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At this point you really can feel no sympathy towards anyone who gets suckered into these types of scams. Same thing with facebook scams or instagram/snapchat p

At this point you really can feel no sympathy towards anyone who gets suckered into these types of scams. Same thing with facebook scams or instagram/snapchat pyramid schemes. If you really are that nice word for lacking intelligence or any ability to think for yourself, then you deserve what you get in terms of financial loss or social backlash. There isn't even a target demographic for this, people from all over the board are falling victim. From old people with their retirement savings to young adults who spend their minimum wage paychecks on it, all in the hopes of getting a quick turnaround. That's not meant to come off as mean or condescending, you can only say to someone "It's okay, everyone makes mistakes" so many times before you stop feeling pity towards their poor decision making. A thing to note in my eyes is that different to social media scams, these ICO scams aren't even being that pushy in terms of advertising. When engaged with a pyramid scheme, people tend to be pretty aggressive in getting you to join. With these scam coins, people are willingly going up to them with little to no previous information and dumping their bucket of pennies in the well. EDIT: Getting down voted for being blunt. Sucks to lose rep because people don't like to hear the truth.

mkirklions 9y ago
Yep, as someone that has been around for years, I have no sympathy for alt-coiners. We told them to trust BTC only. We told them HODL applies to BTC only. We told them 99% of alt coins die. They decided not to listen.
- 908087 9y ago
  Is this post meant to be a joke? How are those people you guys were telling to buy in and "HODL" at ~$20k doing now?
  - orthecreedence 9y ago
    "Buy the dip!!!1"
  - aje403 9y ago
    Is this meant to be a joke? Just wait until “institutional” money starts flooding in and the government converts to bitcoin and all oppressed nations are freed and then we will see who is laughing.
    - spurcell93 9y ago
      I presume this is sarcasm, and if so, jolly good, but if not, god save us all
      - aje403 9y ago
        I’m trying to figure out if either everyone is autistic on this site or if I’m horrible at sarcasm. It could equally be either
        908087 9y ago
        I think the problem is that the Bitcoin "community" regularly says increasingly ridiculous/idiotic things without a hint of sarcasm involved, which makes it hard to be ridiculous enough to show that you're being sarcastic. It's hard to do the limbo when the bar has already been dropped below ground level.
        s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Poe's Law. There are legit coin "truthers" out there who would say that without a hint of irony.
    - Casseres 9y ago
      It is impossible for every All Time High to be surpassed. Also, supposedly "institutional" money has already been entering via OTC trades.
HIPisTheAnswer 9y ago
You didn't read it all; this was also a pyramid scheme, only it had a token associated with it.
halflings 9y ago
This would be true if it was the same person falling for these ICOs each time... But we're talking about people that haven't seen dozens of scammy ICOs, or even ever heard of pyramid schemes (from other than... pyramid schemes, like Amway does to discredit their critics). I still feel sympathy for people in this situation. I have met a couple that joined Amway (actually even invited me to one of their "seminars"), and tried very hard to show them how this did not make any economic sense, was a waste of their money and time (that could have been spent building an actual business), and that they were using manipulative techniques to lure people in... to no avail. Brainwashing is hard to counter.
hmahncke 9y ago
Actually, normal people do deserve protection from financial scams; and they don't deserve what they get just because they are not as sophisticated as a HN reader.
- Thriptic 9y ago
  I don't think it takes a particularly high amount or sophistication to google "ico", see that most of them are scams, and stay away. People shouldn't invest in things they don't understand.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    For many people, greed, or just having no financial luck in life and being desperate for a way out, are both powerful forces that can pretty much turn off any rational thought.
  - BinaryIdiot 9y ago
    You'd think so but literally no one in my family was able to do this. You're coming from a place of higher-than-average technical knowledge. Many who do not, especially folks who never learned how to think critically, have no idea how to verify a claim or to verify that something is what it says it is. Many, in fact, take what is said on TV as the "correct" thing and rely on that to help steer their knowledge. People just see everyone getting stupid rich around them on TV by investing in "crypto" so they obviously would like to do the same thing. But crypto is hard. Even the hard core crypto fans have many blind spots.
  - ll931110 9y ago
    There are a lot of assumptions in this statement. 1. You assume those people are proficient in English. 2. You assume those people can operate a smartphone or a computer, let alone go search for news. 3. You assume they will immediately discard scammy stories as fake. True story: yesterday, a relative of mine sent me a story about keeping her Facebook's account free by sending a certain SMS to 10 other people in her contact book. It took me 5 minutes to explain to her this was obviously a scam, and yet she wasn't totally convinced, because by her words "a lot of her friends sent her the same SMS". 4. You assume people have financial knowledge about investment or basic understanding of risk and return. Remember, in Vietnam there's no concept of 401k or IRA, and most people never invest before. 5. You assume people have college degree. In fact, many victims didn't finish high school or even middle school. Despite all the news, a large population of Vietnam still lacks college education.
Sangermaine 9y ago
>EDIT: Getting down voted for being blunt. Sucks to lose rep because people don't like to hear the truth. Because it's not the truth, it's just you being a jerk. It's not one person being scammed over and over. It's people reading about the stupid rates of return we've seen on cryptocurrencies over the last few years, reading about some 19 year old who's now a millionaire overnight, and thinking this might be their way to financial security when they might not have many options. Considering how these technologies are sold, in almost religious terms, as the inevitable financial future (especially by a certain hacker-themed website) and the people involved are touted as super geniuses, it's not hard to see how people who don't really understand them get pulled in. I recall a few weeks ago being in a diner and overhearing a conversation between old men where one asks the other if they've heard of Bitcoin and then explaining how he's heard how much money people make off of it. I guess I could point and laugh at them but it's really more sad than anything that people are being sucked into this bubble of hype.
- ghaff 9y ago
  And I had a Lyft driver all interested in bitcoin a couple of months ago. It's easy to laugh at people and call them stupid and greedy especially in retrospect when bitcoin crashes, the ICO scams, or the dot-com stock bombs. But plenty of people have also made out big with those things (maybe not ICOs--except for the scammers) and, as you say, I'm sure it's very tempting for people without a great financial future on the horizon to look at all that money and wonder if they can't maybe grab some of it.
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
> Getting down voted for being blunt. Sucks to lose rep because people don't like to hear the truth I think you're getting downvoted for dehumanizing the people affected by scams. Crypto scams are not the only scams in town. There are tons of them of varying from legal to illegal (MLM, Nigerian Price, etc). Do you not care for the victims of _any_ scams or just specifically for crypto scams? The common thing in any scam is that there is a victim. Not everyone knows better. In fact, you hear on the news constantly about how bitcoin is huge or some new crypto currency is taking off and people who know absolutely nothing about it want to figure out a way to get into it, not having any idea they are getting scammed. I've had non-techie friends ask me "how do I do this crypto thing? everyone is getting rich from it!". Having a high and mighty attitude of "you're stupid therefore you deserved it" doesn't progress anything and just shits on the victims. Instead, let's try to figure out ways to create _less_ victims.

mkirklions 9y ago

Yep, as someone that has been around for years, I have no sympathy for alt-coiners. We told them to trust BTC only. We told them HODL applies to BTC only. We told them 99% of alt coins die. They decided not to listen.

908087 9y ago
Is this post meant to be a joke? How are those people you guys were telling to buy in and "HODL" at ~$20k doing now?
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  "Buy the dip!!!1"
- aje403 9y ago
  Is this meant to be a joke? Just wait until “institutional” money starts flooding in and the government converts to bitcoin and all oppressed nations are freed and then we will see who is laughing.
  - spurcell93 9y ago
    I presume this is sarcasm, and if so, jolly good, but if not, god save us all
    - aje403 9y ago
      I’m trying to figure out if either everyone is autistic on this site or if I’m horrible at sarcasm. It could equally be either
      - 908087 9y ago
        I think the problem is that the Bitcoin "community" regularly says increasingly ridiculous/idiotic things without a hint of sarcasm involved, which makes it hard to be ridiculous enough to show that you're being sarcastic. It's hard to do the limbo when the bar has already been dropped below ground level.
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        Poe's Law. There are legit coin "truthers" out there who would say that without a hint of irony.
  - Casseres 9y ago
    It is impossible for every All Time High to be surpassed. Also, supposedly "institutional" money has already been entering via OTC trades.

HIPisTheAnswer 9y ago

You didn't read it all; this was also a pyramid scheme, only it had a token associated with it.

halflings 9y ago

This would be true if it was the same person falling for these ICOs each time... But we're talking about people that haven't seen dozens of scammy ICOs, or even ever heard of pyramid schemes (from other than... pyramid schemes, like Amway does to discredit their critics). I still feel sympathy for people in this situation. I have met a couple that joined Amway (actually even invited me to one of their "seminars"), and tried very hard to show them how this did not make any economic sense, was a waste of their money and time (that could have been spent building an actual business), and that they were using manipulative techniques to lure people in... to no avail. Brainwashing is hard to counter.

hmahncke 9y ago

Actually, normal people do deserve protection from financial scams; and they don't deserve what they get just because they are not as sophisticated as a HN reader.

Thriptic 9y ago
I don't think it takes a particularly high amount or sophistication to google "ico", see that most of them are scams, and stay away. People shouldn't invest in things they don't understand.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  For many people, greed, or just having no financial luck in life and being desperate for a way out, are both powerful forces that can pretty much turn off any rational thought.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
  You'd think so but literally no one in my family was able to do this. You're coming from a place of higher-than-average technical knowledge. Many who do not, especially folks who never learned how to think critically, have no idea how to verify a claim or to verify that something is what it says it is. Many, in fact, take what is said on TV as the "correct" thing and rely on that to help steer their knowledge. People just see everyone getting stupid rich around them on TV by investing in "crypto" so they obviously would like to do the same thing. But crypto is hard. Even the hard core crypto fans have many blind spots.
- ll931110 9y ago
  There are a lot of assumptions in this statement. 1. You assume those people are proficient in English. 2. You assume those people can operate a smartphone or a computer, let alone go search for news. 3. You assume they will immediately discard scammy stories as fake. True story: yesterday, a relative of mine sent me a story about keeping her Facebook's account free by sending a certain SMS to 10 other people in her contact book. It took me 5 minutes to explain to her this was obviously a scam, and yet she wasn't totally convinced, because by her words "a lot of her friends sent her the same SMS". 4. You assume people have financial knowledge about investment or basic understanding of risk and return. Remember, in Vietnam there's no concept of 401k or IRA, and most people never invest before. 5. You assume people have college degree. In fact, many victims didn't finish high school or even middle school. Despite all the news, a large population of Vietnam still lacks college education.

Sangermaine 9y ago

>EDIT: Getting down voted for being blunt. Sucks to lose rep because people don't like to hear the truth. Because it's not the truth, it's just you being a jerk. It's not one person being scammed over and over. It's people reading about the stupid rates of return we've seen on cryptocurrencies over the last few years, reading about some 19 year old who's now a millionaire overnight, and thinking this might be their way to financial security when they might not have many options. Considering how these technologies are sold, in almost religious terms, as the inevitable financial future (especially by a certain hacker-themed website) and the people involved are touted as super geniuses, it's not hard to see how people who don't really understand them get pulled in. I recall a few weeks ago being in a diner and overhearing a conversation between old men where one asks the other if they've heard of Bitcoin and then explaining how he's heard how much money people make off of it. I guess I could point and laugh at them but it's really more sad than anything that people are being sucked into this bubble of hype.

ghaff 9y ago
And I had a Lyft driver all interested in bitcoin a couple of months ago. It's easy to laugh at people and call them stupid and greedy especially in retrospect when bitcoin crashes, the ICO scams, or the dot-com stock bombs. But plenty of people have also made out big with those things (maybe not ICOs--except for the scammers) and, as you say, I'm sure it's very tempting for people without a great financial future on the horizon to look at all that money and wonder if they can't maybe grab some of it.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago

> Getting down voted for being blunt. Sucks to lose rep because people don't like to hear the truth I think you're getting downvoted for dehumanizing the people affected by scams. Crypto scams are not the only scams in town. There are tons of them of varying from legal to illegal (MLM, Nigerian Price, etc). Do you not care for the victims of _any_ scams or just specifically for crypto scams? The common thing in any scam is that there is a victim. Not everyone knows better. In fact, you hear on the news constantly about how bitcoin is huge or some new crypto currency is taking off and people who know absolutely nothing about it want to figure out a way to get into it, not having any idea they are getting scammed. I've had non-techie friends ask me "how do I do this crypto thing? everyone is getting rich from it!". Having a high and mighty attitude of "you're stupid therefore you deserved it" doesn't progress anything and just shits on the victims. Instead, let's try to figure out ways to create _less_ victims.