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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

#261

Post by jcarrano »

Let's see it another way: there's absolutely no way that in the 2-3 hours the post was up a person not familiar with the gamblecoin ecosystem could purchase $LIBRA, let alone pour thousands of dollars in. The people who lost money are all professional memecoin gamblers, and the ones who pocketed in are obviously connected to the project leaders. Cyptobros want to have unlimited freedom to trade whatever they want without regulation, which is fine for me, but then they shouldn't whine when/if they are rug-pulled.

For all the outrage, I yet have to see a single person in Argentina produce a TXHASH that proves they put money on the project. This is not something you can just log in on Binance and buy with cash in a single click. Meanwhile, states operate their own lotteries and casinos (e.g. "Lotería de la Provincia") where the poor and hopeful go to pay a tax on their ignorance.

Of course, the president and his advisors are responsible for not investigating enough and blindly trusting these so-called "businessmen". We'll see what the Law has to say about that, but I remind you that Argentina is a place where a vice-president tried to steal a company (look up Ciccone Calcográfica).

Last, the 4.4B number looks huge, but that is just "market cap", i.e. valuation extrapolated to the total supply of tokens, and not the actual amount of money that went into the coin.

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

#262

Post by rsynnott »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #198
TZubiri wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the crime part for the most part. If you know the rules of the game and you willingly participate, then how is it different from any casino? I don't buy into any of the people that claim they were scammed, they knew the rules and they tried to make money out of nothing. Other than perhaps trading unregulated securities, I don't see the actual fraud. To be clear it is distinct from pretending to be a secur…

>I don't get the crime part for the most part. Neither do many of the people who say such a thing here. Instead they regurgitate classic HN talking points around crypto without really considering their logic. Simple example: calling something like bitcoin a "ponzi scheme" when it's literally run by nobody in particular and has no specific fraudulent promotion being done by its administrators (since there are none) fo…

_Bitcoin_ isn't a Ponzi scheme, though it does tend to behave a little like one. Many of these memecoins are, essentially, intentional Ponzi schemes, tho.

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

#263

Post by rsynnott »

argentinian wrote: post #242
Daishiman wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is not an experienced economist. He holds a Master's from a third-rate private university and a doctorate from a degree mill. This myth needs to die.

He worked for various years as senior economist in a bank, and a high position in an economy consulting firm. You are systematically commenting trying to harm his reputation in issues not linked to his disreputable act of promotion of the shitcoin.

> He worked for various years as senior economist in a bank

Ah, it looks like you were in a coma between about 2006 and 2012. I have bad news. Sometimes (whisper it!) banks _employ incompetent people_. I would be reluctant to take "oh, well, he once worked for _HSBC_" as that much of an endorsement.

Not to say that everyone who worked for HSBC was incompetent. But, er, clearly they were not all hypercompetent either, given what happened.

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

#264

Post by marcosdumay »

koolba wrote: post #250
dysoco wrote: post #69

Just to clarify, here are some important differences compared to the Trump case: 1. Milei did not sell this as a memecoin at all, unlike Trump, he sold it as a "financial instrument to help finance small Argentinan enterprises". 2. Trump tweeted about $TRUMP BEFORE stepping into office, Milei is already the president of Argentina. This constitutes an obvious ethical violation, and possibly a legal one as well. 3. 80%…

> 80% of the marketshare was concentrated in just 10 accounts, these accounts made transactions at 0-1 seconds after the president's tweet. There was some clear insider training here. Not ruling it out, but it’s just as possible that there are bots analyzing the X accounts of leaders and other notable people to jump in front of any such actions. Would simply be a matter of parsing for something that looks like a toke…

> but it’s just as possible that there are bots analyzing the X accounts of leaders and other notable people

Nah. Leaders and other notable people don't go around talking about niche subjects for no reason at all. It's way more likely that whoever made the transaction caused Milei talking about the coin (by whatever means you want to imagine, usually notable people accept money to promote things, but as much as Milei sound stupid enough to think he can do that as president - what is already a crime - I still expect it to be worse).

Also, there is the clear relationship between him and the coin creators.

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

#265

Post by dudefeliciano »

JavierFlores09 wrote: post #146
dysoco wrote: post #69

Just to clarify, here are some important differences compared to the Trump case: 1. Milei did not sell this as a memecoin at all, unlike Trump, he sold it as a "financial instrument to help finance small Argentinan enterprises". 2. Trump tweeted about $TRUMP BEFORE stepping into office, Milei is already the president of Argentina. This constitutes an obvious ethical violation, and possibly a legal one as well. 3. 80%…

> If he made such a blunder in finance which supposedly is one of his specialties just imagine how incompetent he and most of the government right now is on other matters. This is a hasty generalization; while I agree on the fact that Milei was incompetent in promoting a memecoin as a financial instrument, that doesn't necessarily mean he is a bad economist all of the sudden, nor that the things he has done for Argen…

> that doesn't necessarily mean he is a bad economist all of the sudden

Define bad, I'm sure the insiders who made millions selling Libra at the right time don't consider him bad. If he was involved in the scam, it wasn't a bad financial decision from his point of view (just a stupid political decision). Argentinian entrepeneurs don't consider him bad. Those waiting in line at the soup kitchens probably see it differently...

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

#266

Post by marcosdumay »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #223
dysoco wrote: post #69

Just to clarify, here are some important differences compared to the Trump case: 1. Milei did not sell this as a memecoin at all, unlike Trump, he sold it as a "financial instrument to help finance small Argentinan enterprises". 2. Trump tweeted about $TRUMP BEFORE stepping into office, Milei is already the president of Argentina. This constitutes an obvious ethical violation, and possibly a legal one as well. 3. 80%…

>> how he's a genius in economy and he's helping Argentina's economy If he doesn’t succeed, it’s hard to see how the Austrian school of economics can continue. With heavyweights such as George Selgin endorsing Milei’s performance to date, it’s going to require some very adept use of the reverse gear if things are subsequently judged not to have panned out as planned (which appears to be the typical outcome of other a…

> If he doesn’t succeed, it’s hard to see how the Austrian school of economics can continue.

just to point it, but he isn't applying much of the Austrian ideas in Argentina. The stuff he ends-up doing tends to be out-right run of the mill monetarism. He didn't do anything new or revolutionary.

Do the Austrian school economists even have ideas that can be applied as a shock, like what you can do in a single year?

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

#267

Post by rsynnott »

tombert wrote: post #87
IAmGraydon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fraud runs rampant before large market collapses. https://www.history.com/news/roaring-twenties-scams-ponzi-wa... It happened in the 20s, before 2008, and it's happening again. Trump doing this is an extra level of depraved, and I suspect the coming crash will follow suit.

It makes me wonder if I should pull my savings out of index funds and just keep cash in a savings account in the short term. Normally I'd buy treasury bills, but honestly considering that Elon has been fucking around with the treasury's code with no oversight, and considering that Trump's big strategy for eliminating national debt has been to "declare bankruptcy" (whatever that would even means in regards to an entir…

> and just keep cash in a savings account in the short term.

Ah, but remember the tariffs stuff; you could be looking at _pretty dramatic inflation_ depending on how that works out (personally I suspect he will be ultimately unable to do that much for long; there is likely a level of market disruption at which he will be Liz Trussed, but who knows). All is risk.

> I wonder if I should look into seeing if I can buy bonds for the EU equivalent of the US treasury...

No such thing; the EU doesn't really have debt-raising powers. This confuses people, but the EU/EC is _not_ a conventional government, and has only a tiny budget (170bn this year). You can buy European sovereign debt, but it's on a per-country level. Bear in mind that by doing this you'd also be taking on currency risk. Personally I wouldn't touch sovereign debt denominated in another currency; YMMV.

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

#268

Post by thinkingtoilet »

JavierFlores09 wrote: post #146
dysoco wrote: post #69

Just to clarify, here are some important differences compared to the Trump case: 1. Milei did not sell this as a memecoin at all, unlike Trump, he sold it as a "financial instrument to help finance small Argentinan enterprises". 2. Trump tweeted about $TRUMP BEFORE stepping into office, Milei is already the president of Argentina. This constitutes an obvious ethical violation, and possibly a legal one as well. 3. 80%…

> If he made such a blunder in finance which supposedly is one of his specialties just imagine how incompetent he and most of the government right now is on other matters. This is a hasty generalization; while I agree on the fact that Milei was incompetent in promoting a memecoin as a financial instrument, that doesn't necessarily mean he is a bad economist all of the sudden, nor that the things he has done for Argen…

>while I agree on the fact that Milei was incompetent in promoting a memecoin as a financial instrument, that doesn't necessarily mean he is a bad economist all of the sudden

Worse. He's a terrible leader. Which is a bad trait for someone who leads a country.

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

#269

Post by marcosdumay »

xinayder wrote: post #244
mrbombastic wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know very little about Milei other than a few articles I have read but as someone who has been visiting Argentina on and off for the last 3 years, it does seem to me he has at least stabilized the currency much more than previous admins? I remember the bluerate for dollars being double the previous almost every time I returned and has now stabilized at around 1200 per dollar. I leave no comment on the rest of his p…

In 2015 Brazilians could do a lot in Argentina for as low as R$30. Nowadays, buying food costs almost R$120 ($20 in todays rate). Inflation can be stable, but cost of living has gone through the roof for almost a decade now, and Milei managed to speedrun it to a point that a lot of Argentinians are below the line of poverty.

Instead, nowadays it's Argentinians that come to Brazil to make a killing at the low prices here.

Your local currency having a crazy valuation after your country just fixed hyperinflation isn't anything new. It's kinda of an obligatory stage. It can get fixed quickly enough if you remove the foreign exchange restrictions.

As always, how the government reacts now to solve all the disparity that high inflation created is what will tell it's a good government or not. The disparities being there right now isn't... But odds are that now his government will terminate before he can do any real work there.

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

#270

Post by Izikiel43 »

dudefeliciano wrote: post #265
JavierFlores09 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he made such a blunder in finance which supposedly is one of his specialties just imagine how incompetent he and most of the government right now is on other matters. This is a hasty generalization; while I agree on the fact that Milei was incompetent in promoting a memecoin as a financial instrument, that doesn't necessarily mean he is a bad economist all of the sudden, nor that the things he has done for Argen…

> that doesn't necessarily mean he is a bad economist all of the sudden Define bad, I'm sure the insiders who made millions selling Libra at the right time don't consider him bad. If he was involved in the scam, it wasn't a bad financial decision from his point of view (just a stupid political decision). Argentinian entrepeneurs don't consider him bad. Those waiting in line at the soup kitchens probably see it differ…

With (a previous to this event) 56% approval rating,

> Those waiting in line at the soup kitchens probably see it differently...

At least half those guys also approve of him. Thanks to his government's policies of reducing inflation and removing middlemen out of social assistance, those people can afford to sustain themselves, and poverty has gone back down to around 37% according to several private economists/universities.

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