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A fool and their money are soon parted. The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians so it

A fool and their money are soon parted. The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians so it affects the rest of us. It’s not just the extra tax of having to care for the newly impoverished. My former local community went all in on a bitcoin scam, they made commissions on new entrants so I never heard the end of it. I only talked about it when asked but my warnings not only fell on deaf ears I was effectively ostracized as people were worried that I would talk new entrants out of it. “Don’t talk to that guy, he’s a no-coiner who doesn’t want you to be rich, he’s ngmi”. It was worse than Amway. Even after the crash many of them still avoided me, I guess now out of embarrassment, or worry that I would shove it in their faces like they did to me. I would never. It destroyed the community and many local businesses. Edit: just found out which one it was, it was USI Tech. It failed 4 years ago so it’s not even part of the latest crop. Just sad that it keeps happening.

rngname22 4y ago
Could you expand a bit? It sort of sounds like you're describing a small town or a social circle / social scene where everyone got involved in some particular altcoin or something and invested a ton of their personal savings into it while encouraging others to do so as well, is that essentially it? Crazy if so.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  That’s essentially it, a small town where everyone knew each other and all hung out in the same bars. I didn’t pay attention to which one it was, I do remember hearing crazy interest, like >40%. I think you also got a cut from new entrants as well, so it reeked of pyramid + ponzi.
  - zeven7 4y ago
    I'm fascinated that some kind of place like this existed. I've only lived in large cities and the picture I've gotten of small towns from trips and media hasn't prepared me for the idea of a whole community that collectively buys into a get rich quick scheme.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      It happens all the time but often the community and the physical community don't overlap, but check out /r/MLM or other similar subreddits and there's whole groups of scammers who target particular groups (church, social, retired, veterans, etc) with particular pitches designed for that group. Because if some rando tells you to join Amway or invest in AmCOIN™ you will tell them to get bent, but if it's a trusted friend, you're much more likely to be open. It's disgusting, but it happens. And in a small town, likely everyone goes to the same church or two, hangs out at the same bar, etc. It can spread like wildfire, though usually after the first few scams it becomes known and starts to die out a bit. Sometimes you recognize the situation and decide to "participate" (read: lose some small amount of money in the scam) to stay in the community.
      - dtmmax33 4y ago
        You can also check out behindmlm.com which exposes most of the more popular scams.
      - AlwaysRock 4y ago
        In the smallest version of this... My weekly poker group talks about stocks and crypto often. It's a mix of guys who work in tech and engineering and a handful who just want to get rich quick. We've all bought a few yolo stocks and coins together and 100% of the time the investments have gone to zero or close to it. Thankfully no one in the group is dumb enough to go all in on this hyper risky investments but I can see how it would be easy to be talked into something if you're in an echo chamber. Before anyone gets too worried I'm talking about spending a few hundred dollars each on stupid investsments over the course of a few years.
        bombcar 4y ago
        The danger is when they don't go to zero, and you suddenly thing you're stock picking geniuses - or you then decide to put it all in on the next one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardstown_Ladies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardstown_Ladies
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
  There is a recent movie called Dream Horse based on true story: "Twenty years ago, one woman convinced her neighbours to buy, rear and train a thoroughbred racehorse, Dream Alliance. Now their unlikely story is relived in a feelgood film" https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/30/against-all-odds-how-a-village-in-the-welsh-valleys-dreamed-big-and-won https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/30/against-all-odd...
cosmodisk 4y ago
I had similar at work: neverending stories about how crypto will reach Mars and then some. When asked the very basics on certain claims, the answers were always how don't get,how innovative it is and etc. I haven't heard a single word about crypto since it all gone down substantially. Everyone's smart when the rocket is going up, but at some point the fuel ends.
jjoonathan 4y ago
> The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians Yes! It's not just crypto, either, this problem seems to be endemic in our political and economic power structures.
- mlcrypto 4y ago
  Yea who do you think benefits most from the Fed's printing press?
  - MrMan 4y ago
    People in tech
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      Wat? The fed bought mortgage backed securities, so property owners, bankers, and real estate agents were the primary beneficiaries. Look at who was in charge.
jgalt212 4y ago
> The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians so it affects the rest of us. Exactly this. Can you imagine what regulatory capture by the NFT crowd would look like?
- Hallucinaut 4y ago
  We're already closer to idiocracy than I thought possible before the last decade, so I'm good without an OwMyBallsCoin
adrr 4y ago
UK is talking about backstopping the stable coins is an example of influence. I assume they are referring to Tether which hasn't completed an audit. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/31/uk-plans-new-safeguards-for-stablecoins-after-terra-collapse.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/31/uk-plans-new-safeguards-for-...
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > UK is talking about backstopping the stable coins London’s talking about regulating and ringfencing them. Not backstopping.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    Yes exactly. Having a regulatory regime to resolve a failure and minimise contagion (which is one of the things they're talking about) makes sense and cases like this 3AC one show why. It's not about protecting crypto participants, it's about reducing the damage to the system overall and impact to non-crypto participants caught in the blast radius when something central fails.
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
The problem is the fintech industry - both crypto and mainstream - exists to swindle. The biggest rewards come from crossing the line and avoiding regulation/enforcement, either by legitimate or illegitimate means (including bribing enforcement officials). Next biggest are rewards for crossing the line and delaying enforcement until you can launder your rewards to a safe haven. If you're arrested and jailed - only likely in cases where you inconvenience certain very rich and powerful people, not ordinary folk - it isn't usually for long. And you can afford the best representation to minimise the risk. So the risk profile is very much slanted towards rewarding the unscrupulous. Example: Even after all the confusion around the $400m or so "missing" from Mt Gox, Mark Karpelès only received suspended sentences and spent no time in jail. Even after the recent crash, that's still more $1.5bn at 2022 values.
- ac29 4y ago
  > Mark Karpelès only received suspended sentences and spent no time in jail He was in jail from August 2015 to July 2016, if his wikipedia article is correct. The suspended sentence came after that.
  - 100721 4y ago
    I would argue that the risk:reward is still very heavily weighted toward reward. I would happily spend a year in jail for $1bn+
- hgomersall 4y ago
  There are many fintech companies that I see as hugely important in disrupting finance, which is desperately in need of disrupting. The various new banks and companies like Wise are dragging the industry into the 21st century, though the incumbents are still failing disastrously.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  The problem with fintech is it is about integrity, and cashing out on integrity is generally counterfactual. Like cashing out on Idealism. Well if it's strictly cash, it can be done, like if there's no interest in prostitution of the resources, merely a form of liquidity and cooperation, yes. But to buy a Lamborghini? Only with an excellent, satisfying reason.[1] Like anything. Are you a man who wants to have sex with a girl who is underage? You can, if you marry her. But she's not an adult, so there's no possibility of a prenuptial agreement, you can marry her if you can accept that. "Half." --Eddie Murphy [1] And not in the way people imagine it, like the hedonism of the noughts, showing off like that horrible show "MTV Cribs." Yeah they're literally cribs, not masochists like a real man ie fasting and running track and field. That's exactly what they are, cribs for babies. And then, on a recurring reddit post, they tell you all those cribs you saw were fake, when really many of them were real--telling you on blogs that "only Red Man's crib was his true living conditions"--just pulling the rug under you. They filmed actual places, they were all different, they didn't have the tech to fuck with that back then. Yeah they rented some houses for a week, but those houses were still meant to be cribs for babies. And it's a demonic show--a demonic channel--yeah it looks like MTV is beautiful but...no yeah suppose they're beautiful, that's the fastest way to learn what's up.
tootie 4y ago
The threat is always systemic risk. That's why we need such a massive and seemingly unfair bailout of financial firms in 2007-8. Or the S&L crisis in the 80s. At some point, other's peoples bad decisions affect everyone else. I don't think the crypto market is big enough to have the same affect yet but it could. And it really shouldn't be allowed to get to that point until the market submits to regulation.
mushbino 4y ago
The savings and loan scandal is a great example of this, not that there's a shortage.
doggwalker 4y ago
I think even larger problem is how we don't correlate the other thread on here right now about how America can't build anything anymore with the over financialization of the society. The amount of human capital spent on the thousands of hedge funds and financial products the last 30 years is staggering and we basically have nothing to show for it other than unproductive pooling of capital. Given the incentives though it is borderline individually foolish to build anything in the physical world. I don't even think political corruption is near the worst part. It is the complete distortion of risk preferences and the distortion of what is even meant by "investing". At least the financial swindlers of old actually laid down thousands of miles of rail in their process of swindling. Now in the name of market efficiency we have a systemic process of trading options on options on options on options in an endless chain to the point the underlie has practically vanished. At least crypto is honest and doesn't even pretend there is an underlie, just a call option on nothing straight up. Everyone knows that is most of the financial system outside crypto too but with an accompanied financial theatrical performance by the participants. Even complete with Shakespearean bullshit language to make it sound more real. "I am not trading options on thin air. This is an arbitrage opportunity on a derivatives price that will help to facilitate market efficiency. It is almost like the way a physical bridge facilitates people getting across a river but we don't have to waste years actually building a bridge, take a fraction of the risk of bridge building and the return is 100X better." I am sure some future Edward Gibbon will come up with a name for this process while writing their historical masterpiece on why the West imploded. Reminds me of an interview I watched with some hedge fund asshole talking about how they were "creating value" by raising the rent of old people in trailer parks. As if raising the rent of old people in trailer parks is basically like building a bridge across a river.

rngname22 4y ago

Could you expand a bit? It sort of sounds like you're describing a small town or a social circle / social scene where everyone got involved in some particular altcoin or something and invested a ton of their personal savings into it while encouraging others to do so as well, is that essentially it? Crazy if so.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
That’s essentially it, a small town where everyone knew each other and all hung out in the same bars. I didn’t pay attention to which one it was, I do remember hearing crazy interest, like >40%. I think you also got a cut from new entrants as well, so it reeked of pyramid + ponzi.
- zeven7 4y ago
  I'm fascinated that some kind of place like this existed. I've only lived in large cities and the picture I've gotten of small towns from trips and media hasn't prepared me for the idea of a whole community that collectively buys into a get rich quick scheme.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It happens all the time but often the community and the physical community don't overlap, but check out /r/MLM or other similar subreddits and there's whole groups of scammers who target particular groups (church, social, retired, veterans, etc) with particular pitches designed for that group. Because if some rando tells you to join Amway or invest in AmCOIN™ you will tell them to get bent, but if it's a trusted friend, you're much more likely to be open. It's disgusting, but it happens. And in a small town, likely everyone goes to the same church or two, hangs out at the same bar, etc. It can spread like wildfire, though usually after the first few scams it becomes known and starts to die out a bit. Sometimes you recognize the situation and decide to "participate" (read: lose some small amount of money in the scam) to stay in the community.
    - dtmmax33 4y ago
      You can also check out behindmlm.com which exposes most of the more popular scams.
    - AlwaysRock 4y ago
      In the smallest version of this... My weekly poker group talks about stocks and crypto often. It's a mix of guys who work in tech and engineering and a handful who just want to get rich quick. We've all bought a few yolo stocks and coins together and 100% of the time the investments have gone to zero or close to it. Thankfully no one in the group is dumb enough to go all in on this hyper risky investments but I can see how it would be easy to be talked into something if you're in an echo chamber. Before anyone gets too worried I'm talking about spending a few hundred dollars each on stupid investsments over the course of a few years.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        The danger is when they don't go to zero, and you suddenly thing you're stock picking geniuses - or you then decide to put it all in on the next one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardstown_Ladies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardstown_Ladies
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago
There is a recent movie called Dream Horse based on true story: "Twenty years ago, one woman convinced her neighbours to buy, rear and train a thoroughbred racehorse, Dream Alliance. Now their unlikely story is relived in a feelgood film" https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/30/against-all-odds-how-a-village-in-the-welsh-valleys-dreamed-big-and-won https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/may/30/against-all-odd...

cosmodisk 4y ago

I had similar at work: neverending stories about how crypto will reach Mars and then some. When asked the very basics on certain claims, the answers were always how don't get,how innovative it is and etc. I haven't heard a single word about crypto since it all gone down substantially. Everyone's smart when the rocket is going up, but at some point the fuel ends.

jjoonathan 4y ago

> The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians Yes! It's not just crypto, either, this problem seems to be endemic in our political and economic power structures.

mlcrypto 4y ago
Yea who do you think benefits most from the Fed's printing press?
- MrMan 4y ago
  People in tech
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    Wat? The fed bought mortgage backed securities, so property owners, bankers, and real estate agents were the primary beneficiaries. Look at who was in charge.

jgalt212 4y ago

> The real problem is that swindlers have made a huge amount of money and can use that money to corrupt politicians so it affects the rest of us. Exactly this. Can you imagine what regulatory capture by the NFT crowd would look like?

Hallucinaut 4y ago
We're already closer to idiocracy than I thought possible before the last decade, so I'm good without an OwMyBallsCoin

adrr 4y ago

UK is talking about backstopping the stable coins is an example of influence. I assume they are referring to Tether which hasn't completed an audit. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/31/uk-plans-new-safeguards-for-stablecoins-after-terra-collapse.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/31/uk-plans-new-safeguards-for-...

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> UK is talking about backstopping the stable coins London’s talking about regulating and ringfencing them. Not backstopping.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  Yes exactly. Having a regulatory regime to resolve a failure and minimise contagion (which is one of the things they're talking about) makes sense and cases like this 3AC one show why. It's not about protecting crypto participants, it's about reducing the damage to the system overall and impact to non-crypto participants caught in the blast radius when something central fails.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

The problem is the fintech industry - both crypto and mainstream - exists to swindle. The biggest rewards come from crossing the line and avoiding regulation/enforcement, either by legitimate or illegitimate means (including bribing enforcement officials). Next biggest are rewards for crossing the line and delaying enforcement until you can launder your rewards to a safe haven. If you're arrested and jailed - only likely in cases where you inconvenience certain very rich and powerful people, not ordinary folk - it isn't usually for long. And you can afford the best representation to minimise the risk. So the risk profile is very much slanted towards rewarding the unscrupulous. Example: Even after all the confusion around the $400m or so "missing" from Mt Gox, Mark Karpelès only received suspended sentences and spent no time in jail. Even after the recent crash, that's still more $1.5bn at 2022 values.

ac29 4y ago
> Mark Karpelès only received suspended sentences and spent no time in jail He was in jail from August 2015 to July 2016, if his wikipedia article is correct. The suspended sentence came after that.
- 100721 4y ago
  I would argue that the risk:reward is still very heavily weighted toward reward. I would happily spend a year in jail for $1bn+
hgomersall 4y ago
There are many fintech companies that I see as hugely important in disrupting finance, which is desperately in need of disrupting. The various new banks and companies like Wise are dragging the industry into the 21st century, though the incumbents are still failing disastrously.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
The problem with fintech is it is about integrity, and cashing out on integrity is generally counterfactual. Like cashing out on Idealism. Well if it's strictly cash, it can be done, like if there's no interest in prostitution of the resources, merely a form of liquidity and cooperation, yes. But to buy a Lamborghini? Only with an excellent, satisfying reason.[1] Like anything. Are you a man who wants to have sex with a girl who is underage? You can, if you marry her. But she's not an adult, so there's no possibility of a prenuptial agreement, you can marry her if you can accept that. "Half." --Eddie Murphy [1] And not in the way people imagine it, like the hedonism of the noughts, showing off like that horrible show "MTV Cribs." Yeah they're literally cribs, not masochists like a real man ie fasting and running track and field. That's exactly what they are, cribs for babies. And then, on a recurring reddit post, they tell you all those cribs you saw were fake, when really many of them were real--telling you on blogs that "only Red Man's crib was his true living conditions"--just pulling the rug under you. They filmed actual places, they were all different, they didn't have the tech to fuck with that back then. Yeah they rented some houses for a week, but those houses were still meant to be cribs for babies. And it's a demonic show--a demonic channel--yeah it looks like MTV is beautiful but...no yeah suppose they're beautiful, that's the fastest way to learn what's up.

tootie 4y ago

The threat is always systemic risk. That's why we need such a massive and seemingly unfair bailout of financial firms in 2007-8. Or the S&L crisis in the 80s. At some point, other's peoples bad decisions affect everyone else. I don't think the crypto market is big enough to have the same affect yet but it could. And it really shouldn't be allowed to get to that point until the market submits to regulation.

mushbino 4y ago

The savings and loan scandal is a great example of this, not that there's a shortage.

doggwalker 4y ago

I think even larger problem is how we don't correlate the other thread on here right now about how America can't build anything anymore with the over financialization of the society. The amount of human capital spent on the thousands of hedge funds and financial products the last 30 years is staggering and we basically have nothing to show for it other than unproductive pooling of capital. Given the incentives though it is borderline individually foolish to build anything in the physical world. I don't even think political corruption is near the worst part. It is the complete distortion of risk preferences and the distortion of what is even meant by "investing". At least the financial swindlers of old actually laid down thousands of miles of rail in their process of swindling. Now in the name of market efficiency we have a systemic process of trading options on options on options on options in an endless chain to the point the underlie has practically vanished. At least crypto is honest and doesn't even pretend there is an underlie, just a call option on nothing straight up. Everyone knows that is most of the financial system outside crypto too but with an accompanied financial theatrical performance by the participants. Even complete with Shakespearean bullshit language to make it sound more real. "I am not trading options on thin air. This is an arbitrage opportunity on a derivatives price that will help to facilitate market efficiency. It is almost like the way a physical bridge facilitates people getting across a river but we don't have to waste years actually building a bridge, take a fraction of the risk of bridge building and the return is 100X better." I am sure some future Edward Gibbon will come up with a name for this process while writing their historical masterpiece on why the West imploded. Reminds me of an interview I watched with some hedge fund asshole talking about how they were "creating value" by raising the rent of old people in trailer parks. As if raising the rent of old people in trailer parks is basically like building a bridge across a river.