Ever since MtGox, a familiar headline, reusable every year or so, with only the specific identity of the biggest crypto firm needing be changed. (Though, who's next? Not that many still standing, really.)
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."
Binance is under threat
71–80 of 80 posts
Re: Binance is under threat
#72Who would have thought that a pyramid scheme wouldn't last forever.
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."
Re: Binance is under threat
#73I'm still waiting for the "obvious scam that Tether is which is printing fake dollars as everybody knows" to implode. Any moment now. BTW, wasn't the narrative that crypto goes up because it's bought with printed Tethers? Why aren't they printing some now to start another bull market?
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."
Re: Binance is under threat
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ensure your assets are safe It's been demonstrated time and time again this isn't practical. In crypto your choice is either worry about an exchange collapsing or worry about losing your keys, having your wallet cleaned out by some scammer, etc. The chances of either are very, very high. "Not your keys, not your coins" just as easily (or even more so) becomes "you don't have your keys" or "some scammer has your coi…
At the institutional level I don't think this is true. There are pretty reliable custody options that are far less shady than Binance.
> There are pretty reliable custody options
When the best possible description someone can use is "pretty reliable" I think that underscores my point.
FTX was considered to be in this category for years. Question now is, when will the next "pretty reliable" custodian go the way of FTX? When, not if.
I've been following the space very closely for years and the shenanigans involving other people's money are unreal. Are you aware the former CTO of Kraken was completely anonymous? Literally an avatar - try to find their name anywhere. Kraken employees didn't even know who they were - never came to the office, events, or even turned their camera on in meetings. I would imagine someone in payroll/HR or something knew who they were but maybe not, and they were getting paid in crypto?
Kraken, also considered one of the "more reliable" custodians for years, where the entire platform was in the hands of some random person who could disappear in the night with no reputational harm. Speaking of Kraken, take a look at their executive turnover. Very reliable.
I wanted to believe in the underlying technology for years but it's fundamentally and inextricably linked to other people's finances and there has been plenty of time for this kind of clownish behavior to work itself out. Crypto is almost old enough to have a Driver's License in the US which makes it a senior citizen in technology terms. It has had plenty of time to grow up but I think it's clear it never will.
Re: Binance is under threat
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're remembering incorrectly. Crypto is large, but nowhere near large enough to cause contagion risk, especially because nobody is stupid enough to lever against it as though it was a AAA asset (like they did for American mortgages). If every single cryptocurrency was zeroed tomorrow, the global economy would shrug and move on.
Arguably the crypto blowup last year did result in some contagion, being one of the triggers for the US’s recent Medium Sized Bank Crisis. Though, also, arguably that was coming anyway, one way or another.
I think the 2023 bank crisis proves the opposite of what you're claiming. Only 3 banks failed, and of those three one had nothing to do with crypto. It was not a contagion, and people predicting it would have widespread repercussions on the economy turned out to be wrong.
"No contagion risk" doesn't mean nobody would be harmed by a crypto collapse; obviously there are a handful of morons here and there who would get wiped out. It means there is no systematic, widespread dependency of the real economy on the crypto one. I think the bank failures bear that out.
Re: Binance is under threat
#76Who would have thought that a pyramid scheme wouldn't last forever.
" Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1. Crypto is a pyramid scheme. I've been saying this since 2011. And it is very well proven by the flow of money over the past 12 years.
2. How is this a tangent? It is directly related to the problems discussed in the post
Re: Binance is under threat
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the institutional level I don't think this is true. There are pretty reliable custody options that are far less shady than Binance.
> There are pretty reliable custody options When the best possible description someone can use is "pretty reliable" I think that underscores my point. FTX was considered to be in this category for years. Question now is, when will the next "pretty reliable" custodian go the way of FTX? When, not if. I've been following the space very closely for years and the shenanigans involving other people's money are unreal. Are…
FTX was offshore. Gemini, Coinbase, Fireblocks, etc. are in the US. Kraken is on the fence IMO because it's US-based but pretty edgy.
Re: Binance is under threat
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
You see far too much of this attitude on HN with regards to a number of idiotic business plans.
Yeah, HN is _big_ into the “rich people are magic” thing. Maybe a bit blunted at the moment, with FTX, and, er, Twitter, but it goes _deep_.
I've noticed this too, including the increasingly indefensible position that billionaires are somehow inate geniuses and will solve all our problems.
Re: Binance is under threat
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the institutional level I don't think this is true. There are pretty reliable custody options that are far less shady than Binance.
> There are pretty reliable custody options When the best possible description someone can use is "pretty reliable" I think that underscores my point. FTX was considered to be in this category for years. Question now is, when will the next "pretty reliable" custodian go the way of FTX? When, not if. I've been following the space very closely for years and the shenanigans involving other people's money are unreal. Are…
Fireblocks is the preferred custody solution for institutions today. It's 'non-custodial' and your assets can be recovered at any time. The MPC cryptography that enables Fireblocks to exist was only invented in 2019.
Re: Binance is under threat
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
" Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1. Crypto is a pyramid scheme. I've been saying this since 2011. And it is very well proven by the flow of money over the past 12 years. 2. How is this a tangent? It is directly related to the problems discussed in the post
Low-information putdowns are flamebait regardless of how right you are or feel you are.
The article was about the specific current situation of Binance. You didn't respond to anything specific in the article. Changing the subject to the 50,000th repetition of the Generic Crypto Flamewar was not only a generic tangent but a perfect example thereof.
Perhaps this might help: the point of HN threads isn't to be right, but to have curious, mutually interesting conversation. That's quite different from repeating the same things over and over, no? That's about as far from curious conversation as it's possible to get. If a conversation can be predicted, then it's not what we want here.
There's another aspect too—predictable conversations, especially on divisive topics, inevitably turn nasty. My theory is that the mind resorts to indignation to amuse itself in the absence of new information (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Whether that's true or not, we're definitely looking for conversations that organize around new information.