UST/Luna - Worthless now!

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by AsianStew, May 14, 2022.

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  1. nomaduser

    nomaduser Active Member

    Luna is a scam!

    Fraudsters made Luna :(
     
  2. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I thought about this post for a bit. I don't think it's fraud in the technical legal sense. I haven’t heard of anyone making specific false claims about any crypto currency with the intent to steal from others. I do think that buying any crypto coin is wildly risky and that Luna is just the first example of an inevitable "run" driving the price to zero.

    About the closest thing to an actual misrepresentation might be the often repeated claim that buying a crypto coin is somehow an investment in a new technology. This is nonsense. Buying Dogecoin or Bitcoin isn't an investment in anything any more than buying a poker chip is an investment in the casino. But that truth is so self evident that I doubt it is more than legal puffery.
     
  3. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    Do you even internet bro? Reddit, Twitter, Investment forums, and even bloody dating apps are filled with paid influencers pushing crypto and steering people to questionable exchanges. The Miami coke market of the 80s, probably had less fraud than our current crypto markets! :p

    In all seriousness though, there’s been some fascinating conversations online about one of the founding engineers who developed a lot of the crypto block chains, and how he gradually came to a conclusion. Essentially, that it’s all a pyramid scheme.. albeit unintentionally. One could really dispute the semantics of the tech not being fraud, from a technical sense, but it certainly has created a black market that would leave the Dread Pirate Roberts in awe.
     
  4. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I take your point but it isn't just semantics. The issue is whether a crime was committed.
     
  5. Vonnegut

    Vonnegut Well-Known Member

    There’s a criminal fraud trail under way, in Florida, for one exchange founder. He was guaranteeing 1% weekly returns and other outright fabrications. While we can pompously claim that’s absurd, he was pulling in something like $40 million a year by the early reports.
     
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    People use crypto for fraud : crypto :: people use USD for fraud : USD
     
  7. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Wow, Bitcoin is taking another tumble. Down to about $27,000. There's no way to know what will happen next but Bitcoin continues to lose value in an inflationary environment. That's...not good. The Run could happen at any time now. Or not.
     
  8. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    This is my whole point. It isn't "investing"; it's gambling.

    When one is gambling in a casino, one is engaging in a series of random, independent events, each unaffected by what has already occurred or what is yet to come. The one difference is blackjack, where the events are not independent; each had is dependent on which cards have been already dealt since the last shuffle. It is why--along with the low house advantage--blackjack is the only game in the casino that can be predictably beaten. Advantage players, players who employ basic strategy, count cards, maintain a running and a true count, vary their bets based on the count, and vary basic strategy according to the count--actually have a slight edge against the house. They're "playing" blackjack, not gambling. But every other game is just gambling. The player can alter his/her play somewhat to improve his/her odds--or, more accurately, to lower the house's edge. But it is still just gambling.

    Buying crypto is gambling, but without any of the game play associated with Keno, Craps, and Video Poker. It's passive, like Roulette or Slots. You put your money down, sit there, and hope. Once that money is down, you lose all control over it.

    The only way to gain an advantage in crypto is to have inside information. Heck, it's not even a pyramid scheme because the initial "investors" don't even know if it will hold up.

    Is crypto a scam? No, not technically. But it is being used for scamming. A lot.

    "I bought cardboard when it was 14 cents a ton. And it's up to 16 cents now...and I bought three tons of it, so let's see...well, you do the math...and I made a special deal where I only have to keep two tons of it at my house." -- Steve Martin
     
    Johann likes this.
  9. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Abu Bakr Ibn Abi Maryam heard the Messenger of Allah say:
    "A time is certainly coming over mankind in which there will be nothing of use / benefit save a Dinar (gold coin) and a Dirham (silver coin.)"

    .
     
    Dustin likes this.
  10. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    But it's interesting to watch. The "run" on Bitcoin is inevitable. It's GOING to happen. The only question is "When." The run will destroy Bitcoin totally, permanently, and completely and it will happen very fast, needing a few days at most to reach zero.
     
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Good riddance. And while you're at it, Nosborne, - prediction that is - what are chances of another run - maybe on the Russian rouble, that will destroy Vladimir Putin "totally, permanently, and completely, needing only a few days...?"
     
  12. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I skipped over SF's post about the nature of an investment. I shouldn't have.

    No, the goal in every investment is NOT just to sell it at a profit. Real investments are usually expected to yield some income, either interest or a share in a company's profits.

    Now, it is true that some investments, real estate or commodities or gold for instance, might not yield any current income but at the very least they represent an ownership interest in some intrinsically valuable thing, a thing for which there is a market beyond the speculators themselves. If they don't, we call them "worthless".

    Bitcoin represents an ownership interest in nothing.

    The same argument could be made about gold though gold has some commercial uses in industry and jewelry. I don't believe in buying gold, either. I've seen gold at $250 to $1,800 an ounce and nothing changes about the gold to justify that volatility.

    Bitcoin is worse. It lacks even the limited utility of gold.
     
    Rich Douglas likes this.
  13. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I've seen crypto referred to as a "pyramid scheme" and a "Ponzi scheme." It is neither.

    as Nosborne says, it is owning nothing, hoping someone will offer you more for your nothing. But it doesn't fit either of those two scams.

    In a pyramid scheme, people make money by getting other people to give them money to get in on the scheme. They, in turn, make money the same way. A little gets kicked up the chain, so everyone in early makes money (and certainly doesn't lose any or, if it fails from the beginning, not much). Crypto isn't a pyramid scheme because no one is going out and selling "memberships" in the pyramid. It doesn't exist. However, there are people touting it--celebrities in ads and financial institutions who have it as an "investment option," for example. But it's not a pyramid.

    Nor is it a Ponzi scheme, where someone goes around finding investors and promising them a high--often guaranteed--rate of return. The scammer meets these promises by finding more victims....uh...."investors," taking their "investments and using them to pay off earlier "investors." The Ponzi scheme collapses when new investors can't be found to pay off earlier ones. Crypto isn't that, either, for what should be obvious reasons. No one is going around pretending you'll get guaranteed returns and paying them based on future suckers. Oh, there's some scamming going on, but it's not a Ponzi scheme.

    Crypto is more like what Nosborne says about gold. Or what others have said, comparing it to the tulip craze in the Netherlands. But at least then you still got a flower.
     
  14. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Whoa! Bitcoin lost another 3,300 dollars today. Fell below $24,000. At what point will panic set in? No way to know of course.
     
  15. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Apparently there are still buyers though.
     
  16. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Hm. Thinking about this...most "panics" involve shares of (non-worthless) corporate stock or commodities like pork bellies or blister copper which have a base value. There will generally be a buyer at some price (however depressed) because people actually need to buy blister copper or pork bellies (or dollars or euro or yen) or because corporate stock represents ownership of some saleable property. No one, however, needs to buy Bitcoin. There is no circumstance where buying Bitcoin is necessary to fill any sort of economic or business need. So it's conceivable that the supply of Bitcoin buyers could literally vanish overnight! Poof! At this point buyers buy for just two reasons; the ever less creditable idea that the Bitcoin will soar or to close short selling transactions. Panic indeed!
     
  17. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I think, as others do, it'll flame out and flatline. And when it does, I hope Vladimir Putin is personally holding a TON of the worthless stuff. He just might be, too...

    My guess - Turkish lira next, right after crypto. It's circling the bowl. Sayın Erdoğan'a teşekkür edebilirsiniz. (You can thank Mr. Erdogan.)
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2022
    Rich Douglas likes this.
  18. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Well, that's true. Bitcoin does have a base of users who are engaged in nefarious activities. Regulation will crush that crowd though.
     
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Hmph. Regulation never crushed any intelligent criminal. They ALWAYS find a way to do what they want - it's their job. And unfortunately, there are a lot of things you can't really regulate - like the supply of narcotics coming into the US. Laws galore - it still gets in.

    Unenforceable regulations abound - big and small. Here in my city, there are "regulations" (By-laws) against smoking in all public parks or motorized vehicles there. People break both regs, with impunity. All the time.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2022
  20. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    There used to be police patrols in the park - I think they stopped in the 1960s. About the same time the public washrooms in the park were boarded up and never reopened. This is a rotten city to live in, these days. And they just spent $1.5 million paving all the paths....
     

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