#89

Post by WorldMaker »

Terr_ wrote: post #78
artursapek wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy was famous for posting these photos flaunting how much money he was wearing. It blows my mind to think someone could be this open about doing this

When it comes to both scams and investing, sometimes a kind of ancient "look at me I'm obviously wealthy and successful, so clearly you should treat me favorably and maybe link your fortune to mine" thing going on. > It was quite a crash, Nakamura Lines. Respectable middle-aged businessmen took to leaving their hotel windows without their lift belts. Me, I kept spending. If I'd started living frugally, my creditors w…

Relatedly, the bizarre "Prosperity Gospel" thing where preachers of a religion ostensibly following a teacher who believed that you should give all your money to the poor (and be sure to toss all the bankers lending money out of your church while you are at it) spend incredible amounts of money on fashion and private jets and expensive homes in some religious message that spiritual wealth is "trickle-down".

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#90

Post by ChainOfFools »

arcticbull wrote: post #88
ChainOfFools wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potemkin as an adjective is such a useful tool when talking about the crypto scene. here's a post from when I used it extensively I guess about 8 years ago, in the same vein. Unfortunately as part of the cold war argot it seems to just draw blank stares from a lot of people under 35 or so. https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3hrum5/degenerate... > "Potemkin exchange, Potemkin conversation, it's Potemkins all t…

I wish I could take credit for the term, but I'm also a huge fan of 'Sierpinski scheme'. Also, what on God's green flat earth was that article about? The one you were responding to, lol. I mean the late Mircea Popescu was a real piece of work, but, just, wow.

Popescu is like the ur-bitcoiner, and by extension the ur-kleptocurrency scumbag. He's one of the handful of people who have (or in his case, had) quite a bit of influence over the perpetual number go up movement of the market cap due to being one of the very earliest large hoarders of coins at penny prices, and a complete Kool-Aid drinking Central bank/central government hating misanthropic troll.

Although I will say in his direct company, he was fairly well-mannered and clearly had a curious mind but one warped by what must have been some sort of Trisomy on the asshole gene.

That article was lifted directly from his blog which, I'm not sure may still be active even now, that contain much of his musings on that same topic as well as lots of others, all as reprehensible and in my view absolutely would have entitled him to an early death - assuming he didn't fake it.

Sierpinski scheme, hah! Now I really want to somehow tie that end with Zooko's triangle. Reminds me of the guy who made a guide to "writing your first ethereum contract in Pyramid Scheme" oh another variation just occured to me: Fractal Fraud

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