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Is somebody who spends their money buying a bunch of lottery tickets an investor? I don't think this can be called investing, and I don't think the folks who g

by watt 5y ago

Is somebody who spends their money buying a bunch of lottery tickets an investor? I don't think this can be called investing, and I don't think the folks who got taken for a ride here deserve to be called "investors".

spcebar 5y ago
I'm sure there are some people who think of their lottery habit as an investment, as are there people who think they can play crypto in the same way people play the stock market.
rockbruno 5y ago
Here waiting for the usual fella to reply to you with the "but NASDAQ is also a lottery!!" argument. I agree with you, anyone who chooses to "invest" in crypto deserves to lose everything. Especially if you're putting money into a literal meme...
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  And at least Dogecoin is a sarcastic meme... which makes it more legitimate than Ether? Maybe?
  - uuddlrlr 5y ago
    Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    Ether is not a meme.. It pioneered a Turing Complete execution environment on a distributed public blockchain, which massively expanded the utility of the blockchain.
    - hhh 5y ago
      > which massively expanded the utility of the blockchain. I have little to no crypto experience or knowledge. In what way does this expand the utility of the chain, and what problems does this allow to be solved? What are the pros/cons of using this over something else?
      - jrm4 5y ago
        A way to look at it: "Blockchains" are just large distributed immutable databases, Bitcoin being the first working proof of concept to be a "public ledger," -- but pretty much only for "money." Ethereum (really, the ERC-20 ethereum blockchain) is designed to not just be a "money" database, but a "general purpose" database. So you could theoretically build anything on it. One major use is "other coins," but you can do e.g. lotteries, NFTs, other forms of finance, game tokens -- anything where a publicly viewable/auditable database may be of some use. And also, like other programming things, lots of footguns. :)
      - sjtindell 5y ago
        Rather than just storing a ledger of transactions in a decentralized manner (already a huge innovation), Ethereum allowed the execution of arbitrary code by the distributed system. Smart contracts can be thought of for the uninitiated like event-based lambdas that are immutable, publicly visible, and you don’t have to pay for the compute or storage (the user does via fees per usage). One cool use case for this is a decentralized exchange - an exchange wherein no centralized party controls the prices or flows. Another is flash loans.
    - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
      'massively expanded the scope for scams, fraud and other tokenized nonsense'. :-) Say what you like about dogecoin and the early code-fork clones of early coins (BTC, LTC), at least they required some technical ability and maintenance of their respective blockchains (mining, nodes, etc). Ethereum enables ponzis on the scale never thought possible. We are in scam times now where any idiot can clone an ERC20 contract and scam a million people (SHIB token has ~888k holders right now). It is still and will forever remain useless.
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        There is far more than speculative memecoins on Ethereum. There are prediction markets, m-of-n digital wallets used by globe-spanning internet communities to manage their treasuries, decentralized social networks, hyper-scalable SNARK/STARK based validation of layer 2 state transitions, and decentralized markets for: permissionless/borderless trading and borrowing/lending of digital assets, buying and selling computing power, buying and selling bandwidth, hiring freelancers, and issuing and trading digital game assets. Beyond that, DeFi opens up new possibilities like tapping the liquidity in your digital art via a self executing loan that uses the art as the collateral. The extreme reliability of the Ethereum protocol allows massive amounts of value belonging to a huge set of mutually distrusting parties to be committed to self-executing programmatic contracts that, barring the managable risk of software design error, are guaranteed to execute as intended. This provides enormous value by reducing the overhead added by non-reliability of and bureaucratic limitations on contracts.
      - rvz 5y ago
        > Ethereum enables ponzis on the scale never thought possible. 100% Correct. There are more 'ERC 20 tokens' than 'coins' like BTC or LTC these days. Now any Jim, Jane and Joe can mint their own tokens using cointool [0]. Seems like ETH is the main facilitator of these scams. First it started with ICOs (Introduced by Ethereum), then it was the ERC-20 tokens (which influenced everyone else to do), then the first DAO which failed after a hack and created a Ethereum hard fork and now they have done NFTs. Ethereum has scaled up creating new classes of scams and ponzis whilst generating massive fees for every. single. operation. [0] https://cointool.app/dashboard https://cointool.app/dashboard
  - JCharante 5y ago
    Dogecoin had use when you could tip people on Reddit for good comments. It would had more use for me if I hadn't lost track of my wallet file after high school.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Crypto in general is extremely speculative, but no one knows if it will prove to be a success or failure, so claiming any one investing in any crypto "deserves to lose everything" is unjustified by the facts.
  - pcwalton 5y ago
    Nobody knows for certain whether cryptocurrency will succeed in the same sense that nobody knows for certain whether the US government will spontaneously collapse at 11:00 AM tomorrow, but people can make educated guesses and invest accordingly. Events like the one described in the article are very good data points.
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      It isn't even in the same universe of ballparks as that. The unknowns surrounding crypto, including the number of potential scenarios that a reasonable person would judge to be plausible, and that would lead to crypto succeeding, are vastly larger than the number of plausible scenarios that would lead to the hypothetical outcome you compare it to.
theogravity 5y ago
I call it speculation and gambling.
pcwalton 5y ago
The word you're looking for is speculation.
nodesocket 5y ago
Agree, but can’t we also put pressure and blame on these criminals (not US based) who scam people, because they think they are so clever and good with technology?
- nradov 5y ago
  Nah. I hope the foreign criminals keep it up. Free entertainment for the rest of us.
LiquidSky 5y ago
At this point crypto is just scammers scamming scammers. Everyone involved believes everyone else is a mark they're taking advantage of.
dralley 5y ago
This scam was basically as subtle as "ponzicoin". It could not have been more obvious. https://techweez.com/2018/01/26/ponzicoin-crypto-scheme/ https://techweez.com/2018/01/26/ponzicoin-crypto-scheme/ What we need is Matt Levine's "Certificate of Dumb Investment". > I have written before about my own fantasy for consumer securities regulation, which would solve all of these problems but which would probably face some political hurdles in getting enacted. It goes roughly like this: >> Anyone can invest all they want in a diversified portfolio of approved investments (non-penny-stock public companies, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds with modest fees, insured bank accounts, etc.). >> Anyone can also invest in any other dumb investment; you just have to go to the local office of the SEC and get a Certificate of Dumb Investment. (Anyone who sells dumb non-approved investments without requiring this certificate from buyers goes to prison.) >> To get that certificate, you sign a form. The form is one page with a lot of white space. It says in very large letters: “I want to buy a dumb investment. I understand that the person selling it will almost certainly steal all my money, and that I would almost certainly be better off just buying index funds, but I want to do this dumb thing anyway. I agree that I will never, under any circumstances, complain to anyone when this investment inevitably goes wrong. I understand that violating this agreement is a felony.” >> Then you take the form to an SEC employee, who slaps you hard across the face and says “really???” And if you reply “yes really” then she gives you the certificate. >> Then you bring the certificate to the seller and you can buy whatever dumb thing he is selling. >> If an article ever appears in the Wall Street Journal in which you (or your lawyer) are quoted saying that you were just a simple dentist, didn’t understand what you were buying and were swindled by the seller’s flashy sales pitch, then you go to prison. > I am open to compromise on the details. The point is that the right general approach to the problem of people buying dumb investments is to give them much, much, much clearer and starker and scarier warnings before they invest, and then much, much, much less sympathy if they do it anyway. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-24/earning-the-right-to-get-swindled https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-24/earnin...
- klyrs 5y ago
  Holy crap. Sometimes, I look wistfully at the apparent ease with which people can make their millions as absolute frauds. (Take that, impostor syndrome, you'd be winning if you were a real impostor.) In the case of PonziCoin... fuck... everybody participating had eyes wide open. It doesn't even 'feel' wrong. But I still don't think I could live with myself.

by watt 5y ago

spcebar 5y ago

I'm sure there are some people who think of their lottery habit as an investment, as are there people who think they can play crypto in the same way people play the stock market.

rockbruno 5y ago

Here waiting for the usual fella to reply to you with the "but NASDAQ is also a lottery!!" argument. I agree with you, anyone who chooses to "invest" in crypto deserves to lose everything. Especially if you're putting money into a literal meme...

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
And at least Dogecoin is a sarcastic meme... which makes it more legitimate than Ether? Maybe?
- uuddlrlr 5y ago
  Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Ether is not a meme.. It pioneered a Turing Complete execution environment on a distributed public blockchain, which massively expanded the utility of the blockchain.
  - hhh 5y ago
    > which massively expanded the utility of the blockchain. I have little to no crypto experience or knowledge. In what way does this expand the utility of the chain, and what problems does this allow to be solved? What are the pros/cons of using this over something else?
    - jrm4 5y ago
      A way to look at it: "Blockchains" are just large distributed immutable databases, Bitcoin being the first working proof of concept to be a "public ledger," -- but pretty much only for "money." Ethereum (really, the ERC-20 ethereum blockchain) is designed to not just be a "money" database, but a "general purpose" database. So you could theoretically build anything on it. One major use is "other coins," but you can do e.g. lotteries, NFTs, other forms of finance, game tokens -- anything where a publicly viewable/auditable database may be of some use. And also, like other programming things, lots of footguns. :)
    - sjtindell 5y ago
      Rather than just storing a ledger of transactions in a decentralized manner (already a huge innovation), Ethereum allowed the execution of arbitrary code by the distributed system. Smart contracts can be thought of for the uninitiated like event-based lambdas that are immutable, publicly visible, and you don’t have to pay for the compute or storage (the user does via fees per usage). One cool use case for this is a decentralized exchange - an exchange wherein no centralized party controls the prices or flows. Another is flash loans.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    'massively expanded the scope for scams, fraud and other tokenized nonsense'. :-) Say what you like about dogecoin and the early code-fork clones of early coins (BTC, LTC), at least they required some technical ability and maintenance of their respective blockchains (mining, nodes, etc). Ethereum enables ponzis on the scale never thought possible. We are in scam times now where any idiot can clone an ERC20 contract and scam a million people (SHIB token has ~888k holders right now). It is still and will forever remain useless.
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      There is far more than speculative memecoins on Ethereum. There are prediction markets, m-of-n digital wallets used by globe-spanning internet communities to manage their treasuries, decentralized social networks, hyper-scalable SNARK/STARK based validation of layer 2 state transitions, and decentralized markets for: permissionless/borderless trading and borrowing/lending of digital assets, buying and selling computing power, buying and selling bandwidth, hiring freelancers, and issuing and trading digital game assets. Beyond that, DeFi opens up new possibilities like tapping the liquidity in your digital art via a self executing loan that uses the art as the collateral. The extreme reliability of the Ethereum protocol allows massive amounts of value belonging to a huge set of mutually distrusting parties to be committed to self-executing programmatic contracts that, barring the managable risk of software design error, are guaranteed to execute as intended. This provides enormous value by reducing the overhead added by non-reliability of and bureaucratic limitations on contracts.
    - rvz 5y ago
      > Ethereum enables ponzis on the scale never thought possible. 100% Correct. There are more 'ERC 20 tokens' than 'coins' like BTC or LTC these days. Now any Jim, Jane and Joe can mint their own tokens using cointool [0]. Seems like ETH is the main facilitator of these scams. First it started with ICOs (Introduced by Ethereum), then it was the ERC-20 tokens (which influenced everyone else to do), then the first DAO which failed after a hack and created a Ethereum hard fork and now they have done NFTs. Ethereum has scaled up creating new classes of scams and ponzis whilst generating massive fees for every. single. operation. [0] https://cointool.app/dashboard https://cointool.app/dashboard
- JCharante 5y ago
  Dogecoin had use when you could tip people on Reddit for good comments. It would had more use for me if I hadn't lost track of my wallet file after high school.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
Crypto in general is extremely speculative, but no one knows if it will prove to be a success or failure, so claiming any one investing in any crypto "deserves to lose everything" is unjustified by the facts.
- pcwalton 5y ago
  Nobody knows for certain whether cryptocurrency will succeed in the same sense that nobody knows for certain whether the US government will spontaneously collapse at 11:00 AM tomorrow, but people can make educated guesses and invest accordingly. Events like the one described in the article are very good data points.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    It isn't even in the same universe of ballparks as that. The unknowns surrounding crypto, including the number of potential scenarios that a reasonable person would judge to be plausible, and that would lead to crypto succeeding, are vastly larger than the number of plausible scenarios that would lead to the hypothetical outcome you compare it to.

theogravity 5y ago

I call it speculation and gambling.

pcwalton 5y ago

The word you're looking for is speculation.

nodesocket 5y ago

Agree, but can’t we also put pressure and blame on these criminals (not US based) who scam people, because they think they are so clever and good with technology?

nradov 5y ago
Nah. I hope the foreign criminals keep it up. Free entertainment for the rest of us.

LiquidSky 5y ago

At this point crypto is just scammers scamming scammers. Everyone involved believes everyone else is a mark they're taking advantage of.

dralley 5y ago

This scam was basically as subtle as "ponzicoin". It could not have been more obvious. https://techweez.com/2018/01/26/ponzicoin-crypto-scheme/ https://techweez.com/2018/01/26/ponzicoin-crypto-scheme/ What we need is Matt Levine's "Certificate of Dumb Investment". > I have written before about my own fantasy for consumer securities regulation, which would solve all of these problems but which would probably face some political hurdles in getting enacted. It goes roughly like this: >> Anyone can invest all they want in a diversified portfolio of approved investments (non-penny-stock public companies, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds with modest fees, insured bank accounts, etc.). >> Anyone can also invest in any other dumb investment; you just have to go to the local office of the SEC and get a Certificate of Dumb Investment. (Anyone who sells dumb non-approved investments without requiring this certificate from buyers goes to prison.) >> To get that certificate, you sign a form. The form is one page with a lot of white space. It says in very large letters: “I want to buy a dumb investment. I understand that the person selling it will almost certainly steal all my money, and that I would almost certainly be better off just buying index funds, but I want to do this dumb thing anyway. I agree that I will never, under any circumstances, complain to anyone when this investment inevitably goes wrong. I understand that violating this agreement is a felony.” >> Then you take the form to an SEC employee, who slaps you hard across the face and says “really???” And if you reply “yes really” then she gives you the certificate. >> Then you bring the certificate to the seller and you can buy whatever dumb thing he is selling. >> If an article ever appears in the Wall Street Journal in which you (or your lawyer) are quoted saying that you were just a simple dentist, didn’t understand what you were buying and were swindled by the seller’s flashy sales pitch, then you go to prison. > I am open to compromise on the details. The point is that the right general approach to the problem of people buying dumb investments is to give them much, much, much clearer and starker and scarier warnings before they invest, and then much, much, much less sympathy if they do it anyway. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-24/earning-the-right-to-get-swindled https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-24/earnin...

klyrs 5y ago
Holy crap. Sometimes, I look wistfully at the apparent ease with which people can make their millions as absolute frauds. (Take that, impostor syndrome, you'd be winning if you were a real impostor.) In the case of PonziCoin... fuck... everybody participating had eyes wide open. It doesn't even 'feel' wrong. But I still don't think I could live with myself.