
SEC issues warning against John McAfee’s crypto shilling - BadamiVasu
https://itsblockchain.com/john-mcafee-crypto-shilling/
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jmathai
From the article: "Although John McAfee is often perceived as an erratic and
outgoing individual, I believe that he only wants the best for Cryptocurrency
and having an influence as large as his is highly beneficial to helping spread
awareness of this great technology which should help boost long-term success.
Make sure to follow John and have a watch of some of his interviews, this man
has some great knowledge and will do great things for the industry."

That ending remark caught me off guard until I looked at the domain the
article was hosted in (itsblockchain.com).

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curiousgal
meta rant: Whoever started the "let's use a code block to quote text" trend
should suffer as much as mobile users do when reading it.

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tlrobinson
It would be nice if Hacker News had a better way to quote text.

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JackCh
> _" It would be nice if Hacker News had a better way to quote text."_

Consider doing it like this.

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mikeyouse
That's the approach I've taken too:

Single carrot to indent it slightly, then an asterisks to italicize the quote
and another asterisks at the end to stop the italicization.

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captaincrowbar
For a moment there I thought McAfee must be starting a new cryptocurrency
called the Crypto Shilling (accompanied of course by the Crypto Penny and the
Crypto Pound).

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rounce
The smallest unit being a ha'penny bit.

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beojan
It would be the Crypto Farthing.

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ordinaryradical
Classic pump and dump behavior but because he’s seen as “technical” and
eccentric it gets a pass. There is so much buzz for a technology that still
fails to _do_ anything

Cryptos are the average man’s Juicero—an encumbered, poorly thought out
solution to a non-problem with just enough hype and institutional money on the
line to make for spectacular fireworks when it goes.

~~~
mwwilson
Would you mind elaborating on why you see a "non-problem" as far as crypto
_whatever_ goes?

I see a lot of fraud in the space, and it does seem like there's a lot of
inefficiency in different solutions. However, it also appears to me to be an
unavoidable continuation of a decentralization effort that kicked into high
gear with the printing press. This process seems to have on average improved
life for individuals, and so I have trouble seeing anything that moves
decentralized solutions forward as addressing non-problems.

I am aware that my knowledge and understanding is quite limited and prone to
error so I'm curious as to how you have come to your position.

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Nursie
Please tell me - why is decentralisation a positive here? Why should I care
about it and what does it get me?

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mwwilson
For you specifically, I have no idea. I suspect we're at least a decade out
from these technologies being reified enough to make decent forecasts as to
where they'll actually lead. Undoubtedly there will be those who benefit and
suffer disproportionally as has been the case with all technology. It should
be noted that I'm not specifically speaking to Bitcoin here, although the
Bitcoin protocol/network opened up the space for everything that will follow.

I see a lot of potential for decentralized tokens/governance-models to alter
the way humans organize themselves. The closest historical parallel I see to
this technology is the corporate charter. Where the corporate charter allowed
for the decentralization of the power of kings & military decentralized token
systems act on the power of the Nation State & Corporations. I don't know if
you should care about it, but the technology is here it will be used and
abused whether you care or not.

I think the broadest possible beneficial effect to the average person of this
technology is the potential to reinvigorate what historically might be
referred to as cooperatives or unions. To be able to self-select into pooling
and multiplying your efforts with like-minded people on a global basis is a
huge change from being the previous geo-spatial-political limitations to
organization and cooperation.

Of course, there's nothing to prevent people from organizing around values
like racialNationEugenicsCoin so there's plenty of potential for harm too.

Then there's the potential multiplier effect that you get out of this
technology. It's not inconceivable that people on this forum could create a
game or service that leverages decentralized tokens to accomplish what in the
old paradigm would require lots of human and financial capital to achieve
(think online game's, Uber, E-Bay, AirBnB). This efficiency of effort could
potentially be used to further concentrate value than under old models or to
require less value extraction from users. This particular effect is, I
suspect, why in it's nascent state the technology is so pregnant with
potential for scams.

Anyways I've gone on for too long, but that reflects some of my thinking. I'm
not invested in crypto outside of, an admittedly limited, knowledge
investment. I'd really love to have my mind changed but haven't come across a
solid argument for how this tech isn't going to effect our human society as
much as any of the related tech that's come before it.

~~~
Nursie
I appreciate you taking the time to answer, but I don't really see anything
concrete there.

I'm really not sure how tokens or 'coins' would/could result in the benefits
you mention. Global communications networks certainly have revolutionised
global cooperation in ways not before possible. I'm just not seeing the value-
add of cryptocurrency here.

> It's not inconceivable that people on this forum could create a game or
> service that leverages decentralized tokens to accomplish what in the old
> paradigm would require lots of human and financial capital to achieve

We've had game tokens for quite a bit longer than cryptocurrencies...

I'm sorry, but this reads like a fantasy more than any way in which blockchain
technologies could actually enable anything.

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ceejayoz
> With almost 830,000 followers on Twitter, John has a huge influence on the
> community and has made some bold price predictions for various
> Cryptocurrencies. His most common prediction is the still outstanding, where
> he predicted $500,000 USD Bitcoin by the end of 2020 which has since been
> raised to $1,000,000 USD.

His latest prediction flopped just last week: [https://blokt.com/news/mcafee-
predicts-bitcoin-will-hit-1500...](https://blokt.com/news/mcafee-predicts-
bitcoin-will-hit-15000-before-june-12)

> To support his argument, he stated that “my algorithm predicted Trump’s June
> 12th date. They have never been wrong.”

Guess it was wrong.

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fredgrott
his Model assumed that Chinese could still trade bitcoin..that is no longer
the case with Bitcoin loosing 50% of user base due to China bitcoin
ban..current price slump is part of that reasoning

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mschuster91
And they're starting to crack down on yuge mining operations, too.

Can't say I'm unhappy about that, though. The energy usage required for BTC
mining is... unsustainable, to say the least. And Chinese power sources aren't
the most environmentally friendly ones, either.

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Tangokat
For those who haven't read it, the guy has a very interesting story:
[https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-
stand/](https://www.wired.com/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/)

Judging by the stories he should not be taken seriously and the media should
ignore anything he says (which they won't because his claims are good click-
bait).

~~~
scrollbar
The Netflix documentary on him is equal parts disgusting, entertaining, and
insightful (particularly relating to how our culture of worshipping money and
power over all else enables people to get away with murder, literally)

[https://www.netflix.com/title/80148180](https://www.netflix.com/title/80148180)

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iamleppert
McAfee is a conman among conmen. Does anyone even have a shred of respect for
any of his software products? I remember they often caused more issues and
were the source of more problems than they solved.

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kennxfl
He constantly flip flops on his Bitcoin price predictions and when asked about
gets super defensive. He's into very weird conspiracy theories..and definitely
his documentary did not help.

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captain_perl
Sponsoring McAfee is prolly cheaper than a trip to Everest to kill a sherpa.
Like.

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theweb1
SEC is getting too serious.

