Economist had a great write up on all this last week. This was a classic Ponzi. Sadly according to them crypto never realized it’s potential, just became a casino and an avenue to launder money. My rule after being burned badly in the tech bubble is “ When your cab/limo/uber driver, people who are clearly not good with money, start pumping an “ investment “ , it’s time to run away.

 

SBF has spent mightily on DC politicians the last couple of years, he has protection, and that is what he is counting on.

But the politicians are getting nervous, I see serially losing Beto O'Rourke in TX 'quietly returned' $1,000,000 to SBF right before last months election and right before FTX went under. Two grifters playing each other.

 

I wouldn’t call the major cryptocurrencies Ponzi schemes at all. They were classic bubble markets just like tech stocks in the late 90s. There were scams, too. Many of them. There continue to be, just like a lot of empty companies in the tech bubble were scams.

I’m glad the lessons you learned kept you safe this time. Never invest (or speculate) in something you don’t understand. Very few people understood crypto, and they still don’t. The fact that it scares them is a healthy thing.

That wasn’t the first crypto bubble and I doubt it will be the last. In general it wasn’t a Ponzi, though. Nor is it a good place to launder money since there’s not enough liquidity to hide large moves. Money laundering is done with good old US dollars. It’s the preferred currency of crime and nothing else comes close.

 

According to Sam, he CLAIMS he also donated to Republicans but "funneled Dark money" their way so he didn't get his fans in a tizzy: "[...] because reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight."


Receipts or it didn't happen.

He's a classic ponzi grifter. Follow the wallet transactions and you can see who and how he was tied up.

 

This SBF is quite a story! Movie script. I wonder why he was arrested after so long time and if we can get some more spicy deatils anytime soon. I'm really not into all the conspiracy theories but this story is full of layers...

 

In a blink of an eye, he is back home in sunny California in his parent's mansion playing video games. Meanwhile, FTX users are committing suicide all over the world. The power of money and influence is visible in broad daylight and they don't care who sees it.

 

If he’s not a threat to flee, or to hurt anyone, there’s little to hold him in custody for. I wouldn’t confuse this for some type of special influence, other than someone had to come up with the bail money, which is substantial.

It may not suit your sense of justice, but remember until convictions happen, he is presumed innocent just like everyone else. When violent offenders are released on bail, it’s not terribly surprising that a white collar criminal is released...

Having said that if convicted I hope he rots in jail for the rest of his life...

 

His bail was set at $250 Million. His parents put up their house, not actual cash. If a house in California is worth $250 Million in the current housing market it must be a big house. I don't buy any of it.

 

Just a quick funny story to relate regarding crypto. Even with the market in turmoil my wife and I still do a little stock picking. Most recently it was a pharmaceutical stock which had a liver drug coming out of phase three trial and all of our research pointed to it being positive results. Well it was and the stock shot up 350%. (Mind you we are small fries so not rich)

Around the same time I got airdropped “bonk coin” as I have this crypto called Solana I picked it up at like 10 cents a while back and somehow having it made me eligible to get some. I just laughed it off a bit but held it in my wallet. Within a few days it was up 3,600%. I don’t know what the hec it does and I sold it before it lost liquidity (again I didn’t get many, so not rich) maybe I should stop doing due diligence.

 

I suspect it will all be renamed Craptocurrency soon enough, the geeks that lost big on it will have to hock their smartwatches to buy a feed!

 

For those interested in the ongoing crypto-space turmoil, or (especially) those using either Binance or Crypto.com, this long post from a source that has done good previous work is worth a read:

https://cryptadamus.substack.com/p/are-cryptocom-and-binances-european

 

I just burn my money or buy watches. That's real.

 

I think the few people who post here about Bitcoin have their mind made up and aren’t going to change and that’s cool. I don’t know if those who dislike Bitcoin ever read the white paper or any of satoshis writings that’s what got me into it. It had a nice 50% growth this year (not forgetting the crash but there were many of those in bitcoins history) I still think it’s cool just a bit disappointed it isn’t as of now what satoshi had planned I really liked the idea. Robot trading is just that algorithmic trading i know a guy who writes his own but he’s a miner and kinda lives in the crypto sphere with three computer screens and a hec of a mining set up. I saw the stock market took a massive dump today I just got home didn’t see if Bitcoin followed suit.

 

Buying bitcoins is the most boring way to gamble. It totally lacks the thrill of the casino.

 

Is money 'in the bank' any more real?

So let me fix that for you...

Most welcome

 

...let alone a good racecourse!

 

Watch 97% owned on Netflix about the British banking system, if that does not send you running for gold nothing will. All governments do it print more money that is backed against nothing and flood the markets with it.

Each crypto token has a defined number of tokens that will never grow and this is what scares the money printers. They can't accept that they wont be capable of dumping more Fiat into the economy when they wish. Every crypto transaction from the first ever to the last today is visible to the whole world on the blockchain, nothing can be hidden, it's there for everyone to see forever so why are they fighting transparency....

Just look at how the SEC has been acting with the Ripple (XRP) case as this ruling will set the standard for all crypto moving forward.

I dont deny there is a lot of shit coins out there but ignore the noise and focus on tokens with real world usage like XRP, XLM, QNT, ALGO etc.

 

Just clearing up some incorrect information. Your statement about defined number of tokens is not true for all crypto, only for those that have been created (like Bitcoin) with a hard limit built in. Others like Tether have no practical maximum supply limit. There is a notable variation in how maximum supply is determined and it varies from one token to the next, therefore not guaranteed to be different to fiat money printing.

As pointed out before on this thread on more than one occasion, this doesn't mean much in any practical audit or investigation sense. Visibility of an "ID" on a blockchain does not equate to knowing the true identity of the entity behind it. Without that information the ID provides little real value from an anti-financial crime perspective. The "transparency" provided by ANY blockchain without (confidential) supporting information is barely the tip of the iceberg.