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I wonder how the people at Sequoia feels now. I'd like to see the comments of people who lost money in this fiasco here. The HN crowd is generally hostile to c

I wonder how the people at Sequoia feels now. I'd like to see the comments of people who lost money in this fiasco here. The HN crowd is generally hostile to crypto scams, but there are likely exceptions.

whimsicalism 4y ago
I'm a crypto moderate, if such a thing exists. Given the vitriol that I see here re:crypto (and the fact that pretty much every thread on crypto has to get dang chiming in to remind people to be civil & adhere to guidelines), there is little chance that actual "crypto evangelists" are going to be commenting here. Even a comment like this one will get aggressively downvoted in the current climate.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  Mostly agreed, though there certainly are done evangelists, just few and rarely high quality
- jfghi 4y ago
  Given that it’s a scam affecting many, vitriol is quite appropriate. However, I’ve mostly seen objective reality mislabeled as vitriol.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    I trust the moderators of this site to know vitriol when they see it. Honestly, all you need to see is dang's comment history [0] to see the proportionate amount of time they have to spend moderating crypto comments. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=dang&next=33563869 https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=dang&next=33563869
- wyldfire 4y ago
  I feel like I am slowly changing my mind about cryptocoins. It always seemed so powerful. Bitcoin's exchange rate may fluctuate but it has value and is nearly indestructible. You could complain that it's overvalued but it's not at all a ponzi scheme. Unfortunately, it seems like the only utility that has arrived is for the black market. A bajillion new coins have been created, some of which also have real value and purport to improve on bitcoin. But here we are in 2022 and while I can see some cryptocoin ATMs in supermarkets, I doubt they're used for much beyond paying ransoms. Even if we move the most important/useful coins off of proof-of-work †, I think governments around the world may move to outlaw cryptocoins. At which point whatever modest legitimate utility that existed will be eliminated and only the black market will remain. † this seems difficult or impossible for bitcoin until/unless it forks to something that looks completely unlike bitcoin.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    What is "black-market" is socially constructed and dependent on where you are resided. Crypto has massive uses in evading capital controls in countries that have traditionally had trouble managing their own currencies, like the Turkish Lira or the Naira. In these countries, it is often illegal to hold substantial sums of dollars and not safe to hold these sums on your person. These are "black market" uses from the perspective of the Nigerian or Turkish government, but immensely valuable to the user - and from my American perspective, probably a positive use case.
nullc 4y ago
SBF was well liked by much of the Bitcoin haters because he pushed many of the same sentiments. It not for the fact that this implosion has also dragged the Bitcoin price somewhat too you would be hearing much gloating. (well, you're probably hearing gloating anyways because thats how social media works. :) ).
- def_true_false 4y ago
  It seems that being EA adjacent is not a good proxy for competence nor trustworthiness. No one could have predicted this. /s I wonder what portion of bag holders in this round were part of the cohort that hasn't seen a crypto winter yet.
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
As I said elsewhere. Sequoia needs to be thoroughly investigated and charged for their crimes if found.
- chasd00 4y ago
  This has all the echos of Enron and Arthur Anderson. I know Sequoia isn't an auditing firm but the warning flags and misses on their part are so extraordinary it wouldn't surprise me to find out there's people at Sequoia who were in on it.
burkaman 4y ago
The people at Sequoia did not lose money. They are fine, and their investors are probably fine. The people who lost money were actual FTX users, who probably trusted FTX in part because it was so well-marketed and endorsed by so many "trustworthy" organizations like Sequoia.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  I am not worried about the financials of Sequoia, but I think this could be a big stain on their reputation. They've been spectacularly wrong and lazy on this one.
- drexlspivey 4y ago
  What? They bought shares in a company that went to zero, they lost all the money. The only way their investment is worth anything is if every single FTX customer gets their money back because in a liquidation lenders get paid first before equity investors.
  - burkaman 4y ago
    Yes, but the actual people involved, the employees of Sequoia, did not lose anything. I guess the word "lose" is ambiguous here, but I mean that they will not be personally affected by this failure.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  Well, they might consider renaming their fund going forward. https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoias-bad-year-just-got-much-worse https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoias-bad-year-just-got-much-wo...

whimsicalism 4y ago

I'm a crypto moderate, if such a thing exists. Given the vitriol that I see here re:crypto (and the fact that pretty much every thread on crypto has to get dang chiming in to remind people to be civil & adhere to guidelines), there is little chance that actual "crypto evangelists" are going to be commenting here. Even a comment like this one will get aggressively downvoted in the current climate.

Semaphor 4y ago
Mostly agreed, though there certainly are done evangelists, just few and rarely high quality
jfghi 4y ago
Given that it’s a scam affecting many, vitriol is quite appropriate. However, I’ve mostly seen objective reality mislabeled as vitriol.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  I trust the moderators of this site to know vitriol when they see it. Honestly, all you need to see is dang's comment history [0] to see the proportionate amount of time they have to spend moderating crypto comments. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=dang&next=33563869 https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=dang&next=33563869
wyldfire 4y ago
I feel like I am slowly changing my mind about cryptocoins. It always seemed so powerful. Bitcoin's exchange rate may fluctuate but it has value and is nearly indestructible. You could complain that it's overvalued but it's not at all a ponzi scheme. Unfortunately, it seems like the only utility that has arrived is for the black market. A bajillion new coins have been created, some of which also have real value and purport to improve on bitcoin. But here we are in 2022 and while I can see some cryptocoin ATMs in supermarkets, I doubt they're used for much beyond paying ransoms. Even if we move the most important/useful coins off of proof-of-work †, I think governments around the world may move to outlaw cryptocoins. At which point whatever modest legitimate utility that existed will be eliminated and only the black market will remain. † this seems difficult or impossible for bitcoin until/unless it forks to something that looks completely unlike bitcoin.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  What is "black-market" is socially constructed and dependent on where you are resided. Crypto has massive uses in evading capital controls in countries that have traditionally had trouble managing their own currencies, like the Turkish Lira or the Naira. In these countries, it is often illegal to hold substantial sums of dollars and not safe to hold these sums on your person. These are "black market" uses from the perspective of the Nigerian or Turkish government, but immensely valuable to the user - and from my American perspective, probably a positive use case.

nullc 4y ago

SBF was well liked by much of the Bitcoin haters because he pushed many of the same sentiments. It not for the fact that this implosion has also dragged the Bitcoin price somewhat too you would be hearing much gloating. (well, you're probably hearing gloating anyways because thats how social media works. :) ).

def_true_false 4y ago
It seems that being EA adjacent is not a good proxy for competence nor trustworthiness. No one could have predicted this. /s I wonder what portion of bag holders in this round were part of the cohort that hasn't seen a crypto winter yet.

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

As I said elsewhere. Sequoia needs to be thoroughly investigated and charged for their crimes if found.

chasd00 4y ago
This has all the echos of Enron and Arthur Anderson. I know Sequoia isn't an auditing firm but the warning flags and misses on their part are so extraordinary it wouldn't surprise me to find out there's people at Sequoia who were in on it.

burkaman 4y ago

The people at Sequoia did not lose money. They are fine, and their investors are probably fine. The people who lost money were actual FTX users, who probably trusted FTX in part because it was so well-marketed and endorsed by so many "trustworthy" organizations like Sequoia.

stephc_int13 4y ago
I am not worried about the financials of Sequoia, but I think this could be a big stain on their reputation. They've been spectacularly wrong and lazy on this one.
drexlspivey 4y ago
What? They bought shares in a company that went to zero, they lost all the money. The only way their investment is worth anything is if every single FTX customer gets their money back because in a liquidation lenders get paid first before equity investors.
- burkaman 4y ago
  Yes, but the actual people involved, the employees of Sequoia, did not lose anything. I guess the word "lose" is ambiguous here, but I mean that they will not be personally affected by this failure.
stephc_int13 4y ago
Well, they might consider renaming their fund going forward. https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoias-bad-year-just-got-much-worse https://www.newcomer.co/p/sequoias-bad-year-just-got-much-wo...