RosamundiSpeak for yourself, BBC. I knew crypto was a load of old tulips from the start. Ergo, I knew SBF was just a dodgy salesman.
Everyone got duped by Sam Bankman-Fried's big gamble
Grumpy Philosopher@rosamundi bang on. Crypto has always looked like a scam, and its proponents either gullible marks or cynical criminals. I guess it’s comforting for the those conned to pretend nobody warned them & there’s no way they could have known.
Kate Watson@rosamundi Exactly. The whole thing was obviously Ponzi shit from the start. Environmentally ruinous Ponzi shit for that matter. And don't get me started on NFTs.
EaterOfSnacks@rosamundi The "what a brilliant con artist" response is as old as the hills - much more comforting than the alternative "It was bloody obvious from the start but I was taken in alongside everyone else. Mea culpa." Many people - especially society's big'uns - hate to look like fools so it's much better to build a shared post-facto narrative that exaggerates the deceptive skills of the crook.
David S (inactive)@rosamundi yeah crypto was never going to amount to anything in the long term.
Everyone knows NFTs are where it's at...
/me runs
Nicholas Weaver@rosamundi @cstross
I've been calling the entire space bullshit since 2013. And, once again, being very old school fraud further confirms my mantra.
With one or two exceptions, the primary accomplishment of cryptocurrency is repeatedly speed-running half a millenia of financial failures.
Charlie Stross@ncweaver @rosamundi Same—here's what I was saying in December 2013: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html
@cstross @rosamundi
Although I do have to admit it has been good for my CV as I have a business model: As an academic I was able to mine the space for comedy godl [sic] and turn it into academic and non-academic writing.
Although I do have to admit it has been good for my CV as I have a business model: As an academic I was able to mine the space for comedy godl [sic] and turn it into academic and non-academic writing.
Stefanie Schulte@ncweaver @rosamundi @cstross I have been tweeting critically about the risks and disadvantages of cryptocurrencies for at least seven years myself. But it's also true that I have received a lot of pushback, mostly from people who didn't understand either the technology or the economics particularly well, but were eager to believe the hype. It's the magic of "number go up", I guess.
@stefanieschulte @ncweaver @rosamundi The magic of "number go up" is why con men like Sam Bankman-Fried can pick their pockets. (It's also a symptom of existential despair at the prospect of ever becoming comfortably-off through traditional routes. The middle class is dying, and the cause of death will be recorded as murder.)
@cstross @stefanieschulte @rosamundi
And it hasn't helped that regulators for the past 40 years have been afraid of "Stifling innovation", and so when something is so clearly old-school fraudulent but wrapped in technobabble they do NOTHING.
How much grief could the SEC have solved by just going after every early ICO as being an unregistered security?
@ncweaver @stefanieschulte @rosamundi It's funny, isn't it, how that reluctance to go after grifters came roaring in during the Thatcher and Reagan administrations ...
(No, it's not funny: but that's the direct cause for the ramp-down of anti-trust/monopoly enforcement.)
THIS ACCOUNT HAS MOVED@ncweaver @rosamundi @cstross five years later, but same message...
https://www.garymcgraw.com/technology/silver-bullet-podcast/
Episode 146: Nicholas Weaver, Senior Staff Researcher, ICSI, 5.29.18
Direct link...
https://apothecaryshed.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/silverbullet-146-nicholas-weaver.mp3
Asymptosis@ncweaver @rosamundi @cstross And delivering zilotons of carbon into the atmosphere while delivering zero value of any kind.
dragonfrog@rosamundi Anyone who was taken in by SBF shouldn't get to write about him now. Does the BBC really have no one qualified by that standard to assign the piece to? Then I guess they shouldn't run stories about the case at all.
Aviva Gary@rosamundi "Everyone" means their audience/donors/owners/power that be TM silly goose 😉
RAK@rosamundi: I realised very quickly in 2010 myself that Bitcoin was basically libertarian gold standard bullshit repackaged with a layer of technological obscurantism. And nothing about the space afterwards convinced me that it was worthwhile in any way.