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Line go up and FOMO. This scheme was advertising the potential of meaningful gains (5-20% per year) for simply parking your money in it. And it was a 'stablecoi

Line go up and FOMO. This scheme was advertising the potential of meaningful gains (5-20% per year) for simply parking your money in it. And it was a 'stablecoin', that sounds low-risk. High rewards, low risk, doesn't everyone want that? Anyone who had money and wanted more money and wasn't well informed of the true risk was susceptible to putting large sums of money into it. Think about all the crypto ads shown during the last Super Bowl. Think of all the people who watched those ads and decided to try out crypto speculation. Some percentage of those people were bag holders here.

ghaff 4y ago
FOMO is part of it I think. They hear about people making life-altering amounts of money and they want to get in on it. At least some of them probably also figure this is their one shot at a comfortable living.
DebtDeflation 4y ago
The number of crypto social media influencers posting about "20% GUARANTEED annual yields with Stablecoins!" a few months back was ridiculous. Where were the regulators? Every investment advertisement in the real (non-crypto) world includes a "Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal." disclaimer, but apparently rules don't apply to crypto. It's hard to feel sorry for all of the "hodling to the moon in my Lambo" people but at the same time the government is asleep at the switch here.
- IdEntities 4y ago
  The government is going to be happy if a large number of people are sucked into Ponzi schemes which blow up and cause harm to the broader reputation of cryptocurrencies as such.
  - pavlov 4y ago
    To the libertarians even their own failures are always a result of government conspiracy.
    - IdEntities 4y ago
      I'm not a libertarian, but I can recognize willful dereliction of duty when I see it.
  - moistly 4y ago
    The government is going to be happy with an expanding impoverished citizenry that can no longer afford to participate in the economy? What a stupid claim.
    - IdEntities 4y ago
      Well, the number of people who will be harmed in these schemes is probably not large enough for them to be worried about any systemic or broader economic risks. The implosion of unregulated and privately issued stablecoins will create the impetus for CBDCs, which have been telegraphed as "on the agenda" for some time. But, in a more pointed answer to your question: yes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour
nkrisc 4y ago
> Think about all the crypto ads shown during the last Super Bowl. Think of all the people who watched those ads and decided to try out crypto speculation. Some percentage of those people were bag holders here. Obviously I’m just completely out of the loop. I’ve never seen ads for crypto so that’s probably why it seems so surprising to me.
- lizknope 4y ago
  Just google "super bowl crypto ads" and you can find lots of articles including the ads. They had big Hollywood celebrities like Matt Damon and Larry David. They were very well produced like most Super Bowl commercials. The Super Bowl takes 30 of the top 32 most watched broadcasts ever so literally millions of people saw these ads at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televisio...
  - SilasX 4y ago
    Well-produced with the exception of the Coinbase one that was a bouncing QR code that took you to an overloaded sever.
    - lupire 4y ago
      Which they plagiarized from an ad agency.
- brendoelfrendo 4y ago
  The Staples Center in LA was renamed to the "Crypto.com Arena" last year. Matt Damon appeared in a Crypto.com ad last October that called crypto "brave" (which is funnier in hindsight as brave and foolish are often so closely linked). During the Super Bowl, Larry David and LeBron James were both in ads for crypto companies. They got all of these celebrities to shill for them using VC funding and the gains from their early adopters to fuel what must be massive marketing budgets. "Crypto" is a known concept now, even if an understanding of crypto isn't.

ghaff 4y ago

FOMO is part of it I think. They hear about people making life-altering amounts of money and they want to get in on it. At least some of them probably also figure this is their one shot at a comfortable living.

DebtDeflation 4y ago

The number of crypto social media influencers posting about "20% GUARANTEED annual yields with Stablecoins!" a few months back was ridiculous. Where were the regulators? Every investment advertisement in the real (non-crypto) world includes a "Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal." disclaimer, but apparently rules don't apply to crypto. It's hard to feel sorry for all of the "hodling to the moon in my Lambo" people but at the same time the government is asleep at the switch here.

IdEntities 4y ago
The government is going to be happy if a large number of people are sucked into Ponzi schemes which blow up and cause harm to the broader reputation of cryptocurrencies as such.
- pavlov 4y ago
  To the libertarians even their own failures are always a result of government conspiracy.
  - IdEntities 4y ago
    I'm not a libertarian, but I can recognize willful dereliction of duty when I see it.
- moistly 4y ago
  The government is going to be happy with an expanding impoverished citizenry that can no longer afford to participate in the economy? What a stupid claim.
  - IdEntities 4y ago
    Well, the number of people who will be harmed in these schemes is probably not large enough for them to be worried about any systemic or broader economic risks. The implosion of unregulated and privately issued stablecoins will create the impetus for CBDCs, which have been telegraphed as "on the agenda" for some time. But, in a more pointed answer to your question: yes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_army_of_labour

nkrisc 4y ago

> Think about all the crypto ads shown during the last Super Bowl. Think of all the people who watched those ads and decided to try out crypto speculation. Some percentage of those people were bag holders here. Obviously I’m just completely out of the loop. I’ve never seen ads for crypto so that’s probably why it seems so surprising to me.

lizknope 4y ago
Just google "super bowl crypto ads" and you can find lots of articles including the ads. They had big Hollywood celebrities like Matt Damon and Larry David. They were very well produced like most Super Bowl commercials. The Super Bowl takes 30 of the top 32 most watched broadcasts ever so literally millions of people saw these ads at the same time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_televisio...
- SilasX 4y ago
  Well-produced with the exception of the Coinbase one that was a bouncing QR code that took you to an overloaded sever.
  - lupire 4y ago
    Which they plagiarized from an ad agency.
brendoelfrendo 4y ago
The Staples Center in LA was renamed to the "Crypto.com Arena" last year. Matt Damon appeared in a Crypto.com ad last October that called crypto "brave" (which is funnier in hindsight as brave and foolish are often so closely linked). During the Super Bowl, Larry David and LeBron James were both in ads for crypto companies. They got all of these celebrities to shill for them using VC funding and the gains from their early adopters to fuel what must be massive marketing budgets. "Crypto" is a known concept now, even if an understanding of crypto isn't.