Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 148 posts

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#11

Post by dlau1 »

sputknick wrote: post #6

When I first learned about crypto currency on HN back in 2012 I was excited. It sounded like a fun technical project that could do good in the world. I bought some along the way, followed projects. Along the way it changed. Yesterday I saw a spam post on Reddit about joining a "pump and dump group", which I had to research. It's groups of people who coordinate a buy of a specific currency, spread false news about thi…

Keeping track of crypto amidst all the hype recently, it's abundantly clear to me that the recent explosion of speculation based trading is a signifier that cryptocurrency is a bubble just waiting to burst.

I don't think this is bad in any right. It looks (and I grew up in the bay area through turn of the century) just like the dot com bubble. The promising part of this is that the underlying technologies being developed, a way to distribute information and business logic in a way where there is an indisputable fully traceable truth, is huge. I think of blockchain-like platforms like Ethereum as the ARPANET to our internet. The opportunities to supplant existing fully centralized systems such as stock exchanges, escrow systems, supply chain/provenance tracking, etc. with a fully decentralized or hybrid approach is huge.

In the end though, I think it will come down to where governments draw the line in the sand. The sad but true reality is that the regulators with the guns will always have ultimate power.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#12

Post by pfisch »

sputknick wrote: post #6

When I first learned about crypto currency on HN back in 2012 I was excited. It sounded like a fun technical project that could do good in the world. I bought some along the way, followed projects. Along the way it changed. Yesterday I saw a spam post on Reddit about joining a "pump and dump group", which I had to research. It's groups of people who coordinate a buy of a specific currency, spread false news about thi…

How did it change? People have been scamming with bitcoins forever. Mt. Gox was a scam exchange. There were a bunch of people scamming even before that.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#13

Post by thisisit »

Bitcoin sank on Monday after website CoinMarketCap removed prices from South Korean exchanges, because coins were trading at a premium of about 30 percent in Asia’s fourth largest economy. That created confusion and triggered a broad selloff among investors.

So counterparty risks is still something which is misunderstood in the cryptocurrency space?

With action pending against South Korea exchanges, higher prices were warranted.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#14

Post by omegaham »

sputknick wrote: post #6

When I first learned about crypto currency on HN back in 2012 I was excited. It sounded like a fun technical project that could do good in the world. I bought some along the way, followed projects. Along the way it changed. Yesterday I saw a spam post on Reddit about joining a "pump and dump group", which I had to research. It's groups of people who coordinate a buy of a specific currency, spread false news about thi…

On the bright side, the idiots who join these groups hoping to scam others tend to lose their shirts as well. The person orchestrating the pump-and-dump scheme bought the currency at $X per coin in question long before, and he's using the people in the group as patsies. "Buy the coins at $X + $Y, and the rise in price will make it so that you can sell the coins to some other idiot for $Y + $Z!"

If there aren't enough "outsider" idiots to buy the coins for $Y + $Z before the correction happens, the "insider" idiots lose their shirts. The original person, of course, makes a tidy profit.

---

I learned this the hard way playing Runescape as a 16-year-old. 2007 was an interesting time for that game.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#15

Post by sputknick »

pfisch wrote: post #12
sputknick wrote: post #6

When I first learned about crypto currency on HN back in 2012 I was excited. It sounded like a fun technical project that could do good in the world. I bought some along the way, followed projects. Along the way it changed. Yesterday I saw a spam post on Reddit about joining a "pump and dump group", which I had to research. It's groups of people who coordinate a buy of a specific currency, spread false news about thi…

How did it change? People have been scamming with bitcoins forever. Mt. Gox was a scam exchange. There were a bunch of people scamming even before that.

I see it as different. Mt Gox was a legitimate business, with honest employees who were poor at implementing security. Someone saw an opportunity and stole. That exists even with regulation. My issue is with the rise of people who's intent from the beginning is to decieve. Similar to the scam coins that will never deliver a working product.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#16

Post by pfisch »

ruytlm wrote: post #8
sputknick wrote: post #6

When I first learned about crypto currency on HN back in 2012 I was excited. It sounded like a fun technical project that could do good in the world. I bought some along the way, followed projects. Along the way it changed. Yesterday I saw a spam post on Reddit about joining a "pump and dump group", which I had to research. It's groups of people who coordinate a buy of a specific currency, spread false news about thi…

Pump and dump schemes, among others, are a good example of why unregulated does not necessarily mean good.

I guess. I mean the regulated stock market has dark pools and super fast algorithms jumping in front of people's trades stealing from them.

I actually feel like the playing field is more uneven between individuals and firms in the regulated stock market vs the btc exchanges.

I also think the bitcoin exchanges are backroom dealing and insider trading, but I feel like they are less sophisticated vs the "legal" theft that is taking place on wall street.

I mean bitcoin exchanges are certainly the wild west, but I honestly don't care if people want to run pump and dumps on unsophisticated investors. That is something you can pretty easily defend against by doing your own research. There are far more nefarious things going on on both bitcoin exchanges and the real stock market.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#17

Post by pfisch »

sputknick wrote: post #15
pfisch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did it change? People have been scamming with bitcoins forever. Mt. Gox was a scam exchange. There were a bunch of people scamming even before that.

I see it as different. Mt Gox was a legitimate business, with honest employees who were poor at implementing security. Someone saw an opportunity and stole. That exists even with regulation. My issue is with the rise of people who's intent from the beginning is to decieve. Similar to the scam coins that will never deliver a working product.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100514.0

Look at all these btc ponzi schemes from 2012

Also I thought Mt Gox had a bot buying tons of btc on their own exchange pumping the price.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#18

Post by lozenge »

sputknick wrote: post #15
pfisch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did it change? People have been scamming with bitcoins forever. Mt. Gox was a scam exchange. There were a bunch of people scamming even before that.

I see it as different. Mt Gox was a legitimate business, with honest employees who were poor at implementing security. Someone saw an opportunity and stole. That exists even with regulation. My issue is with the rise of people who's intent from the beginning is to decieve. Similar to the scam coins that will never deliver a working product.

Mt Gox was insolvent long before it officially was. Mark tried to trade using money that didn't exist in order to bring it into the black, but he never managed. Look up wizsec's analysis.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#19

Post by United857 »

sputknick wrote: post #6

When I first learned about crypto currency on HN back in 2012 I was excited. It sounded like a fun technical project that could do good in the world. I bought some along the way, followed projects. Along the way it changed. Yesterday I saw a spam post on Reddit about joining a "pump and dump group", which I had to research. It's groups of people who coordinate a buy of a specific currency, spread false news about thi…

The vast majority of crypto will ultimately collapse, just like the vast majority of dot coms failed and crashed the entire market.

But... those that survived with solid fundamentals have often gone on to thrive spectacularly -- e.g. Google, Amazon.

I can see something similar ultimately happening in the crypto space.

Re: South Korea justice ministry prepares to ban cryptocurrency trading

#20

Post by sputknick »

pfisch wrote: post #17
sputknick wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as different. Mt Gox was a legitimate business, with honest employees who were poor at implementing security. Someone saw an opportunity and stole. That exists even with regulation. My issue is with the rise of people who's intent from the beginning is to decieve. Similar to the scam coins that will never deliver a working product.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=100514.0 Look at all these btc ponzi schemes from 2012 Also I thought Mt Gox had a bot buying tons of btc on their own exchange pumping the price.

Oh wow, I didn't know the scamming went back that far. On the other hand... With Ponzi schemes, isn't it obvious from the start what they are? Maybe I give humanity too much credit.
Post reply on HN