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Why would this make someone question crypto? FTX was not a blockchain. It was a website run by one guy which (incorrectly) told you that he was holding some cry

by woah 4y ago

Why would this make someone question crypto? FTX was not a blockchain. It was a website run by one guy which (incorrectly) told you that he was holding some crypto for you. FTX could have been an exchange for anything, and it would have been the same outcome, had the CEO gambled with customer deposits like SBF did

braingenious 4y ago
> Why would this make someone question crypto? I don’t know, I am not into crypto. I assume you might have to ask one of the many thousands of people that have lost untold quantities of money to a nearly infinite number of scams why they might question the practical value of the crypto ecosystem.
esalman 4y ago
Any other exchange for "anything" would be under regulation. Crypto folks like to think they are not. That's the issue here.
RandomBK 4y ago
Because there's crypto, and then there's "crypto". While FTX & co. don't match the technical blockchain-based definition of crypto, they are what people think of when they talk about the crypto ecosystem, and are part of the crypto hype chain. If we filter the crypto market to only the true not-my-keys-not-my-coin crowd, the market wouldn't be anywhere near as large and influential as it is today.
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Human behaviour. But also, it's predicting human behaviour, like a trader attempting to get in front of the trade flood. There's going to be pain as a result of further dominoes falling that were propped up against FTX, and this will result in a shark-like media feeding frenzy that will scare off, for years, any (potential) retail traders that weren't already in the game. You're not wrong, it's just that humans are more emotion driven than logic driven. Logic requires effort and second-order thinking, emotion is passive; involuntary. There's also the very real distinction between Bitcoin (and Ethereum) and "the rest"; the other fucking thousands of 'projects' that has VC / insider distributions and haven't had the time to decentralise and / spread themselves amongst a large group and still have the ability to be controlled by a central entity. I'm no Bitcoin maxi, but I'm inching closer, which is not the direction that progress should be taking me, and it's due to fraudsters corrupting the ideals, and seemingly being in The majority as it relates to founding projects and services in the cryptocurrency space.
dandelany 4y ago
Because “believing in crypto” (for most people) doesn’t just mean believing that the math works. It means believing that we can build a sociopolitical ecosystem that allows crypto to be a useful part of our lives in the future. To many, SBF seemed like an important visionary working to make that future happen. The fact that he turned out to be YET ANOTHER scumbag scam artist, fraudulently trading customer deposits like all the rest, will incinerate any goodwill the crypto community was starting to build in the eyes of regulators, politicians and the non-tech-world at large.

by woah 4y ago

braingenious 4y ago

> Why would this make someone question crypto? I don’t know, I am not into crypto. I assume you might have to ask one of the many thousands of people that have lost untold quantities of money to a nearly infinite number of scams why they might question the practical value of the crypto ecosystem.

esalman 4y ago

Any other exchange for "anything" would be under regulation. Crypto folks like to think they are not. That's the issue here.

RandomBK 4y ago

Because there's crypto, and then there's "crypto". While FTX & co. don't match the technical blockchain-based definition of crypto, they are what people think of when they talk about the crypto ecosystem, and are part of the crypto hype chain. If we filter the crypto market to only the true not-my-keys-not-my-coin crowd, the market wouldn't be anywhere near as large and influential as it is today.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago

Human behaviour. But also, it's predicting human behaviour, like a trader attempting to get in front of the trade flood. There's going to be pain as a result of further dominoes falling that were propped up against FTX, and this will result in a shark-like media feeding frenzy that will scare off, for years, any (potential) retail traders that weren't already in the game. You're not wrong, it's just that humans are more emotion driven than logic driven. Logic requires effort and second-order thinking, emotion is passive; involuntary. There's also the very real distinction between Bitcoin (and Ethereum) and "the rest"; the other fucking thousands of 'projects' that has VC / insider distributions and haven't had the time to decentralise and / spread themselves amongst a large group and still have the ability to be controlled by a central entity. I'm no Bitcoin maxi, but I'm inching closer, which is not the direction that progress should be taking me, and it's due to fraudsters corrupting the ideals, and seemingly being in The majority as it relates to founding projects and services in the cryptocurrency space.

dandelany 4y ago

Because “believing in crypto” (for most people) doesn’t just mean believing that the math works. It means believing that we can build a sociopolitical ecosystem that allows crypto to be a useful part of our lives in the future. To many, SBF seemed like an important visionary working to make that future happen. The fact that he turned out to be YET ANOTHER scumbag scam artist, fraudulently trading customer deposits like all the rest, will incinerate any goodwill the crypto community was starting to build in the eyes of regulators, politicians and the non-tech-world at large.