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Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

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Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#111
post #17

Christ, why is it just ok for politicians to outright create and promote Ponzi and Pump 'n Dump schemes? It doesn't seem that long ago that this would have been a scandal but now with the moron in the Oval Office creating his own meme coins without even trying to hide his business interests, and now the president of Argentina is doing the same shit? Is this really the world that we want? I mean, I guess the answer is…

Because he didn't. As he explains, it seems like all he did was do a retweet of what he thought might be a good thing (like he does a lot), not create the coin and not profited from it. According to his own words: > "A few hours ago I posted a tweet, as I have so many other times, supporting a supposed private enterprise with which I obviously have no connection whatsoever. I was not aware of the details of the proje…

> As he explains, it seems like all he did was do a retweet of what he thought might be a good thing

No, he wrote the Tweet himself. His words, not a retweet.

It’s right there in the article. I don’t know why people are trying to defend him and rewrite the story.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As was noted elsewhere (I forget the source), it's zero sum: anyone who makes money is making it off someone who is losing money. In fact, it's less than zero sum because of platform fees.

Yeah, this is the thing that made me realize that cryptocurrency is pretty much always a bad investment. Stocks aren't zero sum, at least in their idealized form; if I buy a share of some company, they can use that investment to create products or provide value in some form, and if the product is good then that gets reflected in the stock price increasing. It creates value, and the stock price follows. With cryptocur…

The term you're looking for is seigniorage [1]. Crypto privatises seigniorage to the financial promoters.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#113

Has the media or world at large even noticed the $TRUMP scam? I've only heard of it through Voidzilla, is that reflective of my bubble or is 'flood the zone' working?

The timing was definitely chosen to let it get lost in the noise. It also plays neatly into conservative ideals of letting the free market reign and “do your own research” is an excuse for everything. It’s trendy to blame only the buyers of these coins while praising the creators as genius marketers. That said, the Trump and Melania coins have generated a lot of anger in the crypto space. At first people were twistin…

It's so transparently a way for Trump to extract money from his constituents that a part of me wants to respect it.

But no one deserves to be scammed. I don't really get along with Republicans, I gotta admit I don't really like most Republicans now, and I find the Republican platform reprehensible, but I wouldn't wish being scammed for a conman on my worst enemy.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The timing was definitely chosen to let it get lost in the noise. It also plays neatly into conservative ideals of letting the free market reign and “do your own research” is an excuse for everything. It’s trendy to blame only the buyers of these coins while praising the creators as genius marketers. That said, the Trump and Melania coins have generated a lot of anger in the crypto space. At first people were twistin…

It's so transparently a way for Trump to extract money from his constituents that a part of me wants to respect it. But no one deserves to be scammed. I don't really get along with Republicans, I gotta admit I don't really like most Republicans now, and I find the Republican platform reprehensible, but I wouldn't wish being scammed for a conman on my worst enemy.

Maybe they view it as offering to their god

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#116

Has the media or world at large even noticed the $TRUMP scam? I've only heard of it through Voidzilla, is that reflective of my bubble or is 'flood the zone' working?

To me Milei is worse because he should know better with his background in economics. Argentina is also a relatively big user of crypto due to their currency being worthless, crypto actually has utility there [1]

Trump has been licensing his name to anyone who asks for decades.

[1] https://www.econtalk.org/devon-zuegel-on-inflation-argentina...

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#117
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not comparable, politically or financially Politically, Trump’s party controls the government and Trump is incredibly popular with his party. Financially, there hasn’t been a rug pull. The comparable situation would be Trumpcoin gets wiped out in 2026 amidst the Democrats taking back the House.

I mean... at a certain point, with memecoins, it's just about the scale of said pull, not the presence. There have been concerns of a pump and dump scheme and analysts have viewed it as a "disaster." A forensic analysis commissioned by the The New York Times concluded that 813,294 wallets lost $2 billion by trading the coin while the president's company and partners profited about $100 million from trading fees. Acco…

The purpose of buying a coin like $TRUMP is not to make money. It is to help Trump. You expect to lose money because the entire goal is to transfer money to Trump.

You and the New York Times seem to have misunderstood this important point.

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#118
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That legitimate stores of value are typically not that simple to manipulate.

You are equating legitimacy with liquidity, and the that isn't necessarily true. Liquidity is necessary, and a good marker, but not sufficient.

> You are equating legitimacy with liquidity, and the that isn't necessarily true.

How so? Liquidity is a measurement of how easy it is to trade, and if it's easy to trade there are many people/entities that believe it's "legitimate" currency, or they wouldn't trade for it

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#119
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question for you - what are the most energy efficient crypto protocols that could serve as the underlying network for a distributed system? And have there been any studies that look at the total energy consumption of a system of any reasonable size using various crypto protocols?

Well, once you move beyond proof-of-work, the energy use drops 99%. It's not about energy, it's about bottlenecks. Blockchain has bottlenecks, and if you have one blockchain for all the apps, it's going to be either inefficient or centralized. Back in 2017, I designed a system to avoid global consensus: https://intercoin.org/technology.pdf If you want to see a visual presentation that explains why we need to go beyon…

[deleted]

Re: Javier Milei backtracks on $4.4B memecoin after 'insiders' pocket $87M

#120
post #118
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are equating legitimacy with liquidity, and the that isn't necessarily true. Liquidity is necessary, and a good marker, but not sufficient.

> You are equating legitimacy with liquidity, and the that isn't necessarily true. How so? Liquidity is a measurement of how easy it is to trade, and if it's easy to trade there are many people/entities that believe it's "legitimate" currency, or they wouldn't trade for it

Parent said "store of value" not "currency". Liquidity is probably sufficient for a currency (depending on the features of the liquidity), but it is not sufficient for a store of value.
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