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This. They did the same thing with “terra USD”, some shitcoin I had never heard of until it failed. It was even named to confuse people by sounding like USDT.

by zionic 4y ago

This. They did the same thing with “terra USD”, some shitcoin I had never heard of until it failed. It was even named to confuse people by sounding like USDT. HN is only a step above CNN when it comes to trustworthiness on this specific topic.

cycrutchfield 4y ago
UST was like the #8 cryptocurrency by market cap…
- zionic 4y ago
  Lots of scams have blown up and temporarily been there. I’m sure bitconnect did too.
  - WHA8m 4y ago
    You're going from 'shitcoin' to 'scam'. Bitconnect was somewhat relevant/ significant. The 100th meme dog coin is not.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
smabie 4y ago
Not to defend Terra but Luna/UST were an absolutely massive part of the crypto ecosystem. It's not some random shitcoin
- zionic 4y ago
  Are you possibly confusing UST with USDT? Tether would be fairly characterized as a "massive part of the crypto ecosystem". I don't think you can say the same about terra
  - shawabawa3 4y ago
    Terra was the 9th biggest coin by market cap Luna something like the 15th They were absolutely major players and not a "random shitcoin"
oliwarner 4y ago
It doesn't count as real crypto until zionic has heard of it? Irrespective of your attitude to an unheard-of coin, the situation rather epitomises the problem many have with crypto. They start off as penny stocks, but people expect them all to rocket to Fortune 500 levels for no good reason other than all the other gullible idiots pumping their savings into them, forgetting in their greed that it's quite as easy to start a run if you have enough. Before you know it —and I very much mean you there— they're trading at $120 with a cap of $32bn before the floor drops out. I know a cap isn't tangible value but none of this stuff is. That didn't stop this being a top 10 crypto currency at one point. It's all Monopoly money. You can get rich trading it, but you can also lose everything. A lot of people are getting fractions of a penny on their dollar investment. All because, what? It stinks of pump and dump. It all stinks of pump and dump. Pile on the environmental disaster that is proof of work, and you should be able to see why people hate crypto. It's weirder that more people don't but on investigation that's usually because they have skin in the game.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  It’s not all pump and dump; there’s more to crypto than just that: https://mobile.twitter.com/patdennis/status/1518637225789042688 https://mobile.twitter.com/patdennis/status/1518637225789042... Sick of people calling everything in crypto a Ponzi scheme. Some crypto projects are pump and dump schemes, while others are pyramid schemes. Others are just standard issue fraud. Others are just middlemen skimming of the top. Stop glossing over the diversity in the industry.
- zionic 4y ago
  >It doesn't count as real crypto until zionic has heard of it? That's not what I'm saying. I consider myself fairly active in the space, and I hadn't heard a peep about this coin until it blew up. I doubt most on HN had either, but that won't stop the doomers.
  - oliwarner 4y ago
    This only further speaks to the problem. Isn't it a problem with "the space" that any old Gigachad and his drawful of sockpuppets can jump on a nobody-coin that's been doing nothing for three years, and in 12 months of frothing, pump it up to a top-10 coin, and dump out their holding for a few billion dollars and "active in the space" people like you don't even notice? Thousands more of these things are being minted every week. Thousands more opportunities to suck in "investors at the ground floor". I don't think it's fair to label critics as doomers. We just don't see the value you do, or at least, our accounting puts the very visible and very recurrent harms of crypto above their potential benefits.
qeternity 4y ago
Just to put in perspective: a number of non-crypto YC startups had their treasury in UST. The reverberations of this will be massive.
- thfuran 4y ago
  Any company that kept money it really needed in crypto deserves to vanish.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  Oh that happened in 2009 as well, tons of startups had their money parked in an asset with a special name, where it was tied to real estate, so the startups' treasury could appreciate without being spent. Because real estate never goes down, you see. It was so safe. Safety is dangerous.
headsoup 4y ago
So how about USDT losing its peg to the dollar, they some unknown that means nothing whatsoever?
- zionic 4y ago
  Last I checked it's pegged. DAI and tether fluctuate a lot but generally stay right near $1. Just pulled up the 7d tether chart and I see one spike to $0.9905, which isn't that bad.
FabHK 4y ago
To be fair, among the USD-"pegged" stable coins, UST was the third largest and had about 10% of the market cap, until a few days ago. The fact that you hadn't heard of it is hardly pertinent.

by zionic 4y ago

cycrutchfield 4y ago

UST was like the #8 cryptocurrency by market cap…

zionic 4y ago
Lots of scams have blown up and temporarily been there. I’m sure bitconnect did too.
- WHA8m 4y ago
  You're going from 'shitcoin' to 'scam'. Bitconnect was somewhat relevant/ significant. The 100th meme dog coin is not.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

smabie 4y ago

Not to defend Terra but Luna/UST were an absolutely massive part of the crypto ecosystem. It's not some random shitcoin

zionic 4y ago
Are you possibly confusing UST with USDT? Tether would be fairly characterized as a "massive part of the crypto ecosystem". I don't think you can say the same about terra
- shawabawa3 4y ago
  Terra was the 9th biggest coin by market cap Luna something like the 15th They were absolutely major players and not a "random shitcoin"

oliwarner 4y ago

It doesn't count as real crypto until zionic has heard of it? Irrespective of your attitude to an unheard-of coin, the situation rather epitomises the problem many have with crypto. They start off as penny stocks, but people expect them all to rocket to Fortune 500 levels for no good reason other than all the other gullible idiots pumping their savings into them, forgetting in their greed that it's quite as easy to start a run if you have enough. Before you know it —and I very much mean you there— they're trading at $120 with a cap of $32bn before the floor drops out. I know a cap isn't tangible value but none of this stuff is. That didn't stop this being a top 10 crypto currency at one point. It's all Monopoly money. You can get rich trading it, but you can also lose everything. A lot of people are getting fractions of a penny on their dollar investment. All because, what? It stinks of pump and dump. It all stinks of pump and dump. Pile on the environmental disaster that is proof of work, and you should be able to see why people hate crypto. It's weirder that more people don't but on investigation that's usually because they have skin in the game.

sokoloff 4y ago
It’s not all pump and dump; there’s more to crypto than just that: https://mobile.twitter.com/patdennis/status/1518637225789042688 https://mobile.twitter.com/patdennis/status/1518637225789042... Sick of people calling everything in crypto a Ponzi scheme. Some crypto projects are pump and dump schemes, while others are pyramid schemes. Others are just standard issue fraud. Others are just middlemen skimming of the top. Stop glossing over the diversity in the industry.
zionic 4y ago
>It doesn't count as real crypto until zionic has heard of it? That's not what I'm saying. I consider myself fairly active in the space, and I hadn't heard a peep about this coin until it blew up. I doubt most on HN had either, but that won't stop the doomers.
- oliwarner 4y ago
  This only further speaks to the problem. Isn't it a problem with "the space" that any old Gigachad and his drawful of sockpuppets can jump on a nobody-coin that's been doing nothing for three years, and in 12 months of frothing, pump it up to a top-10 coin, and dump out their holding for a few billion dollars and "active in the space" people like you don't even notice? Thousands more of these things are being minted every week. Thousands more opportunities to suck in "investors at the ground floor". I don't think it's fair to label critics as doomers. We just don't see the value you do, or at least, our accounting puts the very visible and very recurrent harms of crypto above their potential benefits.

qeternity 4y ago

Just to put in perspective: a number of non-crypto YC startups had their treasury in UST. The reverberations of this will be massive.

thfuran 4y ago
Any company that kept money it really needed in crypto deserves to vanish.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Oh that happened in 2009 as well, tons of startups had their money parked in an asset with a special name, where it was tied to real estate, so the startups' treasury could appreciate without being spent. Because real estate never goes down, you see. It was so safe. Safety is dangerous.

headsoup 4y ago

So how about USDT losing its peg to the dollar, they some unknown that means nothing whatsoever?

zionic 4y ago
Last I checked it's pegged. DAI and tether fluctuate a lot but generally stay right near $1. Just pulled up the 7d tether chart and I see one spike to $0.9905, which isn't that bad.

FabHK 4y ago

To be fair, among the USD-"pegged" stable coins, UST was the third largest and had about 10% of the market cap, until a few days ago. The fact that you hadn't heard of it is hardly pertinent.