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Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

forum.effectivealtruism.org

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Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#141

Post by artdigital »

inquirer39243 wrote: post #95
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve been waiting years for people to suffer? Lookup “ schadenfreude”.

It's not that many of us long-time crypto users want people to suffer, it's the jaded "I told you so" moment. Many of us have seen many "too big to fail" exchanges fall, have seen 2+ other "crypto bubbles" drop the price by 80%+. When we told everyone "don't keep your money on an exchange" and "we've seen seen these 'too the moon' skyrocketing prices before - be prepared for the eventual crash" - they laughed and con…

To be fair, ftx as an exchange had none of that Degen culture. They didn’t even have an Earn product with high yield. You could loan out your crypto, but the rate fully depends on how many people want to actually borrow it.

The FTT token itself was only used on the exchange to get some benefits like lower fees or free withdrawals and didn’t give any yield at all when staked.

From a risk averse user perspective and someone working in tech, there really wasn’t anything shady going on to suck people in. So them collapsing hurts and is very sad news for the entire ecosystem

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#142

Post by matheusmoreira »

015a wrote: post #107
hailwren wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase avoided this fate by being a us regulated company. FTX.us is still above water. It’s the Bahamas based company that was able to cook the books and is now defunct. As for Binance, they have the SAFU ( https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary/secure-asset-fund-fo... ) which they just topped up to $1B at current market prices (today). You can verify the balances on chain, but there aren’t any statements about ou…

About 40% of the SAFU is in BNB; their own FTT-like token. Its literally the same reason FTX collapsed; BNB just still has value.

BNB isn't a token though. It's a real cryptocurrency like ETH.

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#143

Post by shuckles »

hither_shores wrote: post #110
shuckles wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Singer happened to write primary source material, but your comment is like saying the EAs came from Jeremy Bentham. EA the organization began with LessWrong which, again, was all along a play to generate funding for AI safety research. Edit: The original version of the comment implies LessWrong is the single precursor to EA, which is wrong. But it is a relevant and influential one.

If by "EA the organization" you mean the Center for Effective Altruism, it came out of the Oxford philosophy department.

No, Oxford is incidental to the story. The term was used to mean roughly those ideas at least half a decade before CEA was founded. Some history is here: https://jacyanthis.com/some-early-history-of-effective-altru...

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#145

Post by woodruffw »

Gatsky wrote: post #140
woodruffw wrote: post #36

This is maybe tangential of me to say, but since this post is coming from an EA forum: I think the cozy relationship between EA and FTX has done immense damage to the public image and standing of the EA movement. I've never been an EA person (much less a utilitarian) but I can appreciate the meat and potatoes of applied ethics, especially when those ethics are applied consistently . The infusion of cryptocurrency fun…

EA and BankmaniFried receive your criticism for trying to do good. Is it really the case that other billionaires who earn their money say selling cigarettes, or helping old ladies gamble their life savings away, or selling vaping kits to children, and spend their ill-begotten gains on expensive champagne and private jets, are somehow better because they are morally consistent ?

What about my comment made you think I’d be okay with any of those things?

I think you missed the point about consistency: I was trying to say that EA, minus the recent tangent, has my appreciation for its consistency. Consistency on its own isn’t a moral virtue, but it is a sign of earnestness. And I like it when people are earnest.

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#146

Post by dghlsakjg »

wruza wrote: post #44
daveguy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But bitcoin is the absolute worst black currency. Every single transaction has a permanent public record.

You seem to imply something here, what it is?

If you do crimes you shouldn’t take notes on it. Let alone record it in a public traceable ledger that the authorities actively track.

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#147

Post by hither_shores »

woodruffw wrote: post #113
javajosh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Galactic utility is ridiculous. But so is the other extreme, to act only on short-term utility. The asymmetry is that most humans don't need any encouragement to think short-term, but they do need some impetus to think long-term. But it takes wisdom to balance the two concerns. And yes it is a huge downside to any strategy that delays gratification that it can be "hacked" for evil, which is a problem more general tha…

Assuming utilitarian ethics for a moment, I agree! Maybe someone more familiar with the EA movement can answer this: why has rule utilitarianism disappeared from EA rationales for behavior? That seems to me a very natural check on these otherwise extreme (long and short-term) leaps of reasoning.

I don't know about "EA rationales", but rule utilitarianism is unpopular among philosophers largely because it's believed to collapse into act utilitarianism. The phil101 caricature is that rule utilitarianism says "no stealing, because 'no stealing' is a rule that increases utility" and act utilitarianism says "steal if you think it maximizes utility" - but on the one hand "no stealing, except for bread to feed your starving child" is an even better rule, and so on; and on the other hand not incorporating uncertainty into your decision procedure isn't being a good act utilitarian, it's just being an idiot. And so in practice they endorse the same decision procedures in pursuit of the same end.

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#148

Post by vba616 »

paulpauper wrote: post #4
sn0w_crash wrote: post #2

Is this effective altruism or ineffective altruism?

more like a very effective way of losing all your money

If I had a billion dollars, I'd ignore what the billionaires are doing with philanthropy and the EA crowd alike.

I'd go here and in seconds it would be gone:

https://www.pay.gov/public/form/preview/pdf/103

For a moment, inflation would run backwards.

That is effective altruism. It saves all of the overhead in distributing your assets - like an index fund for philanthropy.

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#149

Post by Gigachad »

outside1234 wrote: post #20
ilamont wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: how long can it last at these levels. Where’s the support for this asset?

Drugs, Money Laundering, Money Hiding, etc. etc. There is utility in a black currency for all sorts of illegal things

This is a value in crypto in general. There is no reason that in 10 years time, bitcoin will be the coin most used for these activities. Bitcoin could drop to absolute zero and some other coin rise up for its utility value.

Re: Ftx.com Has Probably Collapsed

#150

Post by shuckles »

woodruffw wrote: post #105
shuckles wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Singer happened to write primary source material, but your comment is like saying the EAs came from Jeremy Bentham. EA the organization began with LessWrong which, again, was all along a play to generate funding for AI safety research. Edit: The original version of the comment implies LessWrong is the single precursor to EA, which is wrong. But it is a relevant and influential one.

The key distinction between Bentham and Singer is that Bentham is dead (unless you count the auto-icon!), and Singer is actively publishing books about EA. I have no doubt whatsoever that EA the organization , LessWrong, and MIRI are all instrumental in EA the movement . But my understanding, including from actually reading just about everything Singer's ever written, is that the applied ethical groundwork for EA was…

I was reacting to your original post which implied that speculative concerns have marred EA the movement by pointing out that EA the movement has had close ties to speculative concerns since the beginning. It's a large, complex group with many on-going projects. LessWrong's top charities are still meat and potatoes human development in the 3rd world.
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