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Binance to acquire FTX

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Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#751
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedantic nit: Those are initialisms. An initialism is when the individual letters are individually pronounced, like "emm-bee-ess." An acronym is when the initial letters are pronounced as a word, e.g. SOAR ("Situation Options Act Review-and-Reassess")

If there's one thing I really dislike about HN culture, it's the consistent derailing of a thread to "um, actually" someone on a semantics distinction that literally nobody has ever been confused by, or to shoehorn in new terminology that doesn't improve communication in any way.

Some of the most interesting things I've read have been digressions from the main point. Your observation is a case in point: We're now talking about HN culture instead of wild times in the crypto economy. Is this a derailment? Or a digression?

It all depends upon whether people perceive it to be something that "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity," a line right from the guidelines. In your case, the difference between initialisms and acronyms (if any, see another reply) does not, and I accept that. Sorry!

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#752
post #637
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the 'actuarial value' of the risk a bank takes on?

I can tell you a bank like say JP Morgan Chase, who is charged 5bp a year (i.e. 5 cents for every $100 dollars), has a much higher chance of catastrophic failure than 1 in 2000. Many banks just like them fail every few decades, and it was generous of me to only say they're undercharged by 90% (i.e. 1 in 200 odds), when the reality is probably more within a range like 1 in 20 to 1 in 100.

So you're making this numbers up? If banks are being undercharged, the insurer will be incurring losses. It's as simple as that.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#754
post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, why is this statement not true then: > There's an awful lot of fancy piled on the simple fact that all "currencies" are negative sum games. ?

Because it is currency itself that you measure everything else against. What my sentence meant is that without transaction fees it would be a zero sum game -- ie if you undid all crypto-money transactions then nothing is left -- but with transaction fees their sum is a negative number. But you need to measure this in something . Note how stocks are decidedly not like this because if you undid all stock-money transact…

> Because it is currency itself that you measure everything else against.

So what? I cannot see the significance of that. There are many possible measures of value.

> if you undid all transactions then nothing is left -- but with transaction fees their sum is a negative number. But you need to measure this in something.

Yes? So what's the important difference between cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies?

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding L2 chains to this equation dumps the frying pan into the fire. We don't need more points-of-failure, it's bad enough as-is.

Inability to process more than 5 tx a second for entire world is a major point-of-failure that L2 chain cures.

Should’ve just increased the blocksize, instead of implementing some crap L2 solution.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coins failed because exchanges shouldn't even have been created in the first place. Bitcoin should have been as easy to use and ubiquitous as the US dollar. As we all know, cryptocurrency turned into stocks instead.

If not exchanges, what entity would you suggest as a way to change crypto into fiat? Using the most successful fiat currency the world has ever known as a goal seems a bit lofty. In your view, how much time should it have taken to surpass the dollar?

That's my point. There should never have been any need to exchange crypto into fiat. Bitcoin should have been as ubiquitous as USD. Everyone using it, pricing things in it, transacting with it, holding at least some amount of it. Exchanging for fiat should have been as easy as getting change from a store.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#757
post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is currency itself that you measure everything else against. What my sentence meant is that without transaction fees it would be a zero sum game -- ie if you undid all crypto-money transactions then nothing is left -- but with transaction fees their sum is a negative number. But you need to measure this in something . Note how stocks are decidedly not like this because if you undid all stock-money transact…

> Because it is currency itself that you measure everything else against. So what? I cannot see the significance of that. There are many possible measures of value. > if you undid all transactions then nothing is left -- but with transaction fees their sum is a negative number. But you need to measure this in something. Yes? So what's the important difference between cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies?

The thing is you can buy anything in this world for money. That's what money is for. Thus, we measure these things in money.

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#758
post #752
post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you a bank like say JP Morgan Chase, who is charged 5bp a year (i.e. 5 cents for every $100 dollars), has a much higher chance of catastrophic failure than 1 in 2000. Many banks just like them fail every few decades, and it was generous of me to only say they're undercharged by 90% (i.e. 1 in 200 odds), when the reality is probably more within a range like 1 in 20 to 1 in 100.

So you're making this numbers up? If banks are being undercharged, the insurer will be incurring losses. It's as simple as that.

The insurer is the United States government. They take losses on things all the time. It's called "socialized losses." I referred to it before, and it sounds like you don't even understand these finance 101 (or even basic high school civics) topics, so why are you insulting anyone?

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#759
post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One missing piece: $1B BTC being auctioned by the IRS soon. This is such a big number that it will almost certainly be bought at a discount by an arbitrageur and liquidated on the market, so this was the impetus for the broad-market crash that killed their leveraged positions.

The 24hr BTC volume on Coinbase alone was $126B. The feds selling $1B won’t make much of a dent.

Not on coinbase alone. Coin market cap shows same volume globally

Re: Binance to acquire FTX

#760
post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as noone is being lied to, I don't see any problems. Case A, tell your customers that their funds have asset backing, and have asset backing: fine. Case B: tell your customers that their funds have no asset backing, and have no asset backing: fine. (Those customers deserve what they get.) Case C: tell your customers nothing, and do whatever you feel like: fine. (Those customers deserve what they get.) Case D:…

B and C are perfectly fair game for a government to attempt to prevent, regulate, and prosecute in my book. I don't think anyone has an inherent right to take advantage of people's ignorance solely for their own profit even if those people "deserve what they get." We make plenty of other ways of abusing people illegal, why allow that one?

As a taxpayer I don't want to see any government resources wasted on protecting greedy, stupid cryptocurrency "investors" from their own bad decisions. They deserve what they get and their losses will serve as a useful example to others.
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