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Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

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Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#171
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

web3 is going to thrive whether you like it or not. Primarily because of three reasons: - Greed. Its absurdly easy to make a ton of money very fast in crypto. As long as that's possible, money will keep pouring into the system. - Gambling. The global gambling industry is half a trillion every year. Even if you think crypto has no fundamentals and is akin to gambling, it still represents a massive market. Opening a 50…

> If "web2" hadn't shut off its own users from any semblance of ownership in the platforms What are you talking about?

Mastadon. The Fediverse.

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#172
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much - no “long term” passive investment in crypto. Its a casino, but one with extremely good odds for players if you time it right.

As I understand it, either you're good at timing the market or you got lucky. If you got lucky, there's no reason to be so cocky. If you are good at timing the market why aren't you making a fortune on Wall Street? (Unless you are making a fortune on Wall Street)

More moving parts on Wall St.

More competition.

Wall St "smart money" is still, comparatively speaking, clueless in cryptocurrency world.

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#173
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait...what? You’re complaining about VCs pushing vapor while simultaneously admitting you participated in pumping “ponzi-like” schemes on regular people? You do realize those 7 figure returns you made were a direct wealth transfer from later-stage victims of the ponzi to you? I’m astonished you’re claiming moral superiority over VCs while sitting on wealth you took from thousands of poor people in places like Vietna…

Are you trying to say that ehtereum is a ponzi scheme? Do you think Bitcoin is also one? Don't get me wrong, there are alot of scams in the Crypto szene (like in any scene with a lot of money and not much regulation) but there are also legit, interesting projects. And to be clear; Ethereum is of course not a ponzi-scheme.

They're speculative assets bubbles (hence the enormous price swings). People refer to them as Ponzi schemes because a speculative asset bubble is similar, though the two aren't technically the same thing. But neither are good for the economy, with everyone making money by leaving someone worse off.

If you invest in a company you can be investing in a productive asset that will produce more than you put in. You get a cut, but society does as well, and everyone is better off. With crypto, you're getting your money from the person you offload the crypto to. You're richer, they're poorer. They can try to offload it to someone else, but eventually someone will be left holding the bag. Things that can't go on forever, won't.

Even in the highly unlikely best case scenario where these assets stabilize at high prices, you're expanding the monetary base and getting your money by inflicting price inflation on the rest of society (the amount of products isn't increased, but the amount of currency trying to get those products will be).

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#174
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early investors were excited by the technology, not the promise of quick gains and speculation, like VC nowadays.. that probably where his "superiori moral", provided he meant it that way which I doubt, are. A lot of people think crypto are plain useless but that is just wrong in practice. They are de facto actual "currency", which is already a lot especially for people in third world countries whose national currenc…

The case I heard for buying into ETH from people when it was starting had nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with having already missed the BTC rocketship

Check your surroundings; You seem to have no tech-passionate people around — if this is true for you, that is.

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is true for any currency

Nah. With ‘real’ currencies, goods and services are available in that currency. I can happily go about my business and transaction entirely in euros if I’m in the EU.

This again?

Did you miss the last 47 threads where people discussed the real world goods and services they purchase with cryptocurrency?

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never did. They left me as coins and I got exactly $0 in return. It's called a gift.

You still would have given that same gift when Bitcoin was over $50K?

No post body was provided.

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#177
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single one of these web3 companies is going bust. They could all be built without tokens or a blockchain if they wanted to. There are only two things propping up the entire crypto economy, VC funding and fraud. Once the VC money leaves the ecosystem the dominoes will fall.

Yet some VCs are still plowing into web3. There was an article today about how Moellis was getting into Web3 companies. I'm genuinely curious what their thought process is. I tend to be in the camp that web3 is just a bunch of hot air seeing how cryptos been around for quite a while now with few use cases, but I also give benefit of the doubt there could be something there given the nature of tech.

That sounds like banker’s getting into the game late.

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#178
I remember, after Loggly raised ~4.2M, our revenues hit $7,500 after about 4-6 months. At the time, I thought the effort to build what we had built, code-wise, could be done by 1-2 people in maybe a couple of years.

Marketing plays a big part in how much revenue comes in to a startup. The product also plays a big part, but if the product does what people need it to do, it becomes a marketing task to accelerate growth to justify the investments.

Startups are a balancing act, especially when there are multiple stakeholders involved. I'm not sure these crypto offerings offer anything "product wise" that is useful to getting things done, other than making more money.

Slight of hand models are tricky to evaluate.

With Helium, they need people providing Internet to other people. Helium's "offering" drops to being an exchange from the marketplace (which must be grown) to the user base (which must also be grown). This "burning the candle at both ends" approach requires many multiples of capital influx to achieve, and even then if the business model is not sound (we all already have Internet) it will fail.

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#179
post #11

Look into SoRare’s volume. They raised over $500m. Volume is now lower than it was way back in 2020. The crypto down rounds are going to be hilarious. Note to investors: if you’re investing in crypto projects, carefully consider the ponzinomics and the vesting schedule. You want your unlocks to happen in the middle of the bullrun when exit liquidity is ample. And also remember that whatever you might think of as “nor…

Every single one of these web3 companies is going bust. They could all be built without tokens or a blockchain if they wanted to. There are only two things propping up the entire crypto economy, VC funding and fraud. Once the VC money leaves the ecosystem the dominoes will fall.

Don't forget money laundering, human trafficking and drug sales! And destroying the environment through sheer waste is just the crypto cherry on top!

Re: Helium has revenues of $6.5k/month after $365M investment from A16Z

#180
post #27

I bought ETH when it was $7 back in 2017 and participated in literally every single investment I could until about 2019, resulting in 7 figure returns. I wouldn't touch the stuff now. The ability for regular people to invest in crypto back then made the ponzi-like architecture of it worth the risk. Now the VCs are trying to push their agendas, and it's blatantly obvious it's vapor.

Like most other new technologies, crypto is going through a hype-and-bust cycle, but greatly exaggerated because of the possibility of crazy ponzi-like speculation, and for people who know nothing about what it really is to get highly involved financially, seeming to make wild profits before the inevitable popping of the speculative bubble. Most new technologies don't have remotely the same degree of opportunities for utter craziness.

BUT... that does not mean that the technology is fundamentally BS. It just means that it happens to be extraordinarily susceptible to the kinds of abuses we are seeing.

This year, Ethereum will become Proof-of-Stake based, and "Layer 2" solutions will be emerging which greatly reduce transactions costs, and sharding will be emerging that will GREATLY reduce transaction costs. It's a real technology with a real future. And to transact with Eth you'll need to own Eth, providing non-ponzi motivation to buy, and it will be a deflationary currency (i.e. there will be less of it over time rather than more). IFF the tech is successful, its price may still go up by a LOT. I don't know that it will be successful, but I've been following its development closely and I think this is a very competent team making good decisions.

I'm bullish on Ethereum long-term. Once it's converted to PoS, it will have by far the largest market cap of any PoS chain, and the security of a PoS chain is ultimately based on its market cap (and how decentralized it is, something the Ethereum world is very aware of). So, it should be the most secure PoS chain, as well as having at least as much high-quality technical development going on as any other when you include the Layer 2 teams.

But it will take a few years for many of the practical potentialities to start to be manifested in the real world. It needs Layer 2 and sharding before it will happen. In between now and then, the price of Eth is anyone's guess. I don't think anything, in particular, should be read into any short-term price trends. Instead, the question should be whether the fundamental technology is moving forward toward its goals, and whether another technology emerges in the meantime that has the same potential benefits but somehow does them better.

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