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I think one thing many people are missing is how much of this space is children, by now. While the past decade has been about adults risking their fiat capital

I think one thing many people are missing is how much of this space is children, by now. While the past decade has been about adults risking their fiat capital, children are forced to only earn crypto onchain, as they cannot get the bank account or money without bothering their parents. It is less wise to bother their parents. People like you and I who will proselytize about crypto or any particular crypto investment, while also having incentive to assume custody over the money and benefit from it instead. Whereas in the crypto space natively they can earn and trade and acquire goods and services. Something harder for adults to even notice is possible since the fiat system serves us well enough, so it is an easier frame of reference to only think about crypto as “earn dollars, buy crypto, have more or less dollars later” compared to “earn crypto, trade crypto to have more crypto”. There is no way to quantify it, but if you lead with this assumption you will find it. I know children that have a few hundred $ in their joint bank account but $100k in crypto onchain and just waiting till they turn 18 so they can cash out without telling their parents. As the things they invest in also grow 100x, this is a formidable force of capital, that would represent a cognitive distortion in the markets. So it is no longer just passionate adults that simply never traded before, its teenagers and possibly even Generation Alpha at this point. A lot of things make a lot more sense with this assumption. Use that information however you please.

Mentlo 5y ago
I just re-read everything about this particular event through this lens and it is absolutely horrifying how much it fits. It reads as if kids are using crypto in a similar way they would if they were to play a game, with the difference being that through this game they can cash out eventually.
- vmception 5y ago
  Right yes, they can accumulate like a game often times by playing games, but just as easily by moonlighting as a community moderator or launching their own projects. many do like the financials sector and use the defi space. If its any consolation, I don't think this knowledge is known enough yet for unscrupulous marketers to be specifically target children and their money, as opposed to merely selective evolution of which goofy projects attract an audience at all. But yeah this will increasingly be something to watch for and assume, also remember that it will be other children marketing to each other more and more, in comparison to adults taking advantage (which will also happen). Not that there will be any way to tell who is taking advantage of who.
csmpltn 5y ago
> "children are forced to only earn crypto onchain" What use do children have for cryptocurrencies? Buying items in World of Warcraft? > "I know children that have a few hundred $ in their joint bank account but $100k in crypto onchain and just waiting till they turn 18 so they can cash out without telling their parents." This entire post reads like some weird crypto-bro FOMO propaganda. To "cash out" they'll need a bank account which will accept their shady funds, and they'll have to prove they paid their taxes for it like everybody else. Until then, they can't do anything with it.
- vmception 5y ago
  > This entire post reads like some weird crypto-bro FOMO propaganda. Its intended to be devoid of opinion to the extent possible which is probably why you don't recognize it. Your thoughts on what they can do are incorrect. The only thing a child still cannot do is enter into a real world contract and have it be enforceable. But in environments that require zero, or less, or different kinds of non-contractually enforced trust, with a crypto balance sheet the children can acquire goods, services and investments, they can access capital, they can pool investments and share proceeds, they can hire and fire other real world humans, they can acquire real world assets where merchants accept crypto or use a payment processor that does. And this is what some or many are doing, the path of least resistance and beyond the wildest aspirations that any multinational trade deal could ever achieve. So I’m not sure what standard you can really rely on here aside from being unaware. If you weren't aware of a crypto centric form of wealth, where the fiat dollars are the novelty to be temporarily held, then you’re a decade behind. The only thing new here (circa the last 2-3 years) is that its much easier for the children to earn the initial crypto, given how robust that economy is. They’ll cash out when they are 18 if they need to. No different than people only taking money out of their stock and bond holdings for large purchases. Except its a hybrid where they earned the investments directly instead of having to initially purchase them.
  - csmpltn 5y ago
    I'm asking for specific and concrete examples that would demonstrate what use do children have for cryptocurrencies - and you respond by using the same vague promises of a revolutionary technology intermixed with keywords from investment and financial jargons, sprinkled with a bit of FOMO propaganda on-top. Kids could buy and trade items in World of Warcraft or Club Penguin for 20 years now. They collected and traded marbles, then Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Music albums and candy. Kids will always find a "currency" to play with, depending on what's trendy and hip right now.
015a 5y ago
One of the more wild things I learned in the past year came from a reasonable explanation for something I have observed for years: why is Venmo vs Cash App so radically split among racial lines? Because, to some order of approximation, they are, and I would bet many people reading this comment can reconcile this with their own experiences. The explanation as it was described to me (though I have a difficult time verifying its accuracy): Cash App was very early on the "all-in-one banking" experience, whereas Venmo spent years as a value-addition to a bank (account/routing number) you already had. Socioeconomically disenfranchised portions of the population, which statistically bias toward Black Americans, gravitated toward Cash App because they didn't otherwise have bank accounts. Then, network effects kick in, as they always do. Again, I'm not 100% sure on the veracity of those claims, but it makes sense; and it mirrors a similar trend across age groups. Older people use Zelle (a fully bank-sponsored product). Millennials (of any race), being the middle child, split the difference, and oftentimes have Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, and some Crypto. But all of these "official" apps still have age restrictions, and as they've matured have been forced into more customer risk mitigation, which primarily serves to do the same thing the banking system has statistically done to the black american population for decades; limit access to financial services (even if its for what we old people would call a "totally valid reason" like "dude you're 12", its still limiting access to financial services). Capital moves mountains. The crypto markets, in aggregate, represent an absolutely massive amount of capital. Its biased young. Its very difficult to legally liquidate into the traditional financial system; but within the crypto ecosystem, its more liquid than any financial instrument ever invented by mankind. It attracts scams (like any financial product does); it attracts idiots (through virtue of being able to serve: anyone); but even among projects like this one, their idiotic understanding of how their actions could integrate with the traditional system of laws is counterbalanced with rather intelligent understanding of distributed financial systems, corporate governance, data structures, algorithms, and most of all, an undeniable love for a piece of cultural history. Anytime anyone bashes crypto; the reasons may be legitimate; Check your age. You sound a lot like my parents wondering why my Chase account doesn't appear in their Chase home page, so they can send me money every Christmas by just clicking "transfer money". Your criticism may be totally valid and legitimate: but irrelevant. That's the curse of getting older; inescapable, undeniable, and one day you just don't matter anymore. This world isn't your's; it belongs to our Children.
crypto_king_69 5y ago
You are more right than wrong there... I know under 18 year olds behind a pseudo name running large capital and lending pools in crypto. All it takes is writing smart contracts and deploying them. Voila, you can run your own automated lending or exchange pool. Flash loans are something I have seen 13 year old kiddos experiment with using crypto. It's unbelievable until you see it. Code written by a 13 year old managing billions of capital in crypto. Many are even public and probbed up by VCs like founder of rari capital and many startups connected to them. I think this is getting even truer for real world stock market. Kids are increasingly investing using custodial accounts. https://www.joinbloom.co/ https://www.joinbloom.co/ - teen stock investing funded by YC. There are many of these popping up
ryan_lane 5y ago
A lot of claims being made here without any actual proof. You need a bank account to buy cryptocurrencies. You also need fiat money to buy it. In the US at least, you need to be KYC'd to buy it from an exchange with fiat. It's really tiring hearing propaganda like this, that easily falls apart under even a little bit of scrutiny. Like "banking the unbanked", it's lies being told that try to sell people on how cryptocurrency is enriching people who'd otherwise be poor, and opening opportunities to people who otherwise would not have them, but it's nothing more than preying on people's greed and FOMO, to pull in more suckers to fleece.
- vmception 5y ago
  Earning cryptocurrency does not require a bank account or KYC. Read that again until you understand it and tell me why you don't understand that. The whole post distinguished the difference between buying versus earning. If you dont get that yet, you’re in the wrong place.
  - ryan_lane 5y ago
    This place is about critical thinking, and skepticism, especially around wild and unlikely claims, is part of that. The point is that this story is almost certainly a fabrication, especially since it has wild claims of teenagers making small fortunes. There's no evidence such a situation has happened, and it's extremely unlikely that it's common enough to be a thing we need to be concerned with.
    - vmception 5y ago
      What evidence would satisfy you? How common does it need to be to matter? Several thousand teenagers with six or seven figures of liquid crypto assets is still over a billion dollars deciding if a new product or service gets off the ground. Why do you think you need to be concerned?
      - ryan_lane 5y ago
        Where is the evidence for these teenagers? I mean, there's no evidence at all from what I can tell, except for the op saying it's "a real thing I totally didn't make up to give you FOMO".

Mentlo 5y ago

I just re-read everything about this particular event through this lens and it is absolutely horrifying how much it fits. It reads as if kids are using crypto in a similar way they would if they were to play a game, with the difference being that through this game they can cash out eventually.

vmception 5y ago
Right yes, they can accumulate like a game often times by playing games, but just as easily by moonlighting as a community moderator or launching their own projects. many do like the financials sector and use the defi space. If its any consolation, I don't think this knowledge is known enough yet for unscrupulous marketers to be specifically target children and their money, as opposed to merely selective evolution of which goofy projects attract an audience at all. But yeah this will increasingly be something to watch for and assume, also remember that it will be other children marketing to each other more and more, in comparison to adults taking advantage (which will also happen). Not that there will be any way to tell who is taking advantage of who.

csmpltn 5y ago

> "children are forced to only earn crypto onchain" What use do children have for cryptocurrencies? Buying items in World of Warcraft? > "I know children that have a few hundred $ in their joint bank account but $100k in crypto onchain and just waiting till they turn 18 so they can cash out without telling their parents." This entire post reads like some weird crypto-bro FOMO propaganda. To "cash out" they'll need a bank account which will accept their shady funds, and they'll have to prove they paid their taxes for it like everybody else. Until then, they can't do anything with it.

vmception 5y ago
> This entire post reads like some weird crypto-bro FOMO propaganda. Its intended to be devoid of opinion to the extent possible which is probably why you don't recognize it. Your thoughts on what they can do are incorrect. The only thing a child still cannot do is enter into a real world contract and have it be enforceable. But in environments that require zero, or less, or different kinds of non-contractually enforced trust, with a crypto balance sheet the children can acquire goods, services and investments, they can access capital, they can pool investments and share proceeds, they can hire and fire other real world humans, they can acquire real world assets where merchants accept crypto or use a payment processor that does. And this is what some or many are doing, the path of least resistance and beyond the wildest aspirations that any multinational trade deal could ever achieve. So I’m not sure what standard you can really rely on here aside from being unaware. If you weren't aware of a crypto centric form of wealth, where the fiat dollars are the novelty to be temporarily held, then you’re a decade behind. The only thing new here (circa the last 2-3 years) is that its much easier for the children to earn the initial crypto, given how robust that economy is. They’ll cash out when they are 18 if they need to. No different than people only taking money out of their stock and bond holdings for large purchases. Except its a hybrid where they earned the investments directly instead of having to initially purchase them.
- csmpltn 5y ago
  I'm asking for specific and concrete examples that would demonstrate what use do children have for cryptocurrencies - and you respond by using the same vague promises of a revolutionary technology intermixed with keywords from investment and financial jargons, sprinkled with a bit of FOMO propaganda on-top. Kids could buy and trade items in World of Warcraft or Club Penguin for 20 years now. They collected and traded marbles, then Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. Music albums and candy. Kids will always find a "currency" to play with, depending on what's trendy and hip right now.

015a 5y ago

One of the more wild things I learned in the past year came from a reasonable explanation for something I have observed for years: why is Venmo vs Cash App so radically split among racial lines? Because, to some order of approximation, they are, and I would bet many people reading this comment can reconcile this with their own experiences. The explanation as it was described to me (though I have a difficult time verifying its accuracy): Cash App was very early on the "all-in-one banking" experience, whereas Venmo spent years as a value-addition to a bank (account/routing number) you already had. Socioeconomically disenfranchised portions of the population, which statistically bias toward Black Americans, gravitated toward Cash App because they didn't otherwise have bank accounts. Then, network effects kick in, as they always do. Again, I'm not 100% sure on the veracity of those claims, but it makes sense; and it mirrors a similar trend across age groups. Older people use Zelle (a fully bank-sponsored product). Millennials (of any race), being the middle child, split the difference, and oftentimes have Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, and some Crypto. But all of these "official" apps still have age restrictions, and as they've matured have been forced into more customer risk mitigation, which primarily serves to do the same thing the banking system has statistically done to the black american population for decades; limit access to financial services (even if its for what we old people would call a "totally valid reason" like "dude you're 12", its still limiting access to financial services). Capital moves mountains. The crypto markets, in aggregate, represent an absolutely massive amount of capital. Its biased young. Its very difficult to legally liquidate into the traditional financial system; but within the crypto ecosystem, its more liquid than any financial instrument ever invented by mankind. It attracts scams (like any financial product does); it attracts idiots (through virtue of being able to serve: anyone); but even among projects like this one, their idiotic understanding of how their actions could integrate with the traditional system of laws is counterbalanced with rather intelligent understanding of distributed financial systems, corporate governance, data structures, algorithms, and most of all, an undeniable love for a piece of cultural history. Anytime anyone bashes crypto; the reasons may be legitimate; Check your age. You sound a lot like my parents wondering why my Chase account doesn't appear in their Chase home page, so they can send me money every Christmas by just clicking "transfer money". Your criticism may be totally valid and legitimate: but irrelevant. That's the curse of getting older; inescapable, undeniable, and one day you just don't matter anymore. This world isn't your's; it belongs to our Children.

crypto_king_69 5y ago

You are more right than wrong there... I know under 18 year olds behind a pseudo name running large capital and lending pools in crypto. All it takes is writing smart contracts and deploying them. Voila, you can run your own automated lending or exchange pool. Flash loans are something I have seen 13 year old kiddos experiment with using crypto. It's unbelievable until you see it. Code written by a 13 year old managing billions of capital in crypto. Many are even public and probbed up by VCs like founder of rari capital and many startups connected to them. I think this is getting even truer for real world stock market. Kids are increasingly investing using custodial accounts. https://www.joinbloom.co/ https://www.joinbloom.co/ - teen stock investing funded by YC. There are many of these popping up

ryan_lane 5y ago

A lot of claims being made here without any actual proof. You need a bank account to buy cryptocurrencies. You also need fiat money to buy it. In the US at least, you need to be KYC'd to buy it from an exchange with fiat. It's really tiring hearing propaganda like this, that easily falls apart under even a little bit of scrutiny. Like "banking the unbanked", it's lies being told that try to sell people on how cryptocurrency is enriching people who'd otherwise be poor, and opening opportunities to people who otherwise would not have them, but it's nothing more than preying on people's greed and FOMO, to pull in more suckers to fleece.

vmception 5y ago
Earning cryptocurrency does not require a bank account or KYC. Read that again until you understand it and tell me why you don't understand that. The whole post distinguished the difference between buying versus earning. If you dont get that yet, you’re in the wrong place.
- ryan_lane 5y ago
  This place is about critical thinking, and skepticism, especially around wild and unlikely claims, is part of that. The point is that this story is almost certainly a fabrication, especially since it has wild claims of teenagers making small fortunes. There's no evidence such a situation has happened, and it's extremely unlikely that it's common enough to be a thing we need to be concerned with.
  - vmception 5y ago
    What evidence would satisfy you? How common does it need to be to matter? Several thousand teenagers with six or seven figures of liquid crypto assets is still over a billion dollars deciding if a new product or service gets off the ground. Why do you think you need to be concerned?
    - ryan_lane 5y ago
      Where is the evidence for these teenagers? I mean, there's no evidence at all from what I can tell, except for the op saying it's "a real thing I totally didn't make up to give you FOMO".