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Polymarket's founder is Shayne Coplan, 27-year old "youngest self-made billionaire" (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) A sane system would just t

by xvector 7mo ago

Polymarket's founder is Shayne Coplan, 27-year old "youngest self-made billionaire" (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) A sane system would just throw him in jail until his illegal betting market implements KYC.

cucumber3732842 7mo ago
>A sane system would just throw him in jail. <facepalm> A capricious system that interprets based on whim, politics and influence is a large part of how we got here. People like this and their less than moral path in which they further their endeavors succeed specifically because of this environment. Polymarket is basically a platform to monetize petty stuff while also being able to monetize bad stuff. There is soooo much pressure to monetize bad stuff that once you poke a hole it's an uncontrolled leak. Polymarket recognized this, used it to scale, and then wisely used that money to get the legitimization and buy in that they needed to make the system (capriciously) say "this is fine for now you can keep going". They basically pulled a "actually Mr. Banker, I owe you so much money that it's your problem" but for insider information. The other metaphor you could use if people with a steady supply of prescription opioids don't turn to street drugs.
- nickspacek 7mo ago
  There's probably a useful middle ground between tossing people in jail and rewarding with great wealth, power, and influence those people whose main drive appears to be accumulation of said things without regard for their fellow citizens.
- xvector 7mo ago
  It is not capricious to hold C-suite legally accountable for their choices. Lots of corporate scandals would simply not have happened if decisionmakers had skin in the game. If CISOs can have personal liability for data breaches, CEOs can have personal liability for intentionally creating an illegal platform. Instead we reward these people with billions for degrading the fabric of society.
  - Forgeties79 7mo ago
    We need either a “corporate death penalty” of sorts, more personal liability for c-suite execs, or some combo of the two. Too many people fail upwards to trust the system to sort out the “bad ones.”
    - jacquesm 7mo ago
      It exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_dissolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_dissolution
      - Forgeties79 7mo ago
        Fair. I should probably say “we need to actually use the corporate death penalty.”
        jacquesm 7mo ago
        Yes, but you are very much right: the fact that it exists but that hardly anybody knows about it is what is the problem. There are many companies that over the years should have been dissolved because of incredible crimes and yet they all keep getting away with it. Besides that I'm all for strict personal liability for the execs and the investors of the companies they invest in. That's of course the exact opposite of the way it works right now but that actually institutionalized externalization, one of the key issues with why the world is the mess that it is. Corporations are fine, limited liability corporations are not, I'm becoming more and more convinced that they are in fact the root of all evil because they allow the erection of financial 'diodes' that allow you to partition your stash from your liabilities and the two should always be linked. They are a very effective mechanism to allow people to screw over society and claim it's all perfectly legal.
        Forgeties79 7mo ago
        I’ve always felt LLC’s should more narrowly limit people’s liability more or less. It’s basically a shield currently. I also think it should be reserved for sole proprietorships or otherwise very small companies, and very specific kinds of companies at that. For instance, if I am drumming up funding for a movie I should not be personally held liable if it loses money (otherwise indie film would be completely snuffed out lol)
laurentiurad 7mo ago
yea just throw the CEO of microsoft in jail too because illegal transactions are set via Xbox live.
- xvector 7mo ago
  Betting markets are legally required to have KYC. If you or I operated a casino illegally we would ABSOLUTELY be thrown in jail. Do you seriously think fraudulent Xbox live transactions are on the same level of the heinous insider trading going on in betting markets? Or do you just think C-suite should be legally immune from accountability overall? Polymarket's decentralized and anonymous nature was an intentional choice by its creator precisely because it enables illegal, anonymous transactions.
  - laurentiurad 7mo ago
    How is the ceo responsible for operating under the current legal framework which allows his platform not to require KYC? Unless they are breaking the law, why should anyone arrest him? It's the responsibility of the lawmakers to make them illegal or force them to do kyc. If you fantasize about China or Russia way of doing things you should move there.
    - SpicyLemonZest 7mo ago
      He is breaking the law, and was under DOJ investigation for it until he bribed the president's son to call them off.
      - laurentiurad 7mo ago
        If he's breaking the law and there is proof to that, then he will and should be arrested.
  - carlosjobim 7mo ago
    From where has it entered your mind that they don't do KYC? Anybody can send anonymous threats, that has nothing to do with any betting company, unless they are sent through that platform.
twodave 7mo ago
Putting aside this is sort of a knee-jerk reaction, if this was actually implemented you’d just see the role of the CEO change to basically be a highly-paid fall-guy. People in those positions today would vacate them for quieter roles behind the scenes, and corporations would put greater effort forth to hide their decision making processes. I don’t think it would be a better system.
- xvector 7mo ago
  Sure, and we can deal with that problem when it comes to it. For now, there are people at these companies that are clearly responsible and can be held accountable.
- tclancy 7mo ago
  >you’d just see the role of the CEO change to basically be a highly-paid fall-guy. That seems to be assuming a world where CEOs actually face meaningful consequences and that feels like a good start.
  - twodave 7mo ago
    "Meaningful consequences" in this case means "throwing a CEO in jail until they de-anonymize their platform," which sounds ripe for abuse to me.
    - tclancy 7mo ago
      In this specific case, perhaps. In most it means "throwing a CEO in prison or fining them extensively for crimes they have committed".
      - twodave 7mo ago
        In what instance is a CEO not liable for their own crimes? At least in the US, they are still criminally liable for anything they do. If anything is at issue here, I think it's whether it can be proven a crime was committed and who can be proven guilty of it. I think often civil penalties end up being the answer because they're just easier to make stick (AIUI the burden of proof is lower in those cases).
williamdclt 7mo ago
> why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics? why do all NBA players seem so tall?
civvv 7mo ago
>(why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) The type of person at the top of a hierarchical system is always a direct reflection of its play rules. In late-stage internet capitalism you win by being the most unhinged and un-emphatic. Today's young adults grew up on twitter, 4chan, video game gambling and with influencers telling them that the only thing that matters is material wealth and status. This culture has moved more and more into the mainstream in the last decade.
- iamacyborg 7mo ago
  > late-stage internet capitalism This isn't a thing. Capitalism is just capitalism.
  - civvv 7mo ago
    I don't know. Certainly the underlying mechanisms of capitalism remain the same, but it does not hurt to clarify the context that it exists within. The world is very different today, than say the 1960's, but the "rules" were the same. Capitalism has been accelerated a lot by the rise of information technology, specifically the internet, and today it is a whole different beast with unique "opportunities" and consequences.
    - iamacyborg 7mo ago
      The only things that's true now is that there's more laxity around consolidation of power in big business. The core tenets of capitalism haven't changed in thousands of years.
      - civvv 7mo ago
        I would be reluctant to say that capitalism, as we have had after the industrial revolution, has existed in the same form for thousands of years. That just seems silly.
        iamacyborg 7mo ago
axus 7mo ago
When power is concentrated to the government, the corruption is concentrated with it. Incarceration and the end of privacy don't restore the victims. A consumer protection bureau could bring a civil suit against Polymarket to pay the journalist.
- xvector 7mo ago
  A lawsuit would just be the "cost of doing business" for Polymarket. Until there is no skin in the game, there will be no change or accountability. If CISOs can be held criminally liable for data breaches, the rest of C-suite can be held criminally liable for their own decisions as well. In this case, the guy knowingly operates a betting market that illegally does not require KYC.
  - logicchains 7mo ago
    >In this case, the guy knowingly operates a betting market that illegally does not require KYC. It's not illegal where he is. You can't go around arresting people in other countries just because they don't follow your country's law.
  - tsimionescu 7mo ago
    On the other hand, what often happens with high level corruption cases in my country is that people go to jail for a few years, but none or next to none of the money is ever recovered. So quite a few crooked politicians and business man just accept prison as nothing more than an unpleasant bump on the way to getting extremely rich, and roll with it. So you actually need a combination of both money and personal fault for really fixing some of this.
- Forgeties79 7mo ago
  > If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class.
- squidbeak 7mo ago
  > When power is concentrated to the government, the corruption is concentrated with it. This is a hackneyed neoliberal fundamentalist myth. If power is concentrated anywhere, it should only ever be in government - where it's answerable to the public electorally. Governments become corrupt when they are weak, and turn to serving private interests rather than the public they represent. Corruption in general is far more prolific and fruitful where government is weak (the neoliberal ideal) - which is one of the reasons corrupt private actors look to weaken government - for instance by undermining public trust in it or lobbying for its parasitization by private entities. Or by stuffing their acolytes minds with foolish neoliberal fundamentalist myths.
redeeman 7mo ago
KYC is nothing sane. in what world does anything give you or anyone else the right to decide to probe people up their rear end just because they want to do business? people like you are extremely dangerous. loads of banks all over the world now demands to know what you plan to spend the money on just to withdraw a bit cash. Some will even deny you saying "well.. you shouldnt buy a new car anyway". all the KYC shit. how about just no?
- xvector 7mo ago
  > in what world does anything give you or anyone else the right to decide to probe people up their rear end A world in which these people bet on heinous things while insider trading/influencing those very things. Privacy in gambling or insider trading is not a constitutional right.
  - logicchains 7mo ago
    Insider trading itself is only a crime when someone's betraying their fiduciary juty to an organisation, e.g. their employeer. There's nothing morally or legally wrong with using one's private information to make informed bets on other things, and economically speaking it produces better market prices/predictions because they reflect more information.
kspacewalk2 7mo ago
A sane system doesn't "throw" human beings in jail for flippant and arbitrary reasons. Sociopaths exploit this, to be sure.
- thinkingtoilet 7mo ago
  The reasons are neither flippant or arbitrary.
  - kspacewalk2 7mo ago
    What is the law being broken? "Lack of regulation clarity on your part does not constitute a crime on mine". Why is that not a valid defence?
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > What is the law being broken? “In most jurisdictions, death threats are a serious type of criminal offence” [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_threat#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_threat#Legality
      - kspacewalk2 7mo ago
        Polymarket's founder did not threaten anyone.
skybrian 7mo ago
Yes, I think they should implement KYC pretty darn quick, and perhaps there’s more they can do. But he didn’t make the death threats.
- derangedHorse 7mo ago
  And what do you think KYC would help with? The threats were made on WhatsApp, not Polymarket. It would make more sense to campaign for better background checks on WhatsApp. A case can be made that a chat system with discoverable identities should have better safeguards. If the incentive to make a threat is financial gain rather than a pure desire to kill, restricting the means in which a threat can even be made (or identifying the participants) would help silence the noise and give actionable insights to law enforcment. I’m generally opposed to KYC and similar measures, but if a platform is already collecting massive amounts of user data, it should at least use that data to help protect the people who become vulnerable because of it.
  - gzread 7mo ago
    Polymarket is a set of blockchain smart contracts. It's banned in most countries but you can still use it by interacting with the blockchain directly.
  - skybrian 7mo ago
    WhatsApp would be more direct, but if they're uncooperative then knowing who is betting might provide some clues.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- Terr_ 7mo ago
  That might help in some cases, but even if there are 10,000 people with bets of >$X on an outcome, that won't be much help determining which one is making anonymous death threats. There is a fundamental architectural problem here with no easy band-aid fix, and the companies involved are desperate to deny it because their founders have personal fortunes riding on it.
lo_zamoyski 7mo ago
Same with Kalshi's founders. As if becoming rich, off gambling and speculation, is supposed to inspire some kind of admiration. The lunacy of the mysticism of money.
logicchains 7mo ago
>A sane system would just throw him in jail until his illegal betting market implements KYC. There's nothing sane about KYC, it's a fundamental assault on the right to financial privacy. And the people with power can always bypass it; only the little people suffer.
- munk-a 7mo ago
  I think it's important to look at the context of the discussion around this comment. Someone has received credible death threats - clearly the current situation is one where the little people are already suffering.
  - happyopossum 7mo ago
    > Someone has received credible death threats 2 points - 1) “credible” is carrying a lot of water in that statement, and 2) your implication is that any activity which could eventually or conceivably involve a lunatic making a death threat is not compatible with any level of privacy. The second is incredibly disturbing - people have made death threats over E2E encrypted chat channels, therefore we must remove any privacy built in to such a model?
    - munk-a 7mo ago
      I'll just dodge 1 for the moment since we're discussing an article about those threats. For the second point - I'm not saying that death threats should invalidate privacy concerns I just wanted to stress that the little people are already seeing quite a few downsides so it's important to view this issue with more nuance than a Facebook-like scenario when the privacy only comes at the cost of ad-revenue.
munk-a 7mo ago
> (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) Because no ethical person would accumulate a billion dollars. An ethical person would share the wealth they're creating with those around them instead of hording that wealth. What can you do with 100 million that you couldn't do with 10?
- munk-a 7mo ago
  Just as a note - I feel like there's a lack of understanding of how difficult it is to get a billion dollars. It isn't something you can just trip into and I think the concentration of that much wealth really goes against something in most people's approach to the world where generosity increases as you gain more wealth. To capture that much wealth as a business owner you have to be extremely stingy with compensation to those who accompanied you along that path which is not how most people tend to operate - more often people share that wealth and make sure those around them also benefit from the work even if the structure of corporations may technically entitle the owner to 100% of the upside.
- astrange 7mo ago
  Having assets worth X dollars is not the same thing as having X dollars. It means investors are willing to trade you X dollars for the assets. Those investors don't want to give /you/ money, they want to give the billionaire money.
superfrank 7mo ago
Polymarket is banned in most first world countries (including the US). It's not particularly tough to get around with a VPN, but they do enough that they have plausible deniability. I'm sure if the US wanted to they could go after them and prove that they're still letting US customer sign up, but it's not the open and shut case you're making it out to be. Polymarket US is starting to roll out in the US and other countries where Polymarket cannot operate, but that's a separate company and they do abide by KYC laws similar to Kalshi.

by xvector 7mo ago

cucumber3732842 7mo ago

>A sane system would just throw him in jail. <facepalm> A capricious system that interprets based on whim, politics and influence is a large part of how we got here. People like this and their less than moral path in which they further their endeavors succeed specifically because of this environment. Polymarket is basically a platform to monetize petty stuff while also being able to monetize bad stuff. There is soooo much pressure to monetize bad stuff that once you poke a hole it's an uncontrolled leak. Polymarket recognized this, used it to scale, and then wisely used that money to get the legitimization and buy in that they needed to make the system (capriciously) say "this is fine for now you can keep going". They basically pulled a "actually Mr. Banker, I owe you so much money that it's your problem" but for insider information. The other metaphor you could use if people with a steady supply of prescription opioids don't turn to street drugs.

nickspacek 7mo ago
There's probably a useful middle ground between tossing people in jail and rewarding with great wealth, power, and influence those people whose main drive appears to be accumulation of said things without regard for their fellow citizens.
xvector 7mo ago
It is not capricious to hold C-suite legally accountable for their choices. Lots of corporate scandals would simply not have happened if decisionmakers had skin in the game. If CISOs can have personal liability for data breaches, CEOs can have personal liability for intentionally creating an illegal platform. Instead we reward these people with billions for degrading the fabric of society.
- Forgeties79 7mo ago
  We need either a “corporate death penalty” of sorts, more personal liability for c-suite execs, or some combo of the two. Too many people fail upwards to trust the system to sort out the “bad ones.”
  - jacquesm 7mo ago
    It exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_dissolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_dissolution
    - Forgeties79 7mo ago
      Fair. I should probably say “we need to actually use the corporate death penalty.”
      - jacquesm 7mo ago
        Yes, but you are very much right: the fact that it exists but that hardly anybody knows about it is what is the problem. There are many companies that over the years should have been dissolved because of incredible crimes and yet they all keep getting away with it. Besides that I'm all for strict personal liability for the execs and the investors of the companies they invest in. That's of course the exact opposite of the way it works right now but that actually institutionalized externalization, one of the key issues with why the world is the mess that it is. Corporations are fine, limited liability corporations are not, I'm becoming more and more convinced that they are in fact the root of all evil because they allow the erection of financial 'diodes' that allow you to partition your stash from your liabilities and the two should always be linked. They are a very effective mechanism to allow people to screw over society and claim it's all perfectly legal.
        Forgeties79 7mo ago
        I’ve always felt LLC’s should more narrowly limit people’s liability more or less. It’s basically a shield currently. I also think it should be reserved for sole proprietorships or otherwise very small companies, and very specific kinds of companies at that. For instance, if I am drumming up funding for a movie I should not be personally held liable if it loses money (otherwise indie film would be completely snuffed out lol)

laurentiurad 7mo ago

yea just throw the CEO of microsoft in jail too because illegal transactions are set via Xbox live.

xvector 7mo ago
Betting markets are legally required to have KYC. If you or I operated a casino illegally we would ABSOLUTELY be thrown in jail. Do you seriously think fraudulent Xbox live transactions are on the same level of the heinous insider trading going on in betting markets? Or do you just think C-suite should be legally immune from accountability overall? Polymarket's decentralized and anonymous nature was an intentional choice by its creator precisely because it enables illegal, anonymous transactions.
- laurentiurad 7mo ago
  How is the ceo responsible for operating under the current legal framework which allows his platform not to require KYC? Unless they are breaking the law, why should anyone arrest him? It's the responsibility of the lawmakers to make them illegal or force them to do kyc. If you fantasize about China or Russia way of doing things you should move there.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7mo ago
    He is breaking the law, and was under DOJ investigation for it until he bribed the president's son to call them off.
    - laurentiurad 7mo ago
      If he's breaking the law and there is proof to that, then he will and should be arrested.
- carlosjobim 7mo ago
  From where has it entered your mind that they don't do KYC? Anybody can send anonymous threats, that has nothing to do with any betting company, unless they are sent through that platform.

twodave 7mo ago

Putting aside this is sort of a knee-jerk reaction, if this was actually implemented you’d just see the role of the CEO change to basically be a highly-paid fall-guy. People in those positions today would vacate them for quieter roles behind the scenes, and corporations would put greater effort forth to hide their decision making processes. I don’t think it would be a better system.

xvector 7mo ago
Sure, and we can deal with that problem when it comes to it. For now, there are people at these companies that are clearly responsible and can be held accountable.
tclancy 7mo ago
>you’d just see the role of the CEO change to basically be a highly-paid fall-guy. That seems to be assuming a world where CEOs actually face meaningful consequences and that feels like a good start.
- twodave 7mo ago
  "Meaningful consequences" in this case means "throwing a CEO in jail until they de-anonymize their platform," which sounds ripe for abuse to me.
  - tclancy 7mo ago
    In this specific case, perhaps. In most it means "throwing a CEO in prison or fining them extensively for crimes they have committed".
    - twodave 7mo ago
      In what instance is a CEO not liable for their own crimes? At least in the US, they are still criminally liable for anything they do. If anything is at issue here, I think it's whether it can be proven a crime was committed and who can be proven guilty of it. I think often civil penalties end up being the answer because they're just easier to make stick (AIUI the burden of proof is lower in those cases).

williamdclt 7mo ago

> why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics? why do all NBA players seem so tall?

civvv 7mo ago

>(why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) The type of person at the top of a hierarchical system is always a direct reflection of its play rules. In late-stage internet capitalism you win by being the most unhinged and un-emphatic. Today's young adults grew up on twitter, 4chan, video game gambling and with influencers telling them that the only thing that matters is material wealth and status. This culture has moved more and more into the mainstream in the last decade.

iamacyborg 7mo ago
> late-stage internet capitalism This isn't a thing. Capitalism is just capitalism.
- civvv 7mo ago
  I don't know. Certainly the underlying mechanisms of capitalism remain the same, but it does not hurt to clarify the context that it exists within. The world is very different today, than say the 1960's, but the "rules" were the same. Capitalism has been accelerated a lot by the rise of information technology, specifically the internet, and today it is a whole different beast with unique "opportunities" and consequences.
  - iamacyborg 7mo ago
    The only things that's true now is that there's more laxity around consolidation of power in big business. The core tenets of capitalism haven't changed in thousands of years.
    - civvv 7mo ago
      I would be reluctant to say that capitalism, as we have had after the industrial revolution, has existed in the same form for thousands of years. That just seems silly.
      - iamacyborg 7mo ago

axus 7mo ago

When power is concentrated to the government, the corruption is concentrated with it. Incarceration and the end of privacy don't restore the victims. A consumer protection bureau could bring a civil suit against Polymarket to pay the journalist.

xvector 7mo ago
A lawsuit would just be the "cost of doing business" for Polymarket. Until there is no skin in the game, there will be no change or accountability. If CISOs can be held criminally liable for data breaches, the rest of C-suite can be held criminally liable for their own decisions as well. In this case, the guy knowingly operates a betting market that illegally does not require KYC.
- logicchains 7mo ago
  >In this case, the guy knowingly operates a betting market that illegally does not require KYC. It's not illegal where he is. You can't go around arresting people in other countries just because they don't follow your country's law.
- tsimionescu 7mo ago
  On the other hand, what often happens with high level corruption cases in my country is that people go to jail for a few years, but none or next to none of the money is ever recovered. So quite a few crooked politicians and business man just accept prison as nothing more than an unpleasant bump on the way to getting extremely rich, and roll with it. So you actually need a combination of both money and personal fault for really fixing some of this.
Forgeties79 7mo ago
> If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class.
squidbeak 7mo ago
> When power is concentrated to the government, the corruption is concentrated with it. This is a hackneyed neoliberal fundamentalist myth. If power is concentrated anywhere, it should only ever be in government - where it's answerable to the public electorally. Governments become corrupt when they are weak, and turn to serving private interests rather than the public they represent. Corruption in general is far more prolific and fruitful where government is weak (the neoliberal ideal) - which is one of the reasons corrupt private actors look to weaken government - for instance by undermining public trust in it or lobbying for its parasitization by private entities. Or by stuffing their acolytes minds with foolish neoliberal fundamentalist myths.

redeeman 7mo ago

KYC is nothing sane. in what world does anything give you or anyone else the right to decide to probe people up their rear end just because they want to do business? people like you are extremely dangerous. loads of banks all over the world now demands to know what you plan to spend the money on just to withdraw a bit cash. Some will even deny you saying "well.. you shouldnt buy a new car anyway". all the KYC shit. how about just no?

xvector 7mo ago
> in what world does anything give you or anyone else the right to decide to probe people up their rear end A world in which these people bet on heinous things while insider trading/influencing those very things. Privacy in gambling or insider trading is not a constitutional right.
- logicchains 7mo ago
  Insider trading itself is only a crime when someone's betraying their fiduciary juty to an organisation, e.g. their employeer. There's nothing morally or legally wrong with using one's private information to make informed bets on other things, and economically speaking it produces better market prices/predictions because they reflect more information.

kspacewalk2 7mo ago

A sane system doesn't "throw" human beings in jail for flippant and arbitrary reasons. Sociopaths exploit this, to be sure.

thinkingtoilet 7mo ago
The reasons are neither flippant or arbitrary.
- kspacewalk2 7mo ago
  What is the law being broken? "Lack of regulation clarity on your part does not constitute a crime on mine". Why is that not a valid defence?
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > What is the law being broken? “In most jurisdictions, death threats are a serious type of criminal offence” [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_threat#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_threat#Legality
    - kspacewalk2 7mo ago
      Polymarket's founder did not threaten anyone.

skybrian 7mo ago

Yes, I think they should implement KYC pretty darn quick, and perhaps there’s more they can do. But he didn’t make the death threats.

derangedHorse 7mo ago
And what do you think KYC would help with? The threats were made on WhatsApp, not Polymarket. It would make more sense to campaign for better background checks on WhatsApp. A case can be made that a chat system with discoverable identities should have better safeguards. If the incentive to make a threat is financial gain rather than a pure desire to kill, restricting the means in which a threat can even be made (or identifying the participants) would help silence the noise and give actionable insights to law enforcment. I’m generally opposed to KYC and similar measures, but if a platform is already collecting massive amounts of user data, it should at least use that data to help protect the people who become vulnerable because of it.
- gzread 7mo ago
  Polymarket is a set of blockchain smart contracts. It's banned in most countries but you can still use it by interacting with the blockchain directly.
- skybrian 7mo ago
  WhatsApp would be more direct, but if they're uncooperative then knowing who is betting might provide some clues.
deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
Terr_ 7mo ago
That might help in some cases, but even if there are 10,000 people with bets of >$X on an outcome, that won't be much help determining which one is making anonymous death threats. There is a fundamental architectural problem here with no easy band-aid fix, and the companies involved are desperate to deny it because their founders have personal fortunes riding on it.

lo_zamoyski 7mo ago

Same with Kalshi's founders. As if becoming rich, off gambling and speculation, is supposed to inspire some kind of admiration. The lunacy of the mysticism of money.

logicchains 7mo ago

>A sane system would just throw him in jail until his illegal betting market implements KYC. There's nothing sane about KYC, it's a fundamental assault on the right to financial privacy. And the people with power can always bypass it; only the little people suffer.

munk-a 7mo ago
I think it's important to look at the context of the discussion around this comment. Someone has received credible death threats - clearly the current situation is one where the little people are already suffering.
- happyopossum 7mo ago
  > Someone has received credible death threats 2 points - 1) “credible” is carrying a lot of water in that statement, and 2) your implication is that any activity which could eventually or conceivably involve a lunatic making a death threat is not compatible with any level of privacy. The second is incredibly disturbing - people have made death threats over E2E encrypted chat channels, therefore we must remove any privacy built in to such a model?
  - munk-a 7mo ago
    I'll just dodge 1 for the moment since we're discussing an article about those threats. For the second point - I'm not saying that death threats should invalidate privacy concerns I just wanted to stress that the little people are already seeing quite a few downsides so it's important to view this issue with more nuance than a Facebook-like scenario when the privacy only comes at the cost of ad-revenue.

munk-a 7mo ago

> (why do all billionaires seem devoid of ethics?) Because no ethical person would accumulate a billion dollars. An ethical person would share the wealth they're creating with those around them instead of hording that wealth. What can you do with 100 million that you couldn't do with 10?

munk-a 7mo ago
Just as a note - I feel like there's a lack of understanding of how difficult it is to get a billion dollars. It isn't something you can just trip into and I think the concentration of that much wealth really goes against something in most people's approach to the world where generosity increases as you gain more wealth. To capture that much wealth as a business owner you have to be extremely stingy with compensation to those who accompanied you along that path which is not how most people tend to operate - more often people share that wealth and make sure those around them also benefit from the work even if the structure of corporations may technically entitle the owner to 100% of the upside.
astrange 7mo ago
Having assets worth X dollars is not the same thing as having X dollars. It means investors are willing to trade you X dollars for the assets. Those investors don't want to give /you/ money, they want to give the billionaire money.

superfrank 7mo ago

Polymarket is banned in most first world countries (including the US). It's not particularly tough to get around with a VPN, but they do enough that they have plausible deniability. I'm sure if the US wanted to they could go after them and prove that they're still letting US customer sign up, but it's not the open and shut case you're making it out to be. Polymarket US is starting to roll out in the US and other countries where Polymarket cannot operate, but that's a separate company and they do abide by KYC laws similar to Kalshi.