31–40 of 74 posts
Anyone else oddly skeptical of FTX? They seemingly came out of no where with ungodly amounts of money, and began slapping their name on anything and everything.
There’s incredible amounts of capital going into the crypto industry and FTX is one of the biggest players. There may be some froth but they seem like one of the least shady players in the space to me.
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No. I have some mutual acquaintances with the owner through effective altruism and I've heard good things. It's pretty insane that he left Jane Street to try make more money to give to effective charities and now at 29 is worth $22.5 Billion! So they have the money to spend on these things and the fact he's running a future fund makes total sense based on what his original goals were.
Where did that money come from, though? People getting margin called on their life savings? Update: I assume the majority of SBF's net worth is from FTX not Alameda, so my question is where does FTX's money come from. I assume it's from wrecking retail traders.
If people are interested in where these ideas come from, please look at these links: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org https://80000hours.org https://www.effectivealtruism.org If you're thinking about how you can contribute more than you currently are but don't want to leave a comfy FAANG job, I highly recommend reading a little about giving what we can. Disclaimer: I pledged with GWWC and am involved in some EA groups…
textbook greenwashing. if they want to make the world a better place, shut down FTX and stop enabling the insane, planet incinerating, fraud enabling, money laundering, rogue regime financing, fake tech breakthrough called "crypto". crypto companies like FTX should be viewed with the same disdain as Big Oil and Big Tobacco. this is like investing with ExxonMobil to stop climate change. don't fall for it. https://corp…
Totally False: "fake tech breakthrough called "crypto""
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There’s incredible amounts of capital going into the crypto industry and FTX is one of the biggest players. There may be some froth but they seem like one of the least shady players in the space to me.
The question is how and why FTX became big given that BitMEX already existed.
textbook greenwashing. if they want to make the world a better place, shut down FTX and stop enabling the insane, planet incinerating, fraud enabling, money laundering, rogue regime financing, fake tech breakthrough called "crypto". crypto companies like FTX should be viewed with the same disdain as Big Oil and Big Tobacco. this is like investing with ExxonMobil to stop climate change. don't fall for it. https://corp…
It's hard to look at this founder and say he isn't extremely well intentioned. For a very young guy in this scene you'd expect expensive watches and cars, but instead he drives a budget car, is giving away a great majority of his wealth, and seems to truly care. The reason he's keeping FTX open is to earn more money to give away to environmental, socioeconomic, and health organizations and research. His track record…
There is no way you posted that with a straight face.
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Crypto exchanges make a lot of money. Just from trading fees. Margin calls don't typically have their own special fees, although the perpetuals products (that one can get margin called on to begin with) typically have daily fees. Coinbase did a direct listing of its shares at a $100bn valuation, with extremely low revenue numbers, which are still great numbers. Anyone that: A) Has similar volume B) Has similar growth…
When I see a crypto exchange with tens of billions of daily volume and almost no marketing, I assume they are dealing with institutions, governments and probably organized crime.
Basically what happens is that they grow soooo fast that they arent able to handle customer support, cant list new assets that customers want fast enough, that even institutions want.
So then the next startup crypto exchange lists the newly desired assets and attracts the whole network and people fearing missing out.
And it keeps going. Thats the primary way they compete. There is a bunch of stuff behind the scenes for market depth and liquidity, but it reduces the need for exchanges to compete with each other on liquidity so its not really a factor just like trading commissions are really how they compete.
Boom town.
If people are interested in where these ideas come from, please look at these links: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org https://80000hours.org https://www.effectivealtruism.org If you're thinking about how you can contribute more than you currently are but don't want to leave a comfy FAANG job, I highly recommend reading a little about giving what we can. Disclaimer: I pledged with GWWC and am involved in some EA groups…
If you're in the New York City, this is the philosophy the Robinhood Foundation [1] pursues. [1] https://www.robinhood.org
One idea I see expressed in Effective Altruism circles a lot is that a life overseas in some poor country is worth as much as a life here (in NYC where I live). Wondering how giving in NYC is more impactful than giving to unsexy causes like malaria nets abroad, given how expensive everything is in NYC.
I'm always skeptical of company's philanthropic arms because it's so easy to give to causes that make the company looks good instead of giving to causes based the most good you can do.
Although, I thank my direct parent for sharing that link, don't mean to come across as argumentative.
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Energy is a very important problem but also one that is heavily funded and researched. It makes more sense to focus on underfunded issues that offer a high reward. I argue that energy should be more funded for what it's worth, but climate change and renewable energy sources aren't that popular in effective altruism circles.
> but climate change and renewable energy sources aren't that popular in effective altruism circles What.
However causes like malaria prevention are pretty unsexy and don't get much love even though it's cheap, easily preventable.
Also, not talked about != not a worthy cause area to pursue.
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If you're in the New York City, this is the philosophy the Robinhood Foundation [1] pursues. [1] https://www.robinhood.org
I'm actually curious what makes you say the philosophies are similar? I see that the robinhood foundation site says "Last year, we invested $172 million in over 900 of the most impactful nonprofits across New York City, including over $80 million for COVID-19 relief." One idea I see expressed in Effective Altruism circles a lot is that a life overseas in some poor country is worth as much as a life here (in NYC where…
Similar methodology, perhaps, not philosophy.
Both seek to objectively measure impact across multiple causes e.g. healthcare, education and other disparate philanthropic domains.
The scoping is, however, as you note, different. Robinhood holds that a life nearby is more valuable to the people near it than one faraway. (There is also an institutional component to this argument. A life elevated in New York has a higher chance of producing multi-generational change than one in an intermittent war zone. Though the war zone is in part a product of that depression.) So helping one person in the Bronx at the cost of five in Sub-Saharan Africa is okay, but helping one person in Manhattan over two in Queens is not. (Drastically oversimplifying, but you get the point.)
> company's philanthropic arms
The Foundation has nothing to do with Robinhood, the company.