7 ms·

Same way that Tether and Bitfinex are exactly the same people.

nileshtrivedi 4y ago
I looked at the Solana ecosystem when people started claiming its strong performance and scalability aspects. It was remarkable how difficult it was to find the identities of actual people behind Solana, Phantom, Serum etc, even though Solana is a VC-funded chain. Personally, I would never put money in any project where the team does not even put their identity & reputation at risk. But in those times, lots of people did exactly that. https://twitter.com/nileshtrivedi/status/1459438723305725952 https://twitter.com/nileshtrivedi/status/1459438723305725952
- pavlov 4y ago
  > “I would never put money in any project where the team does not even put their identity & reputation at risk.” In the heady days of web3 of <checks watch> six months ago, we were being told that it’s actually better if you don’t know who is behind a project because that’s the true spirit of decentralization. Just another crypto gaslighting exercise. Remember when people were very upset that the creators of the Boring Ape NFTs were revealed from public records?
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    ”zero trust” is when there are plenty of key people in critical, load-bearing roles, but you have no basis to trust any of them, right?
  - biztos 4y ago
    I met a youngish European guy who was working as a project manager for a DAO, I forget what they did but they made money and the staff got paid (crypto). It turned out many of the people working for the DAO were anonymous and nobody in the DAO knew or cared who they were in real life. They did good work, got paid crypto, everyone was happy. When I asked “what about sanctions” he gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      Because sanctions and crypto are inherently incompatible. The former is a flex of institutional, state power. The latter is an exercise in screw-the-state libertarianism.
      - Galanwe 4y ago
        I don't necessarily agree... I want widespread crypto, because I want to have the autonomy to initiate transfers myself, transparency of my accounts, easier back office, less payment middlemen, etc. Yet I would like a state managed crypto (e-euro?) so that a fraudulous transfer, stolen wallet, etc can be canceled. - We're in 2022 and I still can't have an API with my bank to analyze my purchases, I have to parse PDF monthly reports. - I still can't automate my savings without a third party robo advisor than requires me giving my account credentials. - I can't easily make FX swaps without a third party broker with 2 days wire transfers in/out. - I can't swap without a brokerage margin account. etc. Centralized crypto? yes please, it's still better than the current state of affairs. Not everyone lives in Europe or the US with fancy worldwide smart banking. Here in HK, banks are from the 90s. Crypto centralized would level the banking experience to the current century.
        alex7o 4y ago
        Sadly the US is not that far ahead anyway, you also need to provided your bank credentials too. But yes the UK is light years ahead of everybody. But I am not sure centralized crypto would solve this, technically speaking crypto is a ledger. Banks also have ledgers but centralized, but you still don't have api control over that.
        spaceman_2020 4y ago
        I know it's not for everyone, but I love all the exotic synthetic financial products that can be built on top of crypto. Why should exotic synthetic financial products only be the realm of Wall Street?
    - jbm 4y ago
      > When I asked “what about sanctions” he gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen. Yeah, in the same position I wouldn't care about those either and would give you the same blank look. Economic sanctions are a political act, and I can think of many ethical positions (class, ethnic, religious solidarity, rejection of extremism, rejection of central economic controls, immediate humanitarian need for items that are sanctioned, etc..) that may lead someone to disregard them entirely. A practical concern here would be security (not knowing who is involved == not knowing if they have alternative goals). I suppose they may have been trying to implement zero-trust development practices (can that even exist?) but that sounds like a great way to put a big fat brake on any work being done. (Disclaimer: Never owned any crypto, nor have I ever violated any sanctions)
  - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
    I'd buy that line if the project were such a threat to the status quo that the people working on it would not be safe if their identities were known. Still waiting for that one to come along though.
    - 3np 4y ago
      Tornado Cash, Alexander Pertsev.
      - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
        That's close to what I'm going for, but maybe not a big enough threat. I'd argue that the status quo is that if you have enough money you can do whatever you want. It's sometimes inconvenient. Sometimes you have to have a clever accountant on staff. But you can get it done. Anonymous money is more of the same, except you can fire that accountant. So tornado cash was an optimization of the current status quo. I'm talking about a threat to that status quo. The kind of coordination technology that would let us turn our backs on money so that everybody on wallstreet had to go find real ways to contribute because the people who make the things they want just laugh at their silly dollars.
- kragen 4y ago
  satoshi
  - defrost 4y ago
    bourbaki
    - kragen 4y ago
      excellent point, sir and/or madam
    - rrdharan 4y ago
      souvlaki
      - kragen 4y ago
        souvlaki is not a pseudonymous person or group famous for laying the foundations of the modern world with a 'project where the team does not even put their identity & reputation at risk' bourbaki and satoshi are
- kart23 4y ago
  come on, it's on wikipedia and they put it on their linkedin. It's really not that difficult, it's not like they tried to keep their identities secret.
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    Where are you finding it? Wikipedia only lists the "founders", which links to the "History" page in Solana's homepage [0], which only has story until 2018. Notably, this is before FTX was a thing, so my claim becomes "Solana was taken over by FTX at some point." [0] https://docs.solana.com/history https://docs.solana.com/history
    - kart23 4y ago
      ok, i assume you just wanted to know about who was behind solana, which is pretty simple. i don’t know about any of those other crypto projects or who is running them now.
- nailer 4y ago
  > It was remarkable how difficult it was to find the identities of actual people behind Solana, Phantom, Serum etc. https://www.linkedin.com/company/solanalabs/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/solanalabs/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/phantomwallet/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/phantomwallet/
darth_avocado 4y ago
You mean BitFinesse
spaceman_2020 4y ago
I have zero confidence that the 30B or so Tethers floating around on Tron are actually real.

I looked at the Solana ecosystem when people started claiming its strong performance and scalability aspects. It was remarkable how difficult it was to find the identities of actual people behind Solana, Phantom, Serum etc, even though Solana is a VC-funded chain. Personally, I would never put money in any project where the team does not even put their identity & reputation at risk. But in those times, lots of people did exactly that. https://twitter.com/nileshtrivedi/status/1459438723305725952 https://twitter.com/nileshtrivedi/status/1459438723305725952

pavlov 4y ago
> “I would never put money in any project where the team does not even put their identity & reputation at risk.” In the heady days of web3 of <checks watch> six months ago, we were being told that it’s actually better if you don’t know who is behind a project because that’s the true spirit of decentralization. Just another crypto gaslighting exercise. Remember when people were very upset that the creators of the Boring Ape NFTs were revealed from public records?
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  ”zero trust” is when there are plenty of key people in critical, load-bearing roles, but you have no basis to trust any of them, right?
- biztos 4y ago
  I met a youngish European guy who was working as a project manager for a DAO, I forget what they did but they made money and the staff got paid (crypto). It turned out many of the people working for the DAO were anonymous and nobody in the DAO knew or cared who they were in real life. They did good work, got paid crypto, everyone was happy. When I asked “what about sanctions” he gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Because sanctions and crypto are inherently incompatible. The former is a flex of institutional, state power. The latter is an exercise in screw-the-state libertarianism.
    - Galanwe 4y ago
      I don't necessarily agree... I want widespread crypto, because I want to have the autonomy to initiate transfers myself, transparency of my accounts, easier back office, less payment middlemen, etc. Yet I would like a state managed crypto (e-euro?) so that a fraudulous transfer, stolen wallet, etc can be canceled. - We're in 2022 and I still can't have an API with my bank to analyze my purchases, I have to parse PDF monthly reports. - I still can't automate my savings without a third party robo advisor than requires me giving my account credentials. - I can't easily make FX swaps without a third party broker with 2 days wire transfers in/out. - I can't swap without a brokerage margin account. etc. Centralized crypto? yes please, it's still better than the current state of affairs. Not everyone lives in Europe or the US with fancy worldwide smart banking. Here in HK, banks are from the 90s. Crypto centralized would level the banking experience to the current century.
      - alex7o 4y ago
        Sadly the US is not that far ahead anyway, you also need to provided your bank credentials too. But yes the UK is light years ahead of everybody. But I am not sure centralized crypto would solve this, technically speaking crypto is a ledger. Banks also have ledgers but centralized, but you still don't have api control over that.
      - spaceman_2020 4y ago
        I know it's not for everyone, but I love all the exotic synthetic financial products that can be built on top of crypto. Why should exotic synthetic financial products only be the realm of Wall Street?
  - jbm 4y ago
    > When I asked “what about sanctions” he gave me the blankest look I’ve ever seen. Yeah, in the same position I wouldn't care about those either and would give you the same blank look. Economic sanctions are a political act, and I can think of many ethical positions (class, ethnic, religious solidarity, rejection of extremism, rejection of central economic controls, immediate humanitarian need for items that are sanctioned, etc..) that may lead someone to disregard them entirely. A practical concern here would be security (not knowing who is involved == not knowing if they have alternative goals). I suppose they may have been trying to implement zero-trust development practices (can that even exist?) but that sounds like a great way to put a big fat brake on any work being done. (Disclaimer: Never owned any crypto, nor have I ever violated any sanctions)
- __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
  I'd buy that line if the project were such a threat to the status quo that the people working on it would not be safe if their identities were known. Still waiting for that one to come along though.
  - 3np 4y ago
    Tornado Cash, Alexander Pertsev.
    - __MatrixMan__ 4y ago
      That's close to what I'm going for, but maybe not a big enough threat. I'd argue that the status quo is that if you have enough money you can do whatever you want. It's sometimes inconvenient. Sometimes you have to have a clever accountant on staff. But you can get it done. Anonymous money is more of the same, except you can fire that accountant. So tornado cash was an optimization of the current status quo. I'm talking about a threat to that status quo. The kind of coordination technology that would let us turn our backs on money so that everybody on wallstreet had to go find real ways to contribute because the people who make the things they want just laugh at their silly dollars.
kragen 4y ago
satoshi
- defrost 4y ago
  bourbaki
  - kragen 4y ago
    excellent point, sir and/or madam
  - rrdharan 4y ago
    souvlaki
    - kragen 4y ago
      souvlaki is not a pseudonymous person or group famous for laying the foundations of the modern world with a 'project where the team does not even put their identity & reputation at risk' bourbaki and satoshi are
kart23 4y ago
come on, it's on wikipedia and they put it on their linkedin. It's really not that difficult, it's not like they tried to keep their identities secret.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  Where are you finding it? Wikipedia only lists the "founders", which links to the "History" page in Solana's homepage [0], which only has story until 2018. Notably, this is before FTX was a thing, so my claim becomes "Solana was taken over by FTX at some point." [0] https://docs.solana.com/history https://docs.solana.com/history
  - kart23 4y ago
    ok, i assume you just wanted to know about who was behind solana, which is pretty simple. i don’t know about any of those other crypto projects or who is running them now.
nailer 4y ago
> It was remarkable how difficult it was to find the identities of actual people behind Solana, Phantom, Serum etc. https://www.linkedin.com/company/solanalabs/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/solanalabs/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/phantomwallet/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/phantomwallet/

darth_avocado 4y ago

You mean BitFinesse

spaceman_2020 4y ago

I have zero confidence that the 30B or so Tethers floating around on Tron are actually real.