So they're next?
They may be next. It's not 100% sure but very plausible.
Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
71–80 of 843 posts
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the fiat world banks are regulated and can’t do crazy shit with their reserves.
In the real world all organizations are regulated and fraud is illegal. But sadly something being illegal does not prevent if from happening, and greasing political palms always help: https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-joe-bid... ( https://archive.ph/BBpQN#selection-417.0-424.0 ) > The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried has been a major force in Democratic politics, ranking as the party’s second-biggest indi…
SBF spent about 33% Republican / 66% Democrat
EDIT: Not accurate ^
Yet 18 of the 25 top donors were Republican leaning. Billionaires comprise 20% of Republican funding vs. 14% for Dems. Most republican megadonors were entirely republican. The big ones are from hedge funds.
So yeah, SBF donated to the dems. We need more regulation to get money out of politics. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking the republican party is immune to this. They are in it. They tend to be more in it.
96% of house seats were won by the party that spent more in their race.
https://web.archive.org/web/20221113221316/https://www.nytim...
https://web.archive.org/web/20221113013307/http://www.opense...
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crypto has really only lived in a zero interest rate policy world and it is shitting the bed majorly now when rates are going up. It is likely far from the bottom.
Is it? There's no reserve rate on the books but there's still a natural interest rate. And I'd estimate that for something like Bitcoin it's sky high. That's how it produced massive returns with no equity or assets. When Bitcoin was first launched, economists said the mining and splitting algorithm would be massively deflationary and that seems to have come true.
> would be massively deflationary and that seems to have come true
Bitcoin makes Argentina and Venezuela look like bastions of hard money. It’s lost purchasing power, i.e. inflated, at an astronomical rate.
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is there any reason someone would take out a loan in crypto and pay interest on the repayments? People want to increase their exposure to crypto via leverage. For example: 1. Collatorize BTC to get USDT 2. Use the USTDT to buy ETH. 3. Use ETH to collatorize to get USDT 4. Use USDT to buy sh*tcoin 5. wash, rinse, repeat If everything goes up, you can make a ton of money. If things go down... you lose everything.
Or the opposite. Short bitcoin or whatever
It's very risky. The price has a tendency to jump up briefly when a large short needs to cover its position.
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
crypto.com, kucoin and others are way likelier. All the exchanges that passed ETH around to "demonstrate" their reserves.
How can it be a reserve to hold your own or other "coins" ???. This sector really needs proper regulatory framework like banks.
> How can it be a reserve to hold your own or other "coins" ???
It isn't. They're defrauding folks.
Tether got caught doing exactly this, passing money around between themselves and Bitfinex (same ownership) to pad out reserves for an attestation.
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-...
> In the face of persistent questions about whether the company actually held sufficient funds, Tether published a self-proclaimed ‘verification’ of its cash reserves, in 2017, that it characterized as “a good faith effort on our behalf to provide an interim analysis of our cash position.” In reality, however, the cash ostensibly backing tethers had only been placed in Tether’s account as of the very morning of the company’s ‘verification.’
> On November 1, 2018, Tether publicized another self-proclaimed ‘verification’ of its cash reserve; this time at Deltec Bank & Trust Ltd. of the Bahamas. The announcement linked to a letter dated November 1, 2018, which stated that tethers were fully backed by cash, at one dollar for every one tether. However, the very next day, on November 2, 2018, Tether began to transfer funds out of its account, ultimately moving hundreds of millions of dollars from Tether’s bank accounts to Bitfinex’s accounts. And so, as of November 2, 2018 — one day after their latest ‘verification’ — tethers were again no longer backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars in a Tether bank account.
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had a store credit card (via Comenity Bank) having "system maintenance issues" since early June, refusing to pay out the money owed per their rewards scheme. No one at either the store's corporate office can tell you anything nor will the backing bank say anything other than "We value you as a customer and appreciate your patience." It's a common industry tactic, sadly, to scapegoat IT operations for internal fa…
Somewhat unrelated but unless it's absolutely dire circumstances do not EVER get a "store credit card". They have obscenely low limits which adversely affects your credit score as relatively small purchases can end up using a substantial portion of the available credit. Balance vs total credit (available credit) is a very important factor in calculating scores and credit worthiness. The interest rates are extremely h…
> All of these merchants don't push these things because they're doing you a favor
Generalized, this is good advice. If somebody is shilling something to you, it's not for your own good. Ads aren't PSAs and even many PSAs aren't really PSAs.
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#77This all seems like less a problem of crypto as such, and more that exchanges are making a virtual fractional reserve currency by leveraging customer deposits for loans/investments.
ie it's a 'banking' problem, specifically a 'fractional reserve banking' problem, not a crypto problem.
This is exactly why fractional reserve banking is heavily regulated.
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crypto has really only lived in a zero interest rate policy world and it is shitting the bed majorly now when rates are going up. It is likely far from the bottom.
Why do you believe that is the case? How is this hypothesis explained?
It is only an attractive investment when the world is awash with excess fiat currency.
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#79So, having been around since the early bitcoin days, core to the salespitch back then was the fact you would have control. You'd have your coins in your wallet, and no need for banks etc. Apparently nobody does this anymore, and gives their wallets to these exchanges (i.e. banks) and balks when the obvious happens in pyramid schemes. People just don't get distributed currency if they promptly undistribute it. Or is i…
You're not taking crazy pills. It's become abundantly clear that the vision of everybody being their own bank will never work.
People don't want to be their own bank, just like they don't want to be their own bakery, or their own farmer.
Sure, some people do bake their own bread, but they do it either because they have to, or because they enjoy it.
So the people who control their own keys need to have a reason to do so. Because it takes more effort than not managing your own bank.
What exactly are the reasons to run your own bank? What problems in your life are solved by it?
I can think of a two:
* You want to hold more cash than FDIC guarantees. * You think the government will seize money out of savings accounts, as happened in Cyprus.
These have to be weighed against the facts that while not literally in your mattress, the money becomes pretty easy to steal, for anyone willing to point a gun at you. And being your own bank comes with obligations, too, so the government will come after you if they want to drain your bank. And the justice system can put you in a box if you don't comply.
Basically: If you already have a bank, why would you not just use it? And if they refuse to do your thing (like order a hit), then buy tokens and pay a hitman in tokens.
If there were FDIC for tokens at your real bank, redeemable in same number of tokens, then any general public that wanted to use cryptocurrency would likely just use that. Because outside of fringe LARPing nobody wants to run their own bank.
Re: Crypto exchange AAX suspends withdrawals
#80So, having been around since the early bitcoin days, core to the salespitch back then was the fact you would have control. You'd have your coins in your wallet, and no need for banks etc. Apparently nobody does this anymore, and gives their wallets to these exchanges (i.e. banks) and balks when the obvious happens in pyramid schemes. People just don't get distributed currency if they promptly undistribute it. Or is i…
Most people hold Bitcoin these days in the hopes of making money. The distributed consensus nature of crypto is irrelevant.