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We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

blog.stablegains.com

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Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#171

Post by majormajor »

sergiomattei wrote: post #155
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For what it's worth, they are also a YC backed company Severely disappointing. I respect PG too much to believe he would knowingly condone this. The partner who did this didn't understand what they were investing in or should be decoupled with haste. At the very least, the Alaska RMB, U of M Endowment, Bloomberg's family office and SMC should be asking why their capital is backing what should have been clear as day…

Let’s not even get started with Sama pushing Worldcoin, a pretty exploitative attempt at getting everyone’s irises with a pre-mined currency supposed to revolutionize world finance.

The VC drive to jump into the crypto world was startling to me. People hold varying opinions on various crypto products, but so many of the ones getting investment are making claims that should gather extreme scrutiny from a crowd that should be familiar with finance and returns. "We expect 10%+ returns for a long time"? Folks investing in companies instead of banks should know firsthand that guaranteed market-beating returns are almost definitionally suspect!

Even if you think it's not fraudulent on the part of the founders, the industry is frothy and unproven and fraud-adjacent enough that investing in many companies in the space should appear to be a huge potential reputational risk beyond just losing some invested money. The people putting up the cash should be looking long and hard at this whole story.

And then once you get into the details, the moment you hear about one of the use cases for defi lending leading to these high interest rates being "put up crypto collateral to borrow to buy even more crypto since it's appreciating rapidly"... run!

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#172

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vmception wrote: post #136
jmyeet wrote: post #100

What's funny about this is that I can recall discussions here and elsewhere from only a few months ago questioning the "guaranteed" super-high returns. I forget who said this but someone awhile ago said in finance said that if someone is promising you consistent above-market returns it's either a scam or there is unknown or undisclosed risk. And the Crypto Andys were all like "you just don't understand DeFi!" to whic…

Usually there is an answer, I’m not familiar with the stablegains service but usually there is enough information for you to tell objectively why to use or avoid a service according to your risk profile. There was enough in the terra ecosystem to come to a conclusion of avoiding completely

> There was enough in the terra ecosystem to come to a conclusion of avoiding completely

There is enough information in a ten or 20% yield to come to a conclusion. That doesn't stop unsophisticated investors from getting screwed.

When they do so because they bought magic beans, I have no sympathy. When are lied to and sold deposit-like products [1], it's infuriating.

[1] https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680375...

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#173

Post by chx »

jdasdf wrote: post #145
chx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All crypto is a scam and it's so simple to see, it's astonishing anyone fell for this. Look. Imagine an otherwise empty room with a table and a few chairs. A couple people come in with some money in their pockets and cards. They play a few round of a card game, some lose, some win. When they leave, the room as it was before so it is crystal clear the sum of their money couldn't change. Some won, some lost but overall…

> All crypto is a scam and it's so simple to see, it's astonishing anyone fell for this. No, it is not. Please try to set aside your hatred for all things crypto and understand that there is actual legitimate value in many of the crypto projects, and that the core proposition, that of decentralized peer to peer value transfer, is a legitimate and useful use case.

> decentralized peer to peer value transfer, is a legitimate and useful use case.

I would contest even this. People don't want to transfer "value" they want to transfer money, now to use, say, Bitcoin to transfer money you need to do the following steps:

1. Buy Bitcoin. Let's presume you are already set up with an exchange for this so all you need to do is transfer your money some way to the exchange.

2. Transfer Bitcoin and pay the transaction fee.

3. The receiver wants money. So let's again presume -- despite this is a much shakier presumption -- they are already set up with an exchange then they need to exchange Bitcoin to real money and transfer their money from the exchange to their bank account. I am not mentioning here if they tarry then the exchange rate in #1 and #3 differs -- that could be automated although as far as I am aware there's no service which currently does it.

Turns out the challenge is not #2 but the bank transfers in #1 and #3: integrating with every national banking system in the world. Wise (nee Transferwise) shows this can be done without Bitcoin, creating transparency and predictable fees.

This does not mention the criminal aspects of Bitcoin, I am focusing just on the transfer aspect.

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#174

Post by reflexco »

jmyeet wrote: post #100

What's funny about this is that I can recall discussions here and elsewhere from only a few months ago questioning the "guaranteed" super-high returns. I forget who said this but someone awhile ago said in finance said that if someone is promising you consistent above-market returns it's either a scam or there is unknown or undisclosed risk. And the Crypto Andys were all like "you just don't understand DeFi!" to whic…

The 20% APY provided by Anchor was way above the average yields for safe DeFi lending. Which indicated that even among crypto users, this was considered a degen play!

The whole Terra saga was a typical example of speculative bubble. Everyone knew it was risky, but its sheer size and the caliber of people endorsing it (https://twitter.com/novogratz/status/1478535972560195585) was providing an aura of safety. Too big to fail.

It's also similar to the stock market as a whole before it started correcting. Everyone knew valuations were detached from every fundamental except liquidity, yet everyone went along thinking the music just had to keep going.

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#175

Post by gruez »

menzoic wrote: post #140
nrmitchi wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> careful to not make any explicit claims of safety (eg. "your principal is protected", or "you won't lose money"). These are both explicit examples of explicit claims of safety that are still up on their documentation (at least as of 5 minutes ago) - "You will not lose your funds because all loans are 100% asset-backed." ( https://stablegains.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402680425... ) - "Regardless if crypto mark…

The pages are gone... That was too fast.

See my other comment, the links were just improperly pasted, not taken down.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31462851

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#176

Post by truthwhisperer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #46

If you are in the U.S. and lost money, please write to your state's Attorney General [1]. The company is Stablegains, Inc. and the people to name are Kamil Ryszkowski and Emil Rasmessen, co-founders and, I think, Board members. Copy Ken Paxton, Office of the Attorney General, P. O. Box 12548, Austin, Texas as well as his challenger George P. Bush at P. O. Box 26677, also in Austin. (Stablegains and its founders are i…

No post body was provided.

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#177

Post by JumpCrisscross »

throwk8s wrote: post #163
koheripbal wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What most people don't understand about finance is that there are fundamental rules that you really cannot break without consequences. Anyone who has studied quantitative finance knows that it is a HARD science. I worked with a Nobel prize winner in economics, and the math dominated. There was no politics, no opinions, no ethics involved. It really is a science. Most social media characterize finance as some ethical…

Is the math meaningful though?

> Is the math meaningful though?

"Meaningful" is squishy. Is it strongly predictive, and in some cases, definitive? Yes.

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#178

Post by sbierwagen »

gruez wrote: post #129
Tao332 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Terraform has $3B (ish, stores as Bitcoin) that they could use to try to buy back faith in their coin. Had . It's gone.

What happened? Last I heard they transferred it to gemini but people weren't sure whether they actually sold it or not.

LFG only said "a counterparty". https://twitter.com/LFG_org/status/1526126703046582272?ref_s...

They transfered 52,189 BTC between May 7th (When UST dipped to $0.9978, indicating the algo peg was under stress) and the 10th, and another 33,206 when UST hit $0.75. After the insiders were paid off, Terra was free to go to zero.

Presumably we'll only find out what actually happened when Do Kwon is in jail and people start testifying against each other in return for lighter sentences.

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#179

Post by gabereiser »

risyachka wrote: post #111
chx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All crypto is a scam and it's so simple to see, it's astonishing anyone fell for this. Look. Imagine an otherwise empty room with a table and a few chairs. A couple people come in with some money in their pockets and cards. They play a few round of a card game, some lose, some win. When they leave, the room as it was before so it is crystal clear the sum of their money couldn't change. Some won, some lost but overall…

Crypto is a tool. Is it often used for scam? Yes. But so is email. Just like stocks can fall 99% in a day. It stock s cam? No. The problem is that users dive into it without understanding the risks. Also, there should be (and will be) more regulations around it. But it is as far from the scam as it gets.

If I buy a share of a company, I own it. Buy enough of it, I can control it. Same can not be said for crypto. If I buy a token of BTC it guarantees me no voting rights, no shareholder rights, no FDIC insurance, no insurance whatsoever. When comparing investment instruments, crypto is the worst of all of them, including timeshares.

Re: We’re discontinuing the Stablegains service

#180

Post by pyrale »

samhw wrote: post #142
vmception wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually there is an answer, I’m not familiar with the stablegains service but usually there is enough information for you to tell objectively why to use or avoid a service according to your risk profile. There was enough in the terra ecosystem to come to a conclusion of avoiding completely

Consider what we see if there isn't enough information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons And on a totally separate note, consider what we see in DeFi.

That's a great point. Even if there were actually legitimate products that could somewhat use cryptocurrency as part of their offering, they would probably get rid of it eventually just to avoid the association with the endless scams that fester in the ecosystem.
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