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Ask HN: Does Anyone else working in a crypto company feel this is all a scam?
254 points by two_poles_here on Feb 9, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 191 comments
I'm working in a Cryptocurrency startup, and all my colleagues are investing heavily into the domain, both mentally and monetarily. I cannot shake off the feeling that this is all a scam. It's so shady, from the way there are new coins and tokens every week, and how investors are throwing money into this program. I don't think my company's product deserves the sort of money it's been getting, and it feels like a bubble that will burst, sooner if not later. Some part of the tech is interesting, the essence of the blockchain, for example, but the main application seems to be just suspicious. What do others in the domain think? I'm not leaving yet because I'm not in a place to change jobs yet again, but I will, eventually, but I feel like this domain is very fishy.



I don't work in the cryptocurrency space, but I've been following it since close to the beginning, and my personal conclusion is that yes, the vast majority of what gets peddled today is a scam, and we desperately need to find a way to nuke it all from orbit.

Reposting one of my earlier comments [0]:

Like many people back then, I also found the whole proof-of-work / blockchain concept to be interesting from a theoretical computer science / distributed systems perspective.

But these days, I can't help but think that we've inadvertently created a paperclip maximizer without even bothering to create an AGI first. Humans are the AGI, and we're going to happily use more and more energy to play this stupid game for as long as it looks like there's a profit to be made, even if the global outcome is to our own detriment.

If we want this mess to go away, we need to find a way to change the incentives globally.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30120880


Ted Chiang wrote beautifully about exactly this sentiment back in 2017, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-dang...

His point back then was that corporations themselves create incentives that are indistinguishable from rogue AGI, but I honestly think it applies better to your sentiment about crypto systems


Below is part of a longer essay I wrote in 2000 (to Doug Engelbart's "UnRevII" "Bootstrapping" list): "[unrev-II] Singularity in twenty to forty years?" https://dougengelbart.org/colloquium/forum/discussion/0126.h...

But first, maybe one difference twenty years later is that I would emphasize the idea that our direction out of any singularity may have a lot to do with our moral/political direction going into a singularity, and so we should strive to create a better society right now (e.g. one that is more egalitarian and compassionate -- while also dynamically balancing meshwork/hierarchy issues like Manuel De Landa wrote about). The biggest issue humanity faces right now isn't "rogue AI" -- it is narrowly selfish people using computer technology to exploit other people in various ways (or at least create a technosphere which does that, with extensive intrusive monitoring and attention direction). A tangentially-related new book on part of that is "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari. https://web.archive.org/web/20220126161142/https://stolenfoc... (An archive link as site seems to be down at the moment.)

Also related on focus issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Humane_Technology

I'm all for using electronic systems in a Kanban-like way to coordinate work in a community (including ones with Merkle trees of hashes for audit trails) -- where I have long been a fan of "LETS" systems. https://web.archive.org/web/20190311081102/http://www.lets-l...

But cryptocurrency as a financial movement is more like Tulipmania (an investment bubble a lot like a Ponzi scheme). As I pointed out on Slashdot in the early days of Bitcoin, it wastes electricity and can be easily forked by changing a seed number.

But what I have come to realize is that the ultimate value in any sort of Kanban-like fiat-currency rationing system (like either Bitcoin or the US dollar) is in the nature of the community with a constitution that uses it and stands behind it. And it is hard to predict what happen in social systems globally. And we do need healthy communities and their formal and informal constitutions to live a good life. Distributed currencies could be part of healthy communities -- but it remains an open question how best they could fit in. Also, as I have written elsewhere, healthy communities have some historically-shaped mix of subsistence, gift, exchange, planned and theft transactions -- and crypto mostly is just about exchange.

One good thing coming out of crypto is that some financial winners in it are putting money into public charity. One such excellent inspiring example: https://futureoflife.org/ "The Future of Life Institute works on reducing global catastrophic and existential risk from powerful technologies"

Anyway, from 2000:

========= machine intelligence is already here =========

I personally think machine evolution is unstoppable, and the best hope for humanity is the noble cowardice of creating refugia and trying, like the duckweed, to create human (and other) life faster than other forces can destroy it.

Note, I'm not saying machine evolution won't have a human component -- in that sense, a corporation or any bureaucracy is already a separate machine intelligence, just not a very smart or resilient one. This sense of the corporation comes out of Langdon Winner's book "Autonomous Technology: Technics out of control as a theme in political thought". http://www.rpi.edu/~winner/ You may have a tough time believing this, but Winner makes a convincing case. He suggests that all successful organizations "reverse-adapt" their goals and their environment to ensure their continued survival.

These corporate machine intelligences are already driving for better machine intelligences -- faster, more efficient, cheaper, and more resilient. People forget that corporate charters used to be routinely revoked for behavior outside the immediate public good, and that corporations were not considered persons until around 1886 (that decision perhaps being the first major example of a machine using the political/social process of its own ends). http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/28/usa.html Corporate charters are granted supposedly because society believe it is in the best interest of society for corporations to exist.

But, when was the last time people were able to pull the "charter" plug on a corporation not acting in the public interest? It's hard, and it will get harder when corporations don't need people to run themselves. http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/23/revokecharter.html http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/charter/death.html

I'm not saying the people in corporations are evil -- just that they often have very limited choices of actions. If a corporate CEOs do not deliver short term profits they are removed, no matter what they were trying to do. Obviously there are exceptions for a while -- William C. Norris of Control Data was one of them, but in general, the exception proves the rule. Fortunately though, even in the worst machines (like in WWII Germany) there were individuals who did what they could to make them more humane ("Schindler's List" being an example).

Look at how much William C. Norris http://www.neii.com/wnorris.htm of Control Data got ridiculed in the 1970s for suggesting the then radical notion that "business exists to meet society's unmet needs". Yet his pioneering efforts in education, employee assistance plans, on-site daycare, urban renewal, and socially-responsible investing are in part what made Minneapolis/St.Paul the great area it is today. Such efforts are now being duplicated to an extent by other companies. Even the company that squashed CDC in the mid 1980s (IBM) has adopted some of those policies and directions. So corporations can adapt when they feel the need.

Obviously, corporations are not all powerful. The world still has some individuals who have wealth to equal major corporations. There are several governments that are as powerful or more so than major corporations. Individuals in corporations can make persuasive pitches about their future directions, and individuals with controlling shares may be able to influence what a corporation does (as far as the market allows). In the long run, many corporations are trying to coexist with people to the extent they need to. But it is not clear what corporations (especially large ones) will do as we approach this singularity -- where AIs and robots are cheaper to employ than people. Today's corporation, like any intelligent machine, is more than the sum of its parts (equipment, goodwill, IP, cash, credit, and people). It's "plug" is not easy to pull, and it can't be easily controlled against its short term interests.

What sort of laws and rules will be needed then? If the threat of corporate charter revocation is still possible by governments and collaborations of individuals, in what new directions will corporations have to be prodded? What should a "smart" corporation do if it sees this coming? (Hopefully adapt to be nicer more quickly. :-) What can individuals and governments do to ensure corporations "help meet society's unmet needs"?

Evolution can be made to work in positive ways, by selective breeding, the same way we got so many breeds of dogs and cats. How can we intentionally breed "nice" corporations that are symbiotic with the humans that inhabit them? To what extent is this happening already as talented individuals leave various dysfunctional, misguided, or rouge corporations (or act as "whistle blowers")? I don't say here the individual directs the corporation against its short term interest. I say that individuals affect the selective survival rates of corporations with various goals (and thus corporate evolution) by where they choose to work, what they do there, and how they interact with groups that monitor corporations. To that extent, individuals have some limited control over corporations even when they are not shareholders. Someday, thousands of years from now, corporations may finally have been bred to take the long term view and play an "infinite game".

=========


And, as you might guess from my username, I remember some of those comments on the early BTC threads. +1, insightful


Much of modern finance was illegal 50 years ago. The first financial future was traded on May 16, 1972. Before that, futures were confined to agricultural commodities, where they were used mostly by farmers and buyers of agricultural products. The first junk bond was sold in 1986, and it achieved the largest percentage gain on the NYSE, then in 1987 suffered the largest percentage loss. Until 1999, banks and brokerage houses were totally separate. Half a century ago, such activities were viewed as gambling. There were still people around who remembered 1929 and the Great Depression.

Finance used to be a support function for industry. Now, in the US, industry is almost a support function for finance - just something to generate numbers to bet on, like horse racing.

Cryptocurrencies are the ultimate extension of this trend. They're totally detached from any physical reality, or even economic reality. NFTs are worse. Most are overpriced pet rocks.

It's worth noting that China does not work this way. China's government has kept finance in its box, focusing investment on actually making real stuff. That seems to be working out. The US has lost the capability of making consumer electronics and telecom gear. US Steel, once the biggest steelmaker, is now in 35th place. This may end with the US a has-been country, like Britain, pining for the glory days of empire.

How does this unwind? Well, the bottom has fallen out of Axie Infinity, once the biggest NFT. It's really hard to tell the value of NFTs on OpenSea, because there's so much wash trading and not much liquidity. But it seems to be difficult for a purchaser to sell an NFT at a profit. Profits mostly flow to minters. As I point out now and then, NFTs as investments work a lot like Beanie Babies on eBay - high asking prices, low actual selling prices, large numbers of items on sale with high reserves and no bids. That's what an illiquid market looks like.

ICOs were a big thing back in 2018. Then the SEC started cracking down. Now there are few ICOs, and the SEC is working through the backlog, bringing the hammer down on about two ICO promoters per month. In the aftermath, not only were most ICOs failures [1], it's hard to find any that created a business outside cryptocurrency speculation. There's much tail-chasing in the cryptocurrency world.

Historically, that doesn't end well.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/tech/most-successful-icos-all-t...


US GDP in 2020 was 20.94T. According to Statista[0] "Finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing" accounted for 4.59T. Manufacturing accounted for 2.27T. While "Finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing" accounted for ~20% of GDP, I think its still a stretch to say that "in the US, industry is almost a support function for finance - just something to generate numbers to bet on, like horse racing."

"China's government has kept finance in its box, focusing investment on actually making real stuff."

What's happening with Evergrande is the opposite of keeping finance in its box. Evergrande borrowed money from banks and took money from consumers before building a condo. They then took the money and "invested" in things like football players and stadiums.[1] Consumers are left without homes. [2]

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/248006/real-value-added-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergrande_Group#Sports

[2] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210914-evergrande-dr...


I would argue that futures (and options) are still gambling. You are literally betting a price of something will be over/under a threshold on a certain date. Sports betting uses over/under and scores as thresholds, this seems no different. People might say its different than sports gambling because it is chance/luck with a team but you can do in depth research on sports teams just as much as futures/options and at the end you are still guessing and betting money.

Cryptocurrencies trade like stocks and don't operate as an actual currency for the vast majority of use cases. I like to think the phase we are in now is like pre-dotcom bust where there were startups with silly plans getting VC money. I think there is some technology (maybe ETH smart contracts and decentralized apps?) that could come out of this and maybe some businesses emerge that are legit.


> I would argue that futures (and options) are still gambling.

And you would be wrong because those instruments were designed to hedge (reduce) risk. If you are a grain producer and you are worried that the grain price might go down before your next crop you sell a future to lock the price, if you are a flour mill and worry that the price will go up you buy a future.

Can all financial instruments be used for speculation? Of course, same as buying a ton of grain not because you need it but because you expect the price to go up.


And you would be wrong because those instruments were designed to hedge (reduce) risk.

That tail now wags the dog. The futures markets in commodities are much larger than the actual markets.


This sounds like we have a new 2007 housing bubble.


> Finance used to be a support function for industry. Now, in the US, industry is almost a support function for finance - just something to generate numbers to bet on, like horse racing.

My old man once said, "You will soon find out that all the money belongs to the bankers". then he lent me this book, https://www.amazon.com/Money-Lenders-Bankers-World-Turmoil/d....


I work in crypto and have done for the last couple years. To be totally transparent, I worked on Cardano, then a couple random projects including a cosmos DEX and writing test suites for a qa consultancy, and now a startup DEX. I've been active in the scene (investing, reading papers, talking about crypto etc) since around 2016 and worked in it since 2019.

I think there's a few things here. I don't believe that many people are actively and knowingly working on deliberate scams, but there definitely are some. I do think a lot of people are working on trash and it's only sustainable as a business model because people are making speculative investments, such as Decentraland clothing brands (wtf?). I'm in the field because I like the technical challenges - I've been really lucky at working on some pretty hard/cool things with some really smart engineers. However I do find the constant onslaught from HN, news articles, random people on the internet and in real life, to be too much for my mental health and I'm considering leaving the industry to work on something else. Even if you're just trying to have fun working with a tech stack you enjoy (I've spent time in Haskell, Rust, Go, etc... most of the hip cool ones), being accused of being a scammer every 5 minutes is just very very draining. I still don't believe I have enabled any scams directly but I don't want to spend the next few years of my career justifying that either. In fact I just was talking to my wife about this before opening HN and seeing this question.

I think I need to take a few months off and start looking for something that's tangible like robotics, or something more visual. I'm just not in the position to do that right now. All the best to you anyway - I hope you can keep it all together better than I can!


I have a job satisfaction indicator I like to call “the barbecue factor”.

You’re at a social event with friends and friends of friends. Someone asks “so what do you do?” and you answer.

They either go “huh?”, “ooh neat!” or “oh, gee, yeah isn’t it awful how $industry is $negative_outcome?”

Which of those answers you get can have a big bearing on your job satisfaction.

It feels like the opinions of others shouldn’t be such a big deal. It turns out they are a pretty big deal for me, though. It sounds like it might be the same for you, and I suspect it’s the same for most humans. We’re tribal animals.

Once I figured that out, I started factoring it into my career decisions. I’ve been much happier for it.


This so much depends on your audience.

Outside of the tech industry, "software engineer" alone has negative connotations and stereotypes, so some of my friends - when single - deliberately hand-waive past what they do by saying they're a "consultant" which somehow. In a brief period of trying to be a very different person when meeting girls, I referred to myself as a "professional problem solver". (yuck).

Working at Amazon and Facebook is another one where your audience differs dramatically. Some people are much more impressed if you work at Amazon on the "retail website" because that's the part they know, while others associate that with dehumanizing treatment of warehouse workers. Others are impressed (and won't shame you) if you work on AWS because the cloud doesn't have the same stink of wage slavery, but to others still they understand this so little that they literally have no reference point to react. Working at Facebook gets you a bad rep, but working on Instagram/Whatsapp doesn't, so now everyone gets to say you work at Meta and get told "Oh yes, I did see something about the Metaverse on CBS. Very nice, dear."


Thanks for the idea David, I think I'm going to take that into consideration a little bit more.


> However I do find the constant onslaught from HN, news articles, random people on the internet and in real life, to be too much for my mental health and I'm considering leaving the industry to work on something else.

Maybe this is harsh, but I'm glad to hear it's having an effect.


I hope you find work that's exciting and meaningful to you in whatever industry you like, but you should really consider the source when it comes to the anti-crypto moralizers. If someone accuses you of being a scammer when they know nothing about you or what you do, is their opinion really worth your time?

People will always be resentful of success and even just the attempt of it, whether it's a business growing big or putting a man on the moon. Made an advance in robotics? Given the obvious military applications, someone somewhere is going to call you a murderer. You have to get used to this if you want to accomplish anything great. You can't let yourself be ruled by someone else's morality.

Where do the crypto-haters cluster? With those who praise accomplishment and greatness or those who are resentful of it? My view is that they are clearly in the camp of the latter. You have to start hearing the "constant onslaught" as praise, my friend.


> I don't believe that many people are actively and knowingly working on deliberate scams,

Really.


Hi cosmos friend (I assume you mean $ATOM unless there is another cosmos)

I agree there are some (how many is another topic) not very long term worthy projects out there being worked on due to this being a new area being explored.

However value are given by people and who knows how different projects would evolve and there might be new value created/discovered later.

There are definitely BOTH scams and real value projects and you definitely have to DYOR (Do Your Own Research). Ultimately Web3/decentralization is about taking back control but that also comes with responsibility. If anyone is feeling unable/unwilling to take the risk by investing time into that company/work field then consider pausing/pulling out.


You sound like a bot.


Interesting response.

Would you share what makes you think that?


Thanks for writing this out! I am in a very similar spot. Just resigned. I think it's ok to enjoy the perks, but at some point hypocrisy it takes is a bit too much


I'm listed as a founder of crypto startup and I think it's a scam.

I got there by accident. I thought it's a scam before but now I'm more convinced. My best friend works for a company that is literally a scam (founder arrested etc). They changed owners but he wants to cash in on that. Another colleague actually bought into the whole nonsense and started something. Then we all got roped in. I want out but I'm torn because that colleague has been very loyal to me when I needed him and I don't want to be disloyal.

Fortunately, it seems he is getting disillusioned too so we might leave that nonsense behind. Technically I don't do any work there. It's just my name/face as I'm reasonably known in IT and have some clout.


> I'm listed as a founder of crypto startup [...] I don't do any work there. It's just my name/face

You're the fall guy.

Don't be the fall guy.


Unless you want to be one of the deservedly despised faces of a future economic crisis, you might want to get out now.


More than 90% of crypto trading is wash trading https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15446...

All ICOs are scams, without question. I don't know why anyone would ever get tricked into an ICO.

Most new coins are pump and dump.

So yes, overwhelmingly it's a scam, or at the very least, overwhelmingly manipulated.

Does that mean the core few who have been tricked into thinking it's a useful technology and truly believe in it are off base? I don't know, I don't know if the majority of crypto being used for fraud invalidates the few potentially useful hypotheses of crypto. I think the real question is can crypto survive at all as a useful system given it's inherently a great platform for fraud?


I'm working in the same environment, I'm with you bro, it's all a scam. I'm coasting until the whole thing collapse cashing in my paycheck.

The math behind is fun though.


I don't get how you can work with something that you perceive as a scam? So when you tell your friends or your parents you say "yeah, I rip people off for a living. Haha"?


I build tools other people are free to use. I have historically refused to implement tools to be used for censorship purpose. Here, you're free to invest/yolo.. or not.


Ah the meth dealer’s ethic: “I just sell the stuff, they choose to smoke it.”


You're free to invest sure, but I assume it doesn't say that the guy who programmed it thinks it's a scam in big fat red letters?

I assume you think it's morally wrong to censor and that's why you don't want to build these tools. But how does it differ from thinking it's morally wrong to scam people? Is there some level of degree difference here?


I think many classes of people are incapable of being anything other than broke.

Why shouldn't I profit from human nature?


Having n way to answer "why shouldn't I..." for yourself is no small thing. Don't take it lightly. Many people are incapable of defending themselves. Why shouldn't you...?


Leaving out the pretty extreme lack of morality going on here, one reason that may resonate in this community of rich programmers and capitalists is that we shouldn't do it because fraud is inefficient. It is a huge drain on your economy. It is not a good use of capital or time. If for instance it is all a scam and everything collapses to nothing, that's ten years of completely wasted human effort. If you built it and profited from it, you are to blame.


I don't have any problem cashing in my 6 figures paycheck when pezzonavantes (from any side since forever) cash out 9 to 10 figures own scams.

Honesty is for the poor.


> Honesty is for the poor.

The morality and ethics crisis in our country in a nutshell.

We're building bigger and better systems to scam and exploit each other, meanwhile China keeps on getting better at building real stuff.


Don't give me that China bullshit, the poors have been explored tough morality and honesty forever by the various churches, nobility, ruling classes/party, INCLUDING in China.


typo: explored -> exploited


Keep working hard and maybe one day you’ll be one of those upper echelon sociopaths.


Your point being ?

I've already been called Nazi, mysogynist, racist, baby killer, pure evil here (on other now-banned accounts). Do you think "sociopath" is gonna affect me the least ?

For anything it actually strengthen my no-fuck-given stance.


That’s the spirit


That your remarks are counter-productive ? Congrats, you've leveled up at being useless !


You should aspire to be merely useless since by your own admission, you're even less than that. Every one of your posts is some dumbass movie villain cliché - "who cares that I'm a scammer, everything's a scam, maann."


Have you taken a moment to consider not doing that, and just leaving?


I'm not biting the whole "thrive on what you like" SV mentra. The money is good, I dug my hole, and I'm fine. Just like with 2008, the problem wasn't CDO dogshit, but people with subprime credit rating buying large house with variable mortgage rate.


(1) You having money and being fine means you have the power to leave.

(2) You cannot explain away 2008 as being the fault of the people who couldn't pay their mortgage. WTAF dude.

What I'm getting from this is that you have wrapped yourself up in a nice blanket of ignorance and a nice comfy salary, and while you have come to the conclusion that the business you're engaging in is fraudulent, you've convinced yourself that anybody but you is responsible. Participating makes you responsible. If you don't have the scruples to leave something like that and have no financial pressure to stay, then you don't deserve any work in tech when the dust settles. I for one would never hire you.


> you have come to the conclusion that the business you're engaging in is fraudulent [...] then you don't deserve any work in tech

I do believe the whole tech industry is nothing but a giant scam, selling snake oil at a premium. You are as much the problem as I am.

We very much live in a world where you are either the sheep or the wolf, and I ain't gonna be a sheep. I won't back down to bullies of your kind.

> I for one would never hire you.

At least, I don't pretend I'm gonna save the world from itself.


I'm with you brother.

If you start to question the morality of who pays your salary, you will soon find that there are very little companies that you would allow yourself to work for. I can think of renewable energies, and not much else.

In truth, I already work for an evil company. All companies I worked for in my long career were morally bankrupt one way or another. I never had any trouble sleeping at night.

If it's not illegal it's fine.


> If it's not illegal it's fine.

A lot of today unicorns started illegally. Uber, Spotify, Airbnb. Yet, nobody comment about those because their goal was supposedly "noble". That's the problem with the variable geometry morality of the left.

"If it's moral from our point of view, but illegal, the laws are the problem. If what's you're doing is immoral from our point of view, but legal, then you should be ashamed of yourself and repent (or die)."

In other words, it's nothing but dogma and proselytism.


> you will soon find that there are very little companies that you would allow yourself to work for.

That’s literally the idea. People doing bad things should find hiring minions difficult.


"bad things" is a subjective concept. A former roommate was building a website in the mid 2000 for a dildo company. You probably don't care, but a religious zealot might consider it "bad".

We're gonna make a deal, I'll let you work in ad-tech, and you let me build tool which allow people to shoot themselves in the foot.


Taking a fully relativist perspective on morality is just an excuse to justify taking no ethical stance on anything at all. It's certainly your choice to exist in society this way, but you can't be surprised if people correctly criticize it as selfish, self-serving, and morally bankrupt. At least embrace it.


I work in academia. I will never work in ad-tech either.


Academia is even more of a scam than tech...


But how far are you as an individual willing to go?

- Apple uses exploitative labor practices to manufacture iPhones [0]

- Google is increasingly being recognized as a surveillance and manipulation platform. They have even been caught manipulating elections [1]

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/29/lens-te...

[1] https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/epstein-testimony


Big tech get a free pass because, in the western world at least, they offer their regular sacrifice to the dogmatic left God.


> (2) You cannot explain away 2008 as being the fault of the people who couldn't pay their mortgage. WTAF dude.

When you are subprime rated, you would have to be a complete moron to take a variable loan on you life. But sure, poor them, it's not their fault, it's the mean evil banker who gave them a tool to shoot themselves with ...

That the difference between you and me. I'm gonna give people the freedom to shoot themselves. You, well, you know better how each and every of them shall live there lives.

Remind me of ESR writing... http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html

Do you even realize your own mentality ?


> When you are subprime rated, you would have to be a complete moron to take a variable loan on you life.

And loads of people were that moronic, do they really deserve to have suffered because some other people wanted to profit as much as possible from their stupidity? It's not like these morons had the tools to really assess what the fuck they were doing. Not excluding the fact that many of these loans were basically predatory, using the naivety/stupidity of these people against themselves to cash in.

Does all the world deserve to suffer through a major economic crisis because some morons are totally free to be predated upon by forces much more educated and sophisticated about the financial markets (and by extension doing that knowingly, pretty fucking evil)?

Libertarian ideology doesn't really hold much to reality, full freedom to do whatever is only achievable when the population is educated enough, humanity is not there yet.

What the actual fuck...


This thread is a horror show that is pretty hard to watch, and I knew it would be, but I think it’s worth it. But if you we’re wondering what the rich asshole tree vandals were doing earlier in life, this is it.


If you think it's an horror show, you're pretty frail... Toughen up, cupcake.


Ad hominems are frowned upon around here, just so you know...


No, only ad-hominem against people carrying the Gospel are frowned upon. There has been plenty of ad-hominem against me and I don't see you condemning those.


I believe that HN is very far from left-wing, not sure why you feel singled out, ad hominems are frowned upon anyone here, call them out and move on.

This defensiveness is really off putting, it seems like the only argument you can carry is "the left has a Gospel and I'm against it" and I still have absolute no idea what exactly you refer to and why you are against whatever you are referring to.

You just feel victimised and attacked for some reason.


Ad hominem is when you say someone’s argument is wrong because they’re a bad person. Ad hominem attacks are frowned upon because they cause good discussion to devolve into a shouting match.

In contrast, this thread has simply been establishing that jlcoff is a bad person. It’s not a fallacy or a derailment of the discussion to do so, rather it was the discussion. I can imagine why they feel attacked, it’s because they are literally being told they’re a bad person for their personal views. It would be implausible to expect a debate about the morality of working at a place you believe to be a scam, with such a person, to go without challenging them for it. And I wouldn’t expect such a person to respond without raising some form of “let ye without sin cast the first stone” defence and eventually just dribble out insults. My point is: you don’t have to worry about using community standards or HN policy to protect me from ad hominem attacks from them; all of this was priced in. It is inseparable from the nature of fraudulent schemes and the people who push them.


> ...humanity is not there yet.

Especially with the dogmatic left at the helm.


What does this even mean?

Catchphrases don't foster discussion, don't be on the thought-terminating camp, pretty idiotic reply to be honest.


The current mainstream [radical] left Gospel meets the definition of dogma, as in, they are just as bad as the darkest religion they themselves condemn. Not very difficult to understand.


No, it really is difficult to understand given that you are using circular logic to justify something.

I don't know what you refer by the Gospel of the left, and from there I can't figure out what exactly you are attacking.

What is even "radical left" to you? These are such non-specific terms that just got even less defined with this whole culture wars shit.

I don't know what you are talking about and you haven't exposed anything that I can talk about, just empty platitudes and terms that actually mean nothing...


You might have a point if the only negative outcome of 2008 was that a lot of people lost homes they could never afford.

It was the banks' and regulators' responsibility to not allow bad loans to be issued and resold as mis-labeled AAA investment vehicles. That is the part that broke the global economy.


NO, it's not the job of the government to save people from shooting themselves.


Mis-labeling a product is literally fraud.

Looked at from first principles, the market cannot work efficiently if people are allowed to lie. Lies create an enormous amount of waste through direct and indirect effects.

Government as the monopoly on power (and locking people up) has an important role to play in policing this.


> Mis-labeling a product is literally fraud

Such as Tesla FSD ?


Arguably yes.


I never said or implied that it was.

But (in the US at least), it actually is the government's job to keep the economy stable in order to "insure domestic Tranquility [... and...] promote the general Welfare"


> it's the mean evil banker who gave them a tool to shoot themselves with

Well, since that tool was largely fraud from which the bankers expected to profit (and did, in the short-term, until they got taken down by the rest of the industry doing the same thing) by externalizing risk, yeah, it is.


I don't recall anyone getting prosecuted for fraud even though the democrats would have dearly loved to have done so. The bankers packaged mortgages and made a profit just like they always did. The difference was, local banks were pressured to loan to people with dreadful credit, and the guarantees by FNMA and the optimistic ratings by S&P made it easier to package and sell the mortgage backed securities. In the end, the homeowners got to default on their mortgages but the bankers lost their livelihood.

You're putting the blame in the wrong place. I'd start by looking at FNMA. Don't take my word - read up on it.


Any time you bring up ESR as a positive figure , you lose. Something to consider. Even OSI banned him from their mailing lists, although way too late.


You’re asking this on HN so are likely to get 95% of people agreeing with you from confirmation bias alone. Median HN hates cryptocurrency.

I’d probably suggest this: https://www.matthuang.com/bitcoin_for_the_open_minded_skepti...

I think it’s not “all a scam”, but there are definitely scammers in the community which add a lot of noise to what’s a pretty cool new capability to handle decentralized state.

https://danromero.org/crypto-reading/

I don’t know if what your startup is building is worthless, but the tech underlying the domain is not.


You don't list any so I'll bite, I guess. What "cryptocurrency" company isn't a "scam" as basically defined in the post?


It’s not we’ll defined in the post, but there are some easy examples.

Rainbow wallet is just working on a wallet with nicer UX: https://rainbow.me/

OpenSea, Coinbase, FTX - basic exchanges supporting the market.

Trezor and Ledger make nice hardware wallets.

If you’re specifically asking about companies that have their own token for something, I think urbit’s use of NFTs as IDs for their network is a cool use that makes sense.

The automated money markets are also pretty interesting and not scams.

On the NFT art side, BAYC has been making cool stuff and owning one of them is basically an entry ticket. The community membership aspects of this are more interesting to me, the art and it’s associated status is just what enables that.

I know less about city coins but I like the idea of a way to incentivize a group to do what’s best for the city - could be a way out of NIMBYism. It’s interesting at least.

Cryptocurrency has utility in its current state, but it’s a frontier. I think the Bitcoin for open minded skeptics post does a decent job discussing it.


Let's assume those are mostly legitimate (BAYC being cool is highly questionable but ok)

Even then all of those are services and goods for the crypto ecosystem.

So much of crypto space is turtles all the way down.

Besides evading capital controls, there is not much real world adoption for crypto still.

You start living in the crypto world and then yes you start thinking DeFi is cool and useful. I am yet to see how DeFi can help someone who is not already invested in crypto.

PS Mined first BTC in 2011 but got out of the whole greenhouse in 2017.


Even if you're in crypto, it's good to note that DeFi is collateralized lending, for which the intended purpose is to avoid paying capital gains for the borrower, or making unrealistic returns for the lender because they're helping people avoid taxes.

I'm not saying this is unique to crypto (stock collateralized loans help the rich avoid paying taxes in the same way), but it's not interesting or unique.


I'd read that bitcoin for the open minded skeptic article I linked, I think it makes a good argument about that core use case.

A decentralized global store of value has a lot of utility - more so in countries with bad financial systems and limited access to dollars. I think global currency/value store is the killer application of blockchains, and it makes sense a lot of the focus is on tooling/products around this. Provable membership/ownership via tokens is an interesting spin off.

Evading capital controls I think isn't a great use of it actually given the public nature of transactions (unless you're willing to flee the country I guess, which can be good for getting wealth out of countries with authoritarian governments).

The ability to publish and update decentralized state is a new ability and useful. There are obvious tradeoffs around speed and complexity and a lot of things should not make that tradeoff, but the use cases here are real - at least I'd bet on that, it's not "all a scam".


How about AAVE and their Arc product specifically? https://www.fireblocks.com/blog/permissioned-defi-goes-live-...

You've got a fully compliant (in terms of anti money laundering), whitelisted counterparties only, decentralized lending and borrowing platform that completely eliminates the friction of a typical corporate treasury banking experience.

You deposit dollars, you earn yield in dollars. If you want exposure to eth or BTC, you can exchange dollars for either or borrow at transparent rates. The transaction settles in seconds and the fees are fractions of what it costs to wire funds.

My organization uses Wells Fargo for similar services (sans BTC and ETH) and pays considerably more for the pleasure of receiving less in return. Aave achieves it with virtually none of the back-office or legacy COBOL based software that these dinosaur, heavily entrenched, ethically challenged financial institutions require. It's like pre-acquisition WhatsApp compared to at&t efficiency comparison.

There's innovation and value creation happening in crypto, whether you choose to see it or not.

The hostility to crypto from a bunch of SV engineers who have scammed society out of billions (trillions?) of dollars pitching ineffective digital marketing is not without irony. Not to mention the societal and political fallout from the uncontrolled spread of misinformation, aided and abetted by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and other SV darlings. Pushing ads to fuel consumerism and coming on here to complain about emissions from proof of work Blockchains. It's rich.

It's not easy to build software that actually solves large scale problems. Most of the companies/apps in crypto will fail, just like internet startups. What succeeds will likely disrupt the financial system.


Isn't this a circular argument? The question was what "useful" things do these crypto solutions/companies provide, and your example is a product which allows regulated entities to invest in crypto.

"Why is X valuable? Because X allows you to invest in... X."

Also, in this specific example (Arc), is the solution even considered DeFi? There's a centralized list of whitelister entities and you can only participate if you're a customer of these entities. So they're like banks.


No, the question was what in crypto isn't a scam.

Whitelisted counterparties borrowing and lending to each other without having to trust a third party to intermediate, such as fedwire, swift, or dtcc, is clearly not a scam. It's a b2b product with at least 30 sizable informed and willing institutional participants. They could take their capital anywhere else in financial markets but choose to take it to Aave.

It's the same platform Aave offers anyone else on Ethereum, polygon, arbitrum, and other chains coming soon. The customers of the arc product have a regulatory compliance burden that arc solves for them but the tech is the same.


I see crypto as a guy had this beautiful idea that the little guy could topple big powerful banks, and then all that happened is powerful people will find a way to exploit it for more power.

Crypto is neither good nor bad, but people are.


Coinbase, Gemini and Kraken isn’t a scam. One can give them $430 and they will give you a million satoshi in Bitcoin.

Until the day they stop sending the sats when you send them dollars, like Gox, like Cryptsy, like Cryptopia, like BTC-e, like Quadriga, like Bitgrail, etc etc; not a scam.


>confirmation bias

I wouldn't dismiss HN's concerns on anything tech, finance, or business related. Fact is, much of HN is technically-inclined, many here are financially-inclined, and many are both at once.

When you have people who are both tech-savvy and finance-savvy giving their thoughts on a novel financial technology, you would be wise to listen.

And when this tech & finance-savvy community is bearish on a finance technology, you better be as well, unless you're the one at the top of the pyramid. Then by all means, enjoy your fools.


HN is famously dismissive of new ideas that go on to become billion dollar companies or products (the iPod and dropbox for two easy examples).

HN is better than average, but still pretty poor at recognizing something good until there's mass consensus. Even then there's often users complaining about niche technical details despite obvious success.


> HN is famously dismissive of new ideas that go on to become billion dollar companies or products (the iPod and dropbox for two easy examples).

That's a pretty misleading conclusion to draw: for example, here's the whole Dropbox thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

One guy says “you can already build such a system yourself” but that point was immediately contested on quite accurate grounds. Someone else had the correct take (“This is genius. It's is problem everyone is having, and everyone knew it”) and the rest of the thread is similar – lots of use of terms like “great”, various technical questions, comments on how to improve their presentation, etc.

Re: the iPod, are you sure you're not confusing HN with Slashdot.org? The iPod launched 6 years before HN.


The question is though, is it enough of a scam that anyone not looking for a high risk investment or putting a lot of time in should just steer clear of the whole thing?

In terms of the currency aspect of cryptocurrency, what risk adjusted benefit would I get right now attempting to use any of them as a currency rather than dollars?


Genuine question, have you worked for any other startup over the last decade? The entire last decade was filled with the same questions, without the adjectives cryptocurrency or blockchain involved. It's all about excess liquidity, and of course it does laser focus on some industries. Good luck calling the top.


That is not true at all. Crypto stands alone in its ratio of effort and money invested to value produced. It has been around for so long, and almost nothing of actual use to society has come out of it. Other tech fads do not have this characteristic.


What exactly are you refuting?

Are you … assuming I’m going to make a strawman argument and discrediting it before it occurs? Strawception? Is that where these comments are coming from?


Broad-brush crypto whataboutism strikes again.

“Maybe it’s a scam, but so is [central banking / the stock market / every other startup / etc.]”

You’re trying to gaslight the OP to believe that what they’re feeling is normal, but it’s not. In startups with real products and real users and actual growth, the mood is not “we’re just dumping tokens.”


Well said. There is a big difference between reductionist arguments that everything could be a scam, and enterprises that contribute nothing but the potential to enrich the first people in.


alternatively, stop diluting the word gaslight, or reserve it for one of the sister comment threads where its actually relevant

the questions OP asked have the same quizzical observations that had been levied at the whole tech startup scene for the last ... 14? ... years

its not different enough, a lot of people especially younger people may just be entering the workforce, so its a valid question if they've been exposed to anything else before


> In startups with real products and real users and actual growth

Thats a big caveat. Tons of startups dont have that and still consume billions in capital.


Billions in capital from accredited investors.


Pyramid schemes keep working as long as suckers keep joining at the bottom. Various people I know who are completely "non technical" have started asking me about crypto. My son says all the kids at school are talking about crypto and NFTs. So I predict the market will soon run out of suckers.


I was heavily involved with Bitcoin back when the spot price was in the single digits and the goto attack against it was "Only drug addicts and pedos use it!" My day to day involvement dropped off around the time that Wall Street started opening crypto trading desks and agitating for moating regulation - which was predictable but still sad to see... having written forex related software it was mind-blowing to see unregulated exchanges dumping full order book depth over websocket. So I've got a pretty long view on the whole thing, and it has always been my opinion that 99% of all the alt-coins were greed-fueled cash grabs targeting an even greedier and less-intelligent class of people who felt they "missed the boat" at $150, and then $300, $1k, etc. I was actually happy to ignore them for the longest time, until the Bcash airdrop started getting a lot of speculation with regard to the question of it being a taxable event or not. Anyway, a +10 year scam kinda stretches credulity... so no, the broader concept is not a scam. But that said, unless your employer is actually bringing something to the table besides a hard fork of the bitcoin reference source and fancy slide deck - you probably are involved in a destined-to-fail cash grab.


> and it feels like a bubble that will burst, sooner if not later

There are people who look into the future and perceive this, and to them the effect is an intuitively-scammy feel; and it may even seem like it's a system that is destined to fail. Generally the systems perspective or meta-perspective will be first to call out the scam side here.

Things meeting the scammy-feel bar tend to be ephemeral, emotional, the front side of the technology curve for sure. Non-scammy things seem more qualitatively planned-out, secure, quiet, structured, etc. just like early-scam-radar individuals often demonstrate at a personal or temperamental level.

There are others who look at the moment, who take the ephemeral for what it is, and think, "wow, in the right position you could turn this into something that really helps you make it to your next stage in life." These people are probably less likely to think it's a scam, not necessarily because it definitely isn't, but because it's also a lot of other things. Scammy could just be one relevant tag among many. "Hey, maybe this undertaking can just be enough to get us to the next spot, it doesn't have to be perfect but it will require some excitement or hype just like any venture."

To some degree you need to fit things out to suit your favored perspectives or you'll feel the worse for it. To some degree you also need to understand others and see the difference in perspectives as possibly positive, or you'll tend to get stuck in subjective loops as you move forward in life.

And to some degree, if you can combine those perspectives and develop a sort of both-perspective, IMO you can really put together a strategy that flies well, and far, because you'll be gripping both ends of the handlebars on the human race bicycle.

Just some ideas, and a terrible metaphor--good luck with whatever you decide.


To paraphrase what you said: “It might be a scam but a scam that can maybe fund your own personal retirement so go for it”


Hmm, I'm not comfortable with that summary. I wouldn't just tell anybody to go for it in regard to a situation that may seem like a scam to them.

If I had wanted to summarize myself I would have emphasized the integrative aspect, rather than picking one side of the dichotomy I described.

So maybe to summarize, "your summary might be a summary worth trusting, if you don't care about details or accurate representation" :-)


I worked for one in DeFi on the Cardano ecosystem and I can say it is definitely a scam. But due to some paperwork I signed I can't (for now) tell who or which startup this is. They have been pulling all kinds of dirty marketing tricks while spending no time developing any actual product. I just look at the crowd that support this project and I am so so teribly disappointed and pitiful for them.


That's sad to hear. I actually worked on Cardano at IOHK and thought the community was great from my interaction with them.


So this is ironic, but from what I've seen, IOHK or Charles and this company went from liking each other to hating each other now. But Charles himself cannot call out the company.


Shame you can't hint who it is


Okay so I can tell you these guys have 4 letters all capitalized. If you can name a few that you think they are, I can tell you if you are right or wrong...


ADAX, MELD, COTI


Oh yeah, they are right in there. So this must not be just me but others can see it too.


You are posting this question into what is mostly an anti-crypto echo chamber.

It's a bit like asking "is the internet just a big scam" in 1998 at a magazine and newspaper trade conference.

The people here are too engrossed in the world they built and lack the imagination for how it could be completely transformed to offer you an objective answer.

My opinion is that 98% of crypto is either a scam or just bad ideas that will fail, but the remaining 2% will be the foundation the future of commerce and technology will be built on.


Crypto has been around since 2009. It's been 13 years of bullshit. Because Andreessen is behind the web3 scam a lot of people are in... FOR THE MONEY. Let me guess none of you would be involved in this if it wasn't for $$$. As soon as crypto becomes the Enron/Madoff of the 2020s this cough 'technology' will disappear.


The ARPANET has been around since 1971. It's been 25 years of bullshit. Because Andreessen is behind the "web" scam a lot of people are in... FOR THE MONEY. Let me guess none of you would be involved in this if it wasn't for $$$. As soon as internet becomes the savings and loans crisis of the 2000's this cough "technology" will disappear.


Yeah Marjorie "The Hulk" politician from GA is pumping this. How dumb do you have to be to think people who understand what ARPANET means will fall for the imbecilic web3 non-sense you are pumping. Go cash out now fool, the scam is running out of suckers.


> It's a bit like asking "is the internet just a big scam" in 1998 at a magazine and newspaper trade conference.

1992, maybe. By 1998 all kinds of organizations had seen significant customer demand and business improvements — not just selling penny stocks to each other but finding new customers, reducing costs and delays, offering services which weren't feasible before, etc. In contrast, cryptocurrency is 13 years in without a single success story. Even something as simple as “due to competition, PayPal had to lower their fees” would be a bigger win, forgetting whether there's enough room to recover all of the VC money.

That's the key difference: in 1998, yes, there were obviously doomed dotcoms but they weren't the only thing going on in the web space. You probably even read about this on the websites which had already siphoned off a ton of traffic because investors found it far preferable to go to a website than either wait until tomorrow's newspaper arrived or paying a ton of money for access to one of the paid services.


https://www.usenix.org/publications/loginonline/web3-fraud


> the remaining 2% will be the foundation the future of commerce and technology will be built on.

It has been 13 years and truly useful and innovative application of blockchain is yet to be found. You have the echo chamber beteween the ears.


Almost every competent and experienced developer I know thinks most crypto stuff (such as NFTs for example) is bogus. Out of the people that I know that ARE into crypto, most of them are recent bootcamp grads or not very experienced (but somewhat techie).

Anecdotal, I know. But, I think if you look around at the respectable people in the tech field, you will see that most of them are staying away from crypto for a variety of reasons.

Crypto is the worst kind of pop-culture fad tech.


Nassim Taleb argues that Bitcoin is not a currency but rather a fundamentally volatile security: https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.14204


I've also messed around in the space and have the same doubts. I recently made a small hearthstone-like card game that lets you link NFTs as playable cards for a hackathon but I don't know whether to put it on my github because I don't want people to get the impression that I'm a crypto/nft shill. I'm thinking of stripping all the NFT parts out and putting it up as a generic game because I was quite proud of the implementation in some areas and I ended up putting a significant chunk of time into it.


NFTs are the equivalent of Beanie Babies but with several more zeros in the prices and will probably end the same way when everybody has hundreds of them. Icos came and went and pump and dump and rugpulls abound but like the dotcom and subprime bubbles not everything crypto is a scam - there will be the crypto Googles and Amazons and Metas that emerge. Bitcoin is probably a bit like Yahoo in that it will keep going but not be the biggest and most important crypto coin anymore.


ICOs, now there's a word I haven't heard in a long time.


Does this video help you put your finger on what makes you feel that way? "Line Goes Up" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g It's about two hours long but it's divided into chapters if you want to break up your viewing.


I know a C-level executive in one of the larger crypto- infrastructure companies and he sends money to his relatives living in a third world country using Western Union...

People, you only have limited time on this Earth, do you really want to spend most of your waking hours working on something you don't believe in?


What about your work makes it scam? The lack of business utility? I've seen some communities have fun with NFTs like trading cards. I am not defending crypto, but I am curious how to better define scam as it relates to the hundreds for crypto proposals.


It's one of the "out of question" questions

As, of course, it's outright yes

Cryptocurrency is one of the looniest forceful actions and movements by the elite Americans cabal, strongly tightly rooted so longtime ago to New World Order


I’m sure someone said the same thing about paper money when it first came out. You still remember older generations crying that would should go back in the gold standard for US currency/


Iirc, lots of paper money was only as good as the company that printed it


What?


Same as another poster. It's so obviously a scam I have nothing to do with it. I'm increasingly amazed how screwed up the world is getting, like how more and more people and businesses jump onto something, obviously out of greed or fomo, that is so objectively a huge scam.

There was a post not long ago about our obligation as people who know better to speak out about this stuff. Thankfully I've explained to my parents what a scam it is and they have not been taken in, and my siblings agree with me so I don't have to waste time fighting it. But there are so many people being exploited - some maybe deserving.

Tldr, it's an amoral industry that is literally running a criminal scam, you have to decide if you're cool making money off that.

Like it's morally worse than dealing drugs or lots of other "crimes"


At least drug dealing provides a product: drugs/inebriation/escapism - it's something. After all these years of crypto, I still haven't figured out what the product is. The crypto zealots talk about government-free financial transactions, but none of the crypto commercials/marketing ever mentions that.


Crypto provides a way to launder money, sell drugs, etc., so it is "something" by similar measure.


I strongly dislike the current crypto environment. I just want reasonable priced GPUs again. Oh, and the energy wasted on solving useless math problems is insane.

I do like the idea of blockchain, but so many resources go into cryptocurrencies that make the future of blockchain mold toward this case instead of something more useful.


I've worked with a number of crypto startups over the last few years and have friends involved in many more. So far at least 99% of what's I've seen in the space is a scam, not even well disguised. People are just desperate for any kind of return right now and will throw money at the dumbest things.


I left a startup after 3 months because I felt it was scamming people. But it wasn't even crypto. It was a marketing automation tool and most of the clients were gambling and forex trading apps. The tactics they used were extremely shady and I just got to watch the logs and see the insane amounts of money people would lose with the 'help' of our product.

I took my first offer out of there and it was the best decision I could make. It's always better to work on something that aligns with your beliefs and goals as a developer.

Coincidentally I don't think crypto is a scam. Crypto tech has pretty much been proven to work by now. The speculative products built on crypto could be a scam. But that's not all that different from speculative products overall.


Congrats. You’re finally awakening from the Matrix. There is nothing…zip…zero…zilch that’s scarce about any crypto including Bitcoin. 21mm only yada yada yada. Yeah sure until you divide each by another 100mm. It’s just fiat distributed backwards and the early adopters are the only ones who’ll ever have anything of value if everyone buys in. So stop buying into their bullshit. Or if you do realize there’s a countdown clock that will eventually make them all worthless and be ready to get out when the signs are there that the end is near


Hi, this is the story:

September 2020 a friend called me, he told me that 3 guys are working on cryptocurrency. I knew one of the names, was a guy that stole a users database from an open source project, "but that was when he was a teenager". The project owner was a bank something (can't remember what). The other guys are devs.

My friend was doing devops with another guy for them (a really nice guy, and smart as hell)

I'm sysadmin, I don't like doing ops, and I'm a really good manager, they were calling me for that.

Anyway, they start talking about the project, and my brother was doing an economics PhD talking about cryptocurrency. He started on that because me.. -_-, I loved the technology at the start, and how they improved the double-enrey bookkiping from Luca Pacioli and before.

I called my brother to join us. He was glad and started to work with the owner.

After some weeks were I was trying to organize them and see what the project was about I learned few things:

They were doing a wallet to connect banks and cryptocurrency exchange The project was delayed as hell. The owner talks too much saying nothing. They wanted to "become and exchange" They were looking for funds.

I wanted at least 2 more devs and wanted to see the code (nobody saw the code, just some presentations and demos, it was nice, but for me was basic)

After another weeks without answers, and the owner talking to me about the shares I will get, I was seeing how less work i will be doing in few weeks (we had our git working, I was pushing the devs to push the code there, i was seeing old code all time, we had the infra and metrics running, etc)

Anyway, they found a capital angel and they hired 3 marketing girls.

They started to sell smoke. They meeting started to be more about marketing and getting money than tech. I was.., angry as hell

I quit.

My brother keeps working with them ("go out from there as soon as you can"), they are doing some cryptocurrency courses.

The head dev disappear one day without push almost any code.

I felt dirty, really disgusted with that people, not to much with the devs, not with the devops, but the owner, the marketing team (that was bigger than the dev+devops team) and with myself for months.

They showed to me something I really don't like about economy and markets.

It is really hard to me to think about working on that area again, they looks like scammers, and I saw them thinking about that.

Have a good day.


I’ve covered the space for years and I think two things are simultaneously true. It’s a huge scam full of shysters and liars who basically found a meaty grift to make a lot of money really fast. I met loads of those people.

What keeps me going, though, is the fact that the technology has some utility and I’m not about to throw out the next tcp/ip because someone will use it to scam an old lady. I like the artistry of the circus but I hate the clowns.

If we are doing analogs, this is the 2000 era of the dot con boom when there were loads of companies doing websites and four guys really doing good work - let’s say bezos, page, brin, and gates. Theil and musk got lucky with their 2k era grift as did a precious few holdouts but only a few really won. Did anyone who bought Netscape early on the retail markets win? Nope. Crypto investors are the ones jumping in after the whales had their taste. They get scraps.

Who is the next FAANG? Who knows. But this is the space where they’re going to be born.


There are 2 problems 1) there is no barrier to entry, anyone can start a currency so if A is too high, start B, and 2) it's all speculators trading, there are no consumers. It's not a scam so much as it is a pipe dream. But, a person can make $10 where 10 people lose $1 and that is what is happening.


I worked in the crypto industry in 2018. And it was all a scam. https://torontolife.com/city/boaz-manor-toronto-crypto-fraud...


its a popular method to launder money, mostly. i think some alt coins will thrive and maybe find a niche but Bitcoin will continue to dominate. dont even try to compete with Bitcoin you will lose. smart contracts. lightning network. etc. hard to beat. i'd like to see more resources put into progressing useful apps like the tox project. (decentralized messaging service). lets take back our data and privacy. i'm sure we'll see some cool stuff built on top of Bitcoin. and i really like what Gamestop is doing with NFTs and defi. stock trading on the blockchain would be great to combat the illegal naked short selling wall street is doing. it's pretty much financial terrorism what these scum bag hedge funds get away with.


At least it isn't advertising.

Hi, some 73% of hackernews readers.


This is what it's like when a new investment sector starts up. The dotcom's start was very much the same. People were paid top dollar for simple web pages. And companies where promising that web pages were the solution to the world's problems. There were a lot of scams, a lot of speculation and eventually everything crashed and eventually there were a few profitable companies that delivered on their promises.

Yes, most crypto is speculative smoke and mirrors. Most companies will crash and burn but at some point something useful will survive.

My guess is that by 2028 most of the speculation will be over and the useful companies will be up and running. But who knows what those will be.


If people here haven't seen it, Casey Muratori's series of interviews on crypto and blockchain are extremely interesting. This video released after the first series of interviews is very important though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbYutOsrpvs

The very foundation of this space, the blockchain, is a poorly understood "innovation" that many outer layers of this industry just seem to take for granted as actually satisfactorily solving the problems it claims to, when it very likely does not and never will.


There are many scams in crypto, and there are many people doing it for speculation, but the space/tech/utility/use cases is not a scam.

It's important to delineate between something that's a scam and speculative, those are not the two same things. A scam is a rug, there's an intent involved, you have scams everywhere not just in crypto.

The legit companies working on DeFi and NFTs are not scams, while some of them may be a bit speculative, there are also companies providing real value to end users.


It's most definitely a scam.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30041948


Vast majority is indeed a scam.

Perhaps there are some genuine efforts.

Key is to identify what satisfies you as an individual and follow that path.

There are no perfect jobs.

Find your mission and find meaning in striving for that.


I work at a cryptocurrency decentralized exchange that has recently converted into a DAO (Decentralized autonomous organization). I'm coming up on 4 years, with the last few months at the DAO.

The first thing that you need to do to answer your question is define "scam". The dictionary definition is "a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation", fraudulent meaning "having a tendency or disposition to deceive or give false impressions".

So the question is "was cryptocurrency invented under false pretenses or with the intent to deceive?"

The Bitcoin whitepaper is considered by most as the beginning of cryptocurrency. If one reads that whitepaper, I don't see anything there that could be to be deceitful or show intention to defraud.

The Bitcoin whitepaper proposed a system to allow individuals to hold and transfer a store of wealth between individuals without interference or control from third-parties (such as governments).

Bitcoin is an experiment. The author(s) identified a problem and created a solution, albeit an imperfect one. Since then, others have seen those problems and attempted to fix them. After Bitcoin we saw various forks of the Bitcoin code base to make coins like Namecoin and Litecoin. These were fundamentally Bitcoin with some minor adjustments.

We later got Ethereum which saw even more potential by using distributed consensus to create a world-wide virtual machine where people could run code to modify state. Smart contracts showed potential to do much more with digital currency than just send and receive. Contracts could be written and enforced by consensus without the ability of a third-party to intervene.

Continuing on, we saw more and more innovation in the space. One cryptocurrency uses a DAG to confirm transactions rather than blocks, which allows for much faster confirmations and higher transaction rates. Another protocol was created to allow inter-blockchain transfers (COSMOS,POKADOT) without an intermediary.

All of these cryptocurrencies are experiments. It's a massive engineering effort trying to solve a variety of problems, mostly around wealth management, but there are many others.

Now, to the point of fraud and scams. There are a lot of bad people out there that have no issue stealing from other people. Crypto is a relatively new technology and is designed to be free from government regulation. Because of that, it's quite easy for people to use hype and propaganda to exploit others.

There is nothing, in my opinion, inherent in cryptocurrency that makes it fraudulent.

For those that work in, use, or "invest" in crypto, this is all a long experiment that will likely go on for decades or longer. I believe that this experiment has, and will continue to, bring value.

edit: Cryptocurrency, specifically Ethereum and smart contracts, has allowed my company to convert to a DAO. A DAO is a fascinating way to organize and government a business. There is no leadership hierarchy. Governance is democratic. Everything is done publicly and in the open, including budgets. As an engineering group, we are no longer beholden to one individual's will. Everyone in the DAO has to come together to build toward a common goal. Not having a CEO (or C-suite of any kind) is incredibly liberating and we are building a higher quality product than we did when we had centralized leadership.


Thanks for your length reply.

A cryptocurrency network (one of those in Cosmos) that I participated in converted into DAO last year and there are many healthy conversations (well not all).

I agree it's a great experiment that would last years. It's not just new technology but new concepts that were not possible without the new technologies.

It has value for me but is also "wild" like the early Internet. Pick and stick with the networks you feel "right".


If it was just a "scam" it would be easier to resolve this. Alas it is a complex and evolving mix of all sorts of factors:

* new software architectures based on cryptography and additional communication patterns (aka consensus) which may or may not have long term utility, but are "real"

* a loose "anti-systemic" ideology that is in part deserved but also part half-baked / / misinformed / delusional. In any case it creates lots of talking points in societies that are mismanaged and "angry"

* buy-in and (partial) legitimization from frustrated parties (eg NGO's) that want to "solve the world's problems" and think blockchain might be the tool to fix humanity's faults

* defensive engagement by systemic parties (the same people that have brought society to its knees) that want to embrace and extinguish (just in case it might actually work)

* opportunistic engagement by intermediaries that could not care less what "asset" they make a market in, provided they get a cut

* opportunistic engagement by marketeers that could not care less what channel they use, provided it generates some exposure for their clients (NFT)

* greedy techies that feel left out from the tech oligopolies and found an alternative exploitative path to riches (print your own money)

* a younger generation that is 1) flush with cash, 2) has never had experienced fleecing by smooth operators so has no behavioral immunity 3) thinks this is all very "tech-savvy" and modern and thus kosher

* actual scammers, that ride on all the above


The ting is, money is all a scam. This is just new money. So what else do your work friends / bosses do? Are they into hookers and crack? Or do they help out in the soup kitchen on weekends and read to their grandmothers?


That's the elephant in the room that everyone is ignoring - the entire financial system is a scam. It's rigged in favor of the ruling class, which is why cryptocurrency originally became popular. The difference is that most cryptocurrency schemes are a different kind of scam - one of trickery rather than abject domination, and something you can avoid if you understand enough about how it works. Something that can't be said for traditional financial systems.


The counter point (whether you believe it or not) is that the existing financial system also has benefits over any other political/economic system of resource distribution.

Crypto doesn't have that upside at this time I don't think.


It does. The traditional system reinforces systemic biases. Trustless systems don’t care about system biases. Peer to peer systems route around this.

It was always about empowering the individual.


It's a serious question. Many people question whether their industry is 'good'. People such as accountants and some lawyers. But that doesn't make them 'bad people'. I am saying that how they spend their money is important.


I'm not working or investing in it, because it's all a scam.


Same. Every person I know that either started a crypto company or invested heavily in crypto has always been shady and that does it for me.


Yes it’s a scam but so is most of tech. A lot of billion dollar companies with business models that don’t work.

Some scams will be profitable and some may even emerge to be viable product but it’s scammy.


There is a continuous spectrum between being the guy Steve Carrell's character Mark Baum meets with in The Big Short at the restaurant smirking about how he knows he's immoral but earns a bigger paycheque than Baum, and being a hard-working rule-abiding capitalist. Most tech companies are somewhere in the middle. I'm pretty sure if you work somewhere, you can tell where on the spectrum you fit. If you do know, and it's on the bad end, and you keep working there, the fact that there exists a spectrum really has no bearing on the morality of your choices.


Ofc it's a scam, and it will happily feed 'investors' until they can't find next fool to steal money out of; then everything will burst into flames.


May I ask what kind of crypto company are you working for?


They do crypto-analytics. So we're not directly making/offering currencies or NFTs, but we profit off of companies that do. B2B.


Would you let your parents or grandparents invest their life savings in whatever you’re doing? Or in any crypto “asset?” If the answer is no it’s probably a scam. I wouldn’t try to sell junk bonds or penny stocks or Beanie Baby futures to my parents either, but the obvious fact that scams exist independent of crypto doesn’t make crypto any more credible.


I think I get your point, but for clarity, I wouldn't have wanted my parents investing in startups I've worked at, or in my current startup, even though those are not scams - they are just high risk and suited only to a certain profile. "Crypto" is different because it's a scam - the potential return is undefined in a sense, because it's based on the greater fool theory and how long the scam can keep up rather than any connection to fundamentals (even the dodgy fundamentals that drive the current startup market). A risky investment is one thing, a exploitive scam is a very different proposition


All investing is gambling. Investing in startups, with a 70%+ failure rate, is only for gamblers with a big bankroll, lots of nerve, and probably inside information.

Investing in crypto is like gambling at a game where you don’t know the rules, the house is cheating, the game can shut down (rug pull) at any time, and you can’t go to the police.

I wouldn’t advise my family to invest in startups, or to take their life savings to Vegas and blow it on roulette. I think most people know those are not safe investments. Crypto has a huge amount of hype and nonsense swirling around and since it depends on finding more greater fools the crypto scammers can take advantage of FOMO, ignorance, and what looks like the future of money.


Even if I had a 'legit' startup, I would not let my parents or grandparents invest their life savings into it. Startups are not for retail investor's retirement funds.


There's the difference between investing in the startup (taking shares in a specific company) and investing in crypto though, right? I'd happily encourage my parents or grandparents to invest in an 'index fund' of startups in a bunch of different fields. I can't say the same about an index of crypto companies, and especially not in an index of crypto assets.


AFAIK, there is no such thing as an 'index fund' of startups.

But even if there was, purchasing a L1 coin is similar to investing in a wide swath of coins, because if the value of startups build on the coin increase in value, then there will be higher demand of that coin.


I think "all a scam" is probably the wrong phrase, but I her


Does HN hate crypto? Does HN love rust and pg essays?


you don't think coins that are not used by anyone are increasing 1000x every year in value is justified? or that a reference to jpeg of a monkey hosted on centralized servers is not worth 10 million USD? Good Lord, such a boomer mindset!


Frankly, this is the wrong audience. While, I love HN for technical advice and learning about new technologies and startup companies the vast majority of HN comments on finance and investing are flat out cynical, wrong, and the opposite of what I've done. There is a potent anti-capitalist sway to HN that misses the point about how to accumulate wealth. I'll be the first to admit, I lean fiscally conservative, and I get HN is not that, but as Warren Buffet famously says some people are just bad at money and finance.


Maybe it's because HN is actually a technically savvy demographic that sees through the bullshit?


No, it’s not about that. I put a lot of it down to love of authority. Lots of folks can’t understand why anyone would want some money that didn’t have men with guns to save them. “My bank is safe”. These folks are trusting. Government will save the day.

And some don’t trust anyone. Hate banks. Love technology. See how detaching monetary systems from authority provides freedom.

It’s about trust. I trust none. Bitcoin is perfect, it is the money of my enemies and my friends.


As a counterpoint I'm a libertarian and very anti centralization. I see libertarians arguing for bitcoin alone the same lines as you. A decentralized medium of exchange might be nice, but as it is, cryptocurrency fails to address any of the concerns with fiat, and most importantly is a scam who's value is entirely based on speculation / greater fool, and not on it's utility as a medium of exchange. From what I've seen, it's on that basis that HN generally doesn't like it, not based on some deference to authority, which I agree is present in many discussions


> cryptocurrency fails to address any of the concerns with fiat

This comment coming from a libertarian is a head-scratcher.

The biggest concern about fiat currencies from a libertarian perspective is that the government can inflate the currency at will with no real transparency possible.

Crypto generally eliminates this concern, either by having a fixed quantity of coins or a known inflation amount, and basically perfect transparency being possible through looking at the blockchain.


Well there is the whole money printing thing. I think that’s fundamentally the problem at Bitcoin solved, along with the whole decentralized value transfer. It’s fundamentally libertarian technology; along with public key cryptography and peer to peer file sharing. I think the anti-coiners on here miss the forest for the trees.


Tech savvy does not equate to financial savvy. There is way too much cynicism here on HN related to investing, crypto, capital preservation (taxes) and expansion (investing).


Those Damn Zoomers are all fully automated luxury gay space communists.


Is your contention that criticism of the capitalist system is best explained by sour grapes?

I think someone strongly anti-capitalist would not be incredibly interested in the best strategies to accumulate wealth. And that is not a point against their critique.

Now if they didn't understand the system they were criticizing that is another thing. But in your comment it seems to imply only the rich would have a valid opinion - though I think that class has obvious biases in this discussion.


No shit.


Fractional reserve banking is also a scam.


Most things in the cryptocurrency space are scammy.

Bitcoin is not.


Bitcoin is just as much as a scam as CDO or other financial derivatives. Dog shit wrapped is cat shit is still shit.


CDO at least had an underlying asset. They went wrong because they became a tool to game the rating agencies. Crypto is something else, it's like a way to circumvent any common sense and past learning about securities, and let the common person buy in to a mlm and / or ponzi scheme with some confusing words to make it sound legit.


How is bitcoin more ponzi than any other asset? Less demand will decrease its value, more demand will increase. The supply is predictable so no surprises here.

Bitcoin has a value because people believe it has a value, exactly like the US dollar. No inherent value for either. In contract to the US dollar, at least formally, no one can create more out of thin air, unlike the US dollar, it has an integrated, digital and remote exchange mechanism guaranteed to work (if implemented correctly).

We can have an open discussion regrading other cryptocurrencies, but even there, their value exists because it's being assigned to them. The problem is the expectations and the lies being told by the main stakeholder of that blockchain and that's a different story and not intrinsic at all


Oh dear. 13 years in and you compare it to FDs? Hmmmmmm…


Well, I do get you in the sense that most bitcoiners (assuming btc is the main crypto used in ur company) religiously believe that this is the actual new way of storing monetary value. It may be the case,without the problems of money printing/inflation and so on, but yeah it's still yet to be proved by the entire world as an effective means of doing so. My company is also really into btc, and I've felt like I'm in a cult lol, but at least in the short term it feels like it's gonna go well - expect at least 30% profit if u buy low sell high within a year (that happened to me). Is the bubble gonna burst? Maybe yeah, because of governments against a new form of money that can't be printed, maybe because its structure is destined to fail when in world scale, or maybe there will be an actually better protocol which is greener and allows instant transactions with the decentralized safety btc provides (there probably already is something like that out there and just need s more marketing/visibility). I guess the feeling comes from the uncertainty of crypto: everybody following something nobody knows it's the actual future or not. I think the people that make me feel most like I'm in a scam are those fundamentalists of bitcoin because they all run into darkness with an unexplainable confidence haha. My take is: short term is actually safe, buy stocks for long term.


That sounds like 2014. We have whole countries in 2022.




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