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FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

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Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#311

Post by RC_ITR »

once_inc wrote: post #129
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Crypto" is useless. Bitcoin isn't. What unique properties does Bitcoin have that makes it useful that other cryptocurrencies don't, beside first mover advantage?

Bitcoin is provably the only decentralized system that has permissionless, borderless, digital scarcity. Other cryptocurrencies are less secure (the many direct forks, such as Bitcoin Cash and the like), less decentralized (Solana, BNB), less permissionless (any system that can be halted by its operators) or less scarce (Ethereum's emission schedule can be changed by a single organisation). Bitcoin's value (not in te…

>Bitcoin is provably the only decentralized system that has permissionless, borderless, digital scarcity.

Why do we need digital scarcity, exactly?

>Other cryptocurrencies are less secure (the many direct forks, such as Bitcoin Cash and the like), less decentralized (Solana, BNB), less permissionless (any system that can be halted by its operators) or less scarce (Ethereum's emission schedule can be changed by a single organisation).

Ok, we agree that other cryptos are bad too.

>Bitcoin's value (not in terms of money, but in terms of usefulness) is an emergent property of the combination of proof of work, the difficulty adjustment, and its peer-to-peer nature.

But what is that useful to do? I agree cryptography and blockchains are nifty, but why do 1000's of decentralized computers need to do the work (and therefore duplicate/waste resources)? Couldn't one computer do it and make their work public so anyone/everyone could check their work?

You'll say something ambiguous thing about trust, but please give a concrete example when the above wouldn't work. Visa (and it's shareholders) have hundreds of billions of USD worth of incentive not to fuck up transactions (enough to buy enough electricity and ASICs to become 51% of miners), so why don't we let them do the work and then we check their work?

Is that bad because it's what we do now and it works?

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#312

Post by moistly »

loceng wrote: post #277
mikeyouse wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that proving that a bunch of frauds who were promoting a drug that didn't work at all shows a "political slant". Funding studies to show which drugs treat (and don't treat) covid is unambiguously good and it's insane that it's considered political. Edit: Great timing - DailyBeast literally just published a story exposing how the leader of one of those idiotic COVID misinformation groups spent her millions in i…

There are plenty of studies and cohort analysis of Ivermectin studies that show it is highly effective with the right protocol; most of the Ivermectin studies showing it doesn't work aren't using proper doses, nor at the right time, nor for long enough period of time.

That is a load of lying horseshit.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#313

Post by camgunz »

AlexandrB wrote: post #82
themgt wrote: post #48

It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT. All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000…

With every crypto collapse there seems to be an associated failure by the media to do any real digging. The same thing happened with Theranos where, with a few exceptions, the media fawned over Elizabeth Holmes. It's hard to tell if the media has gotten worse at their jobs or they've always been this bad and I'm just getting older. There are plenty of earlier scams and bubbles (Enron, dot-com bubble) that slipped und…

At least Matt Levine called FTX a Ponzi scheme to SBF's face [0], to which SBF had no real rebuttal (he tried to make a borrowing argument... but leveraging your Ponzi gains is also classic Ponzi).

It's stunning to me that that interview didn't crash FTX by itself, and it indicates that the industry (fintech, VCs, crypto) is engaged in a huge pump and dump. It's legitimately criminal.

[0]: https://archive.ph/fGLat#selection-3973.7-3973.12 (27:13)

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#314

Post by codehalo »

rednerrus wrote: post #289
herendin wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say you can't understand, but the chart you yourself posted (to illustrate price volatilility) also shows a 12,000% increase in price in less than 8 years, up to today. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but maybe that , the improbable 12000%, is the thinking that you're trying to understand?

You're making a stronger counter argument than you think. BTC only gets a 12,000% increase because you recruit a bigger fool to pay $16,059 than the fool who paid $16,058. The only value that you've offered here is that you can eventually find a fool big enough to pay $1,925,760.

And how big is the fool who sold at $100?

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#315

Post by nytesky »

Mistletoe wrote: post #96
themgt wrote: post #48

It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT. All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000…

The funny thing is Michael Lewis (Moneyball, Flash Boys, The Big Short) has been following Sam around for the last six months. He just got an incredible ending to his book.

Was Moneyball Jonah Hills first big role? Now he will take a star turn as Michael Lewis’s SBF.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#316

Post by throwawaysleep »

LastTrain wrote: post #295
throwawaysleep wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If laws do not matter, I am not willing to follow laws.

Right. When we talk about laws not getting enforced leading to people doing bad things, we're talking about you. You seem alright with that, which I've already noted.

There’s a clear fix for that. Enforce the laws.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#317

Post by opportune »

bmelton wrote: post #258
boplicity wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard to tell if the media has gotten worse at their jobs It's not that "the media" has gotten worse at their jobs. Rather, there simply a lot less funding for reporters. The hit in funding has become much worse in local reporting -- especially local newspapers. However, if this is viewed as a training ground for the few large national/international news organizations, it's easy to see how this has a profound i…

I don't know if this is right or wrong, but if I were running a news agency, I would think that glowing puff pieces would be one of the first things I'd eliminate in the event of a financial crunch. Is there a reason we think they persist?

Puff pieces are part of the PR machine. From what little I know of it, they’re basically ghostwritten by PR agencies so they cost almost nothing in the way of journalists to produce. Also, there is the quid pro quo aspect where puff pieces are (presumably) traded for things like access and other newsworthy information

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#318

Post by LastTrain »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #316
LastTrain wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. When we talk about laws not getting enforced leading to people doing bad things, we're talking about you. You seem alright with that, which I've already noted.

There’s a clear fix for that. Enforce the laws.

I mean, they do, to some extent. Not enough I guess? Here's an idea - how about you protect us from you.

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#319

Post by opportune »

AlexandrB wrote: post #82
themgt wrote: post #48

It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT. All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000…

With every crypto collapse there seems to be an associated failure by the media to do any real digging. The same thing happened with Theranos where, with a few exceptions, the media fawned over Elizabeth Holmes. It's hard to tell if the media has gotten worse at their jobs or they've always been this bad and I'm just getting older. There are plenty of earlier scams and bubbles (Enron, dot-com bubble) that slipped und…

What is the incremental revenue or profit per hour worked for a serious hard hitting investigative piece, vs other crap that is much cheaper to make (like regurgitating press releases)?

Not to mention the fact that a lot of investigative leads likely either don’t pan out, are not newsworthy, or ruffle feathers better left unruffled (news media relies on connections and access for leads on stories, and their customers are advertisers, ie large corporations).

There is not much of a market for investigative journalism. IMO tort law or class-action suits could fill that niche too if the incentives were more aligned (gotta be a lawyer to make anything off a class action) and the playing field were more even - arbitration clause says what?

So lacking an incentive for either of those the next best thing is short selling, which also sucks because it’s time-based, risky, requires capital, and isn’t relevant when something doesn’t have a direct link to a tradable security

Re: FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals

#320

Post by opportune »

nullc wrote: post #281
umeshunni wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a comment somewhere along the lines of "Crypto is a great experiment where people who didn't live in the 19th century get to relive at 10x speed all the bank runs and regulatory changes that happened then"

Early in Bitcoin we came across the 1923 "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator", https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/60979 -- which described some of the scams we were seeing cropping up. Much of the altcoin industry seems to have picked it up as an instruction manual. (Not that there aren't scams in Bitcoin land-- but they've mostly been concentrated into the altcoin ecosystems, which tend to be overweight in the exuberant an…

Altcoins prey on gullible, ignorant, greedy people - the best people to scam. Those are also the targets of Nigerian princes and all other get rich quick schemes.

Shitcoins represent a technological breakthrough in scamming because they scale so much better than operating a call center and have no physical footprint

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