March 9, 20214 yr Quote None of this even makes sense. People are literally paying millions for art work, albums, Gifs and even tweets. Do you actually have any control over the publishing, money potentially generated from it and their distribution channels? Or are you literally just buying nothing? It sounds like you're buying nothing. Yeah, I would agree with you're buying nothing. I guess you're getting a temporary experience. Digital pogs. Or you're betting the value of that nothing will be worth more to someone else in the future. Stated in the blog was that Epic made 2.4 billion dollars in micro-transactions for costumes in Fortnite. So once the Fortnite fad is over and their servers are shut down, that value instantly goes to 0. I'm guessing the target market for all of this stuff is mostly gamers with not much else better to do with their money and not much impulse control. It does all seem like a stupid cash grab on paper. Edited March 9, 20214 yr by sizzlinbeef
March 9, 20214 yr @sizzlinbeefSome tokens have sold for over a million dollars though. A gif of Lebron James slam dunking, didn't that fetch like $600k? It's getting pretty insane. Edited March 9, 20214 yr by David
March 11, 20214 yr ^ its getting a lot more insane than that --- and fast !!!! Digital artwork sells for record $69 million at Christie's first NFT auction The first purely digital work sold by an established auction house brings blockchain into the world of fine art. more: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/digital-artwork-sells-record-60-million-christie-s-first-nft-n1260544 Digital art collage by Beeple, on March 10, 2021.Christie's Auction House / AFP - Getty Images
March 11, 20214 yr ^ yeah good question i dk, but for $69M i am sure all that has been well sussed out with the lawyers.
March 11, 20214 yr 45 minutes ago, mrnyc said: ^ yeah good question i dk, but for $69M i am sure all that has been well sussed out with the lawyers. I wonder if he'll insure it right before a hacker steals it. John Ruskin is turning in his grave. He thought the Victorian Era was bad... Edited March 11, 20214 yr by David
April 7, 20214 yr revenge of the winklevii indeed -- it's quite a comeback: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2021/04/05/revenge-of-the-winklevii-facebook-winklevoss-bitcoin-nft-billionaire-revenge/?sh=283556661572
May 3, 20214 yr Ethereum breaks past $3,000 to quadruple in value in 2021 https://www.reuters.com/technology/ethereum-breaks-past-3000-2021-05-03/ ============================================ Charlie Munger calls bitcoin ‘disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization’ https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/01/charlie-munger-calls-bitcoin-disgusting-and-contrary-to-the-interests-of-civilization.html ============================================ Well, great. I now sound like the 97-year-old instead of the 39-year-old Winklevii, or the 27-year-old Vitalik Buterin. My protracted metamorphosis into an old fogey is proceeding apace. Maybe I'm fighting sour grapes about having not having gotten into crypto on the ground floor (I still have not invested a dime in any cryptocurrency and have no plans to do so), but I still can't shake the feeling that it's just one step above vaporware.
May 3, 20214 yr 5 minutes ago, TBideon said: NFT is the rage and with global changing potential. Global warming potential, but there's nothing backing the value of any of these crypto things and I expect them all to fall apart eventually.
May 4, 20214 yr 37 minutes ago, Cincinnatus said: Anyone else making a lot of money on $DOGE right now??? Insane ... Waiting for it to hit $1 before I unload it.
May 5, 20214 yr On 5/4/2021 at 11:05 AM, JaceTheAce41 said: Waiting for it to hit $1 before I unload it. I think that'll happen on Sat night. Even without SNL, it rips a lot I notice on Sat nights for whatever reason ...
May 5, 20214 yr I'm not exactly sure how much I'll make if it hits $1. Some analysts have it getting up to $20 by end of year.
May 5, 20214 yr 7 minutes ago, JaceTheAce41 said: I'm not exactly sure how much I'll make if it hits $1. Some analysts have it getting up to $20 by end of year. Yeah, there's no way I'm selling at $1. Just 4 weeks ago people said it'd be at least a year or two before it'd even hit 75 cents.
May 12, 20214 yr Glad I sold my DOGE when it did (.$65). They Reddit hype train I believe will eventually die out and the reality that it is a fundamentally flawed coin will prevent it from being high. Could it rise more on the hype? Yeah but not long term IMO. Three coins that I have been bullish on have been doing well recently (Cardano, Polygon, and Ethereum). For you other crypto investors, what coins right now are you excited about?
June 5, 20214 yr miami a crypto hub? jack dorsey, the winkelevii and others speak: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210605-miami-looking-to-be-next-crypto-hotspot-hosts-huge-bitcoin-event
June 5, 20214 yr On 4/6/2021 at 10:29 PM, mrnyc said: revenge of the winklevii indeed -- it's quite a comeback: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2021/04/05/revenge-of-the-winklevii-facebook-winklevoss-bitcoin-nft-billionaire-revenge/?sh=283556661572 It's important to keep in mind that their intent was to keep FB overtly elitist and limited to people affiliated with higher end institutions. They probably made as much money out of the settlement as they would have otherwise.
June 29, 20213 yr On 6/5/2021 at 1:01 PM, E Rocc said: It's important to keep in mind that their intent was to keep FB overtly elitist and limited to people affiliated with higher end institutions. They probably made as much money out of the settlement as they would have otherwise. who knows, but i found this -- In February 2008, the Winklevoss twins reached a legal settlement with Zuckerberg, who agreed to pay them $ 45 million in Facebook shares and $ 20 million in cash. so not bad, but fb was worth $15B at the time, so that was a relative pittance. looks like the boys are doing quite well with their grip on their popular nft artwork platform and the like today and really well earlier with bitcoin, to the tune of several billions. i've seen them around town, you just can't miss them from blocks away.
June 29, 20213 yr 46 minutes ago, mrnyc said: who knows, but i found this -- In February 2008, the Winklevoss twins reached a legal settlement with Zuckerberg, who agreed to pay them $ 45 million in Facebook shares and $ 20 million in cash. so not bad, but fb was worth $15B at the time, so that was a relative pittance. looks like the boys are doing quite well with their grip on their popular nft artwork platform and the like today and really well earlier with bitcoin, to the tune of several billions. i've seen them around town, you just can't miss them from blocks away. What would FB have been worth if they stuck to their exclusive and elitist business model, though?
November 27, 20213 yr "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
November 28, 20213 yr Maybe not a loss. This is about cryptocurrencies, but talks about blockchain as it is the underlying tech: Quote The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger At this point pretty much every economist worth their weight in salt has given the public fair warning about the financial absurdity of crypto assets using the well-known basic economic arguments against the faux currencies. However economic crypto scepticism has to go hand in hand with a deeper understanding of why the technology doesn’t work as its advocates claim, in addition to the legal and regulatory arguments against its existence. There’s a simple inescapable truth at the heart of technical crypto scepticism that almost all software engineers intuit at some level: Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime.
December 17, 20213 yr a japanese casino plan with flying cars and crypto trading for manhattan: A plan for a $3 billion casino in New York's Manhattan includes a massive crypto-trading floor and a flying-car landing pad Shalini Nagarajan Dec. 8, 2021, 07:32 AM A Las Vegas-seasoned asset manager and a gaming giant are eyeing an addition to New York's famed Manhattan skyline — a multibillion-dollar casino with space for trading cryptocurrencies and a landing pad for flying cars. UE Resorts International, a subsidiary of Japan-based gaming tech provider Universal Entertainment Corporation, in partnership with Jason Ader, a former Las Vegas Sands board member, expects to submit a pitch for the casino to the local gambling regulator by Friday, according to plans seen by Insider. Their proposed crypto trading floor should be the biggest in the world, and the project includes an esports arena and a venue for events such as New York Fashion Week, the US Open, and Fleet Week. "The goal is to have a differentiated, but comprehensive, approach to entertainment that goes beyond casino gaming with some pretty cool elements," Ader told Bloomberg in a recent interview. ... Some members of the Reddit community reacted positively to the news, though others were less keen. "If you want to get crypto regulated into oblivion, put it on a casino floor," one Redditor said. more: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/crypto-casino-new-york-pitch-crypto-trading-floor-flying-car-2021-12
February 14, 20223 yr If you were still trying to determine whether cryptocurrency is a scam, consider how many American dollars were spent on Super Bowl ads trying to convince viewers that they're missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if they don't dump money into cryptocurrency right now.
February 14, 20223 yr 4 minutes ago, taestell said: If you were still trying to determine whether cryptocurrency is a scam, consider how many American dollars were spent on Super Bowl ads trying to convince viewers that they're missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if they don't dump money into cryptocurrency right now. Wealthy people are tryin to dump their crypto to less sophisticated investors.
November 1, 20222 yr On 2/14/2022 at 12:17 PM, taestell said: If you were still trying to determine whether cryptocurrency is a scam, consider how many American dollars were spent on Super Bowl ads trying to convince viewers that they're missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if they don't dump money into cryptocurrency right now. Fortune Favors the Brave: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/matt-damons-fortune-favors-the-brave-commercial-turns-one-heres-how-much-you-wouldve-lost-if-you-bought-crypto-then-11666987405
November 1, 20222 yr On 1/31/2022 at 7:42 PM, GCrites80s said: Money has no value, only wealth and French bulldogs. This past August, my cousin's cousin smuggled two French bulldog puppies on a flight from Mexico. He claims that he traded them for cash at the Dulles Airport taxi stand.
November 9, 20222 yr 50,000 hacked bitcoins recovered: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/missing-stolen-bitcoin-worth-3billion-28448458
November 11, 20222 yr Sam Bankman-Fried loses $14 billion in a single day: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/09/business/sam-bankman-fried-wealth-ftx-ctrp
November 14, 20222 yr On 11/11/2022 at 10:20 AM, Lazarus said: Sam Bankman-Fried ...has allegedly fled via private jet to Argentina. It's comforting to know that 80 years later, Nazis are still welcome in the Viceroyalty Río de la Plata.
November 14, 20222 yr The biggest contributor to the Democratic Party's company, which was based in the PRC (Hong Kong) loses a ton of money right after the election, and then gets "hacked"? Wondering about the connection isn't really a "conspiracy theory". Seriously, though.....regardless of what the guy did or who he sides with, calling a Jew a "Nazi" is kinda going too far.
November 14, 20222 yr 1 hour ago, E Rocc said: The biggest contributor to the Democratic Party's company, which was based in the PRC (Hong Kong) loses a ton of money right after the election, and then gets "hacked"? Wondering about the connection isn't really a "conspiracy theory". Seriously, though.....regardless of what the guy did or who he sides with, calling a Jew a "Nazi" is kinda going too far. Agreed on the Nazi epithet, which does not appear supported by anything in his personal life on his Wiki page or anything else I could find. But: biggest contributor to the Democratic Party's "company?" Did you mean campaign? Or something else?
November 14, 20222 yr 1 minute ago, Gramarye said: Agreed on the Nazi epithet, which does not appear supported by anything in his personal life on his Wiki page or anything else I could find. But: biggest contributor to the Democratic Party's "company?" Did you mean campaign? Or something else? He was the contributor, the company went bust.
November 14, 20222 yr https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/14/cryptocom-ceo-says-will-prove-naysayers-wrong-amid-ftx-contagion-fears.html Crypto.com CEO downplays FTX contagion fears, says he’ll prove naysayers wrong as withdrawals rise That's a big whoops. Crypto investors must have balls of steel. Or brains of mush. Of both.
November 17, 20222 yr FTX did not have an accounting department: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/17/ftx-used-corporate-funds-to-purchase-employee-homes-new-filing-shows.html In the same filing, Ray excoriated the former executive’s team for a “complete lack of financial controls,” saying that he did not have confidence in the balance sheet statements of FTX’s companies. Auditing for one of the FTX corporate verticals – what Ray referred to as “Silos” – was done by Prager Metis, a firm with “which I am not familiar,” Ray wrote. [...] Ray, who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy proceedings and restructuring, declared he had 40 years of experience in the bankruptcy and corporate space. “The Debtors do not have an accounting department,” Ray wrote, stating he expected it would be “some time” before reliable financial statements could be prepared.
November 17, 20222 yr I’ll admit I’m not as knowledgeable in this arena as most. But I had a lot of $$$ in BlockFi’s interest stable coin account, now in my wallet. I was planning on withdrawing 1/1/23 to pay off my student loans. How screwed am I? This is probably the most depressed I’ve been in my life. Any realistic, informed thoughts are appreciated!
November 17, 20222 yr I think in the recent history of these exchanges going belly-up, once they suspend withdrawals it's already too late. It's no longer a lack of liquidity but a lack of any assets worth anything whatsoever.
November 18, 20222 yr More delightful tidbits from the bankruptcy filing (interesting even to normies, let alone to a bankruptcy attorney who also has corporate governance responsibilities): https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-colossal-mess-of-ftx/ More from John Ray III: I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the Chief Restructuring Officer or Chief Executive Officer in several of the largest corporate failures in history. I have supervised situations involving allegations of criminal activity and malfeasance (Enron). I have supervised situations involving novel financial structures (Enron and Residential Capital) and cross-border asset recovery and maximization (Nortel and Overseas Shipholding). Nearly every situation in which I have been involved has been characterized by defects of some sort in internal controls, regulatory compliance, human resources and systems integrity. Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented. ... “Many of the companies in the FTX Group, especially those organized in Antigua and the Bahamas, did not have appropriate corporate governance. I understand that many entities, for example, never had board meetings.” “The FTX Group did not maintain centralized control of its cash. Cash management procedural failures included the absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, as well as insufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partners.” “The FTX Group’s approach to human resources combined employees of various entities and outside contractors, with unclear records and lines of responsibility. At this time, the Debtors have been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the Petition Date, or the terms of their employment. Repeated attempts to locate certain presumed employees to confirm their status have been unsuccessful to date." “Employees of the FTX Group submitted payment requests through an on-line ‘chat’ platform where a disparate group of supervisors approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis." “Corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas.” “The FTX Group did not keep appropriate books and records, or security controls, with respect to its digital assets.” “One of the most pervasive failures of the FTX.com business in particular is the absence of lasting records of decision-making. Mr. Bankman-Fried often communicated by using applications that were set to auto-delete after a short period of time, and encouraged employees to do the same.” “Mr. Bankman-Fried, currently in the Bahamas, continues to make erratic and misleading public statements. Mr. Bankman-Fried, whose connections and financial holdings in the Bahamas remain unclear to me, recently stated to a reporter on Twitter: “F*** regulators they make everything worse” and suggested the next step for him was to “win a jurisdictional battle vs. Delaware” ===================== There is not enough popcorn in the world for the amount of spectacle in this excrement exhibit. And the thing is, SBF is validating almost every stereotype of the crypto bro, and of the kind of people who fall for their gung-ho image, too. The hostility to not just regulatory authority but all authority, and institutional structures clearly designed by people with a borderline pathological distrust of both institutions and structures. The lack of internal controls, oversight, and lines of reporting is the kind of thing you'd expect from people with a quasi-religious belief in flat power structures, which can frequently manifest as anarcho-capitalism, particularly among finance and tech types.
November 18, 20222 yr 9th Circuit had a few decisions basically immunizing celebrity spokesmen. I would love for that to be challenged and all those scumbags - Tom, Giselle, Curry, David - be prosecuted. f*ck them. Meanwhile Bankman-Fried is probably heading to Argentina with some of his goofs. It would be great if some crypto-fraud bounty hunters grabbed them at the beach somewhere, Muniched the criminals back to the States.
November 18, 20222 yr These fools think regulation and oversight only exist because a bunch of communist hippies want to take all their money. It never occurs to them that those things protect the business and its people as well.
November 18, 20222 yr 2 hours ago, Gramarye said: “Many of the companies in the FTX Group, especially those organized in Antigua and the Bahamas, did not have appropriate corporate governance. I understand that many entities, for example, never had board meetings.” “The FTX Group did not maintain centralized control of its cash. Cash management procedural failures included the absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, as well as insufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partners.” “The FTX Group’s approach to human resources combined employees of various entities and outside contractors, with unclear records and lines of responsibility. At this time, the Debtors have been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the Petition Date, or the terms of their employment. Repeated attempts to locate certain presumed employees to confirm their status have been unsuccessful to date." “Employees of the FTX Group submitted payment requests through an on-line ‘chat’ platform where a disparate group of supervisors approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis." “Corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas.” “The FTX Group did not keep appropriate books and records, or security controls, with respect to its digital assets.” “One of the most pervasive failures of the FTX.com business in particular is the absence of lasting records of decision-making. Mr. Bankman-Fried often communicated by using applications that were set to auto-delete after a short period of time, and encouraged employees to do the same.”
November 18, 20222 yr 2 hours ago, GCrites80s said: These fools think regulation and oversight only exist because a bunch of communist hippies want to take all their money. It never occurs to them that those things protect the business and its people as well. Even when they don't, they protect the market that the business wants a piece of ... which enables the growth of that market by helping people trust it. Anarcho-capitalists never understand this because the regulators make them trust the market less, and it is a major locus of cognitive dissonance for them to face the prospect that they're the oddballs and others trust it more. The skeptics of authority of course frequently make good micro points. Instances of regulatory failure happen all the time, both by negligence and by design. But their argument is kind of like saying "blackouts happen too often, that proves that the power grid is unreliable and should be destroyed, sheeple are just hoodwinked into paying for it or forced to by monopolies." Well, that might be partially true, but the utopian dream of every-house-an-island generating its own power locally is a long way off. The crypto bros want to be "off grid finance" akin to off grid power, and they dream of the day when everyone goes off-grid. They tend to be iconoclasts, and they don't stop to consider Chesterton's Fence (you don't get to destroy something just because you don't understand how it could exist; you only get to think about destroying after you understand why it does exist) in any depth (get them talking and you'll probably hear that the financial system exists because of "greed and evil corporations in league with big government" or some such, not so different than what you'll hear from unapologetic socialists, as the extremes often loop to each other). The regulated-monopoly power grid does exist for a reason, and consumers have real reasons, not just mental prisons devised by their own minds, that keep them on it. Same with the regular financial system orbiting a government-controlled central banking system. I could understand the theoretical appeal of power without utilities and finance without banks. But that's a classic example of where we get the cliche that "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is."
November 20, 20222 yr Canadian public pension fund was heavily invested in FTX: https://www.reuters.com/technology/ontario-teachers-pension-fund-write-down-investments-95-mln-ftx-2022-11-17/ I have read about Canada's public pension funds before - they are often allowed to put 10%+ into highly risky stocks. U.S. pension funds typically aren't legally able to do that. Because...it's really easy to blow the money.
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