111–120 of 137 posts
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Bitcoin has been pumped up and crashed 3 times. The fraudulent trading of Mt. Gox was only the most recent crash.
According to the actual post, it was at least the last 2 times.
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I agree with most of what you said but: > Karpeles seems to have a history of lying. He was caught in a lie by his employer in 2004 Everybody "has a history of lying", because everybody lies. One incident of lying to an employer about IM'ing (or using Facebook or HN while at work, which almost every HN user has likely done) does not a future fraud make. Lying is universal - we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is…
This is what we call "projection". You may lie sometimes, and so you assume other people do as well. Some of us don't. Personally, I don't have the room in my head for it; there far more important thing to try and remember, and trying to keep track of lies would eat up way to much wetware. I make no claims as to frequency of non-lying - it be a rare trait. I have met a couple others, though, so "everybody" is incorre…
You must have a, ah, very narrow conception of what a lie is.
I mean, sure, most of us don't build a complex and self-consistent web of deception where we maintain several different self-consistent models of reality at once.
But that's not the only sort of lie.
The most common substantive lie, I think, is the "tell them what they want to hear" lie.
E.g. "are you working?" alt-tab "Yeah, I'm working"
Or even more commonly, checking personal email, facebook, or a webcomic on work time, and still putting that '8' on your timesheet.
For me? I don't do this on things that matter, and for me, work matters. e.g. if you ask if I'm working, but I'm on HN? I say, "No, I'm screwing off" If I'm having a hard time focusing, say, and I spend time on HN, my timesheet will have very few hours on it.
But, if you ask "how are you?" Quite often, I will say "fine" even if it is a lie. I excuse this lie by explaining it away as a greeting, but really? I don't want to spend time with a non-standard but more truthful answer, most of the time.
But a lot of people give the expected answer, even when the answer is a little bit important. This is the sort of lie that most people tell.
I don't think the bot is responsible for either bubble. But, if it was, the bitcoin world owes everything to Mark Karpeles. Because of the price surges it got all the media attention, VC investments, hundreds of companies popping up, millions of users...
I did gain (ever so slightly) from the higher price, and I didn't have any money with MtGox so no loss there. But I'm still unhappy about it, because I want to see bitcoin succeed in the long term.
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I've got your back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7777831 Our money was lost the moment we decided to transfer it to a third party. That 1/5 probably won't recover very much of it, if any of it, for reasons explored in that thread. Whether it's Mt. Gox or Coinbase, money we put into a webwallet is no longer ours. It's the legal entity's. If they go bankrupt, which can happen for a variety of reasons, sometimes…
Thanks for the information and advice. I figured as much, my hopes weren't too high. I don't think I'm going to be investing in anything like Bitcoin for a long time. Best of luck.
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I agree with most of what you said but: > Karpeles seems to have a history of lying. He was caught in a lie by his employer in 2004 Everybody "has a history of lying", because everybody lies. One incident of lying to an employer about IM'ing (or using Facebook or HN while at work, which almost every HN user has likely done) does not a future fraud make. Lying is universal - we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is…
This is what we call "projection". You may lie sometimes, and so you assume other people do as well. Some of us don't. Personally, I don't have the room in my head for it; there far more important thing to try and remember, and trying to keep track of lies would eat up way to much wetware. I make no claims as to frequency of non-lying - it be a rare trait. I have met a couple others, though, so "everybody" is incorre…
If such an innocuous "lie" was any evidence that someone could commit fraud, then we are in big trouble. Because that sort of lie isn't merely rare, ~everyone does so at some point.
They don't necessarily do it to be deceitful, rather because it's easier than the alternative. I don't think it has any moral or ethical quality to it. For instance, say I was having trouble with my girlfriend and couldn't concentrate at work. So I instead was diddle-dallying around and browsing HN.
I don't have the time or desire to explain to my boss the personal reasons why I was on HN, so instead I might say I was "refactoring" or doing code review. The next day, I'm fine and work extra hard to compensate .. no harm, no foul. I think most people would find that to be a reasonable "white lie".
Well researched findings there. Imagine a world, where the same logs would be public of what and by whom happens on the stock exchanges where all the high frequency trading is happening these days...
So, the world we live in right now then? All trade data, even HFT sourced, is available from exchanges. The only possible exception is dark pools or other crossing networks, but in general it is quite possible to know who bought what from whom, when and for how much.
The trade data is available to market information companies, other trading partners and of course the regulators, but is the subscriber data too? E.g. who gave the order to the trading partner?
Oh and yes, it's not really public...
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Thanks for the information and advice. I figured as much, my hopes weren't too high. I don't think I'm going to be investing in anything like Bitcoin for a long time. Best of luck.
Don't forget, 'real' bank accounts work like this as well. The money is no longer yours once you deposit into an account. The bank represents it as a liability on its balance sheet. As an account holder you are an 'unsecured creditor' of the bank. I have a feeling a lot more of us will be aware of this arrangement within a year or two, once the bail-ins begin.
The simple and incontrovertible fact is that the US banking system is as close to 100% safe as you can get. Bitcoin isn't anywhere close.
[1]: http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/index.html [2]: http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/index.html
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Thanks for the information and advice. I figured as much, my hopes weren't too high. I don't think I'm going to be investing in anything like Bitcoin for a long time. Best of luck.
Don't forget, 'real' bank accounts work like this as well. The money is no longer yours once you deposit into an account. The bank represents it as a liability on its balance sheet. As an account holder you are an 'unsecured creditor' of the bank. I have a feeling a lot more of us will be aware of this arrangement within a year or two, once the bail-ins begin.
In many countries currency deposits (up to a certain level) are protected by law and government guarantees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the information and advice. I figured as much, my hopes weren't too high. I don't think I'm going to be investing in anything like Bitcoin for a long time. Best of luck.
Don't forget, 'real' bank accounts work like this as well. The money is no longer yours once you deposit into an account. The bank represents it as a liability on its balance sheet. As an account holder you are an 'unsecured creditor' of the bank. I have a feeling a lot more of us will be aware of this arrangement within a year or two, once the bail-ins begin.