Live data from Hacker News

SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

sec.gov

121–128 of 128 posts

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with what I said? Transaction volume doesn't mean a fiddly-fuck, unless you're measuring network effects, and even then, context can become pretty important. No, if one thing should be clear to someone reading this thread, it should be that there's only one thing that matters: liquidity.

Huh? If transaction volume is immaterial, what utility are you talking about? Because we were talking about utility, and that "governments were buying it" - not liquidity.

The quality or condition of being useful; usefulness.

A useful article or device.

The most glaring example is the one I already posted above - countries hanging onto it for the times they need to settle outside of more traditional finance channels.

Ask a different question.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#122
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh bitcoin, ethereum and any such crypto"currency" (even the name is chosen to evoke certain emotions) is pretty solidly established to be scams. Read https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-pon... https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-pon... or if that's too long then consider how any of these crypto"currencies" with transaction fees are negative sum games and such they are scams…

Gold is absolutely a negative sum game. From a technical financial perspective it has negative carry[1] because of the cost of storage, insurance etc. Quite a few other assets are similar (eg art). Negative carry doesn’t intrinsically denote a scam but its fair to say that its much easier to establish a “fundamental” theory for the value of something like a dividend-paying stock that has positive carry. [1] Negative…

gold is addressed by Stolfi

> as a commodity, gold HAS a source of revenue besides the investors; namely, the purchases by consumers like jewelers and industry, who take gold out of the market (2/3 of the production) for uses other than re-sale.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#123
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew this guy from before he was a major league crypto scammer. I assure you although part of this is actual lack of taste, he is quite conscious of how he looks and intentionally turns the tackiness and gaudiness up to 11 even beyond his own sensibilities. It is a filter, designed to screen out people who might have enough common sense the question the legitimacy of his claims.

> It is a filter, designed to screen out people who might have enough common sense the question the legitimacy of his claims. Well, except for the SEC, I guess. Out of curiosity, can you say how you knew him?

He used to hang out in a telegram channel that was associated with a vlog which was somewhat popular for a few years in the Bitcoin community despite being somewhat more critical than supportive of cryptocurrency overall, growing more skeptical with time.

I think he was a guest a couple times on the program, and it became a regular in the telegram channel afterward. He had a penchant for ridiculous set dressing even then, although from what I have heard he went way over the top once he started the hex scam.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#124
Is this the same guy that made millions as a spam king decades ago, lives or lived in Panama and made the news due to a neighbor murder, and appeared until recently on podcasts /YouTube crypto discussions and interviews dressed as a velvet king?

Surely not that guy. Who would have thought he could be blowing smoke somehow.

Re: SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating Millions of Dollars

#126
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is absolutely a negative sum game. From a technical financial perspective it has negative carry[1] because of the cost of storage, insurance etc. Quite a few other assets are similar (eg art). Negative carry doesn’t intrinsically denote a scam but its fair to say that its much easier to establish a “fundamental” theory for the value of something like a dividend-paying stock that has positive carry. [1] Negative…

gold is addressed by Stolfi > as a commodity, gold HAS a source of revenue besides the investors; namely, the purchases by consumers like jewelers and industry, who take gold out of the market (2/3 of the production) for uses other than re-sale.

That is for sure a reasonable basis for a fundamental theory of value for gold - that there is demand other than from investors, but that’s not revenue[1]. Revenue is income generated by an activity or company. As an investor, you don’t get to benefit from cash arising from the demand for jewellery and industrial uses of gold without selling. The mark to market on your position should benefit but you don’t get cash.

So for that reason it is still a negative carry asset (ie it costs money to hold on an ongoing basis).

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122214/what-differe...

Post reply on HN