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Comment by FranksTV | Hacker News Reader

1) Stocks in companies have value not just because people buy and sell them to each other at higher and higher prices, but because companies add value to the world, and generate income.

2) the difference between a crypto rug pull and a company being drained of its resources is that the second one would result in a police investigation, and fraud charges. It would be illegal, because of the laws that protect investors from exactly that situation.

If "It's all the same" then why invest in crypto at all? It's way riskier, and had a lot more negative externalities.

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1) That's debatable. Companies are after all just people doing stuff. You don't own the people and they could all just quit one day. Maybe you own a part of the company assets, but these days with remote work and internet companies that can be close to nothing. I don't see many stocks paying out dividends, but I suppose that's a thing.

2) Illegal's never stopped anyone from doing anything, and I don't see how the crypto version isn't fraud too. But in both these cases you can fly to a non extradition country with your newfound fuck-you-money, leaving the investors up shit creek without damages.

Crypto has some benefits over the stock market, it's open 24/7 so it doesn't discriminate against anyone, and it's more volatile so one can get higher returns (well, or losses) with less of an investment without having to resort to options or margin which are just as risky. It also has more defined and predictable bull/bear markets in relation to bitcoin halvings.

I don't really see the two markets as too different though. One has just had more time to become more rigged for wall street.

But people do do stuff. At the very least, every day the company is changed in some small way by employees innovating. One share of apple is not the same thing it was ten years ago because apple is not the same thing.

BTC on the other hand is not a productive asset. It’s value cannot change by the underlying thing changing. Instead it’s value can only change in regards to how much people want it.

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