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Binance to acquire FTX

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441–450 of 790 posts

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#441
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto is an anarchist experiment And, like every anarchist experiment before it, it failed. It continues to draw in new suckers every day, and that is a problem for society. It doesn't matter if you didn't cause the problem. Because you live in that society, you still have to pay the cost to fix it or continue to take the losses from the problem existing. It's the same with slavery, not educating blacks, and then…

Every anarchist experiment failed? The Internet's still around, buddy.

The thing created by a US Government agency at the height of the Cold War is your example of anarchist success story?

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#442
post #57

Its funny how a few days back some people on HN were saying FTX is unlikely to be illiquid because SBF is a genius from JaneStreet.

And people who knew what they were actually talking about were pointing out that it's unlikely anyone would have voluntarily left Jane Street as early as he did. But they were largely ignored.

Maybe he likes Haskell better than OCaml.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#443
post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My read of the situation: SBF's comments were about assets (balance sheet) rather than FTX's liquidity. I believe SBF was saying (paraphrasing) "Our balance sheet is fine; FTX doesn't invest customer assets; we're processing withdrawals as fast as possible." That's different than saying "we have 100% liquidity." Banks make similar statements all the time -- they require regular audits of assets (stress tests) and mai…

Banks say that they don't invest deposits?

In the Glass-Steagall sense, they probably shouldn't. Mixing commercial banking and investment banking was illegal from 1933-1999, and it is (arguably) one of the underlying factors in the 2008 financial crisis.

Note: There's a difference between being a custodian of customers' investments (brokerage / commercial banking) versus proactively investing customer deposits (investment banking).

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#445

All of these folks need to be in prison along with Andreeson Horowitz. All bloody crooks the lot of them. The largest ponzi scheme in the history of humanity and they wonder why the world is not getting better.

Largest might be a stretch. I suggest spending some time reading about John Law, the South Sea Bubble, and the Mississippi Company. When you realize that all of these ponzi schemes ultimately resulted in modern central banking, you might reasonably contend that the largest ponzi scheme is still sitting right here in plain sight -- with crypto illuminating (mocking?) the essence of fiat-denominated "wealth" and "money…

Can you give us a TL;DR on how those schemes resulted in modern central banking? It's challenging to find solid info on the introduction/acceptance of central banking as the status quo. Lots of it veers hard into conspiracy theory and information that I can tell is wrong from a handful of college finance courses.

I know this is the second (or third) central banking paradigm that has existed in the US. The last one got shut down by ol' AJ, but I don't really understand how that all went down and how it's different (or similar) to what we have now.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#446
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every anarchist experiment failed? The Internet's still around, buddy.

The Internet was created by DARPA and while it got a little wild in the 90s, neither its origins or current form in any way resemble anarchy.

Just because "The Internet"'s _mainstream_ may not resemble anarchy, this doesn't prohibit other parts to resemble anarchy. In fact there are a lot of examples active and thriving "on the Internet" fulfilling various definitions of anarchy.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#447

Why is it apparently so difficult to run a solvent crypto exchange? On the face, it shouldn't be too hard, just take deposits, stick them in a wallet, and swap client balances in a database. Is the temptation to maintain a reserve ratio < 1 just too great? Do operators try to earn small, low-risk return on client funds only to find there are no low-risk, positive-return assets in crypto? Are the extending margin to c…

Asset heavy. The computer systems to run one are expensive. Compliance is expensive. Your return on assets are probably lower than 5% in a regulated market.

If you don't take extra risks to spruce up returns, you lose money.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#448
post #251
post #216

I'm glad a big government supporter such as SBF is out of crypto leadership. Crypto is an anarchist experiment and it should remain that way

Rest assured that the regulations are coming because the crypto simply did a speed-run of unregulated securities market and repeated every fraud or scam that the traditional markets went through over the history. In the process, huge fortunes were created and libertarians were empowered(but not enough to be the main political power). Congrats to them but there's nothing anarchist left in crypto, they even end up cons…

Regulations are coming? On a fully public ledger?

You understand that BTC, ETH, and every derivative non-privacy-coin is exactly what the regulators have been salivating for, right? Why regulate a non-repudiable chain-of-custody that mathematically proves your serfs'/slaves' assets that you can seize at will?

> libertarians were empowered(but not enough to be the main political power).

You should re-examine the GOP, particularly the tickets on today's ballots. This ain't your grandfather's GOP.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#450
post #435
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a big government supporter such as SBF A supporter or another crook LARPing as pro-regulation because it makes some people ignore red-flags? Constantly braying about the "the law" is part of the the main act of the highest profile scammer claiming to have created Bitcoin. Fact is that saying a lot of vague "pro regulation" things doesn't likely subject you to any additional regulatory scrutiny, it's a free move eve…

> Constantly braying about the "the law" is part of the the main act of the highest profile scammer claiming to have created Bitcoin. Whom are you alluding to?

Craig Wright. It's refreshing to encounter someone who hasn't seen that scammers circus.

In the latest season we find Wright trying to steal literally billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin while constantly yelling that everyone who doesn't support him is a criminal. If he weren't financially ruining people with vexatious litigation it would all be pretty funny.

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