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Woof, lots of emotional and nigh incoherent responses to a pretty thoughtful little statement. Doesn't inspire confidence when the average response seems to bo

Woof, lots of emotional and nigh incoherent responses to a pretty thoughtful little statement. Doesn't inspire confidence when the average response seems to boil down to a form of religious fervor. Which is too bad, seems like it would have been the perfect place for a thorough rebuttal.

EA-3167 3y ago
I think there's a lot of sunk cost in those comments, along with a lot of frustrated ideology. For people who thought they had finally gotten a way to bring their ideology into the real world, or imagined all sorts of riches, the state of crypto and the burgeoning regulatory environment may be too much to emotionally process and accept. As for why there isn't much in the way of thorough rebuttals, I suspect anyone trying to formulate one would pretty rapidly run into the wall of reality not agreeing with their existing stance.
- Joeboy 3y ago
  "Get out of crypto trading platforms" is entirely aligned with the "idealogical" crypto people, isn't it? "Not your keys, not your coins" and that.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Maybe the truly ideological (an-cap types), sure, but many of the “most ideological” are just religiously greedy and want the best of all worlds — basic logic be damned. Regulated exchanges and coins in cold storage you can’t do much with is the worst of both worlds for those people.
  - TX81Z 3y ago
    The “not your keys set” is fine, most of them got their BTC at $1 and if BTC falls to $3 they still tripled initial investment. The people who got in later don’t understand “owning” a bitcoin on an exchange and having the key in your possession are VERY different. Those people are idiots.
apercu 3y ago
One side says "Bitcoin good!" I assume they all still hold bitcoin or dream of doing so. One side says "Bitcoin bad!" I assume they don't hold bitcoin. I think the idea is sexy, and it definitely harkens back to the earlier hacker/counterculture days of the interwebs. But I guess I will just sit on the sidelines. I don't even lament selling bitcoin at $300 any more. :)
- skyyler 3y ago
  I sold a bunch of BTC for $1 and bought a car with it. I used to regret that, the most expensive Ford Escort ever purchased. But now I feel like I dodged a bullet, I could have been one of those zealots that spent all day every day thinking about crypto, and I'm very glad I'm not.
  - quotz 3y ago
    Zealot or not, it sucks to miss out on having a few dozen millions. My cofounder also sold very early and he refrains from talking about it
    - skyyler 3y ago
      Knowing I wouldn't have to work if I just held on to it... It does sting. But I had to get a car to get to work back then. So there's not much to be mad about.
      - imtringued 3y ago
        It is ok to be mad about a "currency" that devalues human effort and rewards blind luck instead.
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      This is like regretting not playing the lottery after they publish the numbers as you now know the winning numbers, post facto. You make decisions with the information you have. No one had any way of predicting Bitcoin pricing (or the cheap money trend that juiced its price & crypto companies funding rounds).
Animats 3y ago
The Twitter replies are worse. The original poster makes the key point - the institutions running crypto are unregulated and are doing unverifiable things with customer assets and trades. That rarely ends well. Most of the scams are classic ones. Most of them are in this book from 1841.[1] They've been done before, for other kinds of investments. If you know about John Law's bank, and the Mississippi Bubble, and the South Seas bubble, and tulipomania, and the original Charles Ponzi, you'll recognize all those scams in the crypto industry. They come back whenever regulation is weak. - FTX was a bucket shop - a broker not really doing trades, just stealing the customer money. - NFTs were tulipomania - hype and enthusiasm with no value behind the asset. - Axie Infinity was a Ponzi scheme - early adopters paid off with deposits of later adopters, until the supply of suckers ran out. If you know the list of standard financial scams, you can easily slot most crypto schemes into a standard category. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...
- __loam 3y ago
  Crypto people are not rational actors.
pixelpoet 3y ago
Here's a decent rebuttal from Bloomberg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36411751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36411751
gcoakes 3y ago
I find it funny that the guy wrote a long, seemingly thoughtful post. Then, he responds to all the top replies with memes and maybe a phrase. The pro-crypto people there also seem to be talking past his statement, trying to convince him of the utility of crypto rather than the SEC's justification for regulation.
yieldcrv 3y ago
A rebuttal: John points out how any custodial institution gets to operate if they are not trading securities, but any other asset, while using this mere observation to bolster an alarmist view about custodial institutions that trade crypto, as if there is something unique about crypto exchanges, without considering that all spot markets currently can function in the absence of any regulatory framework. John then amplifies the (unresolved) SEC stance about why the SEC is the most accurate regulatory authority to enact this crusade of getting exchanges into [SEC] compliance or nonexistence. In theory there are also some crypto assets that can be traded on a custodial spot exchange without SEC involvement, such as a Bitcoin-only exchange, alongside…. which other cryptos? Nobody knows but the SEC says its clear! John hides behind the idea that its the beginning of a broader enforcement gauntlet, while talking exclusively about the SEC enforcement and not any other possibility. The crux of his alarm is that there is no survivability path, which is also not an absolute. Even in a world where all crypto exchanges must be registered securities exchanges only trading registered crypto securities, the incumbent crypto native operators can participate in that, and establishment investment banking players are already positioning themselves to participate in that world. So custodial crypto exchanges dont go away in any of those scenarios, they just get bigger and more robust for even larger establishment beholden pools of capital.

EA-3167 3y ago

I think there's a lot of sunk cost in those comments, along with a lot of frustrated ideology. For people who thought they had finally gotten a way to bring their ideology into the real world, or imagined all sorts of riches, the state of crypto and the burgeoning regulatory environment may be too much to emotionally process and accept. As for why there isn't much in the way of thorough rebuttals, I suspect anyone trying to formulate one would pretty rapidly run into the wall of reality not agreeing with their existing stance.

Joeboy 3y ago
"Get out of crypto trading platforms" is entirely aligned with the "idealogical" crypto people, isn't it? "Not your keys, not your coins" and that.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Maybe the truly ideological (an-cap types), sure, but many of the “most ideological” are just religiously greedy and want the best of all worlds — basic logic be damned. Regulated exchanges and coins in cold storage you can’t do much with is the worst of both worlds for those people.
- TX81Z 3y ago
  The “not your keys set” is fine, most of them got their BTC at $1 and if BTC falls to $3 they still tripled initial investment. The people who got in later don’t understand “owning” a bitcoin on an exchange and having the key in your possession are VERY different. Those people are idiots.

apercu 3y ago

One side says "Bitcoin good!" I assume they all still hold bitcoin or dream of doing so. One side says "Bitcoin bad!" I assume they don't hold bitcoin. I think the idea is sexy, and it definitely harkens back to the earlier hacker/counterculture days of the interwebs. But I guess I will just sit on the sidelines. I don't even lament selling bitcoin at $300 any more. :)

skyyler 3y ago
I sold a bunch of BTC for $1 and bought a car with it. I used to regret that, the most expensive Ford Escort ever purchased. But now I feel like I dodged a bullet, I could have been one of those zealots that spent all day every day thinking about crypto, and I'm very glad I'm not.
- quotz 3y ago
  Zealot or not, it sucks to miss out on having a few dozen millions. My cofounder also sold very early and he refrains from talking about it
  - skyyler 3y ago
    Knowing I wouldn't have to work if I just held on to it... It does sting. But I had to get a car to get to work back then. So there's not much to be mad about.
    - imtringued 3y ago
      It is ok to be mad about a "currency" that devalues human effort and rewards blind luck instead.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    This is like regretting not playing the lottery after they publish the numbers as you now know the winning numbers, post facto. You make decisions with the information you have. No one had any way of predicting Bitcoin pricing (or the cheap money trend that juiced its price & crypto companies funding rounds).

Animats 3y ago

The Twitter replies are worse. The original poster makes the key point - the institutions running crypto are unregulated and are doing unverifiable things with customer assets and trades. That rarely ends well. Most of the scams are classic ones. Most of them are in this book from 1841.[1] They've been done before, for other kinds of investments. If you know about John Law's bank, and the Mississippi Bubble, and the South Seas bubble, and tulipomania, and the original Charles Ponzi, you'll recognize all those scams in the crypto industry. They come back whenever regulation is weak. - FTX was a bucket shop - a broker not really doing trades, just stealing the customer money. - NFTs were tulipomania - hype and enthusiasm with no value behind the asset. - Axie Infinity was a Ponzi scheme - early adopters paid off with deposits of later adopters, until the supply of suckers ran out. If you know the list of standard financial scams, you can easily slot most crypto schemes into a standard category. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusion...

__loam 3y ago
Crypto people are not rational actors.

pixelpoet 3y ago

Here's a decent rebuttal from Bloomberg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36411751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36411751

gcoakes 3y ago

I find it funny that the guy wrote a long, seemingly thoughtful post. Then, he responds to all the top replies with memes and maybe a phrase. The pro-crypto people there also seem to be talking past his statement, trying to convince him of the utility of crypto rather than the SEC's justification for regulation.

yieldcrv 3y ago

A rebuttal: John points out how any custodial institution gets to operate if they are not trading securities, but any other asset, while using this mere observation to bolster an alarmist view about custodial institutions that trade crypto, as if there is something unique about crypto exchanges, without considering that all spot markets currently can function in the absence of any regulatory framework. John then amplifies the (unresolved) SEC stance about why the SEC is the most accurate regulatory authority to enact this crusade of getting exchanges into [SEC] compliance or nonexistence. In theory there are also some crypto assets that can be traded on a custodial spot exchange without SEC involvement, such as a Bitcoin-only exchange, alongside…. which other cryptos? Nobody knows but the SEC says its clear! John hides behind the idea that its the beginning of a broader enforcement gauntlet, while talking exclusively about the SEC enforcement and not any other possibility. The crux of his alarm is that there is no survivability path, which is also not an absolute. Even in a world where all crypto exchanges must be registered securities exchanges only trading registered crypto securities, the incumbent crypto native operators can participate in that, and establishment investment banking players are already positioning themselves to participate in that world. So custodial crypto exchanges dont go away in any of those scenarios, they just get bigger and more robust for even larger establishment beholden pools of capital.