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Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great
- yashg 3y agoWhen you write crypto, scam is redundant. Crypto = scam.
- Gaellovell 3y ago[dead]
- theandrewbailey 3y agoThe site in question: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
- ndonnellan 3y agoI wonder why Wired didn't provide any hyperlinks despite mentioning the site (italicized) several times. Seems like common internet courtesy. Perhaps just a direct-from-print copy.
- blakesterz 3y agoI can't help but be reminded of Fucked Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same?
- shagie 3y agoMy favorite bit about Fucked Company is there are archived captures of it from 2002 in the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0020126/ https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0020126/
- winkywooster 3y agowhat's interesting is at the library of congress it looks like it's using the wayback machine (similar ui), but the internet archive has excluded it from their results. also, the library of congress version is not very complete. it only goes back a few pages, and most of the specific announcement pages (all?) don't work.
- shagie 3y agoThe LOC instance was trying to capture the idea / atmosphere of the post 2001-09-11 environment (it is in the September 11, 2001 Web Archive collection). It wasn't trying for a deep capture of the content but rather a "this is what it was like." Wayback machine appears to have been removed as part of the publication of the book (guessing). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4021548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4021548 The LOC has a different charter - its not trying to be "this is a copy of the full site at the time" but rather a historical documents around specific events ( https://www.loc.gov/web-archives/collections/ https://www.loc.gov/web-archives/collections/ ) and has a different charter than the internet archive. https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/about-this-program/ https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/about-this-progra...
- bsenftner 3y agoAlong those lines, remember "Fat Babies" - the site the documented terrible tech managers, naming names?
- breck 3y agoSo let me get this straight. Molly White is the top source for tracking crypto scams and the sum total comes to...$12 billion. Meanwhile, retail banks effectively steal $30B from poor consumers _every year_: https://breckyunits.com/the-great-bank-robbery.html https://breckyunits.com/the-great-bank-robbery.html I do enjoy Molly's work and I would love it if we didn't hear about all the NFT grifters, but I see crypto as the best hope to offer the average person an honest banking experience, and I see the "scams" of retail banking to be 1-2 orders of magnitude larger.
- z3rgl1ng 3y ago[dead]
- colesantiago 3y agoAnd too right the critics like Molly are about crypto. There is no need to kid ourselves here anymore to even entertain crypto. Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody. I only wish crypto died sooner and that nobody uses it. We have other systems that are more robust than crypto that is used in the order of hundreds of millions such as UPI, PIX, Wise, Mpesa, Sendwave, etc that has time and time again proved to be better than crypto. FedNow is coming in a months time so it should hasten crypto’s inevitable downfall faster.
- UncleOxidant 3y agoJust googled FedNow and there's FAQ where one of the questions is "Will FedNow replace services like Venmo, Cashap, zelle..." and the answer there is no... which doesn't make sense if it's suppose to be a way to instantly transfer money. Wouldn't FedNow replace all of those?
- ttyprintk 3y agoPrior commentary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32510581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32510581
- ianburrell 3y agoFedNow is the replacement for ETF. It is a service not an app. Venmo, Cashapp, and Zelle apps are built on top of ETF service. Those apps will presumably switch to FedNow. It is will likely be integrated into bank apps sort of like Zelle is now. I really hope that different apps will be able to send money to each other.
- jahsome 3y agoSlightly off-topic rant: it seems (at least in hn circles) all the crypto buzz generation has found a new target in AI. Whereas prior to GPT-3 _every_ problem's solution according to a certain crowd was a hefty dose of web3/crypto, it seems now the consensus among a comparably sized crowd is that AI is actually the answer to all of humanity's pressing issues.
- leashless 3y agoI've crossed swords with Molly a couple of times. I was the release coordinator for Ethereum, and I've been active in the space a long long time. Here's what it boils down to: freedom is messy. The early days of the dotcom space were filled with carnage of a type which makes crypto look pretty normal. Amazon stock dropped >90% and a trillion and a half in value vanished from the market overall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble And that's in a space whose biggest ambition was to replace catalogue shopping and how hotel reservations are made. Crypto has bigger goals, and the mess is bigger. But it's the same innovation engine that ran Silicon Valley, the same type of people, it's just now they're less dependent on Goldman Sachs when they want to go to the public and ask for their money. Make no mistake: nothing new, strange or unusual is happening. It's just tech being tech, no cause for alarm.
- ForHackernews 3y agoHello, as part of the bigger goals of the crypto space, I was wondering if you'd care to follow up on this generous $10k charity bet you proposed a few month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33893333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33893333 If @phphphphp isn't available or doesn't want to continue, I'd be willing to wager $10k on the same terms that he offered.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DannyBee 3y agoI doubt most of tech would appreciate being lumped in with crypto, which should be the first sign that your take is a little off. IE if you think you are just "tech being tech" but lots and lots of tech is like "uh, no, we aren't like you at all, please don't lump us in with you", that should tell you something. Beyond that, your take seems so divorced from reality i'm not even sure where to begin. I don't agree at all with your view of crypto's goals being bigger than tech's[1] , and even if i did, that the level of mess is proportionality similar, that this is a normal/good thing, etc. These are sort of fundamental issues so it's gonna be hard to get somewhere. I guess i'll just say if this is the best defense you've got of why what's going on is okay and good for the world, then you deserve everything crypto is getting and will get in the future. [1] Crypto has always been a subset of tech's goals, and is even framed that way 99% of the time in presentations/etc. It's very hard for me to see how you can even argue otherwise.
- throw3052023 3y ago[flagged]
- EGreg 3y agoI reached out to Molly White to have her on our show, but she declined. Hi Molly. I was listening to Majority Report today and they had their old producer, Matt Binder on. He mentioned interviewing you about Web3 recently. I had been meaning to reach out. Like many people, I've occasionally popped onto web3isgoinggreat.com to see the latest cringefest in crypto and adjacent to it. Unlike many people, though, I run a software company that builds decentralized applications on blockchain, but tries to be as responsible as possible. Back in 2018, we raised around a half-million dollars, treating the tokens as securities. With that, we built a lot of Web3 software for communities around the world. We also grew a podcast/show where I interview people like Noam Chomsky, and Patri Friedman (grandson of Milton Friedman), on sociopolitical issues around technology, decentralization, freedom of speech, etc. I also interview community economists, former regulators, some of whom are our advisors. I was wondering if you'd be interested in coming on the show sometime to discuss what you see in Web3, the good and the bad. This February, I'm doing a panel with Noam Chomsky and David Harvey. I'd love to invite you on the show as well. There is an important conversation to be had. Sadly, most of the Web3 world has been dominated by ponzi schemes and zero-sum games. But as crazy as it is, there is a real need for open source, decentralized platforms. The alternative is all around us, and it has been problematic. Our public forums are privately owned by small groups which are close with state governments. Twitter is privately owned by Musk, Facebook by Zuck, while WeChat and TikTok had a meteoric rise thanks to the Chinese government. WeChat has all but replaced cash, and the CBDCs only accelerate centralized control of the economy, as well as systems that increasingly coerce individuals, like social credit systems. Our mainstream media is also top-down controlled, and under capitalism, the news anchors are often no more than mouthpieces. This leads to wars, to support for forcible internment and re-education of various groups. So there has to be an open-source, decentralized alternative. On the show, I like to have these conversations and discuss the substance of what is good and bad about the space. Hello, I appreciate the interest, but I will respectfully decline. Alright, sure. Would you be willing to share with me the reason? Is it because we are focused on a positive way forward for cryptocurrencies? This is what a typical discussion on the show looks like: 1. Crypto and Securities Regulations with Sara Hanks, author of Regulation S at the SEC 2. Voluntary Basic Income with Thomas Greco, community currency economist 3. Web3 Identity and Civic Engagement with Eric Starr and David Boulet She never replied.
- lordfrito 3y agoThis is good for bitcoin
- vvpan 3y agoI send money across borders to friends an organizations via blockchain. And millions of other people do, especially in countries with volatile financial systems. I much prefer crypto to anything else in this case. Hearing "no legitimate use case" arguments is awfully annoying when you get objective use from the thing being criticized.
- iLoveOncall 3y agoI send money across borders without blockchain. Without fees. Without having to wait 2 weeks for the transaction to be confirmed.
- shagymoe 3y agoReally? How? I needed to transfer money from the sale of a property in Europe and the fees + currency conversion was over $1000.
- topranks 3y agoI’d look at wise.com
- tomr75 3y agobank --> CEX (binance) --> bank (or OTC with a trading desk) binance has about 10-20 basis points fees how much did you pay using tradfi? not just fees but the forex spread
- mattdesl 3y agoDepends on the sending and receiving country, and what the relationship is between the two banks, and what the amount is being transferred. A lot of people have a limited set of experiences, such as sending wires or Wise payments to/from a specific country, and it works well for them, without realizing there is an entire world of other scenarios outside of this scope where it is not as well suited.
- bhaak 3y agoFound the SEPA user.
- Krollifi 3y agoIs crypto a briar patch that will fail or is it an ingenious technology that will kill traditional banking? Only time will tell. More competition is a good thing. Right?
- this_user 3y agoTime has already told: it won't. Bitcoin isn't even a competitor to most of what banks do. At best it's a competitor to PayPal, and even there it is doing at terrible job.
- beefield 3y agoI haven't been following crypto space in that detail, but my understanding is that what crypto is/does boils down to in traditional banking terms is payment settlement and (leveraged) trading/gambling. Unfortunately for crypto, these are a tiny, tiny fraction of traditional banking. How is crypto going to kill traditional mortgages, M&A, corporate bond market, car loans etc?
- Krollifi 3y agoMostly I was outlining two possible extremes but there is some reality behind them. Coinbase was planning on creating a lending product but the SEC called that a security and Coinbase has delayed its plans. There are collateralized loan products already in decentralized finance apps such as Curve and MakerDAO (oasis.app). There aren't many artificial limits to what a Turing complete smart contract can do as long as it has access to the underlying information.
- drcode 3y agoI never know how to feel about folks that make a career out of saying "This new trend is dumb". I sometimes enjoy listening to Molly White's show, but it feels kind of unsatisfying to me to listen to a show just about dunking on people who are trying out new ideas. But I guess I agree that scams are rampant in the crypto space, so maybe the downsides of the tech aren't obvious to everyone, and it is good to have someone explicitly point them out?
- davidgerard 3y ago> a show just about dunking on people who are trying out new ideas. this is like calling CP "just a string of ones and zeroes"
- AnonCoward42 3y agoWhat difference does the currency make in terms of scams? I do not see the point here. For me it makes no difference if I am being scammed in BTC, LTC, or USD or Rouble. Then there are the obvious scam coins, but these are not the primary argument here (would've made more sense when attacking crypto). FTX is the primary argument and FTX is not crypto. You could basically make the same thing with fiat money. Crypto is not necessarily the problem here. I am not much into crypto, but I know the saying: Not your keys, not your coins/money. What is this article even? There is the very short vita. The common theme being crypto. Apparently she is also a victim (which is a sole identity by now, not sure if hers). And most importantly she hates crypto. What does she actually do? I have no clue. She has a blog apparently, but that doesn't really warrant an article and the article should tell me why they write an article about that person.
- ninepoints 3y agoWhat difference you mean, aside from the lack of a regulatory framework, pseudonymity (and paradoxically, lack of privacy), lack of recourse in the face of user error, and custodial issues? The "not your keys not your coins" take is hilariously dumb in light of how much "value" has evaporated in personal custodial failure. The currency and its supporting infrastructure has everything to do with it, and crypto fails basic litmus tests to even attempt to go mainstream.
- AnonCoward42 3y ago> What difference you mean, aside from the lack of a regulatory framework, pseudonymity (and paradoxically, lack of privacy), lack of recourse in the face of user error, and custodial issues? Is anonymity the issue? Cash is anonymous, but you also say that crypto is not private, which makes it now good or bad in your eyes? The opportunity for recourse has nothing to do with a currency. A currency cannot give you recourse in the face of user error (or basically any). Neither fiat can do that nor crypto can. > The "not your keys not your coins" take is hilariously dumb in light of how much "value" has evaporated in personal custodial failure. Do you want to tell me this cannot happen with fiat? The (partly rhetorical) question also aims at both sides custodial and non-custodial fiat. > The currency and its supporting infrastructure has everything to do with it, and crypto fails basic litmus tests to even attempt to go mainstream. What exactly does it fail? edit: replace one "it" with "crypto" to remove ambiguity.
- penguin_booze 3y agoMichael Lewis interviewed her recently on his 'Against the rules' podcast. Michael, apparently, is writing a book on FTX and SBF.
- paulgb 3y agoTIL Michael Lewis has a podcast. I found a link: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/against-the-rules/on-background-crypto-skeptic-proven-right https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/against-the-rules/on-backgro...
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[flagged]
- jacobsenscott 3y agoActually if you read to the end you'll see this article is from the future. So I think wired is doing just fine. > This article first appeared in the July/August 2023 issue of WIRED UK
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- leashless 3y ago[flagged]
- operatingthetan 3y agoHow many times is this guy going to smear this thread? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36129090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36129090 We get it you have a beef, this isn't the place for it. Sort of amazing how little self restraint "CEOs" have these days.
- leashless 3y ago[flagged]
- operatingthetan 3y ago[flagged]
- leashless 3y agoAnd what do you think you are adding of value here?
- operatingthetan 3y agoCalling out a charlatan has significantly more value than someone publicly exposing their fragility.
- leashless 3y ago[flagged]
- operatingthetan 3y agoOh I did Google you, it appears you occasionally end up as third author on a bunch of papers funded by grants that have never been put into any meaningful action, you "run" a crypto startup that seems to have no actual employees or users or momentum, you were involved in the ethereum launch but now exaggerate your role, and finally there are frequent examples of you behaving inappropriately as a response to someone lightly grazing your vast ego.
- leashless 3y ago[flagged]
- xk_id 3y ago[flagged]