Cryptocurrency buzz drives record investment scam losses(ftc.gov)
ftc.gov
Cryptocurrency buzz drives record investment scam losses
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/data-spotlight/2021/05/cryptocurrency-buzz-drives-record-investment-scam-losses
32 comments
> Despite how it sounds, I'm not in favor of regulation. I'm all for people learning lessons the hard way.
If your neighbors pile their trash up on their lawn they might learn a lesson about rats the hard way, but the rats aren't going to stay put on their property.
While people are "learning their lesson" the number of scams are growing, the scams grow more sophisticated, the money the scammers earn gets funneled into other kinds of crime. I feel like there's a common but naive sentiment that you can take a "social Darwinism" approach to petty crime without the small fry growing until their activities start impacting you and your loved ones. Scamming is an ecosystem like any other and it will grow healthier and more robust if you let it flourish.
If your neighbors pile their trash up on their lawn they might learn a lesson about rats the hard way, but the rats aren't going to stay put on their property.
While people are "learning their lesson" the number of scams are growing, the scams grow more sophisticated, the money the scammers earn gets funneled into other kinds of crime. I feel like there's a common but naive sentiment that you can take a "social Darwinism" approach to petty crime without the small fry growing until their activities start impacting you and your loved ones. Scamming is an ecosystem like any other and it will grow healthier and more robust if you let it flourish.
Unfair comparison. In your example the neighbor is forcing rats onto my property through their poor decisions. That is not the case with them making risky financial investments, and these scams are not some slippery slope that infect all of society. People are generally resilient against most scams after they encounter them once or twice.
You could use your argument to justify government regulation for almost any decision that has consequences. This isn't 'social Darwinism', nor is it 'tough love'. It is about being able to make your own financial decisions without coercion and without obstruction
If people choose to enter into poor 'investments' in a hope to get-rich-quick, that is their decision and they can live with the consequences
You could use your argument to justify government regulation for almost any decision that has consequences. This isn't 'social Darwinism', nor is it 'tough love'. It is about being able to make your own financial decisions without coercion and without obstruction
If people choose to enter into poor 'investments' in a hope to get-rich-quick, that is their decision and they can live with the consequences
Letting crypto scams flourish hurts the ability for crypto to be taken seriously by a lot of people.
If you're bored and want to see receipts for a decent number of them, check out https://old.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/
Current favorite whipping targets are Safemoon and Doge.
Current favorite whipping targets are Safemoon and Doge.
/r/Buttcoin has been about as bad smelling their own farts over the years as the Bitcoin subreddit has.
The occasional blog post by long-time critics (Gerard et al) is the only thing of value you can find there.
The occasional blog post by long-time critics (Gerard et al) is the only thing of value you can find there.
Safemoon I'd say could definitely qualify (although I could see this one coming back with a vengeance eventually), but Doge is a perennial favorite with a long history and I think it's perfectly reasonable to invest in that one with the expectation that you'll most likely make some decent returns in ~5 years.
I'm also a dog parent to a Shiba Inu so I feel like I must own some Doge, so I might be a bit biased.
I'm also a dog parent to a Shiba Inu so I feel like I must own some Doge, so I might be a bit biased.
We can argue about "reasonable to invest" but it's certainly true that Doge is perhaps the original memecoin and it's unlikely there can be a rug-pull the way other coins do.
It's likely that selling at .70 was the way to go (give those bags to someone else) however, could be a long time until it returns there.
It's likely that selling at .70 was the way to go (give those bags to someone else) however, could be a long time until it returns there.
I agree it's probably not getting back up to .70 anytime soon, and we might not see the insane price increases it had earlier this year again, but I do expect long-term it could be good to get (and I do have some myself), despite the only thing it really has going for it is Elon tweets and the meme factor.
Don't forget Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), which tries to replace the Internet but is also based on it.
The price of ICP immediately following the listing on Coinbase should have been the signal to exit the current market cycle for anyone paying attention.
Also, sometimes the different between a scam and a bad product is hard to tell - the founders may not even know.
I do know that being a big or famous name in tech made it very easy to capitalize on that name value by selling coins with your backing. Some of you are on this site reading this right now!
It ends up not mattering if the project is a complete dud. You become a multi-millionarie anyways. And it was all legal. But not a lot of value was produced.
I do know that being a big or famous name in tech made it very easy to capitalize on that name value by selling coins with your backing. Some of you are on this site reading this right now!
It ends up not mattering if the project is a complete dud. You become a multi-millionarie anyways. And it was all legal. But not a lot of value was produced.
Crypto: never assume competent malice when you can assume incompetent malice.
Yes, much of the valuations are purely speculative and, as a result, some people end up gaining wealth that doesn't appear 'earned', but this is true of any very early investor. There will always be people who say "there was no way you could have known this would become as big as it did"
Cryptocurrency is teaching a lot of people about finance, who wouldn't otherwise know nor be allowed to participate. I believe that is overall a net positive, even if some people lose money in the process.
Cryptocurrency is teaching a lot of people about finance, who wouldn't otherwise know nor be allowed to participate. I believe that is overall a net positive, even if some people lose money in the process.
I once tracked newly listed pancakeswap pairs. Literally 98% of then rugged within 2-3 hours of launch.
I'm waiting for the dragon satoshi to wake up on day and transfer one USD out :D That d be the rug pull to rule them all.
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I’ve been an ardent defender of crypto as my comment history would indicate.
But man the past few months, the doge coin mania has birthed an astonishing amount of scams, rugpulls and zero-utility coins. I really can’t defend crypto at this point at all.
But man the past few months, the doge coin mania has birthed an astonishing amount of scams, rugpulls and zero-utility coins. I really can’t defend crypto at this point at all.
That's self regulation at its best. We had those scams from beginning, the difference this year was the mainstream joining.
When tor was full of bitcoin doubler websites I tracked multiple hundred thousand dollars getting burned daily for months until it cooled down. This is like 6 years ago. I guess many back then learned their lesson, so do many others today. Or remember Mt gox? When like half of the active bitcoin market was suddenly lost?
When tor was full of bitcoin doubler websites I tracked multiple hundred thousand dollars getting burned daily for months until it cooled down. This is like 6 years ago. I guess many back then learned their lesson, so do many others today. Or remember Mt gox? When like half of the active bitcoin market was suddenly lost?
> We had those scams from beginning
I tend to disagree a bit. In the early days, most scams at least pretended to have some non-pump-and-dump usecase. Like Dentacoin or Filecoin. You could at least pretend to "buy filecoin today so you can store PB's worth of data in a year" or "buying Dentacoin now because in a year you need some dental work done".
Nowadays all new tokens/coins have 0 usecases attached and only exist to be pancake swapped and pumped and separating other people from their money. It's all about lending, yielding, farming, interest rates, staking, ...
I tend to disagree a bit. In the early days, most scams at least pretended to have some non-pump-and-dump usecase. Like Dentacoin or Filecoin. You could at least pretend to "buy filecoin today so you can store PB's worth of data in a year" or "buying Dentacoin now because in a year you need some dental work done".
Nowadays all new tokens/coins have 0 usecases attached and only exist to be pancake swapped and pumped and separating other people from their money. It's all about lending, yielding, farming, interest rates, staking, ...
I can't really agree, sure it's bigger today than it ever was. But God did we see stupid shitcoin projects being pumped and dumped on the costs of naive early investors in the very beginning. No use case, no value, pure pump and dump shortly after litecoin they have been all over already.
Jumping about 3-4 years ago, just before NFTs became a thing and ETH transactions were still cheap there was a grace of the most simple, basic and stupid ponzi "games" the world has ever seen. "Buy color #24384, the next pays 150% of the price and you get 120% back" that often collapsed the same day, and as NFTs weren't a thing yet basically disappeared once the website went down. Yet people threw thousands of dollars at these games without asking questions.
Today's "bullshit" is much more sophisticated and usually doesn't collapse after only a few days, as well as is harder to see trough for naive investors.
But really I can't say it got worse, if anything these 'scams' have more winners because most 'investors' aren't that naive anymore.
Jumping about 3-4 years ago, just before NFTs became a thing and ETH transactions were still cheap there was a grace of the most simple, basic and stupid ponzi "games" the world has ever seen. "Buy color #24384, the next pays 150% of the price and you get 120% back" that often collapsed the same day, and as NFTs weren't a thing yet basically disappeared once the website went down. Yet people threw thousands of dollars at these games without asking questions.
Today's "bullshit" is much more sophisticated and usually doesn't collapse after only a few days, as well as is harder to see trough for naive investors.
But really I can't say it got worse, if anything these 'scams' have more winners because most 'investors' aren't that naive anymore.
These memecoins don’t even pretend to care about lending and staking and farming. Its literally about just buying the coin and hoping someone pumps it.
The most traded coins right now according to CoinGecko are almost entirely memecoins with no utility whatsoever.
And if I’m honest, BTC was the original memecoin.
The most traded coins right now according to CoinGecko are almost entirely memecoins with no utility whatsoever.
And if I’m honest, BTC was the original memecoin.
> That's self regulation at its best
Seems like self regulation at its worst.
Seems like self regulation at its worst.
Why not?
Every bull market has brought the scams. This isn't just in crypto. How many penny stock scams were perpetrated during the dot com bubble by adding ".com" to the name of a company?
Scams are nothing new, scams in cryptocurrency are nothing new, and in all honesty 90% of them are obvious. General rule of thumb, if someone is telling you you can make money by spending some of your money right now, it is probably a scam, if they're saying you can make money by giving them some of your money then it is almost 100% certain to be a scam.
Every bull market has brought the scams. This isn't just in crypto. How many penny stock scams were perpetrated during the dot com bubble by adding ".com" to the name of a company?
Scams are nothing new, scams in cryptocurrency are nothing new, and in all honesty 90% of them are obvious. General rule of thumb, if someone is telling you you can make money by spending some of your money right now, it is probably a scam, if they're saying you can make money by giving them some of your money then it is almost 100% certain to be a scam.
Proof of work systems are in trouble. China's government has had it with the power drain. Last Saturday, most of the major Bitcoin mining operations in China had their power cut off. Hash rate is way down. China's Bitcoin miners are frantically trying to find cheap gigawatts elsewhere in the world.
> Proof of work systems are in trouble.
Bitcoin isn’t. Difficulty will adapt and all operations will carry on as usual.
The "investing in Bitcoin mining to get money out of China" industry just broke down. That was the high-volume use case.
Makes sense given the cap they have on how much foreign currency they can buy
Right. China severely restricts sending money out of the country, while encouraging manufacturing and exports. If you're in China and want dollars or euros, make something in China, sell it outside China for a convertible currency, and keep the profits outside China.
Bitcoin mining fit that model. It was making something in China and selling it outside China. Not only legal, but encouraged.
That just ended.
Bitcoin mining fit that model. It was making something in China and selling it outside China. Not only legal, but encouraged.
That just ended.
The only reason this is news-worthy is because it's tied to the current hot button issue (cryptocurrency). Scams like these happen all the time during bull markets and the crypto investment maxims (never invest what you're not willing to lose, do your own research and if it sounds too good to be real, it usually is the case) apply just as well in any other kinds of speculative investments.
Increasing regulation and adopting that sort of paternalistic attitudes will do nothing except harbor further dissent and widen the divide between the rich and poor, as it always has.
Increasing regulation and adopting that sort of paternalistic attitudes will do nothing except harbor further dissent and widen the divide between the rich and poor, as it always has.
Anyone who has spent significant time in certain corners of the internet has seen the high prevalence of get-rich-quick desperation in (some) cryptocurrencies. It repeats each cycle, but was at high intensity this year due to the low barrier to entry with BSC smart contracts. Anyone could create a PnD shitcoin.
All these scammers do is set up a nice looking website, fake some 'partnerships', then get influencers and spammers to put the word out. Once the scammers determine the market is at peak liquidity, they 'rug pull' by selling through all the liquidity, driving the price into the ground. Some rug pulls are instant, others are slow, to milk the buyers.
These scams are very common.. there are thousands of them. A lot of people willingly participate because it is possible to make some profit off suckers before the developers pull the rug. The profits are drying up as suckers are running out of money or are finally getting wise to the formula.
Despite how it sounds, I'm not in favor of regulation. I'm all for people learning lessons the hard way. I did at various times in my life and am better for it