Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

ft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 506 posts

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#291

Post by Yiin »

supernewton wrote: post #278
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money in general has transaction costs - even cash decays every time it changes hands. Is it all a negative sum game? It seems that in order to make that claim, you need to make some comparison between the value produced and the costs incurred. IMO, crypto is pretty scammy but there is some value (note that crypto is most popular in countries with unstable economies and corrupt governments). A crypto that’s optimized…

Money in general are traded for productive goods and services , not other kinds of money. That's why it's not negative sum. If you had a bunch of people trading between USD and GBP amd EUR and doing nothing else, that would be negative sum and look an awful like what people do with cryptocurrency.

I'm probably missing some critical part in my comparison, but crypto trading sounds awful lot like trading in stock markets.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#292

Post by eftychis »

chx wrote: post #240
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many users of these exchanges their entire interest in crypto is speculation/trading, which requires them to store their crypto with an exchange so they can trade it because the costs associated with transferring to and from the exchange repeatedly would be prohibitive.

You are so close All current crypto"currencies" which use transaction fees (which is practically all of them) are negative sum games and thus are scams. This is so simple and people waste billions on not understanding it.

You know ACH transfers, have transaction fees right? They are just hidden to the public.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#293

Post by JumpCrisscross »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #268
chx wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so close All current crypto"currencies" which use transaction fees (which is practically all of them) are negative sum games and thus are scams. This is so simple and people waste billions on not understanding it.

Money in general has transaction costs - even cash decays every time it changes hands. Is it all a negative sum game? It seems that in order to make that claim, you need to make some comparison between the value produced and the costs incurred. IMO, crypto is pretty scammy but there is some value (note that crypto is most popular in countries with unstable economies and corrupt governments). A crypto that’s optimized…

> cash decays every time it changes hands. Is it all a negative sum game

Currency trading is negative sum. (Zero sum less friction.) So are most derivatives.

One must encapsulate broader effects to find a net gain. Incorporating crypto’s benefit to the poor is such an attempt.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#294

Post by coffeebeqn »

anovikov wrote: post #285
jefftk wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Full GAAP audit or we all assume you're broke. FTX passed a GAAP audit and was still broke. Safer just to take custody of your coins while your still can. 2021-08-27: " Both FTX and FTX.US have completed requirements to pass the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) audit " https://blockworks.co/news/ftx-joins-coinbase-kraken-with-us...

What's the value of coins if with Binance down, most certainly Bitcoin will be down too as it was propped up with fake printed USDT, which will collapse as well, and with them evaporating, every other coin will follow? If Binance falls, all crypto will vanish. And good riddance.

BTC won’t vanish but most all other ones will revert to their natural state outside of the last few years bubble (zero-ish). I’m sure BTC will still be worth some thousands. And I’m a BTC long term skeptic

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#295

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Yiin wrote: post #291
supernewton wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money in general are traded for productive goods and services , not other kinds of money. That's why it's not negative sum. If you had a bunch of people trading between USD and GBP amd EUR and doing nothing else, that would be negative sum and look an awful like what people do with cryptocurrency.

I'm probably missing some critical part in my comparison, but crypto trading sounds awful lot like trading in stock markets.

> missing some critical part in my comparison

Companies can sell stock to fund useful activity.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#296

Post by FormerBandmate »

Animats wrote: post #153
jacquesm wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch. Thanks for that. I wonder why the normal customer funds segregation rules do not apply to crypto assets.

Go read FTX's statement to Congress from a few months back on why crypto exchanges should not be hobbled by all those old rules about separation of functions. There's nothing prohibiting a crypto exchange from having a separate company to hold customer's assets. In a bankruptcy, the custody company should still be solvent. That's required in Japan.[1] Customers of FTX Japan still have their assets. [1] https://www.co…

Japan had the first real test of this with Mt. Gox. Regulations are written in blood, unfortunately

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#297

Post by dicomdan »

echelon wrote: post #244
Animats wrote: post #72

"Binance has said it holds more than $60bn in assets, enough to honour withdrawals. The company’s disclosures do not include its liabilities, which makes it difficult to ascertain its financial health." Possibilities: 1) They're insolvent. Liabilities exceed assets. (Like FTX.) 2) Their accounting is so screwed up they can't produce a balance sheet. (Like FTX). 3) They have a large number of interconnected corporate…

Is Coinbase audited?

Whataboutists have arrived to protect China-owned Binance

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#298

Post by tiarafawn »

dmitriid wrote: post #207
kevinak wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely strange. Binance did $40 billion in volume in the last 24 hours. Even if their effective fee is only 1/100 of a percent that's $4 million. If we assume they do half that volume every day on average that's 730 million in revenue per year. Surely costs can't be that high?

> Binance did $40 billion in volume in the last 24 hours. It didn't > Even if their effective fee is only 1/100 of a percent that's $4 million. It's not. The reason? They "traded" fictitious currencies whose "value" is pure speculation and nonsense. Their fees are also denominated in these fictitious currencies. However, neither the offices they rent nor the people they employ have any interest in these, because rent…

> because rent and salaries are paid in something that actually has value: the dollar.

In 2018, 90% of employees received their salaries in BNB

https://www.ccn.com/90-of-employees-at-major-crypto-exchange...

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#299

Post by pclmulqdq »

nly wrote: post #216
godzillabrennus wrote: post #86

Even an audited exchange like Coinbase that is trying to do everything right is still self reporting loses like $430M in quarter 1 of 2022 just by operating their business correctly. Not your keys, not your crypto. Anyone storing their crypto on any exchange has this risk.

How do you make that big of a loss just running a matching engine and a bit of regulatory overhead...

Hiring a ton of silicon valley employees to make it really inefficient.

Seriously, though, the NASDAQ matching engine runs on a 1U server, and I doubt coinbase needs anywhere near that amount of processing power. Clouds just make it really hard to run a fair matching engine.

Re: Binance outflows hit $6B as Mazars halts ‘proof of reserves’ work

#300

Post by dicomdan »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #86

Even an audited exchange like Coinbase that is trying to do everything right is still self reporting loses like $430M in quarter 1 of 2022 just by operating their business correctly. Not your keys, not your crypto. Anyone storing their crypto on any exchange has this risk.

Whataboutists have arrived to protect China-owned Binance
Post reply on HN