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This is impossible because the money has to come from somewhere. The 1% aren't going to pay people to play games.
Organized sports disagrees.
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Just because something makes a lot of money doesn't make it ethical.
It's way more ethical for people across the world, primarily in 3rd world countries, to be able to share in the success of a company via its tokens than just being mined for data so some asshole in San Francisco can be paid 10 million dollars a month in rent.
This is a zero sum game: as long as more people buy tokens to get in the game, then it continue going up, and every one feels like they are getting richer. But anyone selling their tokens is taking money out of the system, from all the players. If everyone sell their tokens, there will be exactly the same amount of money that comes out than that went in, just redistributed differently amongst the players, some will lose some will win.
That’s what makes it a Ponzi scheme. The real winners here are the company behind Axie and the people like the guy from the article that just take money out of the system (from other players) on a regular basis, they are guaranteed to get more out. That's where the real success of the company happens, and you have no mechanism to get a share of that success unless you are an actual investor in $ of that company.
In that story, there are no external consumers that are willingly paying money to the company in exchange for some good or service, that would make the players richer.
> Andreessen Horowitz’s cryptocurrency fund made one of its largest investments to date in Sky Mavis, leading a $152m financing that valued the company at $3bn. > Sky Mavis, which takes a 4.5 per cent cut of transactions within the game, has made about $1.2bn of revenues I mean, say what you want about this being a scam, ponzi scheme, etc. That is some real cash. I saw this game popping up on Twitch a few months ago…
This is pretty bad when it comes to crypto topics. A lot of the crypto ecosystem is toxic and gross. Schemes, scams, marketing fluff, and meme bro attitudes galore. BUT, if you can bear to pay attention and cut through the noise, there are some pretty incredible innovations occurring in crypto, gaming, and defi. HN is very dismissive on these topics. It feels to me this community dates itself when crypto topics come up, reminding me more of my grandma at thanksgiving than young innovative technophiles.
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Stop calling everything a ponzi scheme. This does not resemble a ponzi scheme in almost any way. There is more than one type of scheme in the world. This is much closer to a pyramid scheme or just a contained economy with really bad incentives For example the Ponzi scheme version of this would be if you told people you were going to make a game with crypto as currency and told people that if they give you money to in…
For those confused about the difference: A Ponzi scheme "pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors" A pyramid scheme "recruits members via a promise of payments or services for enrolling others into the scheme, rather than supplying investments or sale of products"
Or imagine a digital casino, because that's basically what this game is.
I'm surprised these games aren't more popular. Maybe because if they truly become mainstream, they're basically guaranteed to be shut down or heavily regulated. Either that or millions of people will go broke, already-broke people will accumulate massive debt, and people will be playing these games instead of getting a job. It would probably affect so many people that it would actually cause major economic problems.
Like, I honestly think crypto-games are really cool. I kind of want them to succeed and would play some myself (in moderation). But just, considering what we know about addiction and human nature, a game where you can actually win enough money to play them as a full-time job seems like the ultimate way to take money from disadvantaged people. "The addictiveness of social media, the addictiveness of lootboxes, the addictiveness of casinos - those have nothing on games where you can actually make money.
Look at how addicting Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Genshin Impact, etc. are. Now imagine games like these but you have the ability to win real money. Or imagine a digital casino, because that's basically what this game is. I'm surprised these games aren't more popular. Maybe because if they truly become mainstream, they're basically guaranteed to be shut down or heavily regulated. Either that or millions of people wi…
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That isn't much difference. If there is a promise of payments for enrolling others, that is still a subsidy from later to earlier investors.
So any SaaS startup that offers referral fees is now a pyramid scheme?
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Just because something makes a lot of money doesn't make it ethical.
It's way more ethical for people across the world, primarily in 3rd world countries, to be able to share in the success of a company via its tokens than just being mined for data so some asshole in San Francisco can be paid 10 million dollars a month in rent.
In order for someone to make money for something, there has to be an activity that generates a cashflow. There is no cash flow being generated, there is no outside money, what value are these people creating for other people? If you are playing a game to make money, you have to be providing some kind of value. So far, this company has convinced people to put money in, the rest of the money is probably coming from investors...there is no other money (and btw, the people playing the game are clearly much smarter than Andressen & Partners, they are taking out whatever isn't nailed down and making a swift exit).
If you look at poker, it is obvious why some people are paid to play that game: they provide liquidity, they provide someone to gamble with, they provide the capital to take risk. It is the same with a bookmaker. This example has none of these characteristics because there is no outside money (the quote from a partner at Andressen's firm is incredible, I worked in fund management, I have seen some incompetent people, people who are truly clueless...what we are seeing in VC is unlike anything that has occurred in financial culture since the 20s).
This reminds me of Football Index: the details of this are complex but they essentially paid people to play a game, there was no outside money, investors didn't understand this, management didn't fully understand this, they went bankrupt earlier this year taking down tens of millions in client money (no-one who plays this games understand that they are investing in an OTC product secured against the developer, it is nothing to do with the underlying game).
> Andreessen Horowitz’s cryptocurrency fund made one of its largest investments to date in Sky Mavis, leading a $152m financing that valued the company at $3bn. > Sky Mavis, which takes a 4.5 per cent cut of transactions within the game, has made about $1.2bn of revenues I mean, say what you want about this being a scam, ponzi scheme, etc. That is some real cash. I saw this game popping up on Twitch a few months ago…
> It really makes me reconsider the group-think on hacker news. This is pretty bad when it comes to crypto topics. A lot of the crypto ecosystem is toxic and gross. Schemes, scams, marketing fluff, and meme bro attitudes galore. BUT, if you can bear to pay attention and cut through the noise, there are some pretty incredible innovations occurring in crypto, gaming, and defi. HN is very dismissive on these topics. It…