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

Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

coindesk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 47 posts

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#31

Post by yieldcrv »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #20

The SEC continues to be a huge disappointment. All the sales made to retail were not protected, simply because they went through an exchange. I'm so tired of waiting for regulatory authorities and legislators to wake up and do their job.

This is a false dilemma

Accountability and deterrence doesn’t have to come from the SEC

The SEC contains people passionate about this, but that doesn't mean they are the specific authority eligible

The FTC exists too, they are aware of their capabilities in the crypto space. They have circulars since 2017 as well.

There is also Congress. Agency deference is dead anyway.

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#32

Post by ur-whale »

XRP (Ripple), the "crypto" currency with none of the attributes that make real cryptocurrencies interesting:

    - XRP is managed centrally by mostly unknown folks (this is its worst attribute)
    - therefore supply isn't fixed and unverifiable
    - therefore transactions are ultimately reversible
    - protocol security is a joke (see other's remarks in this thread)
    - XRP is not anonymous
    - XRP was pre-mined
    - etc ...
Regarding supply management, it's basically even worse than the US dollar in that instead of folks (the fed) that are eventually answerable to mismanagement mistakes, the Ripple supply is managed by a bunch of people somewhere that you have no control over.

Also, being a very, very distant cousin of Bitcoin, and almost unknown to the masses, it has received almost no scrutiny from the tech. crowd.

Basically, XRP is the equivalent of a county fair token, managed by the local carnies.

I still baffles me to this day that anyone would still pay attention to it.

Walk away from that garbage fire as quickly as you can.

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#33

Post by Danieru »

latchkey wrote: post #30
thinkmassive wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of the ICO there were some shenanigans with the early ledger (oops our servers ran out of memory), making the whole thing that exists today based on "trust us bro, we promise there’s exactly as many coins as we say there are" It’s not really exciting, mostly just disappointing they’re still in business, but anyone who wants to learn more can look up: XRPL genesis block

Even better... ask why, after all these years, they still have to use a UNL, despite it being a significant point of centralization. https://xrpl.org/docs/concepts/consensus-protocol/unl "trust us, our validators are good too!"

Their "consensus" protocol is an http call to their severs to download a json file of "trusted" servers?

That's two layers of "trust us"!

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#34

Post by [deleted] »

quantified wrote: post #2

> A federal judge ordered Ripple to pay $125 million in civil penalties and imposed an injunction against future securities law violations on Wednesday. What does an injunction against future violations mean? Why would that be weightier than the criminal legal code? Shouldn't such an injunction be assumed by pretty much everybody doing anything?

[deleted]

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#35

Post by ur-whale »

cryptica wrote: post #22

It's just sad how the corporate-government complex wastes taxpayer money suing itself. Ripple and the government are two sides of the same scam. One scammer operating a monetary ponzi scheme is suing another scammer for taking advantage of the ponzi to scam other people... Using the tax money of the actual victims to pay for the legal proceedings and/or damages that one scammer did to the other scammer. Meanwhile, bo…

> One scammer operating a monetary ponzi scheme is suing another scammer for taking advantage of the ponzi to scam other people

That's an old argument, best summarized as "when it comes to milking the masses, the government does not like competition"

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#36

Post by rvnx »

MadnessASAP wrote: post #29
rvnx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

14 years in jail, the guy actually really probably had lost this money in bad investment :| such a sad story.

I'm curious what sort of bad investment he made that left no paper trail as to where the money went. Did he have no evidence whatsoever? Or was the evidence unconvincing? The judge who released him also noted that they believed Mr. Chadwick could pay the owed amount but that it was clear keeping him in prison wasn't going to make that happen

I found the story:

https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=8101209&page=1

At the end, I think his bad investment was to pick his ex-wife. I think.

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#37

Post by slimjimgrin »

cryptica wrote: post #22

It's just sad how the corporate-government complex wastes taxpayer money suing itself. Ripple and the government are two sides of the same scam. One scammer operating a monetary ponzi scheme is suing another scammer for taking advantage of the ponzi to scam other people... Using the tax money of the actual victims to pay for the legal proceedings and/or damages that one scammer did to the other scammer. Meanwhile, bo…

[dead]

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#38

Post by latchkey »

Danieru wrote: post #33
latchkey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better... ask why, after all these years, they still have to use a UNL, despite it being a significant point of centralization. https://xrpl.org/docs/concepts/consensus-protocol/unl "trust us, our validators are good too!"

Their "consensus" protocol is an http call to their severs to download a json file of "trusted" servers? That's two layers of "trust us"!

The "justification" is that anyone can install whatever list they want. Uh huh.

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#39

Post by cmcaleer »

ur-whale wrote: post #32

XRP (Ripple), the "crypto" currency with none of the attributes that make real cryptocurrencies interesting: - XRP is managed centrally by mostly unknown folks (this is its worst attribute) - therefore supply isn't fixed and unverifiable - therefore transactions are ultimately reversible - protocol security is a joke (see other's remarks in this thread) - XRP is not anonymous - XRP was pre-mined - etc ... Regarding s…

I do find the cultish following XRP continues to have kind of fascinating. Obviously a lot of it is astroturfed but surely some amount of it is real. So many twitter and reddit accounts where all people do is shill their bags when, as you say, basically nothing interesting is happening in the XRP ecosystem.

It's like a religion. It reminds me of the weirder side of the Gamestop stuff.

Re: Judge Fines Ripple $125M, Bans Future Securities Law Violations

#40

Post by trogdor »

yieldcrv wrote: post #27
intuitionist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s doubly confusing because the decision protects the weak, helpless institutional investor while leaving the ruthless sharks that are retail clients to fend for themselves.

There is a whole world of securities law that’s hidden behind client attorney privilege that each client uses to protect themselves from the SEC (and DOJ), but basically nothing has been surprising about how the SEC has fumbled in the crypto cases or in what the courts have ruled and of people familiar with this dimension of yet unchallenged securities case law, this has been one of the criticisms of the SEC: Nothing…

> There is a whole world of securities law that’s hidden behind client attorney privilege that each client uses to protect themselves from the SEC (and DOJ)

What, specifically, are you referring to?

Post reply on HN