8 ms·
FTX Token, FTT down by more than 80% in less than 24 hours
- red_Seashell_32 4y agoThat’s worse, than few days ago among crypto-whales it was already common knowledge, and they were pulling out. It’s common people who ended up losing on this. So much about decentralization and unregulated market
- TimJRobinson 4y agoFTX is centralized, regulated, and audited. This is the problem - people think more regulation would solve this problem and it fails time and time again. Decentralization is the solution. A decentralized exchange like Uniswap, Balancer or GMX will never suddenly go bankrupt and lock up your money because everything is public and transparent. Eventually with ZK Proofs we'll be able to have privacy and open source transparent protocols. Which will be a massive upgrade for finance.
- datalopers 4y agoIt’s due to astroturfers like this guy [1] here on HN manipulating the narrative with intentional misinformation and HN taking the bait and upvoting like crazy because it sounds intelligent and authoritative. Don’t trust anyone, they’re all scum. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33467429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33467429
- bhouston 4y agoAlso cryptoanon was spreading disinformation as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33466306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33466306
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- jovial_cavalier 4y agoThey may be insolvent now due to FTT dip, but at the time this comment was written, he was right. They were almost certainly not insolvent. I think this all started with a tiny bit of FUD about Alameda and FTX being naughty with user deposits. CZ saw that and did a supreme job of taking advantage, but probably this would have all blown over otherwise. Easy to look at someone's post in hindsight and see that they were mistaken. Probably
- ahahahahah 4y ago> They may be insolvent now due to FTT dip Are you intentionally trying to mislead people? The whole point at that time was that their claims to solvency were entirely predicated on an indefensible valuation of their FTT holdings. We've now seen, as expected, that that FTT valuation was totally bogus.
- jovial_cavalier 4y agoDoes FTT pay dividends? If not, it's not a stock. Its valuation is what people are paying for it on the market. If it's trading for $25 on every exchange, it's $25. Their valuation was accurate.
- paxys 4y agoThere are no "common people" in this scenario. Just different groups of gamblers with different levels of knowledge and foresight. Hard to feel sympathy for anyone who loses money in crypto at this point.
- nscalf 4y agoPolls have shown >20% of people have traded or used cryptocurrencies [1]. Clearly there are common people in the space. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/31/cryptocurrency-news-21percent-of-adults-have-traded-or-used-crypto-nbc-poll-shows.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/31/cryptocurrency-news-21percen...
- luckylion 4y agoI'd love to see that number broken down. I expect it to be mostly "used cryptocurrencies", not traded them, and those cryptocurrencies to be mostly BTC and ETH, possibly XMR, but not some utility token of an exchange.
- toqy 4y agoYeah i know quite a few people who have bought drugs online with crypto but don't trade/invest in it. For the majority of people it's just not on their radar.
- nscalf 4y agoOh interesting, I kind of assumed it was investing just because it's easy to open a Coinbase account and buy $20 of Bitcoin. It's pretty involved to set up a wallet, send crypto, and then do something with it. Web3 is not particularly user friendly.
- luckylion 4y agoDarknet markets did make it pretty easy, and often had instructions to use e.g. anycoin direct to send cash straight to your market balance to then order drugs or alien artefacts or whatever with, so you "use" BTC or XMR (and the electrum-style slim wallets made things somewhat easy). Plus there was the whole hype of cryptokitties and NFTs etc which would bring you into contact with ETH. The number of Americans having any money invested in the stock market in any form (i.e. including 401k, mutual funds etc) peaked at 60%. I'd be surprised to see people trading/investing in crypto to be > 3%, but who knows. Annoying that they just have these broad questions. "Have you, at any time in your life, ever eaten solid food or murdered a president?"
- fasthands9 4y agoI personally find SBF smart and interesting but nonetheless very happy to see this very silly ecosystem collapse. Perhaps bitcoin or a couple other tokens will have longterm staying power still, but remains mysterious to me why there should be so much surplus value to extract around it. Current banks and financial institutions (which are not even that efficient) manage to move around a magnitude more in investments and do not end up taking up the same level of surplus value, somehow.
- prologger 4y agoSo what's gonna happen to the effective altruists? Wasn't he the one bankrolling the movement?
- sct202 4y agoIt will still go on. He wasn't the only one, but he definitely supercharged funding as of late. I think all the longtermism stuff that has come to prominence recently is a side-effect of too much money in EA trying to make up new causes that are magically more effective than philanthropy that currently exists.
- prologger 4y agoI mean I really don't get what they're about. Most of what I know about these guys seems to revolve around shuffling money around so it's not clear to me what exactly is effective or altruistic about what they're doing.
- JamesBarney 4y agoTraditional metrics for charities only included efficiency metrics. Then there was a movement that said actually effectiveness is more important than efficiency even though it's harder to measure, and started trying to measure effectiveness (like Givewell, 80000 hours, etc...). It's called effective altruism because it focuses on effective giving(i.e. altruism).
- 4y ago
- 323 4y agoFTT has no purpose to exist now, it will be replaced by Binance token, BNB.
- dibt 4y agoI don’t know how likely it is, but if binance does complete the acquisition, maybe it can be converted to BNB?
- paulpauper 4y agoFTT will be worthless and Binance will inherit the accounts
- bhouston 4y agoAlameda bankrupt as well?
- dibt 4y agoNobody knows. Lots of rumors. Few facts.
- laluser 4y agoWhat goes up fast, comes down even faster sometimes.
- djbusby 4y agoSee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520624 -- Binance acquire FTX And another https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520585
- dang 4y agoThanks! We've merged those: Binance to acquire FTX - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520585 - Nov 2022 (283 comments) Related: FTX Agreement with Binance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33520547 - Nov 2022 (37 comments) FTX Appears to Have Stopped Processing Withdrawals, On-Chain Data Show - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33518961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33518961 - Nov 2022 (119 comments) Crypto trading firm Alameda Research might be insolvent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33464494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33464494 - Nov 2022 (197 comments)
- paulpauper 4y agoAs BTC likely goes back to 3k, more exchanges will fail. I'll stick with boring index funds. People are always looking for lifehacks or shortcuts to get rich. Almost never works unless you're early. Odds are you are not.
- agleason 4y agoUntil someone comes up with a better solution for cross border payments ($150T market), I don't think bitcoin/crypto will go away
- jboy55 4y agoAren't the vast majority of that 150T market in cross border payments already done outside of crypto?
- lovich 4y agoCross border payments are 50% bigger than the total planets gdp?
- darig 4y ago
- SgtBastard 4y agoI mean technically it could. For example, to buy goods from China in AU, I need to pay in USD./ For 100 USD in goods, I could have to send AUD cross border to receive 100 USD and then definitely have to send 100 USD cross border to China - nominally triggering 200 USD in payment volume for 100 USD in GDP. And then for companies using a Double Irish, Dutch Sandwich... well, the volume adds up. Crypto still isn't the answer though.
- lovich 4y agoI asked because it seems logically impossible since cross border payments are included in the aggregate of the world gdp. The same mechanism you are describing for the velocity of money also works inside national borders
- b800h 4y agoWhy did it suddenly climb prior to crashing?
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- mrits 4y agoThe conclusion I've come to in crypto over the last decade is that it is interesting. I love the idea of small purchases at food trucks with it as an alternative to credit card fees for small business. On the other hand I don't see why crypto needs to go up in value or how that actually helps anyone except people that got in early.
- popcalc 4y agoIndia has a great fiat mobile payments system that doesn't require those credit card fees. The real solution is to ditch ACH. >On the other hand I don't see why crypto needs to go up in value or how that actually helps anyone except people that got in early. The price rises when someone buys into it. Because no one would sell for less than they just bought, their ask price is slightly higher in general. This makes the quote price rise - same with stocks.
- mrits 4y agoTo be clear, I don't see why it needs to fluctuate in value like a stock to be valuable tech. And I'd prefer it not.
- tock 4y agoThe main problem it solves is trust. I don't see the need for it in a system/govt you trust which is the case in most stable/developed countries like the US or Europe or India. But a fully backed stablecoin available in unstable countries do have a use case.
- purpleblue 4y agoThis feels like an extinction-level event for crypto. If they survive, I guess Coinbase will be the King because they are very conservative so they really won't run into any of these liquidity issues that these other companies are finding themselves in. The biggest thing is that they no longer need to worry about competing on price because people know they will get their money back from Coinbase, I imagine.
- renewiltord 4y agoBinance.us has volume in the range of Coinbase. Binance.com dwarfs it.
- tootie 4y agoCalled it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31935844#31937338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31935844#31937338 Well, not with full confidence, but kinda.
- janmo 4y agoPlease don't post a link to FTX. Withdrawals on FTX are suspended, probably for ever.
- easytiger 4y agoI'm confused, were they leveraging people's stowed crypto? How can you have a liquidity crisis where you aren't leveraging up? Or is it more than an exchange? Another scam where the billionaire luminary ran away with the cash? Apologies, don't follow crypto
- kypro 4y agoOne could see this and other notable cypto blow-ups as an argument against a deregulated financial system.
- randiantech 4y agoI have seen a disproportionally bigger number of blowups of highly regulated industries, so does not seem like a strong argument IMO.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago> I have seen a disproportionally bigger number of blowups of highly regulated industries Source for your claim? Sounds incredibly outlandish to me, but perhaps we are thinking of different industries.