Litecoin price, tweets, and conflict of interest | Hacker News Reader

Litecoin price, tweets, and conflict of interest

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126 pointsdsr1243 comments

And whenever I tweet about Litecoin price or even just good or bads news, I get accused of doing it for personal benefit. Some people even think I short LTC! So in a sense, it is conflict of interest for me to hold LTC and tweet about it because I have so much influence.

And that is why CEOs or lead developers of public companies don't tweet their plans. Generally, there are a quarterly meetings or investor relations day when stuff is announced. To top it every buy/sell by a designated insider (read highl level executives) are reported to the SEC for transparency sake. Announcing that he has sold everything without disclosing where and how is rather disingenuous, if there is a need to instill some transparency.

Still I do agree with him on this:As you can see, some people even think I’m pumping Bcash for my personal benefit. It seems like I just can’t win.

Cryptocurrency FUD crowd will always find a reason.

Yes and the "FUD" goes both ways, on the "this is completely worthless" and also on the mania side, of "mortgaging the house to buy bitcoin" not to mention the infighting between BCH and BTC and other coins

In the other way, it's called FOMO :) (fear of missing out)

Cryptocurrency FUD crowd will always find a reason.

If you've been following Bitcoin's history you will find Charlie has been very active in that department. His usage of "Bcash" is a nice example.

A CEO of a publicly listed company doesn't liquidate all their shares because there might be a perceived conflict of interest. That would signal disbelief at the top and send the share price tumbling. Similarly, I struggle to see how the founder of Litecoin believes that Litecoin could be the future of money when he liquidates all his LTC. And I don't see any upside to LTC's market share after he publicly declares that he is no longer invested in Litecoin.

Well said.

A very reasonable comment. I can't see that as a right move in the sense the author of LTC is stating. Also, now it makes more sense to me why Satoshi is/was anon.

I'm also struggling to understand this, but I guess the only way I can is by thinking of this as a CEO who decided to take a $1 salary + decided not to take any stock awards, but still wants to work at their company because they truly believe in the products they build, without any cash. The difference though from CEOs like Steve Jobs of course is the lack of equity. In this case it's like the founder of Litecoin is saying "I want Litecoin to evolve in a decentralized and organic way. It is meant to evolve without a singular influence, including myself".

Cryptocurrencies are (supposed to be) decentralized so having a large stake/hash power/etc. probably goes against that philosophy.

> In this case it's like the founder of Litecoin is saying "I want Litecoin to evolve in a decentralized and organic way. It is meant to evolve without a singular influence, including myself".

He might be saying this but thinking: "great, now is the best time to cash this thing out and let it burn". Well played and probably more is coming.

Why say anything at all if that was the case?

Because he doesn't wanna live the rest of his life hiding from people that Lost everything?

If he believes that Litecoin is the future of money and not a wealth accumulator then it may make sense.

He wants LTC to serve as digital cash and change how everyone pays everyone. You can believe that without believing that LTC will increase in value.

It’s a bit different than stock as stock is equity in a firm. As a currency, you don’t want volatility and increases in value. You want stability and durability.

These things are not independent. If LTC will be the future of money, then it will increase in value. The opposite is not necessarily true (in fact, a sustained increase in value makes it less likely for it to be used as cash), but no, IMHO you can't seriously believe that LTC will change how everyone pays everyone but this magically won't cause an increase in value.

US dollar in the 20th century was the future of money and it steadily decreased in value.

The total value of US dollars in circulation steadily and rapidly increased during the 20th century as it become used as the worldwide currency in many aspects. The per-USD value was lowered (as explicitly intended) by increasing the money supply to ensure that there would be an inflationary, not deflationary regime - e.g. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/money-supply-m2 shows a nearly 50-fold increase of USD supply just since 1959.

If LTC gains widespread adoption and utility, the total value of all LTC in circulation will unavoidably have to increase; in essence, the total circulation value (supply * velocity * value) of a currency has to match, by definition, the total value of goods and services traded in that currency. Since LTC supply is limited by technical means and can't/won't be increased (like USD), this inevitably will mean a significant value increase of each LTC.

I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. Charlie has been the driving developer and force behind litecoin since its inception, and while he may continue to fill that role, nothing signals actual stake in the success of a project like ownership. If Satoshi dumped his coins and then said he wanted the project to succeed the price of Bitcoin would be negligible, a very clear market signal that he didn't believe in it's future prospects. It's like saying, I got mine, thanks guys.

Also, with respect to this being like a CEO taking a $1 salary. Most CEOs have massive stock and performance incentives linked with their company's success. Charlie has none.

I know this is a stretch and quite a loop of a situation to jump through to make my thoughts true but could we liken his sale of his LTCs in a similar vein to a Facebook's Lead Developer deciding to deactivate their account because they spend too much time on FB being distracted when they should be working?

I know the financial ties and importance of that developer's personal use of their product is very different from LTC and it's Charlie's situation, but will 100% of people really not believe he wanted to focus where he wanted and also remove certain aspects of criticism? Is it possible that he both knew that criticism would come either way and less criticism would come from the choice to sell his LTCs away considering he knows, himself, that he will have more time and energy to improve LTC since he knows he's being honest (I assume of course)?

I totally believe that it is possible he wanted to do that. Why not sell all of his LTC at $10? Why continue to focus his time and energy on it? There is only one reason, which is that it hadn't made him enough money yet. Now that it has, the idea that he will focus substantially all of his time on it to make it even better rings pretty hollow. Maybe he will do that instead of spending his tens of millions (or more) on other pursuits. Altruism is a pretty rare quality, financial motivation has an uncanny way of actually getting things done.

Of course he wanted to. The whole idea of Bitcoin was the free us from central banking. When Bitcoin was $30, this had hardly been achieved - it still is not accomplished today - but we are getting there. This was the point that Charlie Lee bought Bitcoin, and I presume it is the point when he decided to clone it. Philosophically this is a ridiculous thing to do if you believe in Bitcoin and what it was trying to achieve. This is the reason that I never have and never would buy Litecoin. Charlie's selling out only confirms what I already suspected. I hope the bag holders enjoy the whatever the ideology seems to be over there.

He just banked for what ever reason he has and is probably right. Many CEO's drop shares when the outlook is good and something is on the horizon - regulations and a bubble.

Price rallied from $3 to $360 within 8 months and only once in 4 years went over $30 he could easily have 20k+ LTCs that's a nice payout :)

His side project / startup just went public now he does not have to worry about money anymore and can do whatever he wants. Thats the best goal you can achieve in modern society "breaking the wheel".

This comment is a prime example of why Charlie feels like he can't win here.

Definitely a negative thing for LTC. And a double plus for Bitcoin cash. The other positive, of course, being of Coinbase now supporting it. In the past few days and weeks, LTC was increasingly being seen as a Bitcoin's currency complement. This is a game changer. No words(the OP post) are strong enough replacement of actual skin in the game.

If Satoshi's coins move, all of a sudden, it will be a big downer for Bitcoin, this is no different. Instead it may have helped had he declared something like he won't sell it for next n years. That would have shown real skin in the game.

Please note I'm not doubting his intentions. But saying just what it seems like from the outside.

> A CEO of a publicly listed company doesn't liquidate all their shares because there might be a perceived conflict of interest

That’s because their company’s product is something other than “company shares”, save for a few public companies around the first dot-com boom and some fine businesses traded over-the-counter.

Since CEOs are usually in charge of championing their product, and since in cryptocurrency case the product is the instrument of ownership, the gray line between honestly championing one’s product and peddling securities that are potentially worthless does create a conflict of interest.

I am a little surprised by how most of the comments I see here attempt to compare LTC with a stock of a company where Charlie is a "CEO". It has nothing to do with that.

Litecoin (and Bitcoin) are open source projects. They are driven by developers who are interested in solving an interesting problem in an innovative way. They do not do it for the value of the coin, and getting rich was never the intent, though it may have been an unintended consequence for the early adopters.

A recent tweet of his suggested he believed it was overvalued.

https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/940353265585160192

Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum has voiced similar concerns

https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/94085013791...

It's probably worth mentioning, he has done this right before Coinbase starting supporting Bitcoin Cash, which seems to be quite a competitor to Litecoin, as it mainly differs from Bitcoin by its higher blockchain transaction rate.

Great! Another citizen making money on money. We are all inspired. Maybe we too someday can make money on money and become the financial middlemen these Coins are replacing.

Well, he's probably wealthy beyond what he thought possible. Good time to get out of the game.

Calling Lee a shill for Litecoin is like calling Jobs a shill for Apple.

Why would I use something the main developer himself doesn't use?

Because it remains useful regardless of whether the developer uses it himself.

So many cynical comments in here. I don't blame him for wanting the cryptocurrency to stand on its own and not be tied to any tinfoil hattery.

This reminds me of the time the [1] Head of the Linux Foundation used an iPad to give a talk about the future of Linux on the desktop...

[1] https://itsfoss.com/linux-foundation-head-uses-macos/

Vitalik sold most of his ETH at $4. Now Charlie has sold all of his LTC.

Maybe these statements are facts. Or maybe these guys just dont plan on paying their taxes.

Here is my advice: Don't try to please every random person on the internet, because you never will.

The original bitcoin copy/paster made a killing and is now out of the game. Makes perfect sense to me. He's not a true believer or a technical visionary like satoshi or Vitalik. I never understood the following he gets.

> He's not a true believer

I know this isn't a constructive comment, but this cult terminology bothers me.

It should coming from regular people. But the creator should be a "true believer" in his own product. I think that should be completely expected.

He was the Director of Technology at Coinbase who adopted it not soon after he left.

He didn't adopt Litecoin after he left Coinbase. Charlie Lee created LTC even before he joined Coinbase.

I guess this guy believes it is a bubble and this is his cover for getting out while the price is high.

Wants to crystalize his gains. Gonna be a big tax bill.

How much did he make?

> It is the world’s fifth larger cryptocurrency, according to Coinmarketcap.com, with a total ‘market cap’ of more than $18 billion. It’s value, at the time of writing, is $330.14 per coin, up more than 75X from just $4.36 on January 1, 2017.

> sold and donated [emphasis added]

Wild guess: nothing.

Wild guess - he sold some litecoins and donated others.

I agree you could read that as sold all of them and donated the proceeds. Needs clarification.

Should this be changed to the non-AMP link? https://www.reddit.com/r/litecoin/comments/7kzw6q/litecoin_p...

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