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This was a sad week for me. I've basically spent the last year working on Terra. Everything moves fast there, so many new and shiny things and people excited fo

by lvass 4y ago

This was a sad week for me. I've basically spent the last year working on Terra. Everything moves fast there, so many new and shiny things and people excited for them, most of which did work, until it didn't I guess. I always felt like it had permission to fail, moving fast breaks things, but it really hurt when it happened. I just removed my last asset there. I'll be eternally grateful to them. I didn't have good job prospects as a fresh engineer from a collapsing economy. They really had an use for an arbitrageur, I took notice and without asking any permission or having any knowledge or experience I was helping all these different markets there not falling off price, and perhaps I have a roof over my head thanks to that. I'm finally going to sleep since yesterday. I guess it's time to get a job, I just need to recover mentally.

FabHK 4y ago
This is an incarnation of big costs of the crypto/blockchain obsession: Some individuals put all their savings (or more) into crypto. Those early enough might have fared well, some of them extremely well. But it is not a miraculous value creating machine, but only a redistribution machine. For everyone that has done well, others have lost. The other cost is the massive amount of time and effort so many people sink into this that could have been spent on more productive things.
- twirlock 4y ago
- deltree7 4y ago
  If cryptoland is an island of it's own, it produces nothing that an outside consumer or corporation would pay money for. So, Revenue is $0 (sure there are intra-island transfers where some crypto-corp buys services from some other crypto-corp). However, crytpoland has plenty of costs. Electricity, exorbitant salaries, lambos, parties, marketing, compute, capital (servers, gpus). I'd even say to the tune of Billions of $$$. Now they have an additional cost, Interest So, someone has to fund cryptoland of these $Billion expense, Where does the money come from? Investors, Big and Small.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    With crypto it is good to sometimes do the calculation. How much are we paying to miners again? And I mean as aggregate spend hardware and electricity? And what services we are actually offering that someone pay for? Outside speculation? It doesn't look very pretty. Compare to credit cards and payment providers, each transaction takes a cut. And this comes from consumers.
    - FabHK 4y ago
      Yeah, BTC and ETH together burn around 1% of world electricity consumption (though that might go down now). A single BTC transaction pays the miners over $100 in seignorage/mining reward (increasing the money supply, around 1.7% p.a. until the next halving), of which around up to half, AFAIK, goes into electricity and mining equipment. Would love to see a good breakdown on that.
- sizzle 4y ago
  It’s always good until you’re left holding the bag
TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
Hey - i'm in the same boat so it's refreshing to hear this. No matter what, at the end of the day you were working on code that had a direct impact on billions of dollars. Also i imagine after a year you have rust, COSM WASM, & Auditing experience. You participated in a historic event that will be talked about for years to come. An algorithmic stablecoin is still a dream that needs to be achieved in a crosschain enviroment and this failure will not deter hackers from trying again in the future.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  What conditions that caused this are you imagining being impossible on a future project? (Genuinely!, in case I needed to add that, I know HN can be unfriendly toward cryptocurrency.)
sizzle 4y ago
Do you think Do Kwon will go to jail or be charged? They literally created money out of thin air (UST <—> Luna burn mechanism) and then hedged their ponzi by diversifying into BTC backing, then basically imploded billions of dollars of made up money mixed with real money invested by people from fiat on-ramps and retail legacy banking systems, etc.
- lvass 4y ago
  I've no idea, something equivalent was done many times over to either result. I certainly would not want to be him right now, I don't see him as directly responsible for anyone's loss, anyone understands a UST is not the same as a dollar bill but I wouldn't expect him to be treated nicely at all. On an unrelated note, the more time I spend analyzing this, the more I feel like a simple life is the best, desiring much more than basic needs is unlikely to bring happiness.
  - sizzle 4y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree with your last sentence. Cheers!
NicoJuicy 4y ago
I don't think many people depositing their funds to it will be pleased to read stories like that. But it does sum up the multitude of flaws in crypto literally playing with people's money. Fyi, move fast and break things shouldn't be applicable when you handle customer deposits/lifesavings. Best of luck. I hope you will find a stable career.
- lvass 4y ago
  >stable career I see what you did there, and laughed. I took a hit but now think of nothing but moving on. Thank you. I agree with the sentiment, but take a more free-market stance of allowing these things to fail, the worst part is a lot of people don't understand where they're putting their savings at all and that's not exclusive to crypto. Lack of transparency is unacceptable, but unfortunately very common.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    There’s failure and then there’s incompetence, this seems to be the latter.
  - NicoJuicy 4y ago
    I'm from Europe, i think our definition of stable is more related to stress and work/private time. I normally agree with free-market approach, but not with people's savings on the line ;) The sentiment is real though. You could be me when I was 10 years younger ;). We've almost all been through something similar.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 4y ago
It's a more honest job than tech support scams, but a less honest job than doing the same thing in traditional finance. At least you now know why yields of that level are not sustainable.
- twirlock 4y ago

by lvass 4y ago

FabHK 4y ago

This is an incarnation of big costs of the crypto/blockchain obsession: Some individuals put all their savings (or more) into crypto. Those early enough might have fared well, some of them extremely well. But it is not a miraculous value creating machine, but only a redistribution machine. For everyone that has done well, others have lost. The other cost is the massive amount of time and effort so many people sink into this that could have been spent on more productive things.

twirlock 4y ago
deltree7 4y ago
If cryptoland is an island of it's own, it produces nothing that an outside consumer or corporation would pay money for. So, Revenue is $0 (sure there are intra-island transfers where some crypto-corp buys services from some other crypto-corp). However, crytpoland has plenty of costs. Electricity, exorbitant salaries, lambos, parties, marketing, compute, capital (servers, gpus). I'd even say to the tune of Billions of $$$. Now they have an additional cost, Interest So, someone has to fund cryptoland of these $Billion expense, Where does the money come from? Investors, Big and Small.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  With crypto it is good to sometimes do the calculation. How much are we paying to miners again? And I mean as aggregate spend hardware and electricity? And what services we are actually offering that someone pay for? Outside speculation? It doesn't look very pretty. Compare to credit cards and payment providers, each transaction takes a cut. And this comes from consumers.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    Yeah, BTC and ETH together burn around 1% of world electricity consumption (though that might go down now). A single BTC transaction pays the miners over $100 in seignorage/mining reward (increasing the money supply, around 1.7% p.a. until the next halving), of which around up to half, AFAIK, goes into electricity and mining equipment. Would love to see a good breakdown on that.
sizzle 4y ago
It’s always good until you’re left holding the bag

TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago

Hey - i'm in the same boat so it's refreshing to hear this. No matter what, at the end of the day you were working on code that had a direct impact on billions of dollars. Also i imagine after a year you have rust, COSM WASM, & Auditing experience. You participated in a historic event that will be talked about for years to come. An algorithmic stablecoin is still a dream that needs to be achieved in a crosschain enviroment and this failure will not deter hackers from trying again in the future.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
What conditions that caused this are you imagining being impossible on a future project? (Genuinely!, in case I needed to add that, I know HN can be unfriendly toward cryptocurrency.)

sizzle 4y ago

Do you think Do Kwon will go to jail or be charged? They literally created money out of thin air (UST <—> Luna burn mechanism) and then hedged their ponzi by diversifying into BTC backing, then basically imploded billions of dollars of made up money mixed with real money invested by people from fiat on-ramps and retail legacy banking systems, etc.

lvass 4y ago
I've no idea, something equivalent was done many times over to either result. I certainly would not want to be him right now, I don't see him as directly responsible for anyone's loss, anyone understands a UST is not the same as a dollar bill but I wouldn't expect him to be treated nicely at all. On an unrelated note, the more time I spend analyzing this, the more I feel like a simple life is the best, desiring much more than basic needs is unlikely to bring happiness.
- sizzle 4y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree with your last sentence. Cheers!

NicoJuicy 4y ago

I don't think many people depositing their funds to it will be pleased to read stories like that. But it does sum up the multitude of flaws in crypto literally playing with people's money. Fyi, move fast and break things shouldn't be applicable when you handle customer deposits/lifesavings. Best of luck. I hope you will find a stable career.

lvass 4y ago
>stable career I see what you did there, and laughed. I took a hit but now think of nothing but moving on. Thank you. I agree with the sentiment, but take a more free-market stance of allowing these things to fail, the worst part is a lot of people don't understand where they're putting their savings at all and that's not exclusive to crypto. Lack of transparency is unacceptable, but unfortunately very common.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  There’s failure and then there’s incompetence, this seems to be the latter.
- NicoJuicy 4y ago
  I'm from Europe, i think our definition of stable is more related to stress and work/private time. I normally agree with free-market approach, but not with people's savings on the line ;) The sentiment is real though. You could be me when I was 10 years younger ;). We've almost all been through something similar.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pjc50 4y ago

It's a more honest job than tech support scams, but a less honest job than doing the same thing in traditional finance. At least you now know why yields of that level are not sustainable.

twirlock 4y ago