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> She said that investigators had proof that a Nexo client, who used the company’s platform to transfer cryptocurrencies, was a person officially designated as
by louwrentius 4y ago
> She said that investigators had proof that a Nexo client, who used the company’s platform to transfer cryptocurrencies, was a person officially designated as financing terrorism, but gave no further details.
All crypto is some form of crime, money laundering, evading sanctions, funding terrorism, or just a ponzi scheme, it's just different sides of the same thing.
I wish this space would totally collapse. Maybe if Tether (which is totally insolvent) collapses the whole space just dies.
That would make the world a better place.
Yes, it's true: the dollar or any other currency can be used for nefarious purposes as well, but that's why we have so much financial regulations and oversight (which should be better). And most of all, the upsides of regular currency (if you can call crypto a currency at all) is that it's the foundation of our societies.
I just want to see all crypto die in a fire. The profound negative impact crypto has had on our world with zero benefits makes me so sad.
- mypastself 4y agoIs Bitcoin a Ponzi? How exactly?
- lalaland1125 4y agoThe only way to make money investing in Bitcoin is to convince a greater fool to buy your coins for more than you paid for them. And that greater fool must in turn convince an even greater fool, etc, etc It's not a Ponzi, but it has similar dynamics to a Ponzi in that you can only gain money through other people losing money.
- krunck 4y agoWhy does it have to be about making money? Bitcoin is a currency, not an investment. That's where a lot people get confused.
- rubyist5eva 4y agoBitcoin will never gain mass adoption as a currency, that leaves it as a "value store" - and the only people buying bitcoin are suckers buying bitcoin from others in the hope that they can in turn sell it to a bigger sucker down the line.
- lalaland1125 4y agoIt's because that is the primary "use case" of Bitcoin right now as Bitcoin is even worse at being at currency than an investment. Bad price stability, slow transactions, high fees under any amount of load, bad privacy, terrible adoption, etc, etc
- Arainach 4y agoThe overwhelming majority of holders of Bitcoin disagree with you. It's a garbage currency - fees are too high, transfers too slow. It's a garbage technology that encourages wanton energy wastage. Its only "value" is as an investment.
- permo-w 4y agoBitcoin isn’t a ponzi scheme. no crypto is really a ponzi scheme, but a lot of them have similar characteristics. basically they’re fine while people are continuously investing in them, but once people lose interest they drop off a cliff. but then you could say that about any volatile investment
- mschuster91 4y ago> but then you could say that about any volatile investment Or even about modern fiat currencies. Just look at the Turkish Lira (~343% vs EUR / 5y), Argentinian Peso (~758% vs EUR / 5y) or a dozen other currencies that lost insane amounts of value over the last years [1], mostly because of political misgovernance and resulting economic devastation. [1] https://www.goldseiten.de/kurse/devisen-topflop.php https://www.goldseiten.de/kurse/devisen-topflop.php
- roundandround 4y agoI can't really agree with that. Any investment is supposed to have a return that exceeds inflation or some other reasonable index, eventually in the eyes of some kind of reasonable investor. If it doesn't meet that criteria then it is more likely a social phenomenon interchangeable with scam instead of a valid investment, i.e. a pump and dump OTC stock is an investment being involved in a scam if it has acquired actual rights or business that have a small probability of paying off significantly better than inflation that's not easy to disprove with basic research. It is a pure scam if the underlying company is only on paper or generally incapable of actually doing anything it claims because it was created or is pumped with just enough cash to continue to operate purely for the purpose of having a stock but is incapable of ever making a real profit. Some coins may be different than what I described as a scam, but if you accept that only holding value remains as a probable use of BTC then any suggestion of it as a valid investment or holder of value is a scam.
- logicchains 4y ago[flagged]
- _visgean 4y ago> Iran, which has mostly minded its own business tell that to ukrainians being bombed with iranian Shaheds every day.
- BeFlatXIII 4y agoWould Iran have sold weapons to the Russians if they had been allowed access to free trade?
- consumer451 4y ago> it's okay for the US to boss the rest of the world around about who they can and cannot do business with. Not the parent, but given the alternatives of which I'm aware, I'm ok with this. It's going to be someone, the US is the least worst afaik. And this is still the case even though I disagree with a lot of stuff the US government and it's voters choose to do.
- LegitShady 4y agomostly minded its own business funding militias warring in other countries, developing nuclear weapons, etc etc some interesting nonsense on HN some days.
- BeFlatXIII 4y agoAny government which takes itself seriously will work on developing their own supply of nuclear weapons.
- LegitShady 4y agoif that same government is also funding wars through cats paws in other countries and oppressing their own people, you should be concerned. There are plenty of governments, especially authoritarian governments like in Iran, that I don't think should ever acquire nuclear weapons for any reason. It's more like any dictator/autocrat who wants to stay in power by threatening the world will work on it. That isn't good for the world. Your statement is not a value judgement or even interested in first or second order effects of such a decision, so is essentially useless in evaluating whether something is good or bad.
- r12343a_19 4y agoBy this logic most large scale human suffering before crypto was created by fiat. Most of current human suffering is still fiat. Crypto is barely a blip in the grand scheme and I don't see how it differs from, say, gambling.
- cguess 4y ago> Crypto is barely a blip in the grand scheme and I don't see how it differs from, say, gambling. Gambling is also, almost always, a negative for society. It's why it's so heavily regulated.
- throw_pm23 4y agoNo, the comment didn't say that most of the bad things were crypto, just that most of the crypto stuff was bad things. Sadly, this level where people don't distinguish "A subset of B" from "B subset of A" is typical to all discussions related to crypto.
- r12343a_19 4y agoDude, reading comprehension much? I literally started 'by that logic' to underline how broken the whole initial comment was! Do only smart people use fiat? Like... it's not even worth dissecting your reply.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- babaeth 4y agoIt's not fair to say that cryptocurrency has had "zero benefits" as it's clearly being used more and more for legitimate purposes such as zero fee international money transfers and providing a more cost-effective option for merchants compared to credit cards. It is important to consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of any technology or innovation before making blanket statements about its overall impact.
- louwrentius 4y agoThere is always an on/off-ramp from/to a local currency, that wants to be paid so zero fees is not realistic. And for most people sending money overseas isn’t a use case at all. Crypto is a solution in search of a real problem to solve. A Rube Goldberg machine to do elaborate things with no (legal) point.
- Zanfa 4y ago> It's not fair to say that cryptocurrency has had "zero benefits" "Zero" is not fair only because the total sum effect has definitely been negative. Ignoring all the ponzis, frauds, scams and rugpulls, you can't discount the massive amounts of wasted energy. > as it's clearly being used more and more for legitimate purposes such as zero fee international money transfers and providing a more cost-effective option for merchants compared to credit cards. All of the major cryptocurrencies are pretty terrible at zero-fee money transfers, given the fact that none of them have zero fees and have laughable bandwidth. And that's not even considering on/offramp fees for turning crypto into usable money. There's very little proof to actual adoption in ecommerce, since most merchants "accepting crypto" actually accept money, there's just a middleman that does the conversion.
- archontes 4y agoTo be fair, crypto was the easiest option when I ordered some stuff from Russia, so score one to it.
- BeFlatXIII 4y agoOdds that a final crypto collapse will spill over into the real economy?
- blueprint 4y agodo you drive a car, heat your home, or use shipped goods? that's about the same level of criminality as using bitcoin as far as i can tell.