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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 bi

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.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Exactly. I think there was a tipping point. The only question for me is how many times you can shear the same sheep. There have been so many bubbles here and somehow people kept coming back for every shiny new idea. DAO, ICO, NFT, etc. But given the way NFTs never really took off plus the ongoing domino-fall of major crypto names, maybe the brand value of crypto has finally gone so far negative that the space is done. Fingers crossed, anyhow.
  - twelve40 4y ago
    > DAO, ICO, NFT that's a great list to keep in mind, the same people who were foaming at the mouth when these acronyms first popped up would probably be embarrassed now or pretend like they've never heard of these. I'd say "crypto lending" at "8% apy guaranteed" is another one on that list that will be embarrassing to think back to.
Yizahi 4y ago
The only problem that even "good" actors in the tokenbro space usually take these principles: decentralisation, secure your own money, no middle-man, and then assign to them positive values from the: centralisation, entrust someone else to secure your money, employ a middle-man. When confronted on the any viability of any of the "good" principles, they inevitably mix and match "good" and "bad" principles and values as they see fit, just to keep up their narrative. E.g. take a mostly decentralised network which is easily clogged to a standstill and then claim it's a great virtual currency medium. When asked why, they inevitably describe mostly or completely centralised "improvement" to the said network. Decentralised rent seeking, which is not so enticing even in the theoretical description inevitably gets to the point where centralised gatekeepers can can control and ban bad actors and anyone really when they see fit. And so on. tl;dr the so called "good" actors are mostly two types of people - first type are committed anachists and libertarians who sincerely want to use what they promote and sell. And another type are disingenious liars, who promote libertarian systems to the commoners all the while promising that nothing really would change when commoners would adopt said systems, and would get only incredible benefits. I consider this second type the same as "bad" actors really.
- detrites 4y ago
  See, this is a fair criticism, and founded. Note also how similar it is to FTX - it's bad actors pretending to champion principles they are actually working against, whether unwittingly or otherwise. The part I would disagree on, is where you yourself seem to be uncertain, with a contradictory stance of labelling "bad" actors as "good".
wpietri 4y ago
I think there are a very small number of people who were interested in crypto from the get-go for what I'd consider good, socially positive reasons. To the extent that those people didn't cash in and are mad about how it turned out, I respect their pain. It's always hard to watch the beautiful dream get corrupted. It would have been a very interesting alternate timeline if those few pure souls were left to innovate quietly on their own for a couple of decades. But as far as I can tell, the rest of it is at best, IGMFY [1], and at worst just scams. And that's the great, great bulk of it. I get why crypto adherents are going through a there-must-be-a-pony-in-there-somewhere [2] stage. But I would like to suggest that there is in fact no pony. That 99+% of the "crypto community" is composed of suckers, people in on the grift, and people who are simultaneously both. And I'd also like to suggest that things like FTX are not outliers. They are the absolutely predictable outcome of people saying, "What if we make an end-run around the financial regulatory apparatus and ignore all of the history that drove its creation?" I understand that the anarchocapitalist fantasy is that if we just end government we'll all live in Shangri-La. But the reality of is the sort of warlord despotism you seen in failed states. (Which, as an aside, has given us another meaning for "techincal". [3]) Similarly, the real-world version of financial anarchocapitalism is bubbles, fraud, crime, and grift driving out actual development and investment. That's why every successful marketplace in the world above the size of a street market has significant regulation, be it internal or external. I used to write financial trading software. The people who I worked for were dispositionally cowboys. But every one of them knew that you did not fuck with the exchange and the clearing firm. And maybe the national regulator, but that was a distant concern compared with the people who were running the marketplace and would happily clip your wings if you looked at all like you were pulling something. [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=IGMFY https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=IGMFY [2] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/13/pony-somewhere/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/13/pony-somewhere/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)
- detrites 4y ago
  Maybe because the fruits of those few well-intentioned founders labours aren't blasted on the news 24/7 like SBF was, doesn't mean they don't exist? I've seen people in parts of South America where the banking system can be completely unusable, using their phone to send and receive crypto payments cheaply and reliably, enabling them to safely transact with family. I've heard of this also happening in Africa. Others, workers from Mexico for example, working in the US, are able to remit their small incomes back home for pennies instead of a 15% western union bite out of it. It does have functions and utility that does work, and they are the same functions envisioned by the OG's.
the_gastropod 4y ago
This boils down to what is essentially a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Yes. Crypto, itself, didn't necessarily carry out any of these frauds or scams. But the defining characteristics of cryptocurrency are inextricably intwined with the fraud people are able to perpetuate with it. A gun's one and only purpose is to extinguish life. In the same way, Bitcoin's—and every cryptocurrency created since—one and only purpose is to skirt regulation. No one should be surprised by the outcomes of their adoption.
Haga 4y ago
[dead]
Terretta 4y ago
> lazy and inaccurate idea of 'the crypto grift' 'Lazy' ideas are also called heuristics, and work. Do you have any "more than half" sets or classes of examples of not-grift other than a couple of the original company-less chains? I don't mean any given example, I mean where a class of things are all safe, all not-grift. Bitcoin is possibly not-grift. ETH, possibly not-grift. Arguably, by-and-large every company-sponsored chain, every token, every NFT, every custodial wallet company, every lender, BnL every everything else, is grift. When it's that by-and-large universally the case, it's neither lazy nor inaccurate for normals to be taught a simplifying and clarifyingly protective thought: "it's all grift" or "everything since BTC and ETH is grift". Their choices would be much more sound. It's all grift is how it should be held, so any new project starts facing skepticism rather than hype. The sooner we accept that, the sounder the future of distributed ledger and blockchain based tech. // I have and use BTC and ETH. I use DLT for work.

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.

wpietri 4y ago
Exactly. I think there was a tipping point. The only question for me is how many times you can shear the same sheep. There have been so many bubbles here and somehow people kept coming back for every shiny new idea. DAO, ICO, NFT, etc. But given the way NFTs never really took off plus the ongoing domino-fall of major crypto names, maybe the brand value of crypto has finally gone so far negative that the space is done. Fingers crossed, anyhow.
- twelve40 4y ago
  > DAO, ICO, NFT that's a great list to keep in mind, the same people who were foaming at the mouth when these acronyms first popped up would probably be embarrassed now or pretend like they've never heard of these. I'd say "crypto lending" at "8% apy guaranteed" is another one on that list that will be embarrassing to think back to.

Yizahi 4y ago

The only problem that even "good" actors in the tokenbro space usually take these principles: decentralisation, secure your own money, no middle-man, and then assign to them positive values from the: centralisation, entrust someone else to secure your money, employ a middle-man. When confronted on the any viability of any of the "good" principles, they inevitably mix and match "good" and "bad" principles and values as they see fit, just to keep up their narrative. E.g. take a mostly decentralised network which is easily clogged to a standstill and then claim it's a great virtual currency medium. When asked why, they inevitably describe mostly or completely centralised "improvement" to the said network. Decentralised rent seeking, which is not so enticing even in the theoretical description inevitably gets to the point where centralised gatekeepers can can control and ban bad actors and anyone really when they see fit. And so on. tl;dr the so called "good" actors are mostly two types of people - first type are committed anachists and libertarians who sincerely want to use what they promote and sell. And another type are disingenious liars, who promote libertarian systems to the commoners all the while promising that nothing really would change when commoners would adopt said systems, and would get only incredible benefits. I consider this second type the same as "bad" actors really.

detrites 4y ago
See, this is a fair criticism, and founded. Note also how similar it is to FTX - it's bad actors pretending to champion principles they are actually working against, whether unwittingly or otherwise. The part I would disagree on, is where you yourself seem to be uncertain, with a contradictory stance of labelling "bad" actors as "good".

wpietri 4y ago

I think there are a very small number of people who were interested in crypto from the get-go for what I'd consider good, socially positive reasons. To the extent that those people didn't cash in and are mad about how it turned out, I respect their pain. It's always hard to watch the beautiful dream get corrupted. It would have been a very interesting alternate timeline if those few pure souls were left to innovate quietly on their own for a couple of decades. But as far as I can tell, the rest of it is at best, IGMFY [1], and at worst just scams. And that's the great, great bulk of it. I get why crypto adherents are going through a there-must-be-a-pony-in-there-somewhere [2] stage. But I would like to suggest that there is in fact no pony. That 99+% of the "crypto community" is composed of suckers, people in on the grift, and people who are simultaneously both. And I'd also like to suggest that things like FTX are not outliers. They are the absolutely predictable outcome of people saying, "What if we make an end-run around the financial regulatory apparatus and ignore all of the history that drove its creation?" I understand that the anarchocapitalist fantasy is that if we just end government we'll all live in Shangri-La. But the reality of is the sort of warlord despotism you seen in failed states. (Which, as an aside, has given us another meaning for "techincal". [3]) Similarly, the real-world version of financial anarchocapitalism is bubbles, fraud, crime, and grift driving out actual development and investment. That's why every successful marketplace in the world above the size of a street market has significant regulation, be it internal or external. I used to write financial trading software. The people who I worked for were dispositionally cowboys. But every one of them knew that you did not fuck with the exchange and the clearing firm. And maybe the national regulator, but that was a distant concern compared with the people who were running the marketplace and would happily clip your wings if you looked at all like you were pulling something. [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=IGMFY https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=IGMFY [2] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/13/pony-somewhere/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/13/pony-somewhere/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_(vehicle)

detrites 4y ago
Maybe because the fruits of those few well-intentioned founders labours aren't blasted on the news 24/7 like SBF was, doesn't mean they don't exist? I've seen people in parts of South America where the banking system can be completely unusable, using their phone to send and receive crypto payments cheaply and reliably, enabling them to safely transact with family. I've heard of this also happening in Africa. Others, workers from Mexico for example, working in the US, are able to remit their small incomes back home for pennies instead of a 15% western union bite out of it. It does have functions and utility that does work, and they are the same functions envisioned by the OG's.

the_gastropod 4y ago

This boils down to what is essentially a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. Yes. Crypto, itself, didn't necessarily carry out any of these frauds or scams. But the defining characteristics of cryptocurrency are inextricably intwined with the fraud people are able to perpetuate with it. A gun's one and only purpose is to extinguish life. In the same way, Bitcoin's—and every cryptocurrency created since—one and only purpose is to skirt regulation. No one should be surprised by the outcomes of their adoption.

Haga 4y ago

[dead]

Terretta 4y ago

> lazy and inaccurate idea of 'the crypto grift' 'Lazy' ideas are also called heuristics, and work. Do you have any "more than half" sets or classes of examples of not-grift other than a couple of the original company-less chains? I don't mean any given example, I mean where a class of things are all safe, all not-grift. Bitcoin is possibly not-grift. ETH, possibly not-grift. Arguably, by-and-large every company-sponsored chain, every token, every NFT, every custodial wallet company, every lender, BnL every everything else, is grift. When it's that by-and-large universally the case, it's neither lazy nor inaccurate for normals to be taught a simplifying and clarifyingly protective thought: "it's all grift" or "everything since BTC and ETH is grift". Their choices would be much more sound. It's all grift is how it should be held, so any new project starts facing skepticism rather than hype. The sooner we accept that, the sounder the future of distributed ledger and blockchain based tech. // I have and use BTC and ETH. I use DLT for work.