Sanrith Descartes
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Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Mist
REEEEeyore
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To put this in perspective, that's 1% of the total market cap of bitcoin, although only about 20% of the total market cap of bitcoin is actively traded. So it's about 5% of the total actively traded volume has been withdrawn from exchanges and taken custody of by private entities. Significant, but actually pretty small considering the circumstances.
Sanrith Descartes
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Mainly because most BTC investors have zero idea how to store their shit to take it off exchanges. They bought it without understanding it because... everyone else was buying it.
Sludig
Potato del Grande
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I feel attacked. But then again shoe fits I guess so kinda YGWYFD as I sit here mildly annoyed at all the perma bulls regarding btc/eth/etc over the last year in here. (shitcoins were obvious casino)
Mist
REEEEeyore
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We basically have all the information already.
FTX called itself an exchange, but was really an unregulated, uninsured retail bank. Alameda Research was an unregulated investment bank. Both entities are run by effectively all the same people. Alameda Research got itself way too leveraged, so they borrowed the money from FTX to cover their bets. This would be illegal if they were classified and regulated as banks.
That there's a bunch of political shit involved is just icing on the above cake. Of course they would be giving bribes to Democrats, the Republicans' default position was to leave crypto unregulated, why would you bother to pay bribes to people who already agree with you and have no intention of fucking with you? Some of the most powerful Republican senators are on record, on the senate floor, saying they want all this shit operating completely free and unregulated. You're going to spend your bribe money on the people whose default position is to use the SEC, FTC and CFPB to regulate your entire business model out of existence, which is what should have been done from the start.
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Mist
REEEEeyore
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My ethereum investments are down but they're only down as much or less than Facebook and Netflix so I can't really say they were any stupider than other things I could have invested in in the past year. Also I took a ton of profit on them last year that more than offsets my losses this year.
Sanrith Descartes
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Its funny but I rarely look at poster names, and instead look at the avatar to know who is posting. Whenever someone switches up it makes me stop and do a double take.
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Mist
REEEEeyore
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Furry made a good point a few months ago that I haven't played EVE in like a decade so I made myself an MTG avatar. (The good MTG, not the bad MTG.)
Sanrith Descartes
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Mist
REEEEeyore
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Why did one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges just collapse? | Molly White
FTX was supposed to be the future – a safe, reliable and innovative way to trade digital currency. Instead it has unleashed a financial meltdown
reavor
I'm With HER ♀
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"this thing that was specifically created to be detached from regulatory bodies run by government should have been regulated from the start!" yeah good take there, I can see why you're a democrat, the party of subjugation and stifling the human spirit.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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That made sense 10-15 years ago when crypto was getting started and who knows maybe crypto could have been tied to something with intristic value, but thats never played out. What has played out is scam after scam after scam in the crypto world, essentially every single coin being a ponzi scheme of varying levels.
For you to have ignored everything thats come before FTX and be caught off guard by FTX being scam #8312783 in the crypto world? You arent smart.
Mist
REEEEeyore
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You're missing the fucking point. I'm not saying "crypto" should be regulated (it's obvious that you can't regulate bits any better than you can regulate plants or sex, and we've seen how well those work out.)
I'm saying that entities that are effectively retail banks and/or investment banks, but have "crypto" in their names, should be regulated as what they are, not what they are pretending to be.
And anyone that's depositing their tokens into said banks is missing the point of crypto entirely.
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So, what's the endgame here? It's obvious to see crypto is a scam, especially now. But I don't think Flobee's RTFM approach is going to result in populist change.
If there is longlasting appeal to bitcoin and/or blockchain(I'll admit, I haven't RTFM either), how do you sell voters on it? It seems crypto is doing a good job at poisoning the well.
If there is longlasting appeal to bitcoin and/or blockchain(I'll admit, I haven't RTFM either), how do you sell voters on it? It seems crypto is doing a good job at poisoning the well.
Arden
Blackwing Lair Raider
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Regulating plants and sex for money works pretty well actually. What doesn't work is a strict prohibition on them.
Flobee
Vyemm Raider
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Good question. I believe that one potential outcome from increased regulation could be the reduction of 'paper' Bitcoin being traded. FTX had something like $1.4billion in BTC liabilities and no actual Bitcoin backing that up. So thats $1.4 billion in fake Bitcoin that was being traded. If you expand that discovery across the space I think its reasonable to believe that :
a) paper Bitcoin suppressed this bull market top
b) Bitcoin supply in the market is likely much lower than it appears
If this is the case and regulation swings in the way of forcing exchanges to confirm and prove that they hold the assets they have liabilities for (questionable that this will happen), then you could see number-go-up by a LOT. In that case I would argue that Bitcoin is going to suck a ton of value from everywhere else and as a result get the attention it deserves as a haven from debasing currencies world wide. Attention brings educators and the work will do itself over time.
The other side of the coin IMO is that regulators continue to try to cripple Bitcoin by allowing scammers to run roughshod over retail and as you said, poison the well. In that case I think we're in for a slow painful transition. I tend to believe that Bitcoin is nearly inevitable because even if retail doesn't understand why it is valuable, there are plenty of powerful people that do.
The current system is only useful to those in proximity to the printer. In the current state of the world that is those aligned with the US. That appears to be an ever shrinking group as the Fed's tightening policy is squeezing ally and enemy alike increasing the incentive to move away from this system. Likewise USD exports its inflation to other currencies during loose monetary policy. By all appearances anyone not benefitting from the cantillion effect have an incentive to either push for their own monetary system where they control the printer, or support a system that is fair for all participants. I tend to believe that BRICS will fail and it will be in these country's interest to support Bitcoin. Game theory would suggest that once one group gets on board and reaps the benefits, others will follow. Eventually the cost of not adopting Bitcoin will be similar to the cost of not adopting Gold that China suffered (they chose to use silver instead and got financially wiped out as a result).
Bitcoin really shines as a system to allow for enemies to trade fairly without trusting one another. It removes the politics from the monetary system and I suspect the value in that won't be disregarded.
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Mist
REEEEeyore
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Using FTX or Celsius as an indictment of "crypto" as a whole is the wrong conclusion. They're just unregulated banks, the crypto part was just a facade to dodge regulation.
Flobee
Vyemm Raider
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Meh, disagree. Its just one of many forms of scam behavior in the space. Fairly early in the below video he breaks down how crypto tokens are created then pumped by market makers. It is this exact process for 99% of what is out there. Its all garbage that gets wash traded to fake volume then dumped on retail. Same crap James did with his trash token to people in this thread. They trade it to themselves to fake volume and price then sell you a scummy pitch using words you don't understand.
Mist
REEEEeyore
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Oh, all shitcoins are also scams. BTC, ETH, MATIC, SOL, maybe Cardano are the only coins I'd consider not scams. Still not sure what I feel about Tether but you're not buying that as an investment vehicle anyway so it really doesn't matter. I don't see how stablecoins work unless they're literally central bank issued.
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This is pure delusion. Why would China adopt bitcoin of all things. Why not go back to actual gold in that case.
control of currency and monetary policy is a major pillar of any governments legitimacy and power, second only to their monopoly on violence. You crypto lovers keep thinking they will give it up easily. Even while they promise to regulate you into oblivion.