5 ms·

I am truly grateful for people like Molly White, David Gerard, and Amy Castor. As the crypto grift circus expanded and expanded, I just got worn out. There was

I am truly grateful for people like Molly White, David Gerard, and Amy Castor. As the crypto grift circus expanded and expanded, I just got worn out. There was so much to pay attention to as it metastasized. All those writers have been diligently following it for years with a critical eye, and all of them have taken a lot of heat for it. As the wheels come off, it's great to have their detailed insights.

ur-whale 4y ago
> As the crypto grift circus expanded crypto != FTX
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  The medium is the message. Crypto enabled this.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wpietri 4y ago
  Oh? You're saying that FTX was the only bad thing to happen in the crypto space? This sort of tedious, disingenuous quibbling is exactly why I'm grateful to the people I mentioned. Because instead of having to laboriously find all the failures, I can just tell you that all of this is documented in David's books, Amy's blog, and Molly's projects like https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
- lolinder 4y ago
  The crypto grift isn't limited to FTX, it's nearly everywhere in crypto. My great-uncle (who's constantly trying to find the one big break that'll make him rich) was working on starting a crypto token before everything collapsed. He is in his seventies and knows nothing about tech or finance, but he knew crypto was the place for people who want to make quick cash. The whole industry has become a haven for grifters. That there are a few sincere projects doesn't change that.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    The government made this thing called "accredited investor" which is just code for not one of the poors. I wish it wasn't necessary for the poors to use crypto to moonshot on various grifts.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - stouset 4y ago
      Considered from an alternate perspective, the thing that has allowed crypto to become the massive grift that is has is the ability for anyone and everyone to speculate on it without any kind of oversight, regulation, insider trading protection, or guard rails of any kind. I won't speak specifically to the current reglatory definition of "accredited investor" which is certainly worthy of some criticism, but the "investments" that being one opens you up to are—on the whole—significantly worse than just parking your money in a whole-market index fund. The few opportunities that are actually worth investing in are rare and generally require being on a first-name basis with the right people. Not to mention, of course, knowing a priori who those right people are. Merely having a bunch of dollars in the bank and wanting outsized returns puts you squarely in the realm of suckers who will be soon parted from their money by both hucksters and well-meaning idiots. Having almost no dollars in the bank puts you at an even worse disadvantage.
      - notch656c 4y ago
        Yes I believe the poors ought to be able to drop bands on a well meaning idiot just as easily as the truck stop stripper.
- Fnoord 4y ago
  Tether isn't FTX either. And yet, both are scams.
- jjeaff 4y ago
  Pedo Catholic Priests != Catholic Church
detrites 4y ago
There needs to be a differentiation between good and bad actors in this drama as opposed to the lazy and inaccurate idea of "the crypto grift". These recent billion-dollar grifts plaguing crypto have primarily been enabled by actors working steadfastly against all of crypto's core principles: decentralisation, secure your own money, no middle-man. These players are employing all of the same tactics enabled by the traditional financial system to carry out these scams: centralisation, entrust someone else to secure your money, employ a middle-man. It's still legitimate to criticise crypto, there are many issues there: projects that fall short of the goal of the decentralisation, someone securing their own money can end just as badly as entrusting someone not worthy of it, etc. But lumping these recent events, of someone foreign to the crypto community coming in and actually setting out to defraud people outright, by lying to them about what they're doing, and twisting the ideals of crypto into nothingness, aided notably in the FTX case by continual mainstream media hype - this is a scam in an of itself plain and simple. Crypto was used as a buzzword to sucker people in - in the very negative sense of being used. Crypto wasn't the cause here. How many billions would have been lost of FTX's customers money had SBF and FTX not been endlessly paraded over the mainstream news, and cover-pages of major financial, news and culture publications since it began? It is those colossal failures of journalism, and/or conflicts of interest, that need to have a light shone on them, investigated and mitigated/regulated better. Labelling this "the crypto grift", is actually continuing the grift to an unfair even worse conclusion - blaming crypto not for something done by it, but for something done to it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  Just because people were unwittingly taking part in a larger grift does not make it a legitimate enterprise. Ever hear of racketeering and receiving stolen property?
- lolinder 4y ago
  It's hard at this point for me to not blame crypto-the-technology and crypto-the-culture for the repeated and spectacular failures of crypto-the-industry. It's not like FTX was an isolated incident. It's becoming sort of a scapegoat for crypto enthusiasts because it was such a big deal, but practically everything that has come out of the crypto space since Bitcoin and Ethereum has been a grift to some degree or another. Something about crypto quickly and irreparably drew the get-rich-quick crowd, and I don't think there's any coming back from that. Where that kind of person gathers, scams abound.
doogerdog 4y ago
I also use Molly White's write-ups to loosely follow the everlasting crypto train wreck. This particular one is amazingly concise and easy to read. I hope she keeps it up. There is no way I would have the energy to look up all of this on my own.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Agreed! And I should mention that Molly has a Substack: https://substack.com/profile/6775195-molly-white https://substack.com/profile/6775195-molly-white I pay her money because I am glad to have her pushing back against the tide of cash funding crypto promotion. The other two have Patreons that I also support: https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard/ https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard/ https://www.patreon.com/amycastor/ https://www.patreon.com/amycastor/
  - SilasX 4y ago
    Hold on there. If you're getting coverage like this, where someone comes and takes flattering photos of you, that's the kind of thing you get when you or your supports can fund a PR team to wrangle major journalists into covering you. I think she's fine on support. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-white-crypto/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-w... https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/11/business/meet-molly-white-mass-software-engineer-going-after-crypto-industry/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/11/business/meet-molly-w... https://www.protocol.com/fintech/molly-white-web3-crypto-skeptic https://www.protocol.com/fintech/molly-white-web3-crypto-ske... Doesn't mean the criticisms aren't necessary or good, just speaking to the issue of whether you've found a shoestring operation, barely able to survive.
    - wlonkly 4y ago
      Just look at the photo you linked. The poor woman has no furniture, and you think she can fund a PR team?
    - molly0x57 4y ago
      lol, I don't have a PR team. None of those articles were solicited by me.
baobabKoodaa 4y ago
I don't like seeing Molly White and David Gerard in the same sentence. Molly White is a legit journalist with the mind of a scientist who cares about truth. David Gerard is a crank who will take any story and spin it to support his "crypto bad" narrative. They both like making fun of crypto, but that's about where the similarities end.
- wpietri 4y ago
  That's quite a take in that White doesn't talk about herself as a journalist but a programmer who does some writing, whereas Gerard has been writing articles and books about this since 2016 and sees himself as a journalist. As do I, for what it's worth. Anyhow, as somebody who has reading them for years, I think they both have equally negative takes about crypto, although Gerard is certainly more salty about it. I think of him more in the English tradition of journalism, which is much more flavorful then the standard American stuff. And regardless, Gerard's "'crypto bad' narrative" has been proven much, much more accurate than both pro-crypto partisans and nominally crypto-neutral mainstream journalists, whose naivete has helped a lot of their readers lose a lot of money.
  - baobabKoodaa 4y ago
    I'm not interested in getting into an identity politics argument about who identifies as a journalist, who identifies as a woman, or who identifies as an attack helicopter. If David Gerard wants to be called a "journalist", that's fine, he's a journalist. But he's also a crank who will spin any story to support his narrative. Even if tomorrow Bitcoin would somehow magically end world hunger, Gerard would find a way to make the argument that it's actually bad for humanity because hunger makes you strive for better things, or whatever.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      Oh? In that case, it should be very easy for you to go back into his archives and find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false. I think you'll have a hard time doing that, because what you see as bias looks to me like him correctly spotting the BS early on.

ur-whale 4y ago

> As the crypto grift circus expanded crypto != FTX

rejectfinite 4y ago
The medium is the message. Crypto enabled this.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wpietri 4y ago
Oh? You're saying that FTX was the only bad thing to happen in the crypto space? This sort of tedious, disingenuous quibbling is exactly why I'm grateful to the people I mentioned. Because instead of having to laboriously find all the failures, I can just tell you that all of this is documented in David's books, Amy's blog, and Molly's projects like https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
lolinder 4y ago
The crypto grift isn't limited to FTX, it's nearly everywhere in crypto. My great-uncle (who's constantly trying to find the one big break that'll make him rich) was working on starting a crypto token before everything collapsed. He is in his seventies and knows nothing about tech or finance, but he knew crypto was the place for people who want to make quick cash. The whole industry has become a haven for grifters. That there are a few sincere projects doesn't change that.
- notch656c 4y ago
  The government made this thing called "accredited investor" which is just code for not one of the poors. I wish it wasn't necessary for the poors to use crypto to moonshot on various grifts.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - stouset 4y ago
    Considered from an alternate perspective, the thing that has allowed crypto to become the massive grift that is has is the ability for anyone and everyone to speculate on it without any kind of oversight, regulation, insider trading protection, or guard rails of any kind. I won't speak specifically to the current reglatory definition of "accredited investor" which is certainly worthy of some criticism, but the "investments" that being one opens you up to are—on the whole—significantly worse than just parking your money in a whole-market index fund. The few opportunities that are actually worth investing in are rare and generally require being on a first-name basis with the right people. Not to mention, of course, knowing a priori who those right people are. Merely having a bunch of dollars in the bank and wanting outsized returns puts you squarely in the realm of suckers who will be soon parted from their money by both hucksters and well-meaning idiots. Having almost no dollars in the bank puts you at an even worse disadvantage.
    - notch656c 4y ago
      Yes I believe the poors ought to be able to drop bands on a well meaning idiot just as easily as the truck stop stripper.
Fnoord 4y ago
Tether isn't FTX either. And yet, both are scams.
jjeaff 4y ago
Pedo Catholic Priests != Catholic Church

detrites 4y ago

There needs to be a differentiation between good and bad actors in this drama as opposed to the lazy and inaccurate idea of "the crypto grift". These recent billion-dollar grifts plaguing crypto have primarily been enabled by actors working steadfastly against all of crypto's core principles: decentralisation, secure your own money, no middle-man. These players are employing all of the same tactics enabled by the traditional financial system to carry out these scams: centralisation, entrust someone else to secure your money, employ a middle-man. It's still legitimate to criticise crypto, there are many issues there: projects that fall short of the goal of the decentralisation, someone securing their own money can end just as badly as entrusting someone not worthy of it, etc. But lumping these recent events, of someone foreign to the crypto community coming in and actually setting out to defraud people outright, by lying to them about what they're doing, and twisting the ideals of crypto into nothingness, aided notably in the FTX case by continual mainstream media hype - this is a scam in an of itself plain and simple. Crypto was used as a buzzword to sucker people in - in the very negative sense of being used. Crypto wasn't the cause here. How many billions would have been lost of FTX's customers money had SBF and FTX not been endlessly paraded over the mainstream news, and cover-pages of major financial, news and culture publications since it began? It is those colossal failures of journalism, and/or conflicts of interest, that need to have a light shone on them, investigated and mitigated/regulated better. Labelling this "the crypto grift", is actually continuing the grift to an unfair even worse conclusion - blaming crypto not for something done by it, but for something done to it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
birdyrooster 4y ago
Just because people were unwittingly taking part in a larger grift does not make it a legitimate enterprise. Ever hear of racketeering and receiving stolen property?
lolinder 4y ago
It's hard at this point for me to not blame crypto-the-technology and crypto-the-culture for the repeated and spectacular failures of crypto-the-industry. It's not like FTX was an isolated incident. It's becoming sort of a scapegoat for crypto enthusiasts because it was such a big deal, but practically everything that has come out of the crypto space since Bitcoin and Ethereum has been a grift to some degree or another. Something about crypto quickly and irreparably drew the get-rich-quick crowd, and I don't think there's any coming back from that. Where that kind of person gathers, scams abound.

doogerdog 4y ago

I also use Molly White's write-ups to loosely follow the everlasting crypto train wreck. This particular one is amazingly concise and easy to read. I hope she keeps it up. There is no way I would have the energy to look up all of this on my own.

wpietri 4y ago
Agreed! And I should mention that Molly has a Substack: https://substack.com/profile/6775195-molly-white https://substack.com/profile/6775195-molly-white I pay her money because I am glad to have her pushing back against the tide of cash funding crypto promotion. The other two have Patreons that I also support: https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard/ https://www.patreon.com/davidgerard/ https://www.patreon.com/amycastor/ https://www.patreon.com/amycastor/
- SilasX 4y ago
  Hold on there. If you're getting coverage like this, where someone comes and takes flattering photos of you, that's the kind of thing you get when you or your supports can fund a PR team to wrangle major journalists into covering you. I think she's fine on support. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-white-crypto/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-w... https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/11/business/meet-molly-white-mass-software-engineer-going-after-crypto-industry/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/11/business/meet-molly-w... https://www.protocol.com/fintech/molly-white-web3-crypto-skeptic https://www.protocol.com/fintech/molly-white-web3-crypto-ske... Doesn't mean the criticisms aren't necessary or good, just speaking to the issue of whether you've found a shoestring operation, barely able to survive.
  - wlonkly 4y ago
    Just look at the photo you linked. The poor woman has no furniture, and you think she can fund a PR team?
  - molly0x57 4y ago
    lol, I don't have a PR team. None of those articles were solicited by me.

baobabKoodaa 4y ago

I don't like seeing Molly White and David Gerard in the same sentence. Molly White is a legit journalist with the mind of a scientist who cares about truth. David Gerard is a crank who will take any story and spin it to support his "crypto bad" narrative. They both like making fun of crypto, but that's about where the similarities end.

wpietri 4y ago
That's quite a take in that White doesn't talk about herself as a journalist but a programmer who does some writing, whereas Gerard has been writing articles and books about this since 2016 and sees himself as a journalist. As do I, for what it's worth. Anyhow, as somebody who has reading them for years, I think they both have equally negative takes about crypto, although Gerard is certainly more salty about it. I think of him more in the English tradition of journalism, which is much more flavorful then the standard American stuff. And regardless, Gerard's "'crypto bad' narrative" has been proven much, much more accurate than both pro-crypto partisans and nominally crypto-neutral mainstream journalists, whose naivete has helped a lot of their readers lose a lot of money.
- baobabKoodaa 4y ago
  I'm not interested in getting into an identity politics argument about who identifies as a journalist, who identifies as a woman, or who identifies as an attack helicopter. If David Gerard wants to be called a "journalist", that's fine, he's a journalist. But he's also a crank who will spin any story to support his narrative. Even if tomorrow Bitcoin would somehow magically end world hunger, Gerard would find a way to make the argument that it's actually bad for humanity because hunger makes you strive for better things, or whatever.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Oh? In that case, it should be very easy for you to go back into his archives and find some things where his supposedly egregious anti-crypto bias led him to say things that have been proven false. I think you'll have a hard time doing that, because what you see as bias looks to me like him correctly spotting the BS early on.