4 ms·

It is odd how in past fraud cases (Enron, Bernie Madoff, others) the media focused on the victims and how much they lost. But this case the focus has been on p

It is odd how in past fraud cases (Enron, Bernie Madoff, others) the media focused on the victims and how much they lost. But this case the focus has been on philanthropy, effective altruism, and things other than fraud. Just about zero mention of average people who lost out as a result.

dandanua 4y ago
I've seen comments here on HN that some people committed suicide because of the losses. But media don't care. It's not unexpected, though. Hyper-capitalism and democracy are clearly incompatible. People already treat others arrogantly if they gain 10x more money. 100x more and you're in a different caste. 1000x more and you're just dust. An average Joe should work for more than 10000 years to make a billion. Crypto fraudsters can collect it in years, while producing nothing good.
- dandanua 4y ago
  The referenced comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33743424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33743424
TechBro8615 4y ago
I've yet to hear from a real person who lost money on FTX and I'm going to continue believing the entire exchange was a fraudulent money laundering operation with an engineered collapse.
- unmole 4y ago
  I know someone who put the bulk of their savings into Blockfi and Gemini. Last I heard their money was stuck because withdrawals were paused after the FTX collapse.
spicymaki 4y ago
> It is odd how in past fraud cases (Enron, Bernie Madoff, others) the media focused on the victims and how much they lost. Seems the highest portion lost were from institutional investors making long shot bets. They may not want to be candid about their lack of due diligence with investor funds. It might be such a small portion of an overall portfolio they can write it off and move on. There are so many people losing money in crypto these days due to exchange collapses and rug pulls perhaps there may be too little signal relative to the noise. Just search "victims of crypto scam" in a news search engine and there are tens of thousands of results. Many with hundreds or thousands of victims per scam.

dandanua 4y ago

I've seen comments here on HN that some people committed suicide because of the losses. But media don't care. It's not unexpected, though. Hyper-capitalism and democracy are clearly incompatible. People already treat others arrogantly if they gain 10x more money. 100x more and you're in a different caste. 1000x more and you're just dust. An average Joe should work for more than 10000 years to make a billion. Crypto fraudsters can collect it in years, while producing nothing good.

dandanua 4y ago
The referenced comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33743424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33743424

TechBro8615 4y ago

I've yet to hear from a real person who lost money on FTX and I'm going to continue believing the entire exchange was a fraudulent money laundering operation with an engineered collapse.

unmole 4y ago
I know someone who put the bulk of their savings into Blockfi and Gemini. Last I heard their money was stuck because withdrawals were paused after the FTX collapse.

spicymaki 4y ago

> It is odd how in past fraud cases (Enron, Bernie Madoff, others) the media focused on the victims and how much they lost. Seems the highest portion lost were from institutional investors making long shot bets. They may not want to be candid about their lack of due diligence with investor funds. It might be such a small portion of an overall portfolio they can write it off and move on. There are so many people losing money in crypto these days due to exchange collapses and rug pulls perhaps there may be too little signal relative to the noise. Just search "victims of crypto scam" in a news search engine and there are tens of thousands of results. Many with hundreds or thousands of victims per scam.