FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals(poker.org)
poker.org
FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals
https://www.poker.org/ftx-collapse-tether-operations-have-links-to-infamous-online-poker-cheating-scandals/
349 comments
With every crypto collapse there seems to be an associated failure by the media to do any real digging. The same thing happened with Theranos where, with a few exceptions, the media fawned over Elizabeth Holmes.
It's hard to tell if the media has gotten worse at their jobs or they've always been this bad and I'm just getting older. There are plenty of earlier scams and bubbles (Enron, dot-com bubble) that slipped under the radar until thing went to shit, so I suspect the latter.
It's hard to tell if the media has gotten worse at their jobs or they've always been this bad and I'm just getting older. There are plenty of earlier scams and bubbles (Enron, dot-com bubble) that slipped under the radar until thing went to shit, so I suspect the latter.
> It's hard to tell if the media has gotten worse at their jobs
It's not that "the media" has gotten worse at their jobs. Rather, there simply a lot less funding for reporters. The hit in funding has become much worse in local reporting -- especially local newspapers. However, if this is viewed as a training ground for the few large national/international news organizations, it's easy to see how this has a profound impact for even the large and well funded publications.
There's simply much less reporting happening than their used to be, and it's a real problem.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/13/u-s-newsroo...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/626459/number-employees-....
It's not that "the media" has gotten worse at their jobs. Rather, there simply a lot less funding for reporters. The hit in funding has become much worse in local reporting -- especially local newspapers. However, if this is viewed as a training ground for the few large national/international news organizations, it's easy to see how this has a profound impact for even the large and well funded publications.
There's simply much less reporting happening than their used to be, and it's a real problem.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/07/13/u-s-newsroo...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/626459/number-employees-....
> a lot less funding for reporters
There's plenty of funding for and to reporters who aren't trying to discover the truth but instead manufacture it.
There's plenty of funding for and to reporters who aren't trying to discover the truth but instead manufacture it.
Apparently SBF had ‘donated’ millions to ProPublica to cover effective altruism. These institutions are so desperate for funding that they’re having to get creative just to survive. I’m not sure what’s worse, no media or one that pretends to be neutral but is actually in the pockets of private donors.
I don't know if this is right or wrong, but if I were running a news agency, I would think that glowing puff pieces would be one of the first things I'd eliminate in the event of a financial crunch.
Is there a reason we think they persist?
Is there a reason we think they persist?
Puff pieces are part of the PR machine. From what little I know of it, they’re basically ghostwritten by PR agencies so they cost almost nothing in the way of journalists to produce. Also, there is the quid pro quo aspect where puff pieces are (presumably) traded for things like access and other newsworthy information
Why? Glowing puff pieces are a reliable, dirt cheap source of revenue
The first statistic you link is a newsroom statistic. This cut makes sense, because newspaper now get their news from big agencies.
Newsrooms are completely different from investigative digging into stuff.
Newsrooms are completely different from investigative digging into stuff.
But who collects the stories for the agencies - it used to be the local reporters who are the ones gone. This is the point of the statistic
I am in UK and look at my local papers - the number of stories is massively down and the report numbers are much smaller. One reporter now for several London boroughs when there used to be several for one.
Who is looking at local government now?
I am in UK and look at my local papers - the number of stories is massively down and the report numbers are much smaller. One reporter now for several London boroughs when there used to be several for one.
Who is looking at local government now?
No one, and (though I'm not sure this is true in the UK as well, though I imagine it is) it's pretty much 100% private equity's fault. They bought up every local paper they could, saddled them with the debt (how that's a thing that's allowed in accounting I will never understand), and then claimed the Internet killed them.
Yes, news orgs could have adapted faster, but most privately held papers were in the black. Only when the debts and insane growth expectations were added were they dying.
Private equity is ruining modern democratic institutions.
Yes, news orgs could have adapted faster, but most privately held papers were in the black. Only when the debts and insane growth expectations were added were they dying.
Private equity is ruining modern democratic institutions.
Agreed about privat equity in general but the UK papers are all owned by media groups I think so no PEs fault here.
The issue is lack of advertising revenue. No local classified adds or local firms. All gone to Facebook.
The issue is lack of advertising revenue. No local classified adds or local firms. All gone to Facebook.
[deleted]
“The media” is mostly just a bunch of 20-40 year olds with liberal arts bachelors degrees, trying to make ends meet and feed their families.
Serious investigative reporters with the smarts and experience to dive deep were always the exception, maybe a handful in the world at any given time.
So IMO, “they’ve always been this bad” is the answer, but it’s not entirely fair. Kind of like saying the cooks at McDonald’s have always been this bad; in fact it has never been their job to do world-class work.
Serious investigative reporters with the smarts and experience to dive deep were always the exception, maybe a handful in the world at any given time.
So IMO, “they’ve always been this bad” is the answer, but it’s not entirely fair. Kind of like saying the cooks at McDonald’s have always been this bad; in fact it has never been their job to do world-class work.
> Serious investigative reporters with the smarts and experience to dive deep were always the exception, maybe a handful in the world at any given time.
Correct answer.
People dramatically underestimate the extent to which reporters are stenographers: they go to relevant people, get quotes, write some background around the quotes (which itself is derived from previous statements), and hit publish.
Almost every business article you see is push-driven. The business being covered will issue a press release and it gets rewritten into articles.
The press are pretty good at attribution: if the NYT says that "Bob said X", you can be pretty sure that an NYT reporter heard Bob say X. That doesn't tell you anything about whether X is true or not.
Correct answer.
People dramatically underestimate the extent to which reporters are stenographers: they go to relevant people, get quotes, write some background around the quotes (which itself is derived from previous statements), and hit publish.
Almost every business article you see is push-driven. The business being covered will issue a press release and it gets rewritten into articles.
The press are pretty good at attribution: if the NYT says that "Bob said X", you can be pretty sure that an NYT reporter heard Bob say X. That doesn't tell you anything about whether X is true or not.
I wonder if there's a viable market for a news outlet which has as its distinguishing core principle the guarantee that it will never use any material from press releases (or equivalently unsolicited, self-interested messaging) as unqualified sources, except for narrow cases when no other source was available. And in such cases it is accompanied by an unambiguous indication (really unambiguous, like a different color font for any portions of the article text directly and solely derived from such sources) that the information presented therein should be trusted on the same level as motivated hearsay from a single source, because that's what it is.
But of course this would be expensive to operate, difficult to insulate from corruption and compromise, and unlikely to be popular with advertisers, whose objectives constitute the epitome of conflicted interest with such an outlet's stated core principle.
But of course this would be expensive to operate, difficult to insulate from corruption and compromise, and unlikely to be popular with advertisers, whose objectives constitute the epitome of conflicted interest with such an outlet's stated core principle.
I don't think that model is compatible with news, where one of the value props is being fast.
As you shade over from news to analysis, there are outlets like that. The Economist comes to mind; I don't think I've ever felt that their content was written from press releases. But it's also at least a day, usually a week, later than the actual news.
There's probably a project management style triangle here: fast, accurate, and, um. Some third thing. Pick two.
As you shade over from news to analysis, there are outlets like that. The Economist comes to mind; I don't think I've ever felt that their content was written from press releases. But it's also at least a day, usually a week, later than the actual news.
There's probably a project management style triangle here: fast, accurate, and, um. Some third thing. Pick two.
This has become noticeably more true as newsrooms are cut to the bone. Content volume over content quality, because volume is what gets the ad dollars.
It wasn't just 'The Morning Call.' It came from the top from the elite, international, consensus making publications like The New York Times and the Washington Post. These are the papers of record that have the resources to still do real journalism. We're harangued by them how 'democracy dies in darkness' every time we click one of their links, and yet they chose to give all these guileless grifters flattering coverage more often than not.
Doesn't Fox News make tons of money? Do you think they could capitalize on this failure of what you describe as the papers of record and start doing investigative journalism into financial and tech businesses?
Fox News is primarily a cable news network that republishes some of their work as articles. Television isn't really a medium that lends itself to long form investigative journalism.
Why would they bother with it when what they're doing is way more profitable? They also have a reputation for being the partisan press. They'd have to completely rebrand to get into a less lucrative area.
Why would they bother with it when what they're doing is way more profitable? They also have a reputation for being the partisan press. They'd have to completely rebrand to get into a less lucrative area.
I'm told that all press is the partisan press of one side or the other, but it seems that there is little to no investigative reporting done by the conservative media - I wonder if it's an opportunity.
Fox News is not investigating complex issues because investigating complex issues is not within their remit. Their remit is to repeat simple memes that form easy sound bites for viewers receptive to that kind of thing.
The WSJ on the other hand has excellent investigative journalism which is usually well separated from conservative partisan commentary - see Carreyrou as a good example.
The WSJ on the other hand has excellent investigative journalism which is usually well separated from conservative partisan commentary - see Carreyrou as a good example.
> it seems that there is little to no investigative reporting done by the conservative media
There is, but if you're ever exposed to it it's probably in the context of brutal point-by-point debunking. On account of how it tends to be hilariously bad. Like that recent Mules "documentary" from D'Souza, or various Sinclair must-run pieces. Typically they're just very-slanted advocacy masquerading as investigative reporting. Or they take the form of popular opinion-jockeys running special "exposé" episodes that are also mostly or entirely easily-dismissed-with-public-info BS. Collectively, these seem to sate the conservative demand for conservative-flavored investigative journalism, and are all much cheaper than doing actual investigation, especially since you'll always find something to "expose" and there are never any dead-ends wasting time and money (since there's no need for actual substance behind the whole exercise).
If you mean from actual newsrooms, sure, those don't do much investigative reporting, but then there aren't a lot of conservative newsrooms. And it's not like the non-conservatives ones do much, either, with a few exceptions.
There is, but if you're ever exposed to it it's probably in the context of brutal point-by-point debunking. On account of how it tends to be hilariously bad. Like that recent Mules "documentary" from D'Souza, or various Sinclair must-run pieces. Typically they're just very-slanted advocacy masquerading as investigative reporting. Or they take the form of popular opinion-jockeys running special "exposé" episodes that are also mostly or entirely easily-dismissed-with-public-info BS. Collectively, these seem to sate the conservative demand for conservative-flavored investigative journalism, and are all much cheaper than doing actual investigation, especially since you'll always find something to "expose" and there are never any dead-ends wasting time and money (since there's no need for actual substance behind the whole exercise).
If you mean from actual newsrooms, sure, those don't do much investigative reporting, but then there aren't a lot of conservative newsrooms. And it's not like the non-conservatives ones do much, either, with a few exceptions.
Unless you actually watch conservative media, you won't know about their investigative reporting, because it will rarely be mentioned in Democrat media.
And if it is mentioned, it is dismissed as misinformation, like Hunter Biden's laptop.
And if it is mentioned, it is dismissed as misinformation, like Hunter Biden's laptop.
Prefacing this with the coordinated media blackout on the laptop story was horrendous. You couldn't even send a message using Messenger to a friend about it.
The long form journalism that the partisan press produces, both sides here, amounts to little more than fan service. It's incapable of investigating things out of public interest without it relating to their kayfabe. MSNBC can produce thousands of hours about Trump/Russia, but the for the Snowden leaks you get a few seconds of a professional talking head, who had to take off his lanyard with his CAC right before taping, telling you how Snowden is a bad man.
The long form journalism that the partisan press produces, both sides here, amounts to little more than fan service. It's incapable of investigating things out of public interest without it relating to their kayfabe. MSNBC can produce thousands of hours about Trump/Russia, but the for the Snowden leaks you get a few seconds of a professional talking head, who had to take off his lanyard with his CAC right before taping, telling you how Snowden is a bad man.
60 minutes and PBS NewsHour beg to differ
How do their audiences compare to everything else on TV? The fact there are two, made three, programs out of... what, 1000 programs a week? I wouldn't take that as evidence that broadcast TV is well suited for long form journalism.
They're often good material. But they are way way way fringe. 60 Minutes especially is probably only still around because it would be a public embarrassment to kill it.
I mean, the heavy metal sonic aesthetic is not well suited for Mariachi music. The fact that Metalachi exists and has a following doesn't disprove the hypothesis.
They're often good material. But they are way way way fringe. 60 Minutes especially is probably only still around because it would be a public embarrassment to kill it.
I mean, the heavy metal sonic aesthetic is not well suited for Mariachi music. The fact that Metalachi exists and has a following doesn't disprove the hypothesis.
Shout out to Frontline. Probably the best television investigative journalism I've ever seen.
Those don't make money.
They don't but European countries fund independent journalism and documentary makers. Check out IDFA.
https://www.idfa.nl/en/
https://www.idfa.nl/en/
Dominos would be my counterpoint: their pizza was just bad and they could do better. And they did.
I think it’s entirely possible that an industry with low competition and high nepotism could just be doing their jobs poorly.
Isn’t that why Joe Rogan is more popular than CNN?
I think it’s entirely possible that an industry with low competition and high nepotism could just be doing their jobs poorly.
Isn’t that why Joe Rogan is more popular than CNN?
> Isn’t that why Joe Rogan is more popular than CNN?
How is Rogan an an example of good journalism? He doesn't do background research or push back on guests.
How is Rogan an an example of good journalism? He doesn't do background research or push back on guests.
Dominos is still terrible from a gourmet food perspective. They went from abysmal to merely bad. Which is fine at that price point and value prop.
Yeah, when did they get better? They've added more MSG over the last couple decades, I'm pretty sure, and kicked it up a lot when they publicized that they were re-formulating their sauce a decade or so ago—and, to be fair, they're far from alone in that, if you want a Pizza Hut pie that's about the same quality as a 1995 Pizza Hut pie, you're going to be paying more like $25 than $10 and you won't be getting it from Pizza Hut, all those chains been cutting quality and adding MSG for years to try to avoid raising prices—but haven't gotten better, except at making you regret eating it.
> They've added more MSG over the last couple decades
You say this as if it's an inherently bad thing. There's nothing wrong with some MSG as a flavor enhancer.
You say this as if it's an inherently bad thing. There's nothing wrong with some MSG as a flavor enhancer.
They already had some. Now there's a ton. And it's not to make it better, but to cover for the fact that all the other components have gotten a lot worse.
That’s exactly my point:
We can both recognize the limits of mass market news and think that, eg, CNN is delivering a product below that standard.
We can both recognize the limits of mass market news and think that, eg, CNN is delivering a product below that standard.
> Dominos is still terrible from a gourmet food perspective.
They're not trying to be gourmet food, they're trying to be fast food. They were very bad by even that low standard, and they became better by that standard. I'm still not a fan, but to give credit where credit is due, they did improve.
They're not trying to be gourmet food, they're trying to be fast food. They were very bad by even that low standard, and they became better by that standard. I'm still not a fan, but to give credit where credit is due, they did improve.
Oh, 100% agreed there. But in a a larger conversation about "the media", Dominos is analogous to a large, mass-market, low cost outlet, not the media in general. It's entirely possible that TMZ or People Magazine had similar improvements that still keep them below the radar of someone serious about the product.
So yeah, some credit, that's fair. But I think the lesson is that good management recognizes when quality is falling off the bottom of the bottom rung, and makes adjustments to get back on that bottom rung.
So yeah, some credit, that's fair. But I think the lesson is that good management recognizes when quality is falling off the bottom of the bottom rung, and makes adjustments to get back on that bottom rung.
>So IMO, “they’ve always been this bad”
Vass you dere, Charlie? [1]
Misinformation/disinformation may, I suppose, have always been pretty much this bad, but the writing quality and intelligence in the mainstream media was not.
"Journalism" today reads like an assignment written by a near-illiterate freshman engineering student in the compulsory English class, by the standards of the mid-90s. At best.
And I think the reason is obvious - modern advertising technology proved that decent writing adds essentially zero value and forced everybody to accept it.
So the people with liberal arts degrees are not wrong to hate techies. But once, even techies wrote better.
We used to live in a world where elites guessed at what ordinary people wanted, and once the data-driven creed took over, it turned out they were mostly wrong. But optimization taken too far is evil.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Pearl
Vass you dere, Charlie? [1]
Misinformation/disinformation may, I suppose, have always been pretty much this bad, but the writing quality and intelligence in the mainstream media was not.
"Journalism" today reads like an assignment written by a near-illiterate freshman engineering student in the compulsory English class, by the standards of the mid-90s. At best.
And I think the reason is obvious - modern advertising technology proved that decent writing adds essentially zero value and forced everybody to accept it.
So the people with liberal arts degrees are not wrong to hate techies. But once, even techies wrote better.
We used to live in a world where elites guessed at what ordinary people wanted, and once the data-driven creed took over, it turned out they were mostly wrong. But optimization taken too far is evil.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Pearl
> “The media” is mostly just a bunch of 20-40 year olds with liberal arts bachelors degrees, trying to make ends meet and feed their families.
Sounds like the "Yuppie Nuremberg Defense" from Thank You For Smoking, in which a tobacco lobbyist excuses himself by saying he has a mortgage to pay.
Sounds like the "Yuppie Nuremberg Defense" from Thank You For Smoking, in which a tobacco lobbyist excuses himself by saying he has a mortgage to pay.
> Sounds like the "Yuppie Nuremberg Defense" from Thank You For Smoking, in which a tobacco lobbyist excuses himself by saying he has a mortgage to pay.
It's not a "defense", it's just reality. When it snows, do you say that sounds like the "triple point defense" of frozen water?
People are by and large fallible. I am. And we're wired to prioritize our immediate family over nebulous ideas like The World Must Know The Truth. I am full of nothing but admiration if you are the rare exception who is doing only the most principled of things, with complete confidence that everyone you work for is upright, and that you have optimized your labor to produce the most good for the world in general, not just you and yours.
But I honestly don't blame those "Yuppie Nuremberg" people, and if you see shallow news reporting as the moral equivalent of lobbying for tobacco, I can't really disagree. I just don't have the energy to pass moral judgment on everyone, so I'm content with understanding the phenomenon.
It's not a "defense", it's just reality. When it snows, do you say that sounds like the "triple point defense" of frozen water?
People are by and large fallible. I am. And we're wired to prioritize our immediate family over nebulous ideas like The World Must Know The Truth. I am full of nothing but admiration if you are the rare exception who is doing only the most principled of things, with complete confidence that everyone you work for is upright, and that you have optimized your labor to produce the most good for the world in general, not just you and yours.
But I honestly don't blame those "Yuppie Nuremberg" people, and if you see shallow news reporting as the moral equivalent of lobbying for tobacco, I can't really disagree. I just don't have the energy to pass moral judgment on everyone, so I'm content with understanding the phenomenon.
I'd rather get paid like a tobacco lobbyist (or a FAANG developer) than a journalist. Our society has clearly shown us what it values.
So the onus on reporters to ferret out fraud has the same moral weight as tobacco lobbyists? Except they make $35k/year, get fired every 6 months as their newsrooms undergo layoffs due to lack of clicks, and get sued for investigating anyone powerful enough to matter? Can't imagine why more people don't sign up for that.
Let's say the onus is on reporters to not take money in exchange for glowing coverage. Having a mortgage to pay is no excuse. If you can't be an honest reporter, don't report at all. I think that's a reasonable standard to hold them to. If you can't hack it as an honest reporter, then go get a job in retail or something.
Anybody who took money from these people is not a victim.
Anybody who took money from these people is not a victim.
Is there any evidence at all that any of these reporters were taking money vs. just writing up company press releases as news? And more generally, how do you square this stance with the near universal HN view that tech coverage is too biased against tech companies?
> Is there any evidence at all that any of these reporters were taking money vs. just writing up company press releases as news?
Yes. Being discussed now on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33593234
> And more generally, how do you square this stance with the near universal HN view that tech coverage is too biased against tech companies?
Cynically, they give negative coverage by default to encourage "charitable giving". When the org starts "donating" money to journalists, the tone of the coverage flips.
Yes. Being discussed now on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33593234
> And more generally, how do you square this stance with the near universal HN view that tech coverage is too biased against tech companies?
Cynically, they give negative coverage by default to encourage "charitable giving". When the org starts "donating" money to journalists, the tone of the coverage flips.
The duty not to harm is far stronger than the duty to help.
> “The media” is mostly just a bunch of 20-40 year olds with liberal arts bachelors degrees, trying to make ends meet and feed their families.
It's even worse. 50 years ago that's still what they were, but they had the "power" of defining reality. Politicians, millionaires, and other actually powerful people had to suck up to them or with the narrative-shapers against them they would have real problems.
But that reality is breaking (if not totally broken). Social media, feed algorythms, recomendation engines, etc, are taking those narrative-shaping powers from them. So they get less respect.
It's even worse. 50 years ago that's still what they were, but they had the "power" of defining reality. Politicians, millionaires, and other actually powerful people had to suck up to them or with the narrative-shapers against them they would have real problems.
But that reality is breaking (if not totally broken). Social media, feed algorythms, recomendation engines, etc, are taking those narrative-shaping powers from them. So they get less respect.
I think this is an odd take, given that it was the WSJ that broke the Theranos story and CoinDesk that broke the FTX story.
Yes, true investigative reporting is rare (and expensive), but good work is still being done.
For the media at large, given the volume of stuff you can read, much of it is plain "story-telling" or "narratives", and I do think the media is more likely to go with things that fit the narrative of the day than look at things with a critical eye.
With Theranos, the media absolutely wanted to highlight a "female Steve Jobs", and Holmes used that to her advantage. Similarly, with SBF, given all the smarmy characters in crypto, he fit the narrative of "the good guy", "the next JP Morgan" coming to save the financial system for good.
Yes, true investigative reporting is rare (and expensive), but good work is still being done.
For the media at large, given the volume of stuff you can read, much of it is plain "story-telling" or "narratives", and I do think the media is more likely to go with things that fit the narrative of the day than look at things with a critical eye.
With Theranos, the media absolutely wanted to highlight a "female Steve Jobs", and Holmes used that to her advantage. Similarly, with SBF, given all the smarmy characters in crypto, he fit the narrative of "the good guy", "the next JP Morgan" coming to save the financial system for good.
> Yes, true investigative reporting is rare (and expensive), but good work is still being done.
Still, it's weird to have to read about this at poker.org first instead of any "respected" news source.
Still, it's weird to have to read about this at poker.org first instead of any "respected" news source.
I read about Friedberg's ties to the poker scandal in other sources last week. It's not exactly a "scoop" given that it's all a matter of public record and has been so for a long time.
There was an editorial on CoinGeek in February casting doubt on SBF and pointing out the poker scandal: https://coingeek.com/ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-fried-isnt-who-you-...
There was an editorial on CoinGeek in February casting doubt on SBF and pointing out the poker scandal: https://coingeek.com/ftx-ceo-sam-bankman-fried-isnt-who-you-...
Thanks for the link. This makes the WaPo & co puff pieces even more baffling.
At least with Theranos, the was the media excuse of "new technologist isn't sharing the secrets of her device yet, but she showed enough to get big-names as investors and #37 on the Fortune list with as much revenue as MSFT is signed on to the tech to make it seem believable".
With Enron, they were very very good at obfuscating their scam. But it was the WSJ affiliate that was the first mover on Enron being fishy. A major short seller saw that article and shorted the stock, then turned a tip into another reporter. That reporter then pretty much started its downfall. It was, possibly, the best example of the media being the guardians against a scam since the internet started.
With Enron, they were very very good at obfuscating their scam. But it was the WSJ affiliate that was the first mover on Enron being fishy. A major short seller saw that article and shorted the stock, then turned a tip into another reporter. That reporter then pretty much started its downfall. It was, possibly, the best example of the media being the guardians against a scam since the internet started.
Enron was unlike Theranos, in that Enron was originally a legitimate company while Theranos was a scam from the beginning. Enron was a company that sold natural gas, a real product, that became a scam as they used increasingly dodgy accounting practices to push their stock ever higher. Theranos on the other hand never had a real product, and before Theranos even started Holmes was informed by experts (particularly Phyllis Gardner) that it would never work.
In the early days of Enron, an investigative journalist would have found a real gas trading company. But at no point in the history of Theranos would an investigative journalist worth their salt have found a real company.
In the early days of Enron, an investigative journalist would have found a real gas trading company. But at no point in the history of Theranos would an investigative journalist worth their salt have found a real company.
All these are true. But I don't get how that relates to what I said.
Although, in the early days, a journalist wouldn't have found the gas trading. While Enron traded oil early on, they pretty much built the gas trading industry at the same time they were becoming more scammy.
Although, in the early days, a journalist wouldn't have found the gas trading. While Enron traded oil early on, they pretty much built the gas trading industry at the same time they were becoming more scammy.
It’s not just the media. The investors are the primary ones to blame here, in my opinion. They literally gave hundreds of millions a of dollars to a company with a compliance officer with a history of financial fraud and scams and then touted the CEO as a boy wonder. The fact that they invested lended a lot of credence, for better or worse, to FTX.
What is the incremental revenue or profit per hour worked for a serious hard hitting investigative piece, vs other crap that is much cheaper to make (like regurgitating press releases)?
Not to mention the fact that a lot of investigative leads likely either don’t pan out, are not newsworthy, or ruffle feathers better left unruffled (news media relies on connections and access for leads on stories, and their customers are advertisers, ie large corporations).
There is not much of a market for investigative journalism. IMO tort law or class-action suits could fill that niche too if the incentives were more aligned (gotta be a lawyer to make anything off a class action) and the playing field were more even - arbitration clause says what?
So lacking an incentive for either of those the next best thing is short selling, which also sucks because it’s time-based, risky, requires capital, and isn’t relevant when something doesn’t have a direct link to a tradable security
Not to mention the fact that a lot of investigative leads likely either don’t pan out, are not newsworthy, or ruffle feathers better left unruffled (news media relies on connections and access for leads on stories, and their customers are advertisers, ie large corporations).
There is not much of a market for investigative journalism. IMO tort law or class-action suits could fill that niche too if the incentives were more aligned (gotta be a lawyer to make anything off a class action) and the playing field were more even - arbitration clause says what?
So lacking an incentive for either of those the next best thing is short selling, which also sucks because it’s time-based, risky, requires capital, and isn’t relevant when something doesn’t have a direct link to a tradable security
Journalists who do puff profiles on business and political figures don't do any investigating. Investigative journalists who investigate on their own initiative are rare. Most just ride on the coat-tails of plaintiff lawyers, prosecutors, and public scandals as in this case. It's not really clear if newspapers suffer reputational harm from puff pieces that are later repudiated.
At least Matt Levine called FTX a Ponzi scheme to SBF's face [0], to which SBF had no real rebuttal (he tried to make a borrowing argument... but leveraging your Ponzi gains is also classic Ponzi).
It's stunning to me that that interview didn't crash FTX by itself, and it indicates that the industry (fintech, VCs, crypto) is engaged in a huge pump and dump. It's legitimately criminal.
[0]: https://archive.ph/fGLat#selection-3973.7-3973.12 (27:13)
It's stunning to me that that interview didn't crash FTX by itself, and it indicates that the industry (fintech, VCs, crypto) is engaged in a huge pump and dump. It's legitimately criminal.
[0]: https://archive.ph/fGLat#selection-3973.7-3973.12 (27:13)
I think it is worth noting that Theranos went after people who investigated them. Used the enormous war chest and high profile backers to crush anyone who challenged the official narrative. How many nascent stories get killed because a broke reporter feels threatened?
How many "journalists" wrote glowing puff pieces about Holmes and Theranos, when they could have simply written about other companies and people instead? Quite a few as I recall.
News begets more news. I am not going to fault a reporter for getting in on the current zeitgeist.
Unless you are comically bad at crime, bad actors will maintain some level of misdirection to conceal their malfeasance. There are only so many hours in a day, there is not time to do a deep dive report on everything that comes across the desk (most of which would match the official narrative). Theranos took years of concentrated effort to expose, with a large amount of risk (real or implied) to those involved.
Unless you are comically bad at crime, bad actors will maintain some level of misdirection to conceal their malfeasance. There are only so many hours in a day, there is not time to do a deep dive report on everything that comes across the desk (most of which would match the official narrative). Theranos took years of concentrated effort to expose, with a large amount of risk (real or implied) to those involved.
It's not the media's fault these people commit crimes
It's the media's fault if they cannot be bothered to Google for two minutes that the chief lawyer at Alameda/FTX happens to be involved in a big poker scandal which... defrauded players.
Especially when there were tweets as old as 2018 at the very least describing the very scam Alameda/FTX/SBF was pulling.
@bitfinex'ed, a Twitter account which exposes tether for the scam it is since maybe a decade (and tether shall eventually fall), has been posting proof of all the wrongdoings. Including the ties between Alameda an Deltec (tether's bank in the Bahamas) since the very start of the scam.
It's also the media's fault that they re copy/pasting everywhere that it's "leveraged trades gone wrong, sending SBF in a death spiral".
That's not the story at all yet that's what these scummy media are publishing.
The story is that the goal was, from day one, to not only defraud people/investors but also to do a regulatory capture of the crypto exchanges market by greasing politicians and working hand in hand with officials and ex- officials who all knew each other.
If there were still investigative journalists around, there's material for quite a story.
But it's better to present SBF as an altruistic woke kid who, sadly, was sent into a death spiral after a few bad leveraged trades.
Especially when there were tweets as old as 2018 at the very least describing the very scam Alameda/FTX/SBF was pulling.
@bitfinex'ed, a Twitter account which exposes tether for the scam it is since maybe a decade (and tether shall eventually fall), has been posting proof of all the wrongdoings. Including the ties between Alameda an Deltec (tether's bank in the Bahamas) since the very start of the scam.
It's also the media's fault that they re copy/pasting everywhere that it's "leveraged trades gone wrong, sending SBF in a death spiral".
That's not the story at all yet that's what these scummy media are publishing.
The story is that the goal was, from day one, to not only defraud people/investors but also to do a regulatory capture of the crypto exchanges market by greasing politicians and working hand in hand with officials and ex- officials who all knew each other.
If there were still investigative journalists around, there's material for quite a story.
But it's better to present SBF as an altruistic woke kid who, sadly, was sent into a death spiral after a few bad leveraged trades.
You are missing the fact that we are dealing with an audience that WANTS TO BE FOOLED.
Going against the narrative is brave but it doesn't pay the bills. Besides would it even matter? Does anyone on r/cryptocurrency even care what the MSM writes?
Going against the narrative is brave but it doesn't pay the bills. Besides would it even matter? Does anyone on r/cryptocurrency even care what the MSM writes?
Aren't there a whole lot more people who are wondering what this crypto is and whether they should invest in it?
> slipped under the radar
No, sorry, that is their job description. But since we're using radar as analogy, let me introduce to your new friend, IFF (Identify, Friend or Foe).
No, sorry, that is their job description. But since we're using radar as analogy, let me introduce to your new friend, IFF (Identify, Friend or Foe).
I think the radar analogy is flawed at best w/r/t the press.
Part of the problem is that the press is owned/regulated by the people in the very institutions that fund the scammers.
Part of the problem is that the press is owned/regulated by the people in the very institutions that fund the scammers.
i'm somewhat fond of my iff contribution that addresses what you just said :}
You need to have massive balls to go after billionaires and their army of lawyers.
And the public doesn't help with their hero worship of tech douchebags.
And the public doesn't help with their hero worship of tech douchebags.
People on this site routinely post links to evade paywalls. They celebrate ad blockers. But now many of the same people are wondering why "the media" didn't stop a tech fraud? You get what you pay for.
Wait, wasn't the NYT supposed to take a very critical look at everything in "tech", as a matter of editorial policy? Why were they giving such a glowing (no pun intended!) endorsement of crypto, of all things? Something doesn't add up here.
Did you read it? I would not call it glowing at all, it seems pretty matter of fact and actually somewhat negative if you read between the lines. Opening with an anecdote about some scripted banter with Anthony Scaramucci (not a name that NYT readers have any good associations with), and then:
> The laughter has faded. Over the last few days, the collapse of a so-called stablecoin called TerraUSD has sent the crypto market into meltdown, accelerating a dramatic sell-off that tanked the price of Bitcoin and Ether, the two most valuable cryptocurrencies. At Baha Mar, Mr. Bankman-Fried was throwing a giant party for the industry; this past week, he was attempting to restore calm, tweeting long threads about the state of the market.
Then discussing how his awkward, unkempt appearance is actually calculated and intentional. And look at the final paragraph:
> Outside, the convention center was emptying, as hundreds of crypto enthusiasts headed for the airport. It was the calm before the coming meltdown. To leave the resort, guests had to walk through the Baha Mar casino, the largest in the Caribbean, a brightly lit hall of flashing slot machines.
The whole thing is framed around this guy hanging out with celebrities and lobbying government officials while his market crashes. Reading it for the first time 6 months after it was written, I think it holds up as an accurate profile with a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come.
> The laughter has faded. Over the last few days, the collapse of a so-called stablecoin called TerraUSD has sent the crypto market into meltdown, accelerating a dramatic sell-off that tanked the price of Bitcoin and Ether, the two most valuable cryptocurrencies. At Baha Mar, Mr. Bankman-Fried was throwing a giant party for the industry; this past week, he was attempting to restore calm, tweeting long threads about the state of the market.
Then discussing how his awkward, unkempt appearance is actually calculated and intentional. And look at the final paragraph:
> Outside, the convention center was emptying, as hundreds of crypto enthusiasts headed for the airport. It was the calm before the coming meltdown. To leave the resort, guests had to walk through the Baha Mar casino, the largest in the Caribbean, a brightly lit hall of flashing slot machines.
The whole thing is framed around this guy hanging out with celebrities and lobbying government officials while his market crashes. Reading it for the first time 6 months after it was written, I think it holds up as an accurate profile with a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come.
In case you're not being facetious, Sam was the single second largest donor to the Democratic Party.
He donated in the primaries. He told the democrats he would donate again in the general, but didn't. Like a month ago there was articles like "Where is the $100MM Sam promised the Democrats, he's donated nothing in the general"
To Democratic Primary races. To get the pro-crypto candidate over.
What a lovely democratic process it is, candidates weighing up which industry interest has done the best job at wooing them. SBF is another reminder of how far down the list of priorities integrity actually sits (not that he succeeded here, but that he's in good company in the approach).
And one of the great innovations of crypto is sending untraceable money to corrupt politicians.
The Chinese banned it. Unfortunately Americans genuinely believe they are above corruption.
The Chinese banned it. Unfortunately Americans genuinely believe they are above corruption.
The average America has little personal experience with corruption. I wouldn't dare even suggest to a cop that he take a bribe to make my speeding ticket go away, while in many other countries that sort of low-grade corruption is standard. I think this experience leads many Americans to falsely believe that America is generally free of corruption, which of course isn't true in the higher rungs of society. Rich people in America commonly bribe politicians, universities, etc. It's a whole different game for them, they play by a different set of rules that most Americans have never been exposed to.
(I think it works this way across the anglosphere, not just America. The average Briton can't bribe the average British cop, but their royals/etc certainly pay to make crimes go away.)
(I think it works this way across the anglosphere, not just America. The average Briton can't bribe the average British cop, but their royals/etc certainly pay to make crimes go away.)
[deleted]
[deleted]
...NYT...Why were they giving such a glowing (no pun intended!) endorsement of crypto
I don't think they did.
To check my memory, I clicked on to the "Cryptocurrency" keyword to see the crypto-related stories going back. It's mostly reporting news (which is mainly bad) and skepticism.
Is the next crypto narrative is going to be "why didn't the media save us?" I guess it makes about as much sense as all the previous crypto narratives.
I don't think they did.
To check my memory, I clicked on to the "Cryptocurrency" keyword to see the crypto-related stories going back. It's mostly reporting news (which is mainly bad) and skepticism.
Is the next crypto narrative is going to be "why didn't the media save us?" I guess it makes about as much sense as all the previous crypto narratives.
"The lamestream media, whom I never listen to, failed to warn me!"
Anyone else remember those folks who suddenly realized climate change was actually happening and immediately started whining about how the media failed to tell them?
People failing to think critically about how media works while simultaneously whining about how the media works will never cease to amuse me. It is almost exactly like taking a bus to the end of the line and then yelling at the driver for taking you there.
Anyone else remember those folks who suddenly realized climate change was actually happening and immediately started whining about how the media failed to tell them?
People failing to think critically about how media works while simultaneously whining about how the media works will never cease to amuse me. It is almost exactly like taking a bus to the end of the line and then yelling at the driver for taking you there.
SBF likely hired a PR firm that pitched the story to a writer they're friendly with.
Crypto doesn't pose an existential threat to the NYT business model like social media and search do. I.e. The NYT is in the advertising business. Google, Facebook, et al are direct competitors.
> The NYT is in the advertising business. Google, Facebook, et al are direct competitors.
The NYT is in the "providing content to lure people to advertisers" business. They don't sell ads to third parties. They could be very symbiotic with Google, for example. If Google was searching their content, bringing readers in, and supplying ads. But, instead, Google scrapes their content and helps people never visit their site at all.
The NYT is in the "providing content to lure people to advertisers" business. They don't sell ads to third parties. They could be very symbiotic with Google, for example. If Google was searching their content, bringing readers in, and supplying ads. But, instead, Google scrapes their content and helps people never visit their site at all.
> The NYT is in the "providing content to lure people to advertisers" business.
What does that mean? The NYT sells ads, i.e. you can pay the NYT to have your advertisement shown in the NYT. Google sells ads, i.e. you can pay Google to have your advertisement shown in Google results. The NYT and Google sell the same thing. They are competitors.
What does that mean? The NYT sells ads, i.e. you can pay the NYT to have your advertisement shown in the NYT. Google sells ads, i.e. you can pay Google to have your advertisement shown in Google results. The NYT and Google sell the same thing. They are competitors.
The NYT's business model is to sell their customer's eyeballs to advertisers. While Google does that with search results, they have a big arm that sells random third party eyeballs to advertisers, and then splits the money with the site supplying the eyes. I would characterize the first of Google's businesses and the NYT business as "providing content" and the second as "advertising".
In fact, the NYT outsources their ads to Amazon's advertising business.
In fact, the NYT outsources their ads to Amazon's advertising business.
Google's first party platforms (Search and YouTube) account for 85% of ad revenue [0]. Search alone accounts for 72%. I'm not really sure how AdSense is relevant to the discussion. Google is clearly a huge competitor to the NYT.
[0]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204422...
[0]: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204422...
I think crypto aligned itself more with finance in the last year or two. E.g. Super Bowl ads, big bank partnerships and that may influence how a company is covered. The culmination of this was Roose’s “Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto” which was generally uncritical.
Yeah, a lot of us have questions that Kevin Roose won't answer.
Perhaps that default-critical stance is just how they thought to solicit "donations" from the industry.
VCs buys anything they think they can unload on PE, funds, or even retail later down the line.
It's not specific to crypto. Theranos was a similar fraud, and so was WeWork.
They can make a public spiel about how they were deceived as long as they want, but to anyone following them at the time it was obvious they were going in with their eyes open. Whether the product works or not is simply not their top priority when making an investment.
edit: I'd like to point out to the people who clearly disagree with the above that the dude running this scheme from Bahamas was openly taking drugs and playing videogames in meetings with investors. It's even mentioned in the VC material. Yet they did shower him with money. Please do tell what kind of due diligence could possibly miss the warning flags that maybe this company wasn't completely honest?
It's not specific to crypto. Theranos was a similar fraud, and so was WeWork.
They can make a public spiel about how they were deceived as long as they want, but to anyone following them at the time it was obvious they were going in with their eyes open. Whether the product works or not is simply not their top priority when making an investment.
edit: I'd like to point out to the people who clearly disagree with the above that the dude running this scheme from Bahamas was openly taking drugs and playing videogames in meetings with investors. It's even mentioned in the VC material. Yet they did shower him with money. Please do tell what kind of due diligence could possibly miss the warning flags that maybe this company wasn't completely honest?
The funny thing is Michael Lewis (Moneyball, Flash Boys, The Big Short) has been following Sam around for the last six months. He just got an incredible ending to his book.
Is there more to this? As in, he was actually in the Bahamas documenting things and Sam? This was not a red flag to anyone at FTX or involved with FTX?
No he was writing a book about SBF before all this went down. Probably about how awesome he was. Although you could be right and I’m sure he had some hunches it was all a mess after digging deeper. Then he got an incredible M. Night Shyamalan twist at the end.
SBF and crew were probably basking in their own genius too much to realize how most Michael Lewis books end up. They probably thought they were more Moneyball than The Big Short.
SBF and crew were probably basking in their own genius too much to realize how most Michael Lewis books end up. They probably thought they were more Moneyball than The Big Short.
It will be interesting to see/read what comes out his investigations and research. It's almost a certainty that a dark comedy drama will come out of this ala Don't Look Up and The Big Short.
To say this as gently as I can, do you really think people like Blair or the Clintons are the good guys?
HSBC teaches us that the US govt happily approves of financial crime as long as it's large and they get their cut: https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...
Madoff's mistake was probably not sharing with the right people, and that the optics were a bridge too far.
HSBC teaches us that the US govt happily approves of financial crime as long as it's large and they get their cut: https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...
Madoff's mistake was probably not sharing with the right people, and that the optics were a bridge too far.
Sam Bankman-Fried donated $40M to the Democratic Party, making him the second-biggest donor of the party.
Like most political donors, he gave to both sides. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2022/11/11/checks--...
" The $69 million spent by Bankman-Fried and his deputies on the 2022 midterms likely would’ve done little to plug FTX’s reported financial hole, but it couldn’t have hurt. Bankman-Fried told Forbes last month that “in the end, I care about policy more than politics,” adding that “my giving has been bipartisan, and my goal is to help support great policy makers.”
" The $69 million spent by Bankman-Fried and his deputies on the 2022 midterms likely would’ve done little to plug FTX’s reported financial hole, but it couldn’t have hurt. Bankman-Fried told Forbes last month that “in the end, I care about policy more than politics,” adding that “my giving has been bipartisan, and my goal is to help support great policy makers.”
Bankman-Fried has supported Republicans during this cycle, primarily through his $2 million contribution to the blockchain and cryptocurrency-focused GMI super PAC. But the bulk of his giving, including $27 million to the Protect Our Future super PAC and $6 million to the House Majority super PAC, has gone to support Democrats. Bankman-Fried told Forbes last month that “much of this was for primaries, rather than D vs R general elections” ($33 million of his contributions were made during the first four months of 2022.) "$67 million (D) vs $2 million (R) is significant. It also depends who it was given to.
I'd be interested to know exactly which primaries he donated to. The two sides are not Democrat/Republican, it should be finally obvious to everyone else after these midterms that the sides are actually Trump Republicans vs Democrats+GOP.
Eh, all political parties have significant internal factionalism which isn't very well reported. That's why the US has primaries. It's just remarkable how well coalition discipline holds within the Republican party - any Republican will back any other Republican, at least in public.
It seems SBF was backing/bribing pro-crypto candidates.
It seems SBF was backing/bribing pro-crypto candidates.
I guess you have to be paying attention then, to see the splits. The Republican party right now is certainly not holding any sort of coalition. Liz Cheney, Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and several others pretty much declared war on Trump based Republicans since 2020. They'd been opposing them long before, but they're finally out in the open about it. The democrat party also has it's own set of establishment Neocons that work to keep the populists in check. Which is why Bernie will never win a primary.
[deleted]
Jack from Twitter pumped crypto and NFTs heavily as well. It was likely a coordinate plot that will never result in punishment, but regardless, the money is gone. Many were warned that it was fraudulent early though... A whole lot of people lost their money based on pure willful ignorance, and that can't be given a pass either.
Looking on the bright side:
This whole crypto failure is going to act as a bit of an 'innoculant' for any relaxation of financial laws. If anything, it should lightly strengthen support for further financial regulation of Wall Street and the like. All responses to any loosening up of the banks can reasonably be countered with 'Yeah, but look at what happened with Crypto.' So I guess that's at least something.
This whole crypto failure is going to act as a bit of an 'innoculant' for any relaxation of financial laws. If anything, it should lightly strengthen support for further financial regulation of Wall Street and the like. All responses to any loosening up of the banks can reasonably be countered with 'Yeah, but look at what happened with Crypto.' So I guess that's at least something.
The question is, did the VCs get tokens along with their investments? They may have already made money from selling them before the collapse while giving a sheen of respectability to FTX. That would make sense because then they wouldn't need to do any diligence.
> Crypto turned into a haven for replaying every form of financial fraud ever invented on an epic speedrun against retail "investors"
Best description of all that is wrong with crypto. It's a human problem, not a tech problem.
Best description of all that is wrong with crypto. It's a human problem, not a tech problem.
Clinton and Blair are old. I'm starting to think this is no different from a scammer extracting a credit card number over the phone from your formerly astute great aunt.
> Crypto turned into a haven for replaying every form of financial fraud ever invented on an epic speedrun against retail "investors", and a whole lot of powerful people and institutions have dirty hands. The idea all of this could be adequately explained by stupidity rather than malice strains credulity.
This was clear years ago. That is why I've been avoiding crypto like the plague.
This was clear years ago. That is why I've been avoiding crypto like the plague.
> a "do-gooder" by the NYT.
sbf was giving tons of cash to the democratic party so NYT cant find anything bad to say about him
sbf was giving tons of cash to the democratic party so NYT cant find anything bad to say about him
I'll have you know he donated to both sides: He also gave $5,800 to 6 different left-leaning Republicans.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2021/10/21/the-w...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelatindera/2021/10/21/the-w...
that's not much compared to the $40 millions he gave to the democrats...
The Co-CEO at FTX gave $24M to Republicans - seems more in line for 'both sides' since Republicans don't currently control any levers of government.
https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/donor_detail/20...
https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/donor_detail/20...
The Co-CEO in question, Ryan Salam, launched the American Dream Federal Action PAC to support "forward-looking conservative leaders who understand the urgency of advancing smart policies that set America up for success"
He supported his girlfriend, Michelle Bond [2], who ran as a Republican (she lost) for New York's 1st Congressional District [3]. She served as Senior Council at the SEC during the Obama administration [4].
Local party officials accused Bond of being a "double agent backed by Dem money":
> Ryan Salame, the live-in boyfriend of Michelle Bond and co-CEO of FTX, has rallied his crypto-billions behind his girlfriend’s Congressional campaign. Some local voters have claimed this is a shameful attempt to “purchase” the election.
> As one of Bond’s most prominent financial supporters, Salame has become a familiar face on the campaign trail. He totes closely behind, posing in photographs while shaking the hands of Long Island Republicans and keeping his close association with Democrat mega-donor Samuel Bankman-Fried silent.
This has led some to allege "@rsalame7926’s political contributions were made to offset the massive Democrat donations from @SBF_FTX and to spark the illusion that there was a balance of political donations coming from @FTX_Official" [6]
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/11/new-crypto-pac-laun...
[2] https://twitter.com/michellebond111
[3] https://ballotpedia.org/Michelle_Bond
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/10/30/meet-mich...
[5] https://messengerpapers.com/2022/08/soros-successor-looking-...
[6] https://twitter.com/JagoeCapital/status/1591466731448442881
He supported his girlfriend, Michelle Bond [2], who ran as a Republican (she lost) for New York's 1st Congressional District [3]. She served as Senior Council at the SEC during the Obama administration [4].
Local party officials accused Bond of being a "double agent backed by Dem money":
> Ryan Salame, the live-in boyfriend of Michelle Bond and co-CEO of FTX, has rallied his crypto-billions behind his girlfriend’s Congressional campaign. Some local voters have claimed this is a shameful attempt to “purchase” the election.
> As one of Bond’s most prominent financial supporters, Salame has become a familiar face on the campaign trail. He totes closely behind, posing in photographs while shaking the hands of Long Island Republicans and keeping his close association with Democrat mega-donor Samuel Bankman-Fried silent.
This has led some to allege "@rsalame7926’s political contributions were made to offset the massive Democrat donations from @SBF_FTX and to spark the illusion that there was a balance of political donations coming from @FTX_Official" [6]
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/11/new-crypto-pac-laun...
[2] https://twitter.com/michellebond111
[3] https://ballotpedia.org/Michelle_Bond
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/10/30/meet-mich...
[5] https://messengerpapers.com/2022/08/soros-successor-looking-...
[6] https://twitter.com/JagoeCapital/status/1591466731448442881
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The NYT is the most "bothsides" political media you'll find; any political story will be reported as "why are the Democrats doing a bad job?".
This is the basis of NYT Pitchbot.
This is the basis of NYT Pitchbot.
> The NYT is the most "bothsides" political media you'll find;
Who does believe that for more than 1 second?
Who does believe that for more than 1 second?
Well, you could read it like I do, or you could just make things up. Murc's Law (everything good or bad is the Democrats' fault) has been the basic law of all US reporting for the last decade or two though.
They published three stories in the last week about how Democrats winning the election just now is bad news for Democrats.
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1591444463963947009
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/opinion/democrats-are-blo...
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1591944164240814080
Some of the NYT journalists like Peter Baker are so bothsides they don't even vote in elections!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/reader-center/political-i...
They published three stories in the last week about how Democrats winning the election just now is bad news for Democrats.
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1591444463963947009
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/opinion/democrats-are-blo...
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1591944164240814080
Some of the NYT journalists like Peter Baker are so bothsides they don't even vote in elections!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/reader-center/political-i...
Did you even bother to read the article? Because the answer for everyone here seems to be "no", have a read that doesn't require a click:
A growing force in political fund-raising, he has a super PAC that recently gave more than $10 million to a Democratic congressional candidate who supports some of his philanthropic priorities.
In public, Mr. Bankman-Fried can sometimes seem uncomfortable, tapping his foot or twirling a fidget spinner. But the awkwardness is part of a calculated self-presentation. Over countless tweets, interviews and TV appearances, he’s positioned himself as a mad-scientist-cum-diplomat — a straight-talking brainiac willing to embrace regulation of his nascent industry and criticize its worst excesses.
Now Mr. Bankman-Fried is trying to leverage his fame to set policy in Washington, at a moment when the risks of crypto trading are growing increasingly stark; he makes regular trips to the Capitol from his base in the Bahamas, meeting with regulators and testifying in Congress. If he’s successful, he could become one of the most influential figures in the new era of technological experimentation that supporters call web3, writing the rule book for a slew of risky investment products that are increasingly reshaping the internet, finance and even the arts.
But his detractors say his advocacy is driven by self-interest. His political contributions have prompted complaints that he’s distorting the competitive landscape to advance his own agenda. And the charm offensive in Washington has alarmed consumer advocates who argue that FTX is exacerbating the volatility in crypto markets and putting investors at risk.
FTX serves as a portal to the crypto world. With the click of a button, a curious investor can turn dollars into Bitcoin, Dogecoin or Ether. It’s as simple as buying paper towels from Target — except that the value of a digital asset can be wiped away overnight amid the types of market gyrations that have sent cryptocurrency prices crashing over the past month. In the United States, crypto exchanges occupy a regulatory gray area: It remains unsettled whether the tokens are securities, commodities or something else entirely. Mr. Bankman-Fried has been pitching a regulatory structure with expanded authority for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is smaller and less aggressive than the Securities and Exchange Commission and has traditionally been more sympathetic to the crypto industry.
FTX is headquartered in the Bahamas partly because 80 percent of its $1.1 billion in global revenue stems from a trading instrument that remains illegal in the United States. On the FTX platform, investors can borrow money to make enormous bets on the future prices of cryptocurrencies, leading to potentially astronomical gains — or catastrophic losses.
So not only is the article extremely up-front about the fact that SBF donated to the Democratic primaries (and as far as I can tell, none at all to the general election), it's far from "glowing" (it's a banal, if colorful, profile) and, contrary to the parent commenter's claims, nowhere does it claim that he is a "do-gooder", rather using the phrase in the context of how EA advocates think of themselves.
The sheer irony of people railing against misinformation in media while willfully misinforming people on social media.
A growing force in political fund-raising, he has a super PAC that recently gave more than $10 million to a Democratic congressional candidate who supports some of his philanthropic priorities.
In public, Mr. Bankman-Fried can sometimes seem uncomfortable, tapping his foot or twirling a fidget spinner. But the awkwardness is part of a calculated self-presentation. Over countless tweets, interviews and TV appearances, he’s positioned himself as a mad-scientist-cum-diplomat — a straight-talking brainiac willing to embrace regulation of his nascent industry and criticize its worst excesses.
Now Mr. Bankman-Fried is trying to leverage his fame to set policy in Washington, at a moment when the risks of crypto trading are growing increasingly stark; he makes regular trips to the Capitol from his base in the Bahamas, meeting with regulators and testifying in Congress. If he’s successful, he could become one of the most influential figures in the new era of technological experimentation that supporters call web3, writing the rule book for a slew of risky investment products that are increasingly reshaping the internet, finance and even the arts.
But his detractors say his advocacy is driven by self-interest. His political contributions have prompted complaints that he’s distorting the competitive landscape to advance his own agenda. And the charm offensive in Washington has alarmed consumer advocates who argue that FTX is exacerbating the volatility in crypto markets and putting investors at risk.
FTX serves as a portal to the crypto world. With the click of a button, a curious investor can turn dollars into Bitcoin, Dogecoin or Ether. It’s as simple as buying paper towels from Target — except that the value of a digital asset can be wiped away overnight amid the types of market gyrations that have sent cryptocurrency prices crashing over the past month. In the United States, crypto exchanges occupy a regulatory gray area: It remains unsettled whether the tokens are securities, commodities or something else entirely. Mr. Bankman-Fried has been pitching a regulatory structure with expanded authority for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is smaller and less aggressive than the Securities and Exchange Commission and has traditionally been more sympathetic to the crypto industry.
FTX is headquartered in the Bahamas partly because 80 percent of its $1.1 billion in global revenue stems from a trading instrument that remains illegal in the United States. On the FTX platform, investors can borrow money to make enormous bets on the future prices of cryptocurrencies, leading to potentially astronomical gains — or catastrophic losses.
So not only is the article extremely up-front about the fact that SBF donated to the Democratic primaries (and as far as I can tell, none at all to the general election), it's far from "glowing" (it's a banal, if colorful, profile) and, contrary to the parent commenter's claims, nowhere does it claim that he is a "do-gooder", rather using the phrase in the context of how EA advocates think of themselves.
The sheer irony of people railing against misinformation in media while willfully misinforming people on social media.
> It's incredible that SBF was being touted by Sequoia, WEF, Fortune, chumming it up with Clinton and Blair in the Bahamas, getting meetings and kid glove treatment with the SEC, relatively glowing profile as a "do-gooder" by the NYT.
That's the real story here.
I transcribed a discussion between Chamath Palihapitiya and Brian Armstrong and others talking about this. Here's what he was saying about all these people who've been very blind and didn't do any due diligence:
"I just want to say the second uncomfortable thing out loud which is there are a lot of venture firms in SV in this period of both not doing any work or due diligence who also took the extra step and actually created classes and teached teams how to create these tokens.
And those artifacts --those video links and artifacts-- are sometimes on their website, they're still on YouTube, they're inside of Twitter, and what these folds would do when we talked about this, the game that they played was they would get a team they would create a token, they would also buy equity at a crazy valuation, the equity was locked up but the tokens were not, and then they would put them on an exchange and sell them to unsuspecting people and they would be able to dump these tokens and if you look inside that trend those were the trend of "securities" instead it was done in an unregulated way.
They're going to start to look at a bunch of other tokens and token sales and you're going to end up looking at some very well known venture firms in silicon valley.
That token is not the only token that's been engineered by SV firms and it is also no the only token that's going to zero that's been engineered by SV venture firms site.
There's videos (still) today on some of the most well-known Venture firm sites on how to do this.
They're instructing people how to do this. It's what they did.
but I really also hope they figure out these other tokens as well ... ... and you will see these are unregulated securities that were sold by our brethren..."
It is, to me, about much more than "cryptocurrencies are scam".
Many in SV are deep into this. There are officials and ex- officials implicated too.
People have been dumping worthless tokens created by the tens or hundreds on people all the while the media were presenting SBF as an altruistic trustable white knight.
That's the real story here.
Complete with SBF being the biggest or second biggest donor to Biden's campain for presidency though a fund which SBF's mom (a lawyer and teacher at Stanford) was running. And SBF's father, also a lawyer and teacher at Stanford, recorded explaining how he's helping FTX with charity and regulations.
> Crypto turned into a haven for replaying every form of financial fraud ever invented on an epic speedrun against retail "investors", and a whole lot of powerful people and institutions have dirty hands. The idea all of this could be adequately explained by stupidity rather than malice strains credulity.
Exactly. I'm glad some at least this for what it actually is.
Thankfully some people warned and described the very scam SBF was pulling the day FTX launched (in 2018 ?). Before that several had already noticed Alameda Research was behind crypto market manipulation and pump and dumps of shitcoins.
The signs were all out there and nobody looked.
That's the real story here.
I transcribed a discussion between Chamath Palihapitiya and Brian Armstrong and others talking about this. Here's what he was saying about all these people who've been very blind and didn't do any due diligence:
"I just want to say the second uncomfortable thing out loud which is there are a lot of venture firms in SV in this period of both not doing any work or due diligence who also took the extra step and actually created classes and teached teams how to create these tokens.
And those artifacts --those video links and artifacts-- are sometimes on their website, they're still on YouTube, they're inside of Twitter, and what these folds would do when we talked about this, the game that they played was they would get a team they would create a token, they would also buy equity at a crazy valuation, the equity was locked up but the tokens were not, and then they would put them on an exchange and sell them to unsuspecting people and they would be able to dump these tokens and if you look inside that trend those were the trend of "securities" instead it was done in an unregulated way.
They're going to start to look at a bunch of other tokens and token sales and you're going to end up looking at some very well known venture firms in silicon valley.
That token is not the only token that's been engineered by SV firms and it is also no the only token that's going to zero that's been engineered by SV venture firms site.
There's videos (still) today on some of the most well-known Venture firm sites on how to do this.
They're instructing people how to do this. It's what they did.
but I really also hope they figure out these other tokens as well ... ... and you will see these are unregulated securities that were sold by our brethren..."
It is, to me, about much more than "cryptocurrencies are scam".
Many in SV are deep into this. There are officials and ex- officials implicated too.
People have been dumping worthless tokens created by the tens or hundreds on people all the while the media were presenting SBF as an altruistic trustable white knight.
That's the real story here.
Complete with SBF being the biggest or second biggest donor to Biden's campain for presidency though a fund which SBF's mom (a lawyer and teacher at Stanford) was running. And SBF's father, also a lawyer and teacher at Stanford, recorded explaining how he's helping FTX with charity and regulations.
> Crypto turned into a haven for replaying every form of financial fraud ever invented on an epic speedrun against retail "investors", and a whole lot of powerful people and institutions have dirty hands. The idea all of this could be adequately explained by stupidity rather than malice strains credulity.
Exactly. I'm glad some at least this for what it actually is.
Thankfully some people warned and described the very scam SBF was pulling the day FTX launched (in 2018 ?). Before that several had already noticed Alameda Research was behind crypto market manipulation and pump and dumps of shitcoins.
The signs were all out there and nobody looked.
hash07e(1)
Also, this is Alameda's CEO.
https://youtu.be/aW6SqLXw944
Un fucking believable.
https://youtu.be/aW6SqLXw944
Un fucking believable.
Already gone, do you have a mirror?
Here you are:
https://youtube.com/shorts/BVjZsLafkz8?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/BVjZsLafkz8?feature=share
I don't get it. What's supposed to be outrageous/"Un fucking believable" about that video? I watched the video once, and checking the transcript, the things she said were:
1. "yeah absolutely could pull it off without my math degree I use very little math" - given that her position is a CEO (ie. leadership), it seems plausible that she doesn't use her math degree in the day to day. Also, the clip has zero context as to what the question actually was.
2. "being comfortable with risk is very important" - Would you rather have a hedge fund CEO that's not comfortable with risk?
3. "we tend not to have things like stop losses I think those aren't necessarily great risk management tool" - ...which is true. Stop losses are basically market orders that get placed when the price drops below a certain amount. It's true that they can stop losses, but it could also lead you to sell at the bottom and at the worst price.
4. "trying to think of a good example of a trade where I've lost a ton of money um well I don't know I probably don't want to go into specifics too much with" - This is one of these questions where you need to have a prepared answer for, because answering it any any honest/unprepared way would make you look bad. The closest real life example would be something "what is your greatest weakness" or "what was the biggest fuck up in your last job". Obviously she didn't have one prepared, hence the response.
1. "yeah absolutely could pull it off without my math degree I use very little math" - given that her position is a CEO (ie. leadership), it seems plausible that she doesn't use her math degree in the day to day. Also, the clip has zero context as to what the question actually was.
2. "being comfortable with risk is very important" - Would you rather have a hedge fund CEO that's not comfortable with risk?
3. "we tend not to have things like stop losses I think those aren't necessarily great risk management tool" - ...which is true. Stop losses are basically market orders that get placed when the price drops below a certain amount. It's true that they can stop losses, but it could also lead you to sell at the bottom and at the worst price.
4. "trying to think of a good example of a trade where I've lost a ton of money um well I don't know I probably don't want to go into specifics too much with" - This is one of these questions where you need to have a prepared answer for, because answering it any any honest/unprepared way would make you look bad. The closest real life example would be something "what is your greatest weakness" or "what was the biggest fuck up in your last job". Obviously she didn't have one prepared, hence the response.
> It's true that they can stop losses, but it could also lead you to sell at the bottom and at the worst price.
Worse, in relatively illquid (and circuit breakerless) markets like the fringe cryptocurrencies they were investing in, stop losses can easily result in selling at absurd prices and can even be manipulated to do so. There was even a lawsuit against FTX for exploiting them.
E.g. say something is trading at $105 after falling a bit and you believe there are significant stop loss orders at $100 (perhaps aided by exchange insider knoweldege), you see that there is very little volume on the order book below $100. You then put in a huge buy wall at $10... sell down to $100 to trigger the stop losses, then laugh as idiotic stop losses dump coins into your $10 wall.
Moments later the asset is trading at $101 again.
In large liquid markets they're less risky because someone will usually hop up and take the deal at $99 so even though you get burned a little it usually won't be too bad. But cryptocurrency markets, particularly for the fringe scamcoins FTX was investing in are just not very liquid.
Worse, in relatively illquid (and circuit breakerless) markets like the fringe cryptocurrencies they were investing in, stop losses can easily result in selling at absurd prices and can even be manipulated to do so. There was even a lawsuit against FTX for exploiting them.
E.g. say something is trading at $105 after falling a bit and you believe there are significant stop loss orders at $100 (perhaps aided by exchange insider knoweldege), you see that there is very little volume on the order book below $100. You then put in a huge buy wall at $10... sell down to $100 to trigger the stop losses, then laugh as idiotic stop losses dump coins into your $10 wall.
Moments later the asset is trading at $101 again.
In large liquid markets they're less risky because someone will usually hop up and take the deal at $99 so even though you get burned a little it usually won't be too bad. But cryptocurrency markets, particularly for the fringe scamcoins FTX was investing in are just not very liquid.
> we tend not to have things like stop losses I think those aren't necessarily great risk management tool
It seems to me that you need to have a stop loss to prevent blowing up when you have leverage. This sounds like one of those strategies that might work most of the time, but will eventually lead to bankruptcy, like picking up pennies in front of a bulldozer.
I haven't read Mark Spitznagel's latest book, but it's all about problems like this.
It also suggests that this hedge fund was run by amateurs that hadn't learnt the lessons of other overleveraged funds like LTCM.
It seems to me that you need to have a stop loss to prevent blowing up when you have leverage. This sounds like one of those strategies that might work most of the time, but will eventually lead to bankruptcy, like picking up pennies in front of a bulldozer.
I haven't read Mark Spitznagel's latest book, but it's all about problems like this.
It also suggests that this hedge fund was run by amateurs that hadn't learnt the lessons of other overleveraged funds like LTCM.
Says removed
> Friedberg, who served as FTX’s general counsel before taking on the company’s regulatory role, was recently described by Coingeek’s Steven Stradbrooke as being “almost comically inappropriate” for the job. The description appears apt, given Friedberg’s long history of not complying with various jurisdictions’ regulations, but rather, evading them.
Can't make this up. Reads to me like, on the contrary, they couldn't have found anyone more qualified.
Can't make this up. Reads to me like, on the contrary, they couldn't have found anyone more qualified.
This whole thing sounds like a Netflix movie waiting to happen.
At that rate Netflix will have to do some serious selection movies if they want to be ready for the next economic down turn in 10 years or so.
Might be coming sooner than you think: https://theankler.com/p/hwood-ftx-frenzy-as-michael-lewis
There is a German saying: "Wo ein Trog ist kommen die Schweine." roughly translates to "Where there is a trough - the pigs will come." Rather fitting for all the crypto meltdowns in the last years.
Crypto has attracted almost every type of criminal under the sun, to the detriment of 'regular' people who got conned into this stuff and is now left holding the bags.
That German saying is on point and really sad.
That German saying is on point and really sad.
> Crypto has attracted almost every type of criminal under the sun
This is actually quite a profound statement.
Is there actually anything in human history that can come close to rivalling this ?
We have everyone from teens promoting shitcoins on TikTok, to household celebrities like Matt Damon, to white collar criminals, to arguably VCs, all the way to nation states like Iran and North Korea.
This is actually quite a profound statement.
Is there actually anything in human history that can come close to rivalling this ?
We have everyone from teens promoting shitcoins on TikTok, to household celebrities like Matt Damon, to white collar criminals, to arguably VCs, all the way to nation states like Iran and North Korea.
Doing the wild west days America had a bunch of what was called wildcat currencies issued by private banks with dubious backing in either non existing gold reserves or over inflated property holdings.
look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_banking it's kind of an interesting period in finance that got kind of forgotten as it did not exactly end well.
look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat_banking it's kind of an interesting period in finance that got kind of forgotten as it did not exactly end well.
I read a comment somewhere along the lines of
"Crypto is a great experiment where people who didn't live in the 19th century get to relive at 10x speed all the bank runs and regulatory changes that happened then"
"Crypto is a great experiment where people who didn't live in the 19th century get to relive at 10x speed all the bank runs and regulatory changes that happened then"
Early in Bitcoin we came across the 1923 "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator", https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/60979 -- which described some of the scams we were seeing cropping up.
Much of the altcoin industry seems to have picked it up as an instruction manual.
(Not that there aren't scams in Bitcoin land-- but they've mostly been concentrated into the altcoin ecosystems, which tend to be overweight in the exuberant and gullible even compared to Bitcoin. It's completely unsurprising to see the FTX implosion happening at a scamcoin casino who's CEO had been publicly attacking Bitcoin -- it would have been much more surprising to see it at a Bitcoin only or mostly organization)
Much of the altcoin industry seems to have picked it up as an instruction manual.
(Not that there aren't scams in Bitcoin land-- but they've mostly been concentrated into the altcoin ecosystems, which tend to be overweight in the exuberant and gullible even compared to Bitcoin. It's completely unsurprising to see the FTX implosion happening at a scamcoin casino who's CEO had been publicly attacking Bitcoin -- it would have been much more surprising to see it at a Bitcoin only or mostly organization)
Altcoins prey on gullible, ignorant, greedy people - the best people to scam. Those are also the targets of Nigerian princes and all other get rich quick schemes.
Shitcoins represent a technological breakthrough in scamming because they scale so much better than operating a call center and have no physical footprint
Shitcoins represent a technological breakthrough in scamming because they scale so much better than operating a call center and have no physical footprint
Wildcat banking sounds exactly like crypto. thank you for the link.
I would give a pass to any celebrity that was paid to be in advertisements. They are paid to make an appearance and say lines convincingly.
We don't have written accounts of the tulip craze but I would imagine there were a lot of nefarious activities underway then. This is more global and the movement of money is transparent but anonymous in some ways. I think a hard part for a criminal enterprise like a drug cartel is the cash to crypto laundering that needs to happen in the amounts that it needs to. My guess is it was easier for shady banks and other crypto products to do shady things since its all just bits and bytes.
We don't have written accounts of the tulip craze but I would imagine there were a lot of nefarious activities underway then. This is more global and the movement of money is transparent but anonymous in some ways. I think a hard part for a criminal enterprise like a drug cartel is the cash to crypto laundering that needs to happen in the amounts that it needs to. My guess is it was easier for shady banks and other crypto products to do shady things since its all just bits and bytes.
> I would give a pass to any celebrity that was paid to be in advertisements. They are paid to make an appearance and say lines convincingly.
I disagree. It's super weird that we accept "well I was just doing it for the money" as an excuse from people who are often already insanely wealthy.
I disagree. It's super weird that we accept "well I was just doing it for the money" as an excuse from people who are often already insanely wealthy.
If there’s a moral obligation to fully vet the industry and operations of a company before accepting a short contracting job from them, why would one’s bank balance matter?
Does everyone fully vet their companies executive suite, board of directors and operations before accepting a job? Or the bank they use? Or the owner of the coffee shop they frequent?
Everyone walks around with a computer in their pocket built in a factory where people were to have known to be treated poorly, possibly to the point of suicide and then they use that device to type in comments about moral superiority.
Everyone walks around with a computer in their pocket built in a factory where people were to have known to be treated poorly, possibly to the point of suicide and then they use that device to type in comments about moral superiority.
Yes. And wait until you hear about how US railroads, which we in the US all depend on, were built.
Civilization is a story of gradual improvement. Insisting that anything be completely beyond reproach overnight is not a productive view. And yet some people can't resist.
Civilization is a story of gradual improvement. Insisting that anything be completely beyond reproach overnight is not a productive view. And yet some people can't resist.
There are problems with using the suicide factory as a moral point expecting someone to give up an iphone.
We're generally not given a baseline for the surrounding city, area, and country. The west has suicides, China will have suicides, how does this factory compare to those? Our impact isn't explained, along with the replacement for it, on the worker, the company, demand, and so forth. If there are any better alternatives and for who, and what the apples-to-oranges weighting for that decision is. The feelings and preferences of current, post, and hopeful company/industry employees and other citizens in that area.
We're generally not given a baseline for the surrounding city, area, and country. The west has suicides, China will have suicides, how does this factory compare to those? Our impact isn't explained, along with the replacement for it, on the worker, the company, demand, and so forth. If there are any better alternatives and for who, and what the apples-to-oranges weighting for that decision is. The feelings and preferences of current, post, and hopeful company/industry employees and other citizens in that area.
Every choice and action a human makes is on some spectrum of consent.
At one extreme is a literal "gun to their head" moment where it's obvious there was no real choice and correspondingly the person shouldn't be held responsible (eg, someone points a gun at you and says hand over your wallet. That doesn't mean you really "gave" your wallet to them).
At the other end of the spectrum is a person with a tremendous amount of power, freedom and choice- eg, a rich person living in a Western country, making a decision where they have lots of options and/or can opt out or decline an opportunity freely.
It's easier to forgive a person doing something unethical to survive than a person living in luxury doing something unethical to have slightly more luxuries.
At one extreme is a literal "gun to their head" moment where it's obvious there was no real choice and correspondingly the person shouldn't be held responsible (eg, someone points a gun at you and says hand over your wallet. That doesn't mean you really "gave" your wallet to them).
At the other end of the spectrum is a person with a tremendous amount of power, freedom and choice- eg, a rich person living in a Western country, making a decision where they have lots of options and/or can opt out or decline an opportunity freely.
It's easier to forgive a person doing something unethical to survive than a person living in luxury doing something unethical to have slightly more luxuries.
And many if not most celebrities happily and frequently turn down jobs to protect their reputations. And that is not only turning down reputable jobs, but jobs for perfectly respectable businesses, because they don't want to sell out. I was literally reading of one yesterday, where George Clooney turned down $35 million for a day’s work on an airline advertisement.
Sure, they can almost always find someone willing to do the advert. But that does not absolve that person of the moral consequenses of doing the work.
>>I would give a pass to any celebrity that was paid to be in advertisements. They are paid to make an appearance and say lines convincingly.
The exact same moral structure can be said about this, even though it is an extreme example: "I would give a pass to any assassin that was paid to kill the targets. They are paid to accurately deliver lethal doses of bullets or toxins and ensure that the targets end up dead."
Obviously, none of us would consider giving a pass to the assassin because it was a "professional paid job", even if (s)he was doing to feed his/her starving family.
Why should we give a pass to the actors? While different levels and directness of harm, both are taking money to do harm to others.
[0] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-clooney-35-million-one...
Sure, they can almost always find someone willing to do the advert. But that does not absolve that person of the moral consequenses of doing the work.
>>I would give a pass to any celebrity that was paid to be in advertisements. They are paid to make an appearance and say lines convincingly.
The exact same moral structure can be said about this, even though it is an extreme example: "I would give a pass to any assassin that was paid to kill the targets. They are paid to accurately deliver lethal doses of bullets or toxins and ensure that the targets end up dead."
Obviously, none of us would consider giving a pass to the assassin because it was a "professional paid job", even if (s)he was doing to feed his/her starving family.
Why should we give a pass to the actors? While different levels and directness of harm, both are taking money to do harm to others.
[0] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/george-clooney-35-million-one...
You're comparing murder to an actor speaking lines in a 30 second commercial. Its an advertisement and you are questioning people's morals.
If any of the actors did any research they likely were convinced it was a solid thing to do at the time. It could have even been a "oh so-and-so is doing an ad, then I'm in" type of thing. Its pretty obvious whoever was involved at FTX was pretty convincing and doing wrong/illegal things behind the scenes so that's why I said they should get a pass.
If any of the actors did any research they likely were convinced it was a solid thing to do at the time. It could have even been a "oh so-and-so is doing an ad, then I'm in" type of thing. Its pretty obvious whoever was involved at FTX was pretty convincing and doing wrong/illegal things behind the scenes so that's why I said they should get a pass.
Thanks for changing your argument, and validating my point.
Your first argument was that "...paid to be in advertisements. They are paid to make an appearance and say lines convincingly."; i.e., you justified it on the fact that they were paid professionals; the type of work doesn't matter and no judgement should be done.
Now, you admit that there is indeed a moral/amoral issue in making advertisements, but argue that in this case the FTX players must have been good liars and the actors must have been fooled.
Considering the actors to have reasonably vetted the thing as worthwhile & ethical, but having been fooled, is indeed a much better grounds to give someone a pass.
Especially so for the celebs who also invested their own money and have now lost it.
Of course the assassin example is extreme, I said so, and selected it because extremes can make the point more obvious. That makes it no less valid. I'm not questioning people's morals — I making obvious the foundational element that something being a "professional job" does not remove the actions from the sphere of moral judgement.
Certainly the celebs who invested along with promoting the thing were also fooled. That does not mean that they were absolved of moral judgement because it was a professional job, but that they can indeed be judged and given a pass because they were also fooled. Sure, the end result of both is that they pass, but the reasoning matters.
Your second argument is a good one in probably most cases; the first was not.
Your first argument was that "...paid to be in advertisements. They are paid to make an appearance and say lines convincingly."; i.e., you justified it on the fact that they were paid professionals; the type of work doesn't matter and no judgement should be done.
Now, you admit that there is indeed a moral/amoral issue in making advertisements, but argue that in this case the FTX players must have been good liars and the actors must have been fooled.
Considering the actors to have reasonably vetted the thing as worthwhile & ethical, but having been fooled, is indeed a much better grounds to give someone a pass.
Especially so for the celebs who also invested their own money and have now lost it.
Of course the assassin example is extreme, I said so, and selected it because extremes can make the point more obvious. That makes it no less valid. I'm not questioning people's morals — I making obvious the foundational element that something being a "professional job" does not remove the actions from the sphere of moral judgement.
Certainly the celebs who invested along with promoting the thing were also fooled. That does not mean that they were absolved of moral judgement because it was a professional job, but that they can indeed be judged and given a pass because they were also fooled. Sure, the end result of both is that they pass, but the reasoning matters.
Your second argument is a good one in probably most cases; the first was not.
Whenever you have a space where boundaries are not imposed and actions merely have externalities rather than consequences for the actor, malicious actors that find it difficult to act how they want elsewhere flock to this space; this makes being in that space more and more painful, and so if the space remains lawless, people who can exist elsewhere abandon it, until the space is inhabited mostly or only by malicious actors.
We see this in online communities. We see it in the real physical world. And, yes, we are seeing it play out in crypto.
An online community without restrictions or boundaries doesn't look like one's fond memories of university dorm chats over a glass of wine; it looks like 4chan or the dark web.
A country without effective governance doesn't look like the romanticised media depictions of the wild west or your favourite science fictional post-scarcity anarchy utopia; it looks like Somalia.
A financial system without regulations doesn't look like your family kitty; it looks like, well, the crypto ecosystem.
Humans can't do better unless we all start to consistently choose cooperate/cooperate in prisoner's dilemma, and one quick look at, well, any community anywhere today shows we are a long way away from that.
This is not a technical problem, and cannot be solved with a technical solution. Humans do not know how to solve it. I wish we did. Historically, the most aspirational attempts to solve this problem have been the ones with the most gruesome outcomes.
We see this in online communities. We see it in the real physical world. And, yes, we are seeing it play out in crypto.
An online community without restrictions or boundaries doesn't look like one's fond memories of university dorm chats over a glass of wine; it looks like 4chan or the dark web.
A country without effective governance doesn't look like the romanticised media depictions of the wild west or your favourite science fictional post-scarcity anarchy utopia; it looks like Somalia.
A financial system without regulations doesn't look like your family kitty; it looks like, well, the crypto ecosystem.
Humans can't do better unless we all start to consistently choose cooperate/cooperate in prisoner's dilemma, and one quick look at, well, any community anywhere today shows we are a long way away from that.
This is not a technical problem, and cannot be solved with a technical solution. Humans do not know how to solve it. I wish we did. Historically, the most aspirational attempts to solve this problem have been the ones with the most gruesome outcomes.
The western United States was pretty wild for a while until it was "tamed"
Incorrect. There was less violence overall in the wild west. Modern America has insane violence at much larger scales (inner city gang violence in Chicago, millions of civilians killed over the past 2 decades via Iraq, Drone programs, etc).
The wild west was only wild because Hollywood needed a narrative.
The wild west was only wild because Hollywood needed a narrative.
Interesting. Do you have any sources of information to back that up? It contradicts my perception of things, and I would like to know if I've been operating under a faulty understanding. Example: according to this [1] article : per-capita murder rates were something on the order of 30/100000 in colonial times, 15/100000 in the "wild west" period compared to 6/100000 today.
[1] https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent...
[1] https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent...
Lol that's not true at all. Why spout nonsense?
First our cities today are as safe as they have ever been. Crime is slightly up from 2018 but 2018 was the lowest ever. Small bumps in crime are not usual.
Second, googling murder rates in that region is possible and they are an order of magnitude greater than even the worse US cities.
First our cities today are as safe as they have ever been. Crime is slightly up from 2018 but 2018 was the lowest ever. Small bumps in crime are not usual.
Second, googling murder rates in that region is possible and they are an order of magnitude greater than even the worse US cities.
You shouldn't be down voted, this is largely correct. High rates of violence in the "wild west" are a myth created by Hollywood.
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=6182
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=6182
Years back when TOR was new I stumbled on a site selling "family videos with kids" for ethereum.
Soured me on crypto enough never to fall for it.
3rd party exchanges and banks.. basically like it always has. Crytpo, aka your keys, are still fine.
Actually, this seems like a rather interesting defense of crypto. To use the metaphor, did the trough create the pigs? Or did it only draw a horde of pre-existing pigs to one place? Perhaps the amount of quasi-criminals that we are seeing in the crypto sector right now is just a sign that crypto was highly successful and not a condemnation of crypto in and of itself.
You are half right. It obviously did not create the pigs, but the "trough" is the place for easy pickings: Crypto. Of course Crypto did not create scammers, scammers simply have an easy time scamming people there.
Agreed 100%, but troughs are good for other things besides feeding pigs. I hope the actually innovative, non-scam projects don't have their name tarnished too much by all the pigs.
Am I understanding this correctly? The very fact that the Crypto scene was filled with criminals is direct evidence that "it works"?
Is this a soft implication that the same scene should "continue" to exist as it currently is?
Is this a soft implication that the same scene should "continue" to exist as it currently is?
Successful at what, enabling criminal activity?
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Reminds me of the American phrase "What exactly were you expecting?!"
Larry was right for once [1].
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH5-rSxilxo
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH5-rSxilxo
Larry the character maybe; not Larry the real person.
I'm really not sure where the line is between those two.
The real one is promoting crypto by playing a "foolish" version of himself on camera in exchange for money.
I don't see anything wrong there. He got paid to make an ad, and it's clear that's what it is.
If he was promoting FTX on his own personal account like so many "influencers" do, then I would be ok criticizing him.
If he was promoting FTX on his own personal account like so many "influencers" do, then I would be ok criticizing him.
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I loved these commercials but they failed to convince me to put any money in FTX, or crypto altogether.
There is no difference tho? The show is about him playing himself.
Clickbait title. Tether is only vaguely mentioned and there is nothing related to Tether operations- only to an employee at Tether.
While this article covers an interesting topic, the title is clearly an attempt to bandwagon on the "Tether is next" narrative while contributing nothing substantial to the conversation
While this article covers an interesting topic, the title is clearly an attempt to bandwagon on the "Tether is next" narrative while contributing nothing substantial to the conversation
Tether is pretty specifically, if briefly mentioned. What is vague is the description of what provable role Stuart Hoegner had with UB's lawbreaking.
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> The second near-failure of UB occurred when the site was riddled by extensive credit-card fraud during its first year or so of operations. That led parent company ieLogic to develop an antifraud software suite called ieSnare that was so effective that the company was able to license it to other online concerns.
That’s a pretty interesting little side story.
That’s a pretty interesting little side story.
Feels sort of nonsensical honestly. Credit card anti fraud is entirely reactionary, there’s no magic bullet, you’re just papering over the cracks of an absolutely broken payment system. Every service will see different fraud, it will always be changing, there’s no one fits all solution. Very frequently the “rules” of the systems aren’t solid and everybody trying to exploit them knows that.
It piqued my interest enough to google it and it seems like it’s actually a notable thing in the online betting world and is indeed fairly sophisticated and purpose-built.
One example blog post: https://csgobetting.com/iesnare-how-youre-being-made-paranoi...
One example blog post: https://csgobetting.com/iesnare-how-youre-being-made-paranoi...
As if crypto wasn’t useless enough, it’s always at the center of endless scams. What’s it gonna take for people to walk away from this poison?
"Crypto" is useless. Bitcoin isn't. Maximalists have been warning against this stuff happening for nearly a year now. Ever since Luna collapsed, those voices grew louder, but the yield-farming degenerates chose not to listen.
> "Crypto" is useless. Bitcoin isn't.
What unique properties does Bitcoin have that makes it useful that other cryptocurrencies don't, beside first mover advantage?
What unique properties does Bitcoin have that makes it useful that other cryptocurrencies don't, beside first mover advantage?
Bitcoin is provably the only decentralized system that has permissionless, borderless, digital scarcity. Other cryptocurrencies are less secure (the many direct forks, such as Bitcoin Cash and the like), less decentralized (Solana, BNB), less permissionless (any system that can be halted by its operators) or less scarce (Ethereum's emission schedule can be changed by a single organisation).
Bitcoin's value (not in terms of money, but in terms of usefullness) is an emergent property of the combination of proof of work, the difficulty adjustment, and its peer-to-peer nature. Other cryptocurrencies suffer because their founders have changed one or more of those properties in an attempt to "fix bitcoin" (bigger blocks! faster blocks! more blocks!), but that cripples the resulting emergent value.
If Bitcoin is directly cloned as Coinbit, and miners flock to it, and it achieves a greater total hash rate than Bitcoin, then its value supersedes Bitcoin's. Bitcoin's first mover advantage makes this unlikely (though non-zero).
Bitcoin's value (not in terms of money, but in terms of usefullness) is an emergent property of the combination of proof of work, the difficulty adjustment, and its peer-to-peer nature. Other cryptocurrencies suffer because their founders have changed one or more of those properties in an attempt to "fix bitcoin" (bigger blocks! faster blocks! more blocks!), but that cripples the resulting emergent value.
If Bitcoin is directly cloned as Coinbit, and miners flock to it, and it achieves a greater total hash rate than Bitcoin, then its value supersedes Bitcoin's. Bitcoin's first mover advantage makes this unlikely (though non-zero).
>Bitcoin is provably the only decentralized system that has permissionless, borderless, digital scarcity.
Why do we need digital scarcity, exactly?
>Other cryptocurrencies are less secure (the many direct forks, such as Bitcoin Cash and the like), less decentralized (Solana, BNB), less permissionless (any system that can be halted by its operators) or less scarce (Ethereum's emission schedule can be changed by a single organisation).
Ok, we agree that other cryptos are bad too.
>Bitcoin's value (not in terms of money, but in terms of usefulness) is an emergent property of the combination of proof of work, the difficulty adjustment, and its peer-to-peer nature.
But what is that useful to do? I agree cryptography and blockchains are nifty, but why do 1000's of decentralized computers need to do the work (and therefore duplicate/waste resources)? Couldn't one computer do it and make their work public so anyone/everyone could check their work?
You'll say something ambiguous thing about trust, but please give a concrete example when the above wouldn't work. Visa (and it's shareholders) have hundreds of billions of USD worth of incentive not to fuck up transactions (enough to buy enough electricity and ASICs to become 51% of miners), so why don't we let them do the work and then we check their work?
Is that bad because it's what we do now and it works?
Why do we need digital scarcity, exactly?
>Other cryptocurrencies are less secure (the many direct forks, such as Bitcoin Cash and the like), less decentralized (Solana, BNB), less permissionless (any system that can be halted by its operators) or less scarce (Ethereum's emission schedule can be changed by a single organisation).
Ok, we agree that other cryptos are bad too.
>Bitcoin's value (not in terms of money, but in terms of usefulness) is an emergent property of the combination of proof of work, the difficulty adjustment, and its peer-to-peer nature.
But what is that useful to do? I agree cryptography and blockchains are nifty, but why do 1000's of decentralized computers need to do the work (and therefore duplicate/waste resources)? Couldn't one computer do it and make their work public so anyone/everyone could check their work?
You'll say something ambiguous thing about trust, but please give a concrete example when the above wouldn't work. Visa (and it's shareholders) have hundreds of billions of USD worth of incentive not to fuck up transactions (enough to buy enough electricity and ASICs to become 51% of miners), so why don't we let them do the work and then we check their work?
Is that bad because it's what we do now and it works?
I am not the best person to address everything point by point as I am not putting enough thought into it, but perhaps I could point (heh) you in the right direction.
Sure you could let Visa do this (as they and Mastercard handle most online payments now anyways), and it would probably work as well as Visa/Mastercard work now, but for some people that is not good enough.
1. Differentiate clearing (telling you you now have some money) and settlement (you getting the money you "have"). For Visa and Mastercard the latter takes days or more.
2. Permissionless means that you don't need any entity's permission to transact. Visa and Mastercard definitely require permission, and on occassion don't give it for various legal but "immoral" things like porn, Wikileaks, and who knows what in the future.
3. Borderless is kind of similar to permissionless. As soon as you bring in legacy behemoths like Visa into it, this kind of goes away.
4. With decentralization, fees are determined objectively (you pay to get in, and if there is enough demand, regardless of price, blocks are full). A monopolist would charge as much as they could get away with, sometimes even if that means no transactions are being performed.
---
I would say that with a Visa(like) company, you definitely lose 2, and 4 will probably have some bullshit involved.
Sure you could let Visa do this (as they and Mastercard handle most online payments now anyways), and it would probably work as well as Visa/Mastercard work now, but for some people that is not good enough.
1. Differentiate clearing (telling you you now have some money) and settlement (you getting the money you "have"). For Visa and Mastercard the latter takes days or more.
2. Permissionless means that you don't need any entity's permission to transact. Visa and Mastercard definitely require permission, and on occassion don't give it for various legal but "immoral" things like porn, Wikileaks, and who knows what in the future.
3. Borderless is kind of similar to permissionless. As soon as you bring in legacy behemoths like Visa into it, this kind of goes away.
4. With decentralization, fees are determined objectively (you pay to get in, and if there is enough demand, regardless of price, blocks are full). A monopolist would charge as much as they could get away with, sometimes even if that means no transactions are being performed.
---
I would say that with a Visa(like) company, you definitely lose 2, and 4 will probably have some bullshit involved.
Ok, let me point you in the competing direction:
1. This has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. There is literally nothing about a decentralized trustless architecture that makes this happen. You're falling into the common trap that crypto people fall into where they equate criticisms of the current centralized system with 'possibilities of a decentralized system,' when really what they mean is any hypothetical new system could be better than the current one. All else equal, a centralized system will be faster no matter what (i.e. this is a major reason why servers are centralized) and I agree we should be working on better/faster centralized systems.
2. You definitely need the permission of the miner/validators/whoever to transact [0]. You also need to convince them to put your transactions into the block and there is nothing that compels them to do so other than the same economic incentives that motivate Visa. You are again, criticizing the system now and imagining that a decentralized system is better.
2A. To break down the problem a little more clearly for you - Visa's main service (what it makes money doing) is actually fraud protection, since as you must know bank's can very easily settle between each other over other rails. Visa chooses not to process transactions that are at high risk of fraud/illegal activity, because they have regulatory liability. Miners not having regulatory liability isn't a function of decentralized trustless architecture, it's a function of being new. Either blockchain is similar to a wire transfer (something that porn companies still have full access to) or it's similar to Visa and will face the same problems.
3. I suggest you google the countries where it is illegal to use crypto to buy goods/services (governments plan on keeping currency controls intact after all!). The shear number will astound you!
4. Not sure on the monopolist point there, but again, Visa/Mastercard/Amex compete on swipe fees (look at the Costco example!) so I'm not sure what this decentralized point you're making really is.
[0] https://cryptobriefing.com/solana-blockchain-halted-for-eigh...
1. This has nothing to do with cryptocurrency. There is literally nothing about a decentralized trustless architecture that makes this happen. You're falling into the common trap that crypto people fall into where they equate criticisms of the current centralized system with 'possibilities of a decentralized system,' when really what they mean is any hypothetical new system could be better than the current one. All else equal, a centralized system will be faster no matter what (i.e. this is a major reason why servers are centralized) and I agree we should be working on better/faster centralized systems.
2. You definitely need the permission of the miner/validators/whoever to transact [0]. You also need to convince them to put your transactions into the block and there is nothing that compels them to do so other than the same economic incentives that motivate Visa. You are again, criticizing the system now and imagining that a decentralized system is better.
2A. To break down the problem a little more clearly for you - Visa's main service (what it makes money doing) is actually fraud protection, since as you must know bank's can very easily settle between each other over other rails. Visa chooses not to process transactions that are at high risk of fraud/illegal activity, because they have regulatory liability. Miners not having regulatory liability isn't a function of decentralized trustless architecture, it's a function of being new. Either blockchain is similar to a wire transfer (something that porn companies still have full access to) or it's similar to Visa and will face the same problems.
3. I suggest you google the countries where it is illegal to use crypto to buy goods/services (governments plan on keeping currency controls intact after all!). The shear number will astound you!
4. Not sure on the monopolist point there, but again, Visa/Mastercard/Amex compete on swipe fees (look at the Costco example!) so I'm not sure what this decentralized point you're making really is.
[0] https://cryptobriefing.com/solana-blockchain-halted-for-eigh...
You are describing a pyramid scheme, but in word salad format.
What? Where is the pyramid scheme in this? Not once do they mention anything involving individuals having to coax other individuals into it.
It's 100% voluntary and makes zero promise of some fantastical ROI (unlike every non-Bitcoin cryptocurrency).
It's 100% voluntary and makes zero promise of some fantastical ROI (unlike every non-Bitcoin cryptocurrency).
There's no value unless you coax other individuals into it.
The good news is you don't need to coax anybody. Once you study how it works (legitimately), you realize it has a ton of intangible value [1] and can trade with others who think the same. Anybody who disagrees can choose not to use it.
It's quite beautiful. It's universally frowned upon in the Bitcoin community to tell people they're going to make X in X time frame. All of that nonsense takes place with the Ethereum/shitcoin crowd which gets conflated with Bitcoin.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33586717
It's quite beautiful. It's universally frowned upon in the Bitcoin community to tell people they're going to make X in X time frame. All of that nonsense takes place with the Ethereum/shitcoin crowd which gets conflated with Bitcoin.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33586717
I think we are on the same page. Some people like to own and trade bitcoin. Some people like to own and trade Beanie Babies.
Some people may think this is a silly comparison because one of these things was fueled by a get rich quick FAD and the other has at least some real value in the real world.
But they are pretty similar in that they will be worth whatever people want to pay for them in the long run.
Some people may think this is a silly comparison because one of these things was fueled by a get rich quick FAD and the other has at least some real value in the real world.
But they are pretty similar in that they will be worth whatever people want to pay for them in the long run.
To be fair, there's no value in stuff like Twitter, stamp collections, the US dollar, etc unless you coax other individuals into them (in some cases by using armies).
It's a function true of pyramid schemes and any system that relies on network effects to be of any real value.
Not that I care about Bitcoin one way or the other.
It's a function true of pyramid schemes and any system that relies on network effects to be of any real value.
Not that I care about Bitcoin one way or the other.
> Bitcoin is provably the only decentralized system that has permissionless, borderless, digital scarcity. Other cryptocurrencies are less secure (the many direct forks, such as Bitcoin Cash and the like).
Bitcoin isn't a "system" unless you're already in it. If you're not already in it, you have to consider the whole economy and Bitcoin's "job to be done" inside it.
At which point there's two problems. One, you have to get into the system which means the things people are claiming "aren't crypto" like exchanges are, in fact, part of it. Two, it doesn't necessarily possess scarcity, because users have the option to fork Bitcoin rather than pay you to use it.
Bitcoin isn't a "system" unless you're already in it. If you're not already in it, you have to consider the whole economy and Bitcoin's "job to be done" inside it.
At which point there's two problems. One, you have to get into the system which means the things people are claiming "aren't crypto" like exchanges are, in fact, part of it. Two, it doesn't necessarily possess scarcity, because users have the option to fork Bitcoin rather than pay you to use it.
> less decentralized (Solana...
SBF is deeply tied to Solana. It's reported SBF/FTX/Alameda were sitting on close to $1bn worth of Solana up to a few days ago. Some are apparently locked. This makes him the biggest holder of Solana. Centralized indeed. Now of course these "$1bn" are in that worthless Solana scamcoin which already fell from $32 to $13 since the news. So I take that that $1bn is now more like $400m or something, and shrinking fast.
It's possible that, like with Serum, SBF was involved in the creation of Solana from the very start (I take it more independent journalist are going to dig on that: I don't expect mainstream media to do much research that said).
SBF is deeply tied to Solana. It's reported SBF/FTX/Alameda were sitting on close to $1bn worth of Solana up to a few days ago. Some are apparently locked. This makes him the biggest holder of Solana. Centralized indeed. Now of course these "$1bn" are in that worthless Solana scamcoin which already fell from $32 to $13 since the news. So I take that that $1bn is now more like $400m or something, and shrinking fast.
It's possible that, like with Serum, SBF was involved in the creation of Solana from the very start (I take it more independent journalist are going to dig on that: I don't expect mainstream media to do much research that said).
Not sure if the question is meant seriously but there are important differences between a serious attempt of private currency and any one of the "less serious":
Bitcoin has a real multi stakeholder maintainership, where no single party can hard fork the currency or change the rules in any important way from the ones the users signed up for. This is what people mean when they say hard forks should be close to impossible to pull off. The only exceptions are where there is absolute consensus, such as pure security issues.
Closely related to the above, the issuance model is clearly known to everyone in advance and will not change. The issuance is not the same thing as the consensus rules. That helps force stakeholders to play fair.
There is no founder or foreground representative that has an undue influence in development. Even the core developers will have to convince everyone that their changes are sound and will not change the rules of anyone's investment, and more often than not, ends up with them dropped if consensus can not be reached.
Again related to the above, there was no pre-mine. Since there was no central party, no one owned any coins before the public blockchain started. So no one could sell or promise any future winnings. There's this whole founding myth to build culture on, and npt everything may be true, but what's clear is that an effort was made to prove there was no pre-mine (someone included today's paper in the genesis block, before which per the protocol no coins can exist).
The first mover advantage does not enter this. You could start a new serious attempt at a currency along the same lines as above, but very few bother when you are competing with outright scams. Personally I believe we have to wait some time to shake out the scammers before we can see any serious attempts at competing.
Bitcoin has a real multi stakeholder maintainership, where no single party can hard fork the currency or change the rules in any important way from the ones the users signed up for. This is what people mean when they say hard forks should be close to impossible to pull off. The only exceptions are where there is absolute consensus, such as pure security issues.
Closely related to the above, the issuance model is clearly known to everyone in advance and will not change. The issuance is not the same thing as the consensus rules. That helps force stakeholders to play fair.
There is no founder or foreground representative that has an undue influence in development. Even the core developers will have to convince everyone that their changes are sound and will not change the rules of anyone's investment, and more often than not, ends up with them dropped if consensus can not be reached.
Again related to the above, there was no pre-mine. Since there was no central party, no one owned any coins before the public blockchain started. So no one could sell or promise any future winnings. There's this whole founding myth to build culture on, and npt everything may be true, but what's clear is that an effort was made to prove there was no pre-mine (someone included today's paper in the genesis block, before which per the protocol no coins can exist).
The first mover advantage does not enter this. You could start a new serious attempt at a currency along the same lines as above, but very few bother when you are competing with outright scams. Personally I believe we have to wait some time to shake out the scammers before we can see any serious attempts at competing.
I'm guessing the logic is something along the lines of "all crypto is crap... except for the crypto I have of course."
You guessed wrong.
You own no BTC then? That's strange for somebody who evidently thinks it so great.
Privacy coins aren't. The problem with Bitcoin is, that it CAN be regulated to death.
And privacy coins come with the appended issue that software issues could hide an inflation bug, which isn't provable at that moment. Is Bitcoin anonymous? Nope, but with some diligence, you can be quite protected.
A new poison? Crypto is the latest promise of fast, easy money. There will be new ones.
This has nothing to do with Tether the author added it jut as a sauce, hilarious
Tether has similarly been caught in the past using the funds behind their supposedly "fully backed" tokens for highly speculative investment. So far it's just such a big scam that no one has been able to create a large enough run to topple it... so far.
Not really but it’s a long discussion. In any case in this sense the author coul also throw other kinds of conspiracies unrelated. True journalism ! Add your sauce
Yes, really.
Because you read it on Reddit right? Send any proof you have to the NY district attorney and SEC if you know inside info. Don’t be this internet guy.
Way ahead of you. ;)
> Stuart Hoegner, another former UB lawyer, holds a similar regulatory-compliance post with rival crypto firm Tether
Both Tether and FTX hired former white collar criminals from the same company to head their regulator compliance.
Both Tether and FTX hired former white collar criminals from the same company to head their regulator compliance.
You justify this title because of some other company hired an unrelated lawyer that worked on a case with another lawyer 15 years ago? Seriously now lol
>You justify this title... Seriously now lol
What's with the snark? The title itself is technically accurate. That is "a link". There's nothing to justify. What you want to do is debate the strength of that link. That's fine, but it does nothing to change the accuracy of the title. A connection is a connection, like it or not.
What's with the snark? The title itself is technically accurate. That is "a link". There's nothing to justify. What you want to do is debate the strength of that link. That's fine, but it does nothing to change the accuracy of the title. A connection is a connection, like it or not.
There is no lin. Corporate lawyers work in hundreds of cases during their career and you cannot say that company X is guilty because Y guy worked N years before in a guilty company. That's just insanely wrong, factually.
The headline does not say "company Z is guilty because Y guy worked N years before in a guilty company". That is in the body of the article, and again, that is what you have an issue with.
Again - a link is a link, regardless of whether or not it means anything. It is a connection between two entities; nothing more, nothing less. They touch each other, and that is literally what is happening here. That link can be anything - something interesting, or something not - but it remains a link regardless.
In this case, your point is, "That is a link, but I find that link weak and don't believe it means anything".
Again - a link is a link, regardless of whether or not it means anything. It is a connection between two entities; nothing more, nothing less. They touch each other, and that is literally what is happening here. That link can be anything - something interesting, or something not - but it remains a link regardless.
In this case, your point is, "That is a link, but I find that link weak and don't believe it means anything".
Would you think if the dog of SBF ate the same food as the dog of a former Enron employ would be a link?
I wonder if there are cases of large scams where the perpetrators are smart enough to avoid being caught.
Not all criminals end-up behind bars.
I suspect that some scams can go unnoticed for long enough.
I also suspect that scam opportunities are exploding.
Not all criminals end-up behind bars.
I suspect that some scams can go unnoticed for long enough.
I also suspect that scam opportunities are exploding.
> perpetrators are smart enough to avoid being caught.
IMO, many startups are scams on some level. VC A funds company X. VC A also funds company Y. Company Y 'decides' to use company X's hot new product and has a lofty enterprise license. This happens a few more times. Company X now has very large revenues, VC's friends at big-nation-bank decide it's time to IPO and cash out.
IMO, many startups are scams on some level. VC A funds company X. VC A also funds company Y. Company Y 'decides' to use company X's hot new product and has a lofty enterprise license. This happens a few more times. Company X now has very large revenues, VC's friends at big-nation-bank decide it's time to IPO and cash out.
I wish a VC's recommendation or direction was all it took to get a deal done. Getting a "lofty Enterprise license" through procurement is so much harder than you are stating. They can make an introduction, sure, but very few VCs are micromanaging to the point of determining a portfolio company's tech stack.
Source: a decade of VC funded Enterprise saas company selling experience
Source: a decade of VC funded Enterprise saas company selling experience
It's not that they are smart.
It seems more to me like governments don't want to take financial crimes (specifically fiditiary duty) seriously, as it would make precedent for bankers who do the same crimes, just less visibly (bailouts).
It seems more to me like governments don't want to take financial crimes (specifically fiditiary duty) seriously, as it would make precedent for bankers who do the same crimes, just less visibly (bailouts).
More likely it's a question of resource. I expect there's more crimes than people available to prosecute.
Any kind of electronic gambling setup is amenable to insider scams.
Keep it low-key, don't get greedy, and you can probably milk it forever.
Keep it low-key, don't get greedy, and you can probably milk it forever.
Lots of people building real businesses do shady things on the way up. John Hempton wrote up a great example of this about a failed short play against Steve Madden Shoes[0]. Steve Madden may have been a fibber, but he made shoes people wanted to buy. The value of the shoes was larger than the fakery.
But when you are selling financial services, this kind of fakery almost always blows up because the accounting is the product. And if the accounts are fake, the thing is fake. Fake accounts always leave a hole that can only grow with each cycle of fraud. Dan Davies wrote a great book titled "Lying for Money" on the whole sorry process[1]. Galbraith called it the "bezzle".
[0] - http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2011/05/steve-madden-count... [1] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38605195-lying-for-money
But when you are selling financial services, this kind of fakery almost always blows up because the accounting is the product. And if the accounts are fake, the thing is fake. Fake accounts always leave a hole that can only grow with each cycle of fraud. Dan Davies wrote a great book titled "Lying for Money" on the whole sorry process[1]. Galbraith called it the "bezzle".
[0] - http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2011/05/steve-madden-count... [1] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38605195-lying-for-money
Lol. Just discovered that Munger coined febezzle to describe the "wealth effect" a boom/bubble produces. That gap between value created and quoted market cap can grow very large even without manifestly criminal activity. This is effectively a "bezzle", and likewise, will only grow until it explodes. Which is why the longer a bubble runs, the more painful it is when it pops.
http://mungerisms.blogspot.com/2009/09/philanthropy-round-ta...
http://mungerisms.blogspot.com/2009/09/philanthropy-round-ta...
Tether is one of them, I suppose. No one has been caught (yet).
Sure. Look into any dictator that was installed by the CIA. Emboldened by their power and shady alliance with the US, they usually go on a financial crime spree--stealing billions.
Disgusting. SBF and this Friedman guy need to be literally physically flogged to a sobbing mess in the public square and then put into the ring for eight rounds with Mike Tyson. Better than they deserve. Absolutely vile. It is bad enough to cheat as a player/trader but to be responsible for the integrity of the platform and act like these guys is beyond the fucking pale
Friedman or Friedberg? When calling for violent reprisals against people with common names, you should at least make sure it's the right one.
You are right. Friedberg.
But, what I am calling for is not a lawless reprisal but something a little closer to appropriate punishment than either is likely to get. Punishment that many people in countries with much more history culture and civilization than ours, like China, would agree is gentle and mild for these kind of crimes. In China someone like SBF would likely just be executed, and yes, this seems on the harsh side of reasonable and deserved - but only just.
But, what I am calling for is not a lawless reprisal but something a little closer to appropriate punishment than either is likely to get. Punishment that many people in countries with much more history culture and civilization than ours, like China, would agree is gentle and mild for these kind of crimes. In China someone like SBF would likely just be executed, and yes, this seems on the harsh side of reasonable and deserved - but only just.
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It’s amazing to me that enough people still believe in the crypto scam to keep pumping BTC above $15k. I guess they are still managing to mint fools at a fast enough pace to keep the price up.
https://www.ft.com/content/428c7800-c72d-4c59-9940-4376fea6e...
> Sam Bankman-Fried stormed on to the US political scene with multimillion-dollar donations that led lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to believe he was ushering in the next generation of donors. But in a matter of days, his business empire collapsed into bankruptcy and the prospect of millions more in donations evaporated.
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 individual donor in the 2021–2022 election cycle, according to Open Secrets, with donations totaling $39.8 million. That ranks only behind George Soros (about $128 million) but ahead of many other big names, including Michael Bloomberg ($28.3 million). What’s more, he had promised to spend far more on Democrats moving forward, predicting in May that he’d fund “north of $100 million” and had a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion for the 2024 elections.
> Sam Bankman-Fried stormed on to the US political scene with multimillion-dollar donations that led lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to believe he was ushering in the next generation of donors. But in a matter of days, his business empire collapsed into bankruptcy and the prospect of millions more in donations evaporated.
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 individual donor in the 2021–2022 election cycle, according to Open Secrets, with donations totaling $39.8 million. That ranks only behind George Soros (about $128 million) but ahead of many other big names, including Michael Bloomberg ($28.3 million). What’s more, he had promised to spend far more on Democrats moving forward, predicting in May that he’d fund “north of $100 million” and had a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion for the 2024 elections.
Sorry, why is this comment relevant to the parent?
Because he donated money to Democrats it makes people still want to invest in cryptos, is that the message?
Because he donated money to Democrats it makes people still want to invest in cryptos, is that the message?
it's that money talks, especially to people who don't understand technology enough to spot obvious bullshit. which of course isn't a justification for anything other than why the price of bitcoin is relatively impervious to logical analysis.
Don't blame crypto for a fraudulent organization that was more politically connected than almost any other organization.
If you want to complain about BTC, complain about BTC. FTX was not BTC.
If you want to complain about BTC, complain about BTC. FTX was not BTC.
It's likely that market makers are holding the ~$15k floor to prevent a liquidation cascade.
It's not Bitcoin that is the scam, it is companies run by criminals to steal peoples money.
Because there are too many people that are in the situation that state actors steal from them more than these scams do.
Anyone doing international money transfers. Hell, that included intra-EU money transfers not 5 years ago.
Anyone in a bunch of countries. Lebanon being the most recent addition. Venezuela, Columbia, Turkey, Russia, Greece (sort-of-not-quite-anymore) ...
Anyone in legal but unfairly treated business/professions. Situations vary from country to country. From sex work, even website admins, to "the unbanked", who can expect the authorities to impound their money at the drop of a hat.
Anyone who wants to do large cash transactions safely without using a bank. And that DOES NOT mean drugs. Reality: you do this because you're afraid bank transactions can be reversed, which is possible in a bunch of places. Large, in the EU, has now become smaller than the cost of a used car.
Recently, if your transaction involves anyone on social security, your or their bank transactions may be monitored very closely by non-judicial institutions. If this is unwanted (and I guarantee it'll be unwanted) that will means you either use cash or crypto, depending on the amount. Although a lot of people in this segment haven't really discovered crypto yet.
Anyone doing international money transfers. Hell, that included intra-EU money transfers not 5 years ago.
Anyone in a bunch of countries. Lebanon being the most recent addition. Venezuela, Columbia, Turkey, Russia, Greece (sort-of-not-quite-anymore) ...
Anyone in legal but unfairly treated business/professions. Situations vary from country to country. From sex work, even website admins, to "the unbanked", who can expect the authorities to impound their money at the drop of a hat.
Anyone who wants to do large cash transactions safely without using a bank. And that DOES NOT mean drugs. Reality: you do this because you're afraid bank transactions can be reversed, which is possible in a bunch of places. Large, in the EU, has now become smaller than the cost of a used car.
Recently, if your transaction involves anyone on social security, your or their bank transactions may be monitored very closely by non-judicial institutions. If this is unwanted (and I guarantee it'll be unwanted) that will means you either use cash or crypto, depending on the amount. Although a lot of people in this segment haven't really discovered crypto yet.
Tether keeps BTC above 15k IMO. They keep printing more anytime it starts to dive. Will tether survive the bank runs?
I've seen a lot of people say this (and I'm sure you're all correct!) but I never understod the link between BTC and Tether. Multiple attempts to explain it have gone over my head. Am I just stupid?
Consider it such: there is a company that wants bitcoin to stay above 15k. Every time the order books show a significant decline below 15k, that company issues new tokens that are treated as dollars by exchanges in order to buy bitcoin.
This stays very much viable. Right up to the point that it isn't. Then, people will wonder what is backing those tokens, and if they want to risk the event that they aren't worth their advertised value. Then, a liquidation crunch happens and the company collapses in onto itself.
This stays very much viable. Right up to the point that it isn't. Then, people will wonder what is backing those tokens, and if they want to risk the event that they aren't worth their advertised value. Then, a liquidation crunch happens and the company collapses in onto itself.
That's not really an explanation as Tether does not make cooking the books any easier. You could just as easily lie about how much USD or BTC you have. It would also be a whole lot less visible, having huge unexplained stablecoin holdings is a giant red flag visible to everyone. It does not make sense.
That said, the Tether situation is clearly fraudulent in some way, just not the one people usually put forward. So stay away, if you aren't already.
That said, the Tether situation is clearly fraudulent in some way, just not the one people usually put forward. So stay away, if you aren't already.
>Every time the order books show a significant decline below 15k, that company issues new tokens that are treated as dollars by exchanges in order to buy bitcoin.
source? Sources like these[1] don't any mention recent issuances by tether.
[1] https://twitter.com/usdcoinprinter
source? Sources like these[1] don't any mention recent issuances by tether.
[1] https://twitter.com/usdcoinprinter
Ok, so roughly speaking, 1 BTC != USD 15k, 1 BTC = USDT 15k, and people broadly agree 1 USDT = 1USD (for now)?
IMO, the entire crypto market cap broadly hangs on folks believing that last part.
bitfinex.
people said this about 20k too. nothing can prop this up. same pattern of dropping 2-4k in a week.
BTC has survived a lot of "crypto scams" though
Wouldn't we expect to see BTC hold or even gain when everyone is trying to exit their "crypto" positions?
After all, BTC is the reserve currency of all these crypto scams, as you call them.
After all, BTC is the reserve currency of all these crypto scams, as you call them.
No, because the USD market price is psychological, just like the stock market [1].
And no, BTC is not the reserve currency; Ethereum is. Nearly all of these "crypto tokens" are just ERC-20 contracts that run as contracts on the Ethereum network. They're not even cryptocurrencies, just contracts with sets of rules that mimic the properties of a currency.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mr-market.asp
And no, BTC is not the reserve currency; Ethereum is. Nearly all of these "crypto tokens" are just ERC-20 contracts that run as contracts on the Ethereum network. They're not even cryptocurrencies, just contracts with sets of rules that mimic the properties of a currency.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mr-market.asp
I don't think there are enough people believing in crypto or specifically BTC. I believe that it's all insider trading, and fraud that keeps the price above $0.
Would it be less a scam for you if they did a 1-to-1000 split and 1BTC was 15$?!
Using the sticker price to decide if a crypto/stock is a scam or not a very good idea.
Using the sticker price to decide if a crypto/stock is a scam or not a very good idea.
A very large pool of people have skin in the BTC game, some of them are billionaires with market manipulation power, like the Winklevoss twins.
> billionaires with market manipulation power, like the Winklevoss twins
The Winkelvoss’s net worth [1] is less than half of FTX’s shortfall alone [2]. These folks didn’t get rich by giving their money away.
[1] https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/tyler-...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/sam-bankm...
The Winkelvoss’s net worth [1] is less than half of FTX’s shortfall alone [2]. These folks didn’t get rich by giving their money away.
[1] https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/tyler-...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/sam-bankm...
What's collapsing again and again are the companies that try to force TradFi ideas onto the DeFi ecosystem.
So, in terms of "crypto scam," there's nothing to see here.
So, in terms of "crypto scam," there's nothing to see here.
Except those are the same companies bringing in all the buyers of crypto that prop up the price. Without scammers, the price drops like a rock.
[deleted]
> He had vowed to give up to $1bn to political candidates linked to causes he supported, a pledge from which he later backed away.
I can too promise the moon and never deliver.
I can too promise the moon and never deliver.
[deleted]
It's a dead cat bounce. It fell 20% in a week, so a tiny bounce is expected. It will be faded soon enough. (already is). Probably 12k soon.
Is everyone fleeing exchanges and just buying classic BTC and Eth?
If someone offered you 1BTC for $10k right now you would bite their hand off. At $14k it would be still some of the easiest money you've made in your life.
Even if you have the most cynical opinion of cryptocurrency, you must admit it's alive and well. It is as long as there are enough people who believe that it is - and your honest answer to the above would reveal that you know that to still be very true.
Even if you have the most cynical opinion of cryptocurrency, you must admit it's alive and well. It is as long as there are enough people who believe that it is - and your honest answer to the above would reveal that you know that to still be very true.
If someone offered me 1BTC for $10k right now, I would assume I'm being targeted or scammed somehow, since crypto is rife with grifters and fraud.
Sure, I’m not stupid. I would turn around and sell it to some other fool. And thats the problem. There is honestly no price I could buy it at where I would be willing to hold.
https://i.imgur.com/fsCmqVh.png
I just don't understand all of the "BTC will never fall below <some level not far from the current price>" thinking.
I just don't understand all of the "BTC will never fall below <some level not far from the current price>" thinking.
You say you can't understand, but the chart you yourself posted (to illustrate price volatilility) also shows a 12,000% increase in price in less than 8 years, up to today.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but maybe that, the improbable 12000%, is the thinking that you're trying to understand?
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but maybe that, the improbable 12000%, is the thinking that you're trying to understand?
That's my point - given the extreme volatility (and the fact that it was trading below $1K less than 6 years ago) why would anyone think there's some floor below which the price of BTC will never fall? Please don't bring up mining costs, which are completely irrelevant here.
You're making a stronger counter argument than you think. BTC only gets a 12,000% increase because you recruit a bigger fool to pay $16,059 than the fool who paid $16,058. The only value that you've offered here is that you can eventually find a fool big enough to pay $1,925,760.
>There is honestly no price I could buy it at where I would be willing to hold.
Really no price? Even given the opportunity to buy at $10, you still wouldn't hold?
Really no price? Even given the opportunity to buy at $10, you still wouldn't hold?
If you believe its value is going down you wouldn't want to hold at any purchase price.
Are you confident it won’t go to $5? I’m not.
I would be very confident I could sell before it hits $5.
[deleted]
What if you're asleep when it falls?
Uhhh you set a stop loss number.
If it hits x sell. So if I was given a coin currently "worth" $15,000 for $5. I could set a stop loss of $6 and always make a profit since my initial investment was $5. Asleep, awake, doesn't matter.
If it hits x sell. So if I was given a coin currently "worth" $15,000 for $5. I could set a stop loss of $6 and always make a profit since my initial investment was $5. Asleep, awake, doesn't matter.
Stop losses can fail when prices are falling quickly enough.
Set multiple stop losses? $6, $5.99, $5.75, etc, etc. if one fails one of the others will catch it. Hell as long as it sells before $5.01 I'm profitable. Simple as.
That’s not how stop losses work. If things are falling fast enough, You could have one trade at $7, and the next trade at $4. Sorry, you still lost money.
That's how people who haven't previously been investors through a crisis think stop losses work.
[deleted]
What difference would that make? You can invest $50k at $10k a piece or $10 a piece. In both cases it can easily go to $5k or $5.
And it's the same argument as Santa Claus in the movie The Elf. So long as enough people stand in Central Park singing the same song, all is well, just be sure to leave before the party is over, the Clausometer goes to 0, and the police horses trample you.
Oh absolutely. Had I known the absurdity of crypto would still have been going on this long, I would have set up a bunch of rug pulls and run away with the money.
Interrst rate hikes kill zombie companies. Scams put dumb people under the lash of their betters.
Interrst rate hikes kill zombie companies. Scams put dumb people under the lash of their betters.
> Scams put dumb people under the lash of their betters
Continuing this line of thought, isn't the next level of "betters" the people who would readily employ violence to get retribution on those who scammed them? Or even those who would just employ violence to take what they want in general?
I can understand the law of the jungle as-it-currently-is point that boils down to "lol normie rubes fell for advertising", but extrapolating that out into an overarching moral judgement makes no sense unless you're also repudiating the specialization of labor that has led to most of our current prosperity.
Continuing this line of thought, isn't the next level of "betters" the people who would readily employ violence to get retribution on those who scammed them? Or even those who would just employ violence to take what they want in general?
I can understand the law of the jungle as-it-currently-is point that boils down to "lol normie rubes fell for advertising", but extrapolating that out into an overarching moral judgement makes no sense unless you're also repudiating the specialization of labor that has led to most of our current prosperity.
If there is no legal action taken against people who use violence, then yes.
It's all scams and frauds and you are upset... because you weren't in on it?
Yes. This is the attitude that open lawlessness breeds. Laws (enforced laws!) keep good people good.
If laws do not matter, I am not willing to follow laws.
Right. When we talk about laws not getting enforced leading to people doing bad things, we're talking about you. You seem alright with that, which I've already noted.
There’s a clear fix for that. Enforce the laws.
I mean, they do, to some extent. Not enough I guess? Here's an idea - how about you protect us from you.
Is there truth to the U.S. sending money to Ukraine -> Ukraine funding FTX -> FTX being 2nd largest donor to Democratic party in the U.S.?
Timeline:
- April 25, 2019: Biden announces his presidential campaign.
- 13 days later, Sam Bankman-Fried, son of Barbara Fried (co-founder of political fundraising organizations), launched FTX crypto exchange.
- The exchange is an overnight success. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBM) becomes biggest donor to Biden.
- Most of the FTX team is reported to have flown to Hong Kong now, so China, the CCP is their safe haven?
Timeline:
- April 25, 2019: Biden announces his presidential campaign.
- 13 days later, Sam Bankman-Fried, son of Barbara Fried (co-founder of political fundraising organizations), launched FTX crypto exchange.
- The exchange is an overnight success. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBM) becomes biggest donor to Biden.
- Most of the FTX team is reported to have flown to Hong Kong now, so China, the CCP is their safe haven?
Here is an actual source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ukrainian-government-launches...
Quote: “Aid For Ukraine shows how the global crypto community and the traditional financial system can work together,” said Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. “Crypto donations to the DAO are stored and governed on-chain, then transferred to FTX, a centralized exchange, to be sold for fiat USD sent via SWIFT to the Ukrainian government.”
So basically people in the US (not the US government) sent money to Ukraine using FTX as an exchange to fiat (lol). Seems the whole thing is more like a PR thing than anything else.
Quote: “Aid For Ukraine shows how the global crypto community and the traditional financial system can work together,” said Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko. “Crypto donations to the DAO are stored and governed on-chain, then transferred to FTX, a centralized exchange, to be sold for fiat USD sent via SWIFT to the Ukrainian government.”
So basically people in the US (not the US government) sent money to Ukraine using FTX as an exchange to fiat (lol). Seems the whole thing is more like a PR thing than anything else.
How can we know who sent it though? You can't state the truth as one way or another, at least not yet.
We certainly don't have any evidence for the extraordinary claim that the divided government is embezzling funds into cryptocurrency, and then convincing the entire government of a sovereign nation to embezzle them back to one political party.
You could say we don't have proof that Rishi Sunak isn't an alien from Alpha Centauri sent to Earth to eliminate donuts without holes, but you don't just make up extraordinary claims for no reason. It is logical to assume the simplest, boring thing is the truth unless you have evidence otherwise, a la Occam's razor.
You could say we don't have proof that Rishi Sunak isn't an alien from Alpha Centauri sent to Earth to eliminate donuts without holes, but you don't just make up extraordinary claims for no reason. It is logical to assume the simplest, boring thing is the truth unless you have evidence otherwise, a la Occam's razor.
U.S. sending money to Ukraine:
True
Ukraine funding FTX: Mostly false. This appears to be a confusion related to the fact that Ukraine launched a website accepting cryptocurrency donations that were processed via FTX [1]. However, as far as I can tell, there was no funding of FTX by Ukraine other than possibly FTX earning transaction fees for processing the donations.
FTX being 2nd largest donor to Democratic party in the U.S.: Semi-true. SBF was the 2nd largest donor, not FTX the company. [2]
[1] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/03/14/ukraine-partners-...
[2] https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-joe-bid...
Ukraine funding FTX: Mostly false. This appears to be a confusion related to the fact that Ukraine launched a website accepting cryptocurrency donations that were processed via FTX [1]. However, as far as I can tell, there was no funding of FTX by Ukraine other than possibly FTX earning transaction fees for processing the donations.
FTX being 2nd largest donor to Democratic party in the U.S.: Semi-true. SBF was the 2nd largest donor, not FTX the company. [2]
[1] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/03/14/ukraine-partners-...
[2] https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-joe-bid...
Also quite a lot sent to republicans from the CO-CEO: https://www.ft.com/content/428c7800-c72d-4c59-9940-4376fea6e...
https://sherman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congre....
> SBF was the 2nd largest donor, not FTX the company.
It doesn't really seem like much of a distinction, since Bankman Fried viewed FTX as his personal piggy bank. Regardless, the DNC will be fine. They're still popular with voters, regardless of what donors are doing. Donor money doesn't actually win elections, voters do.
It doesn't really seem like much of a distinction, since Bankman Fried viewed FTX as his personal piggy bank. Regardless, the DNC will be fine. They're still popular with voters, regardless of what donors are doing. Donor money doesn't actually win elections, voters do.
Ukraine purchased Javelin missiles and other US military equipment with its military aid: https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/25/what-you-nee...
Ukraine didn't contribute to FTX at all.
Ukraine didn't contribute to FTX at all.
From what I'm reading, Ukraine used FTX to facilitate donations to Ukraine. I'm waiting for more details on the claim that Ukraine actually directly funded FTX.
In other funding news- FTX did fund one of the studies that "debunked" Ivermectin as an effective covid treatment. There's definitely a strong political slant to this scandal.
I love that proving that a bunch of frauds who were promoting a drug that didn't work at all shows a "political slant". Funding studies to show which drugs treat (and don't treat) covid is unambiguously good and it's insane that it's considered political.
Edit: Great timing - DailyBeast literally just published a story exposing how the leader of one of those idiotic COVID misinformation groups spent her millions in ill-gotten gains: https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-misinformation-group-ame...
Edit: Great timing - DailyBeast literally just published a story exposing how the leader of one of those idiotic COVID misinformation groups spent her millions in ill-gotten gains: https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-misinformation-group-ame...
It is insane that it's political. But that's what you get when pharmaceutical companies both test their products on behalf of the regulatory agencies and spend money on politicians. And there are incentives to either not study repurposing existing drugs or even spending money on proving they shouldn't compete with your patented drugs.
Let's talk about Andrew Hill and how a grant from Bill Gates resulted in him changing course on his Ivermectin findings.
I've been seeing articles here on hn for years disparaging corruption within academic journals, but suddenly with COVID, every journal maintained impeccable ethics right?
Let's talk about Andrew Hill and how a grant from Bill Gates resulted in him changing course on his Ivermectin findings.
I've been seeing articles here on hn for years disparaging corruption within academic journals, but suddenly with COVID, every journal maintained impeccable ethics right?
There are plenty of studies and cohort analysis of Ivermectin studies that show it is highly effective with the right protocol; most of the Ivermectin studies showing it doesn't work aren't using proper doses, nor at the right time, nor for long enough period of time.
No there aren't. It doesn't work and most of the studies showing any effect were fraudulent. I can't believe there are still ivermectin dead-enders out there.
https://c19ivm.org/ - 83% average prophylaxis.
Which of the 93 studies do you have trouble with, what specifically in each of those studies, and how much does that change the numbers/conclusions such as 83% average prophylasxis rate?
Which of the 93 studies do you have trouble with, what specifically in each of those studies, and how much does that change the numbers/conclusions such as 83% average prophylasxis rate?
That is a load of lying horseshit.
I bet you believed that Pfizer studied for transmission of COVID-19 up until a week ago too, or maybe you haven't heard that news yet?
P.S. https://c19ivm.org/ - 83% average prophylaxis.
P.S. https://c19ivm.org/ - 83% average prophylaxis.
And where is it “effective”? Why, countries where internal parasites are a huge issue. Funny, that. It’s almost as if it isn’t a Covid treatment, but a parasitic infection treatment!
You bought into that narrative too eh?
You're correct that in Africa, in places where Ivermectin is regularly deployed due to parasites had much lower rates of COVID and death from COVID - but no, you're wrong - that's not where those 93 studies were conducted.
You're correct that in Africa, in places where Ivermectin is regularly deployed due to parasites had much lower rates of COVID and death from COVID - but no, you're wrong - that's not where those 93 studies were conducted.
And quite interesting that most of the FTX team/founders are reported to now be in Hong Kong - arguably knowing they have the protection of China?
Source?
Sorry, I looked through a lot of articles and I don't recall which one it was; they're reported to be both in the Bahamas and Hong Kong, the Bahamas authorities also having said a claim that SBF made about them directing him to do certain actions weren't true.
Certainly there will be a lot of noise to shuffle through over the next few days, weeks.
Certainly there will be a lot of noise to shuffle through over the next few days, weeks.
All while FTX had a Chief Regulatory Officer who was basically a career white-collar criminal. It beggars belief that anyone who dug half an inch into this story wouldn't have seen 90,000 watt flashing red warning signs.
Crypto turned into a haven for replaying every form of financial fraud ever invented on an epic speedrun against retail "investors", and a whole lot of powerful people and institutions have dirty hands. The idea all of this could be adequately explained by stupidity rather than malice strains credulity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/14/business/sam-bankman-frie...