9 ms·

I find the collapse, the PR, puff-pieces, SBF chatting away during NYT DealBook summit, celebrities white-washing to be incredible to watch. I am wondering h

by dpflan 4y ago

I find the collapse, the PR, puff-pieces, SBF chatting away during NYT DealBook summit, celebrities white-washing to be incredible to watch. I am wondering how large the impact is on investors: Why is Bill Ackman talking about how cool Helium is within the last month? It does seem like a (last?) gasp for reassurance and hence liquidity for the larger/st investors involved in cryptocurrency/web3 madness. How much money is being lost that desperation is required to pump the ponzi still...

negamax 4y ago
Good point. Also Cathy Wood suddenly buying more $COIN and $GBTC seems like similar forces at play. Many are caught off guard and seem to have lost big on paper
- dpflan 4y ago
  Indeed, the compound growth required for BTC to reach Wood's $1M target by 2030 from where it is now, seems incredibly unlikely...
  - inasio 4y ago
    I didn't know she ended up picking up McAfee's torch. Hopefully she skipped the pledge.
    - louloulou 4y ago
      Yeah, she didn't really pick up the torch with the same flare https://twitter.com/dergigi/status/1597721460784582657 https://twitter.com/dergigi/status/1597721460784582657
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    Cathie Wood is another version of SBF. She has repeatedly said stuff that is obviously false. Even worse, she has actually demonstrated that her staff also have no idea what they are doing. It isn't possible to go full-FTX with a long-only fund...but there is further downside.
- gitfan86 4y ago
  They are all trying to frontrun the next boom cycle in hopes of having good returns for 2023. Their returns for 2022 are garbage. Can you imagine giving ARK 1% of your wealth as payment for them losing 60% of your wealth? Their hope is that the fed cuts rates in early 2023, and that causes a ton of money on the sidelines to come back into the market into speculative assets.
throwup 4y ago
The interesting thing is that FTX had almost no retail customers in the US[1], yet most of the coverage has been US-focused, due to the VC investors and US political donations. It really was just investors (in the company itself) that got hit the hardest. It just goes to show how easy it is to buy media coverage. If the media talked about things that affected their readers rather than their owners, the FTX news cycle wouldn't have lasted one day before everybody moved on. [1]: https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2022/11/23/07a8c476-890e-49fc-a54c-e6436ed40a84_ca3af8ce.jpg https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/...
- benjaminwootton 4y ago
  As I post on many threads, I have barely heard a single story about retail losing money on FTX, whereas I personally knew a handful who lost money with LUNA. I assume institutions are holding the vast majority of the bags here.
  - hi5eyes 4y ago
    common joke amongst ct natives is that left curves got rekt in luna, while right curves got rekt in ftx. interesting to see it commonly admitted by corresponding market participants
    - pavlov 4y ago
      Fascinatingly cryptic comment. My best guesses don’t map to anything intelligible. Connecticut natives? Left curve of the what exactly?
      - v64 4y ago
        CT = Crypto Twitter, and it's referencing the midwit meme [1] [2]. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit [2] https://twitter.com/notfrydoteth/status/1590386451027746817 https://twitter.com/notfrydoteth/status/1590386451027746817
      - 4y ago
candiddevmike 4y ago
My new conspiracy theory is all of the smaller coins were an easy way to extend the Ponzi scheme by inventing valuation out of thin air. Now that those have been unmasked and everyone's asking hard questions around liquidity or pulling their coins into their own wallets, the major players are over leveraged to the gills (because you can't make "real money" on customer money without risky bets). The only way out is to get BTC's price back to the good ol days and keep the Ponzi going.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > My new conspiracy theory is all of the smaller coins were an easy way to extend the Ponzi scheme by inventing valuation out of thin air. I don't think this is a conspiracy theory... At the very least, we know that some of largest institutions were regularly pumping up assets for solvency reasons.
- balderdash 4y ago
  That’s why in “legacy” (stocks/bonds/futures) risk/portfolio management side not only is there a market quote next to your position, but also #of trading days at x% of avg. daily volume to exit…and as a supervisor/risk manager you’re going to assign a lot of risk to that illiquid position (regardless of where the “price” is)
- EMM_386 4y ago
  > My new conspiracy theory is all of the smaller coins were an easy way to extend the Ponzi scheme by inventing valuation out of thin air. That's exactly what happened. I invent $GRBG coin, reserve 1 billion of them, and sell 1 to my friend for $1. Boom, $1 billion "market cap". Then you wash trade between each other, raising the price enough so the suckers start to notice, and then cash out at the top.
bombcar 4y ago
I suspect the strange news/media outfall is because nobody quite knows yet WHO is at fault and since the money lost is from larger investors, they themselves are perhaps worried that they are at fault somehow, so there's really no "narrative" at play. Something similar happened during the implosion of the mortgage crisis; it wasn't clear how the contagion had spread until later.
a11yclub 4y ago
I personally think all of crypto is a scam but bitcoin, anyone who plays with alt-coins is just trying to get rich quick... You could say the same for bitcoiners, but it I think it's different.
- zampano 4y ago
  What makes bitcoin different other than it being older than the rest of the pack?
  - qotgalaxy 4y ago
  - rahen 4y ago
    Bitcoin is the only currency that's leaderless, decentralized, belongs to no company or some 30 years-old "CEO", and is contributed to much like the Linux kernel. You could compare it to TCP/IP versus proprietary protocols du jour. Or just Google "what sets bitcoin apart to other cryptos". https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/what-makes-bitcoin-different-from-crypto https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/what-makes-bitcoin-diffe...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jgalt212 4y ago
The Ponzi can keep going for a while. The Fed Balance Sheet is still within 95% of its all time high. These huge asset price moves are more a function of investor preferences and people trying to get in front of the Fed rather than there being a lot less money around. The (real) Art Market, for example, still seems quite healthy. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> I find the collapse, the PR, puff-pieces, SBF chatting away during NYT DealBook summit, celebrities white-washing to be incredible to watch. What I find way more incredible is that we've got someone who committed many crimes: wire fraud, running ponzis, pumping and dumping shitcoins which were considered for some as securities, funneling money out of the US to the Bahamas using tens if not hundreds of companies, naming his company "Alameda Research" to dodge banking restrictions, lying up until the very last moment when things blew up that everything fine, lying about US customers deposits being FDIC insured, bribing people (several people came out and said SBF downright offered them $1m to paint FTX in a positive light), using the stolen money to buy properties in the Bahamas to the tune of $300m, etc. And yet... This is resumed by many with: *"Cryptos are all ponzis". What's the reasoning? Everybody in crypto is a fraudster so investors and depositors all deserve to be wiped out by a scammer? And he should walk free? While the guy who wrote "tornado cash" is in jail? While Aaron Swartz got sentenced for putting online research papers (paid with taxpayers money btw)? Is that what you're saying? That's it's all a gigantic fraud so it's on par for the course and SBF is not worse than the guy who bought two DOGE and three SHIBA INU coin?
- loeg 4y ago
  You seem to repeatedly raise the idea that we can't or shouldn't use the FTX fraud and collapse to criticize the rest of the crypto space, or that doing so somehow excuses SBF. You are wrong on both counts.
  - officialjunk 4y ago
    all the crimes sbf committed are "traditional" fraud and not dependent on there being crypto involved. we should still scrutinize and perform due diligence on all businesses, though, including crypto businesses.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      Well, it's him doing them in the crypto space that has enabled the proliferation.
40acres 4y ago
I don’t understand the criticism of the Dealbook interview. I want to hear SBF side and found that he’s definitely hanging himself with his public statements. If the media were to “deplatform” him that would be an incredible disservice. I thought ARS asked fair questions.
- dpflan 4y ago
  Sure, he can mint himself enough rope, but the opportunity can give weight to a narrative that is desired, whatever it may be.

by dpflan 4y ago

negamax 4y ago

Good point. Also Cathy Wood suddenly buying more $COIN and $GBTC seems like similar forces at play. Many are caught off guard and seem to have lost big on paper

dpflan 4y ago
Indeed, the compound growth required for BTC to reach Wood's $1M target by 2030 from where it is now, seems incredibly unlikely...
- inasio 4y ago
  I didn't know she ended up picking up McAfee's torch. Hopefully she skipped the pledge.
  - louloulou 4y ago
    Yeah, she didn't really pick up the torch with the same flare https://twitter.com/dergigi/status/1597721460784582657 https://twitter.com/dergigi/status/1597721460784582657
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  Cathie Wood is another version of SBF. She has repeatedly said stuff that is obviously false. Even worse, she has actually demonstrated that her staff also have no idea what they are doing. It isn't possible to go full-FTX with a long-only fund...but there is further downside.
gitfan86 4y ago
They are all trying to frontrun the next boom cycle in hopes of having good returns for 2023. Their returns for 2022 are garbage. Can you imagine giving ARK 1% of your wealth as payment for them losing 60% of your wealth? Their hope is that the fed cuts rates in early 2023, and that causes a ton of money on the sidelines to come back into the market into speculative assets.

throwup 4y ago

The interesting thing is that FTX had almost no retail customers in the US[1], yet most of the coverage has been US-focused, due to the VC investors and US political donations. It really was just investors (in the company itself) that got hit the hardest. It just goes to show how easy it is to buy media coverage. If the media talked about things that affected their readers rather than their owners, the FTX news cycle wouldn't have lasted one day before everybody moved on. [1]: https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2022/11/23/07a8c476-890e-49fc-a54c-e6436ed40a84_ca3af8ce.jpg https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/...

benjaminwootton 4y ago
As I post on many threads, I have barely heard a single story about retail losing money on FTX, whereas I personally knew a handful who lost money with LUNA. I assume institutions are holding the vast majority of the bags here.
- hi5eyes 4y ago
  common joke amongst ct natives is that left curves got rekt in luna, while right curves got rekt in ftx. interesting to see it commonly admitted by corresponding market participants
  - pavlov 4y ago
    Fascinatingly cryptic comment. My best guesses don’t map to anything intelligible. Connecticut natives? Left curve of the what exactly?
    - v64 4y ago
      CT = Crypto Twitter, and it's referencing the midwit meme [1] [2]. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit [2] https://twitter.com/notfrydoteth/status/1590386451027746817 https://twitter.com/notfrydoteth/status/1590386451027746817
    - 4y ago

candiddevmike 4y ago

My new conspiracy theory is all of the smaller coins were an easy way to extend the Ponzi scheme by inventing valuation out of thin air. Now that those have been unmasked and everyone's asking hard questions around liquidity or pulling their coins into their own wallets, the major players are over leveraged to the gills (because you can't make "real money" on customer money without risky bets). The only way out is to get BTC's price back to the good ol days and keep the Ponzi going.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> My new conspiracy theory is all of the smaller coins were an easy way to extend the Ponzi scheme by inventing valuation out of thin air. I don't think this is a conspiracy theory... At the very least, we know that some of largest institutions were regularly pumping up assets for solvency reasons.
balderdash 4y ago
That’s why in “legacy” (stocks/bonds/futures) risk/portfolio management side not only is there a market quote next to your position, but also #of trading days at x% of avg. daily volume to exit…and as a supervisor/risk manager you’re going to assign a lot of risk to that illiquid position (regardless of where the “price” is)
EMM_386 4y ago
> My new conspiracy theory is all of the smaller coins were an easy way to extend the Ponzi scheme by inventing valuation out of thin air. That's exactly what happened. I invent $GRBG coin, reserve 1 billion of them, and sell 1 to my friend for $1. Boom, $1 billion "market cap". Then you wash trade between each other, raising the price enough so the suckers start to notice, and then cash out at the top.

bombcar 4y ago

I suspect the strange news/media outfall is because nobody quite knows yet WHO is at fault and since the money lost is from larger investors, they themselves are perhaps worried that they are at fault somehow, so there's really no "narrative" at play. Something similar happened during the implosion of the mortgage crisis; it wasn't clear how the contagion had spread until later.

a11yclub 4y ago

I personally think all of crypto is a scam but bitcoin, anyone who plays with alt-coins is just trying to get rich quick... You could say the same for bitcoiners, but it I think it's different.

zampano 4y ago
What makes bitcoin different other than it being older than the rest of the pack?
- qotgalaxy 4y ago
- rahen 4y ago
  Bitcoin is the only currency that's leaderless, decentralized, belongs to no company or some 30 years-old "CEO", and is contributed to much like the Linux kernel. You could compare it to TCP/IP versus proprietary protocols du jour. Or just Google "what sets bitcoin apart to other cryptos". https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/what-makes-bitcoin-different-from-crypto https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/what-makes-bitcoin-diffe...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jgalt212 4y ago

The Ponzi can keep going for a while. The Fed Balance Sheet is still within 95% of its all time high. These huge asset price moves are more a function of investor preferences and people trying to get in front of the Fed rather than there being a lot less money around. The (real) Art Market, for example, still seems quite healthy. https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

TacticalCoder 4y ago

> I find the collapse, the PR, puff-pieces, SBF chatting away during NYT DealBook summit, celebrities white-washing to be incredible to watch. What I find way more incredible is that we've got someone who committed many crimes: wire fraud, running ponzis, pumping and dumping shitcoins which were considered for some as securities, funneling money out of the US to the Bahamas using tens if not hundreds of companies, naming his company "Alameda Research" to dodge banking restrictions, lying up until the very last moment when things blew up that everything fine, lying about US customers deposits being FDIC insured, bribing people (several people came out and said SBF downright offered them $1m to paint FTX in a positive light), using the stolen money to buy properties in the Bahamas to the tune of $300m, etc. And yet... This is resumed by many with: *"Cryptos are all ponzis". What's the reasoning? Everybody in crypto is a fraudster so investors and depositors all deserve to be wiped out by a scammer? And he should walk free? While the guy who wrote "tornado cash" is in jail? While Aaron Swartz got sentenced for putting online research papers (paid with taxpayers money btw)? Is that what you're saying? That's it's all a gigantic fraud so it's on par for the course and SBF is not worse than the guy who bought two DOGE and three SHIBA INU coin?

loeg 4y ago
You seem to repeatedly raise the idea that we can't or shouldn't use the FTX fraud and collapse to criticize the rest of the crypto space, or that doing so somehow excuses SBF. You are wrong on both counts.
- officialjunk 4y ago
  all the crimes sbf committed are "traditional" fraud and not dependent on there being crypto involved. we should still scrutinize and perform due diligence on all businesses, though, including crypto businesses.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    Well, it's him doing them in the crypto space that has enabled the proliferation.

40acres 4y ago

I don’t understand the criticism of the Dealbook interview. I want to hear SBF side and found that he’s definitely hanging himself with his public statements. If the media were to “deplatform” him that would be an incredible disservice. I thought ARS asked fair questions.

dpflan 4y ago
Sure, he can mint himself enough rope, but the opportunity can give weight to a narrative that is desired, whatever it may be.