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

391–400 of 506 posts

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

#391

Post by digitaltrees »

m348e912 wrote: post #389
digitaltrees wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Tulip bulbs can be planted. Crypto just burns electricity. The value of crypto is actually negative at this point.

People have been making the crypto tulip comparison since when bitcoin was worth less than $100. Not saying you're wrong at this point, but if you're right, you're about as right as a broken clock.

True but I have been making them from the beginning.

I actually think it would be good for people to see crypto as worthless. Maybe then they would spend it instead of holding it and it could actually act as a currency.

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

#392

Post by digitaltrees »

species9606 wrote: post #357
digitaltrees wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe CZs attempt to take down a competitor by leaking information wasn’t a good idea after all. Sad to see people hurt as it backfires in his face. No amount of public relations or spin will save binance at this point. The run has begun. It will seem slow at first and then all at once. The only thing that would save it would be a bail out by the Chinese government.

As CZ has said repeatedly, they’re not a Chinese company. If the CCP bails them out, they’ll have an entirely new set of reputation problems.

Probably won’t be a public bailout.

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

#394

Post by sdwr »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #219
tpudlik wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re 2: this is not true if you're doing margin or futures trading, which was FTX's main business (and may be Binance's). This type of business is what characterizes an "exchange" (as opposed to a non-margin brokerage or a custodial bank).

Perpetual futures don't require any margin. All it requires is matching buy side and sell side market participants and transferring money between their accounts as the underlying changes in value. The exchanges don't actually hold any underlying with perps, so there's no need to borrow money.

How does a perpetual future actually work?? What happens if 5 people buy the "sell" side and 1 person buys the "buy"? There's no way to redeem to the underlying, and I don't think the 1 person pays out 5x the price movement to the other side.

An exchange can hedge vs excess buy orders by buying the underlying, but how do they hedge vs excess sells?

I've been trying to figure out how to short BNB, and perps feel pretty much as risky as trying to do it on binance itself.

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

#395

Post by worik »

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.

> 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.

That does happen. About a decade ago I dug into FX flows. The trade in USD was eighty times trade flows.

FX is a nasty business, huge profits to be made, profits that can be multiplied by the slightest bit of undetectable (now the traders know how to cover their communication traces) fraud.

Cryptocurrency is pure scam, true. But, in my educated opinion, the international financial system is dominated at the highest levels by out and out crooks.

The state of international finance, how it works against its consumers and saps the life out of the very economic activity it fosters (economic activity at the level we have would not be possible without sophisticated financial systems) is a huge incentive for developing crypto.

I just wish that there was a better solution (even a viable solution) than crypto

Complex social and economic problems do not have simple easy answers.

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

#396

Post by worik »

digitaltrees wrote: post #387
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.

Most currency exchange is to facilitate an international transaction of goods or services so there is actually value in enabling commerce.

No it is not

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

#397

Post by m3kw9 »

jefftk wrote: post #250
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…

> 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...

How did gaap value their magic coins?

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

#398

Post by stanleydrew »

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #343
hef19898 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Begging for regulation, like SBF? Officially regulated or not, as an exchange you can still insist on a) have one of the big 4 adivise you on whether you are a bank, a broker or whatever else exists in finance b) define internal controls and processes based on a) and have c) one of the other big 4 properly audit you against b). SBF even admitted that his insistence on regulation was just a front.

Oh I agree. Traditional centralised exchanges (CEX) are largely normal exchanges. Of all the things in the cryptocurrency space, they are one of the only things that cleanly fits into an existing box. Binance, FTX, Coinbase, Kraken, CoinEx, etc are all just traditional financial exchanges and should be forced to comply with existing regulations because they can. They can do traditional KYC and AML in addition to the…

I guess this might be a nitpick, but I don't think most cryptocurrency exchanges do function like "traditional financial exchanges." They seem to operate more like a combination of exchange and brokerage.

I'm not an expert but I don't think "traditional financial exchanges" hold assets to be traded on behalf of customers. I think they are just meeting points for traders, and they host the public order book.

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

#399

Post by lostmsu »

digitaltrees wrote: post #391
m348e912 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been making the crypto tulip comparison since when bitcoin was worth less than $100. Not saying you're wrong at this point, but if you're right, you're about as right as a broken clock.

True but I have been making them from the beginning. I actually think it would be good for people to see crypto as worthless. Maybe then they would spend it instead of holding it and it could actually act as a currency.

> Maybe then they would spend it

Why? Do you want to buy?

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

#400

Post by bragr »

blueprint wrote: post #369
femto113 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have assets in an un-audited exchange, get them out now. This is Mexican standoff. The only "value" crypto assets have comes from exchanges that will trade them for fiat. If crypto holders stop trusting exchanges and pull all their assets that will cause the exchanges to fail and those assets will then be worth nothing. On the other side if exchanges try to earn the trust of holders by becoming "fully transp…

> If crypto holders stop trusting exchanges and pull all their assets that will cause the exchanges to fail and those assets will then be worth nothing. maybe you havent heard but it's possible to send "crypto" (lol) directly from person to person

Send me 10,000 bitcoins and I'll send you a pizza.
Post reply on HN