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This has big "Bernie Madoff when he was chairman of the NASDAQ" vibes. [1] [edit] For those following along at home, Binance was kicked out of - or saw signifi

This has big "Bernie Madoff when he was chairman of the NASDAQ" vibes. [1] [edit] For those following along at home, Binance was kicked out of - or saw significant regulatory pressure in - the UK, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Germany, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Thailand, Ontario, Uganda, Malta ... and I think a few others? They're also under investigation by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority. [2, 3] I am legitimately impressed, it's not easy to get the attention of regulators in the Caymans. It seems Forbes was hot on their tail a while back when they wanted to create strategic bait-and-switch entities in various jurisdictions including the US ("Tai Chi Document"). [4] Binance then sued them for defamation - then voluntarily dropped the suit. I suspect such investigations will no longer be welcome. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff [2] https://www.cima.ky/binance-not-regulated-by-cima https://www.cima.ky/binance-not-regulated-by-cima [3] https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/110358/cayman-islands-investigate-crypto-exchange-binance https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/110358/cayman-islands-in... [4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/10/29/leaked-tai-chi-document-reveals-binances-elaborate-scheme-to-evade-bitcoin-regulators/?sh=7a8ce81f2a92 https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/10/29/l...

seibelj 5y ago
Every major news outlet gets purchased by some rich entity. WaPo by Bezos, Boston Globe by John Henry, Rupert Murdoch with WSJ... this is why it doesn't really matter if they are money-losing operations. Their value for pushing narrative vastly exceeds their P&L
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I do agree, but this is particularly egregious. Like "Al Capone takes 20% stake in Chicago Tribune" egregious. Did they not notice the Sicilians when they were negotiating or...
- trimbo 5y ago
  Murdoch actually made his money in media. What makes you think the WSJ would be money-losing?
  - seibelj 5y ago
    They don't necessarily have to be, but if I was rich and buying a news operation, profitability is important but I would also want it to push the news that I want.
crispyambulance 5y ago
Just goes to show that “money talks” regardless of how it’s obtained. I feel bad for whoever is going to be left holding the bag when it all “pops” and the funny money can no longer be converted into real money. It’s going to do real damage to those that, unlike Zhao, haven’t been able to cash out.
- johnebgd 5y ago
  At this point the lesson will be an expensive one for those still bag holding. It’s the retail investors who have their $5k holdings that will be most hurt. Not the guys running the exchanges. They figured out how to sell picks and shovels.
  - baq 5y ago
    nonono. exchanges trade against their customers and have to change banks after their previous ones get so full of money they can't make room for any more.
  - cuteboy19 5y ago
    Exactly. The first crypto billionaire became a billionaire by operating an exchange, not holding some random crypto
- arcticbull 5y ago
  My biggest fear is a 1997 Albania situation but on a global scale. MLMs locked up 50% of their GDP, and it led to a civil war killing thousands. [1] It was all fun and games until war were declared. Then, well, war were declared. When the schemes collapsed, there was uncontained rioting, the government fell, and the country descended into anarchy and a near civil war in which some 2,000 people were killed. [1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.htm https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.ht...
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    The saving grace of crypto ofc is that it is EXTREMELY top heavy, so even if there is $1tn tied up in crypto, probably under 100k people control 95%+ of it. And good luck leading the revolution, Winklevos twins…
bko 5y ago
I think you're overstating the relative importance and influence of Forbes. As a side note, I like Binance Smart Chain. It's an EVM compliant alternative to Ethereum except with proof of stake and much lower fees. It costs about $0.12 to call a smart contract. To someone like me who is interested in the technology of smart contracts and doesn't want to pay $40 to interact with a contract, this is a dream come true.
- magicjosh 5y ago
  I was curious about the importance of Forbes. It's been linked over 1,000 times on Hacker News: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Forbes https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Forbes
- steelstraw 5y ago
  It is nicer to use in that respect, but isn't it really just a copy of Ethereum with less security?
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > As a side note, I like Binance Smart Chain. It's an EVM compliant alternative to Ethereum except with proof of stake and much lower fees. It costs about $0.12 to call a smart contract. To someone like me who is interested in the technology of smart contracts and doesn't want to pay $40 to interact with a contract, this is a dream come true. Right, it's a centralized clone of ethereum operated by Binance. If you're ok with centralization just fire up an EC2 instance. The free tier includes 750 hours per month.
  - bko 5y ago
    I don't think hosting your own node allows you to interact with contracts for free. I can (and have) played on the devnet, but you're limited there to interacting with contracts hosted on devnet. Can you elaborate what you mean?
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      My point was rather that if you're ok with centralization, ok without censorship resistance, and ok without meaningful absolute reliability guarantees - all of which is true on BSC - and you value low cost and low latency, what on earth are you doing using a blockchain? At $0.12 per execution that's one heck of an expensive AWS Lambda function, which are normally priced at $0.0000002 each and $0.0000133334 per GB-second of execution on ARM. Lambda is about 625,000 times cheaper per request than BSC while offering the same-or-dramatically-better guarantees. [1] [edit] Ah, I see the answer to my question is regulatory arbitrage. Gotcha. Along with crime and grift, regulatory arbitrage is one of the three big pillars of blockchain. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/ https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/
captn3m0 5y ago
India as well: - https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/cryptocurrency-wazirxs-founder-nischal-shetty-gets-notice-from-ed-for-2971-crore-transactions/articleshow/83427891.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/cryptocur... - https://qz.com/india/2108727/india-probes-binances-wazirx-crypto-exchange-for-tax-evasion/ https://qz.com/india/2108727/india-probes-binances-wazirx-cr...
Lorin 5y ago
Malta stands out because they are the host country of many popular gambling websites. Hmm.
taylorbuley 5y ago
Weakening the separation between editorial and business interests is a classic mistake. Unless owners of media companies allow the journalists to be independent then they are ultimately damaging the value of their investment.

seibelj 5y ago

Every major news outlet gets purchased by some rich entity. WaPo by Bezos, Boston Globe by John Henry, Rupert Murdoch with WSJ... this is why it doesn't really matter if they are money-losing operations. Their value for pushing narrative vastly exceeds their P&L

arcticbull 5y ago
I do agree, but this is particularly egregious. Like "Al Capone takes 20% stake in Chicago Tribune" egregious. Did they not notice the Sicilians when they were negotiating or...
trimbo 5y ago
Murdoch actually made his money in media. What makes you think the WSJ would be money-losing?
- seibelj 5y ago
  They don't necessarily have to be, but if I was rich and buying a news operation, profitability is important but I would also want it to push the news that I want.

crispyambulance 5y ago

Just goes to show that “money talks” regardless of how it’s obtained. I feel bad for whoever is going to be left holding the bag when it all “pops” and the funny money can no longer be converted into real money. It’s going to do real damage to those that, unlike Zhao, haven’t been able to cash out.

johnebgd 5y ago
At this point the lesson will be an expensive one for those still bag holding. It’s the retail investors who have their $5k holdings that will be most hurt. Not the guys running the exchanges. They figured out how to sell picks and shovels.
- baq 5y ago
  nonono. exchanges trade against their customers and have to change banks after their previous ones get so full of money they can't make room for any more.
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  Exactly. The first crypto billionaire became a billionaire by operating an exchange, not holding some random crypto
arcticbull 5y ago
My biggest fear is a 1997 Albania situation but on a global scale. MLMs locked up 50% of their GDP, and it led to a civil war killing thousands. [1] It was all fun and games until war were declared. Then, well, war were declared. When the schemes collapsed, there was uncontained rioting, the government fell, and the country descended into anarchy and a near civil war in which some 2,000 people were killed. [1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.htm https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/jarvis.ht...
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  The saving grace of crypto ofc is that it is EXTREMELY top heavy, so even if there is $1tn tied up in crypto, probably under 100k people control 95%+ of it. And good luck leading the revolution, Winklevos twins…

bko 5y ago

I think you're overstating the relative importance and influence of Forbes. As a side note, I like Binance Smart Chain. It's an EVM compliant alternative to Ethereum except with proof of stake and much lower fees. It costs about $0.12 to call a smart contract. To someone like me who is interested in the technology of smart contracts and doesn't want to pay $40 to interact with a contract, this is a dream come true.

magicjosh 5y ago
I was curious about the importance of Forbes. It's been linked over 1,000 times on Hacker News: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Forbes https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Forbes
steelstraw 5y ago
It is nicer to use in that respect, but isn't it really just a copy of Ethereum with less security?
arcticbull 5y ago
> As a side note, I like Binance Smart Chain. It's an EVM compliant alternative to Ethereum except with proof of stake and much lower fees. It costs about $0.12 to call a smart contract. To someone like me who is interested in the technology of smart contracts and doesn't want to pay $40 to interact with a contract, this is a dream come true. Right, it's a centralized clone of ethereum operated by Binance. If you're ok with centralization just fire up an EC2 instance. The free tier includes 750 hours per month.
- bko 5y ago
  I don't think hosting your own node allows you to interact with contracts for free. I can (and have) played on the devnet, but you're limited there to interacting with contracts hosted on devnet. Can you elaborate what you mean?
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    My point was rather that if you're ok with centralization, ok without censorship resistance, and ok without meaningful absolute reliability guarantees - all of which is true on BSC - and you value low cost and low latency, what on earth are you doing using a blockchain? At $0.12 per execution that's one heck of an expensive AWS Lambda function, which are normally priced at $0.0000002 each and $0.0000133334 per GB-second of execution on ARM. Lambda is about 625,000 times cheaper per request than BSC while offering the same-or-dramatically-better guarantees. [1] [edit] Ah, I see the answer to my question is regulatory arbitrage. Gotcha. Along with crime and grift, regulatory arbitrage is one of the three big pillars of blockchain. [1] https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/ https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/

captn3m0 5y ago

India as well: - https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/cryptocurrency-wazirxs-founder-nischal-shetty-gets-notice-from-ed-for-2971-crore-transactions/articleshow/83427891.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/cryptocur... - https://qz.com/india/2108727/india-probes-binances-wazirx-crypto-exchange-for-tax-evasion/ https://qz.com/india/2108727/india-probes-binances-wazirx-cr...

Lorin 5y ago

Malta stands out because they are the host country of many popular gambling websites. Hmm.

taylorbuley 5y ago

Weakening the separation between editorial and business interests is a classic mistake. Unless owners of media companies allow the journalists to be independent then they are ultimately damaging the value of their investment.