Live data from Hacker News

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

wsj.com

471–480 of 498 posts

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering an idea is about taking everything into account. The part where it’s illegal or morally reprehensible is essential to the discussion. Also if not communicated like here it can be understood as an opinion.

I do not assume ill-intent of the other curious people here, and I think if you do, you're not following the guidelines (take the most charitable interpretation of what someone writes).

I’m not assuming ill-intent, I’m talking about the idea. Stating something is wrong or illegal seems essential to the discussion. It’s like if someone said “I should rob a bank”, I sure hope saying it’s illegal will be taken into account in their curiosity.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "annoyed politicians" you mean "bait and switched AIDS patients".

He wasn't arrested for raising the price of his drugs, though. He was arrested for financial fraud, but none of his victims actually lost money. Very odd case. https://web.archive.org/web/20170710014221/https://www.washi...

Securities fraud is a criminal charge. It's not about someone receiving relief from some injury like a civil case. You can be charged criminally even everyone ends up better off; it's a crime against the state.

Think about this: I hijack an airplane full of people but all I do is get them to their destination faster. Everyone is better off (i.e., no material injury occurred) but I assume you'd still think I should be charged, no?

FWIW- Madoff used the same excuse that "nobody actually lost money." According to him, none of the principal was lost, it was just unrealized gains. Most people still think he should have been charged with fraud.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any sources for any of your claims so I've completely ignored it as you have no hard sources.

Okay, then it should be just as fair for everyone to ignore your claim that Ethereum runs "solely on AWS".

No, since there are clearly cited sources on the centrality of Ethereum on AWS and everyone from Vitalik and others knows it.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/3-cloud-providers-accounting-...

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/10/12/morgan-stanley-...

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't happen and would actually be much worse for Monero because it means everything becomes a giant target for thieves and scammers, even more than it already is. The reason it's failed is because the idea of cryptocurrency is fundamentally bad. Monero isn't even trying to hide it. The developers openly say that criminals should use it to commit crimes.

What crimes?

For starters, any of the money laundering crimes that CZ just pleaded guilty to. That's what any of these cryptocurrencies mean when they say transactions can't be tracked.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as those who are affected by some kind of loss are (reasonably) made whole, most legal systems won't give a flying f..k about anything.

I believe Martin Shkrelli would disagree I think that (sadly) the key distinction in the American justice system has to do with how easily it is to justify your prosecution to the public. If you're wildly popular, you're probably able to get away with quite a lot. If you're wildly unpopular, it's probably pretty easy to get a conviction on any number of things.

That's why juries suck. For some reason we pretend that even a random group of people can't have shared biases. Especially when there's a lack of evidence, it opens a jury up to judging someone based on their race, gender, appearance etc and I've seen it happen.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#476
post #260

SBF decided to testify against CZ to try to save his own ass, giving justice dept and sec something to fine CZ with. Govt collects a big crypto fine, fine makes the big losers in FTX whole, problem solved. CZ should have just bought FTX and closed the deal and made people whole, woulda saved himself some drama.

> SBF decided to testify against CZ to try to save his own ass, giving justice dept and sec something to fine CZ with. Is this conjecture?

Looks like it, and also seems like BS.

SBF was convicted ~2 weeks ago and a Section 35B (federal cooperation and substantial assistance) doesn't go through that quickly, unless SBF started cooperating against CZ before his conviction.

And it sure didn't seem like SBF was interested in cooperating in any way pre-conviction.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#478
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CZ is the one who pretty much orchestrated the FTX collapse. Chickens, home to roost, etc.

I've seen analyses showing even without CZ it was just a matter of time before the house of cards collapsed. "It's only when the tide goes out that you see who's swimming naked". The tide was going out even without CZ's actions. And FTX was swimming naked to the bone.

Oh FTX was definitely a house of cards, but maybe they could have played funny money games, got more investement, and otherwise stayed solvent until their Antropic bets paid off mayyyybe. But CZ definitely swept their legs out, purely out of spite.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then it should be just as fair for everyone to ignore your claim that Ethereum runs "solely on AWS".

No, since there are clearly cited sources on the centrality of Ethereum on AWS and everyone from Vitalik and others knows it. https://cointelegraph.com/news/3-cloud-providers-accounting-... https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/10/12/morgan-stanley-...

Both your sources show that only 30-35% of nodes run on AWS. They seem to support my point that Ethereum would continue running during an AWS outage, not your point that Ethereum runs "solely" on AWS.

Furthermore, the cointelegraph article misquotes a Messari report as if it's discussing the current state of Ethereum as having central points of failure, when it's really discussing a hypothetical upgrade to Ethereum that was never considered nor built.

Finally, node percentages don't actually matter in terms of chain uptime. What really matters are staking validator percentages, since they are what determine chain building and finality.

Re: Binance founder Changpeng Zhao agrees to step down, plead guilty

#480
post #432
post #414

After all these recent shit regarding crypto currencies in the US, you don't need a full brain to figure out that there is a huge hole in the system. It is also amazing to see that CZ managed to walk away free of any jail time, kept most of his assets gathered by his con job.

> most of his assets gathered by his con job. How did he con you? Did someone force you to use Binance? Do you have evidence that he conned someone?

I am not aware of evidence that he conned someone, but as a side quibble:

>Did someone force you to use Binance?

Do you understand what a con is? People are usually 'conned' because they are tricked into trusting someone that they shouldn't, when people are forced we typically refer to it as robbery or similar.

Post reply on HN