The Sinking of Voyager
coppolacomment.com
coppolacomment.com
Maybe I should check out that site again, assuming I can dig up my login info somewhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne%E2%80%93Voyager_coll...
On another occasion the Melbourne sunk the Evans, a US warship.
Before the collapse I speculated the risk premium on these loan products existed to cash out whales with substandard crypto. Clearly I was wrong; the situation was much worse: everything fed into ponzis.
I am not sorry for Voyager, 3AC, Celsius, or any firm that has insolvency issues. I do not care if liquidation pushes crypto far lower. I am happy there are no government bailouts and any rescues are by strong private firms at fire-sale prices.
The crypto industry will be stronger after such shakeouts ruin the scammers, moronic risk-takers, and shady operators. Retail investors who got burned will not return, and if they do, learned a valuable lesson.
I only wish 2008 had a similar outcome rather than subsidized losses and zero pain for the rich and connected. I'm happy markets still work somewhere in this world.
What I will say is the 2018 bear market was exactly the same and know-it-all commenters predicted mass casualties, Tether destruction, ponzi, and so on and so forth while the industry rose back to new highs.
I’ve seen crypto-people try to give some concrete examples, but all of them can usually be done better with boring tech (tickets, supply chains, land deeds) or public-private key signing (certificates, proof of authenticity). It was quite painful how even Marc Andreesen couldn’t give a single example and the guy is plowing billions into the industry. You could power wind turbines with the amount of handwaving that typically surrounds descriptions of usecases for crypto.
> What I will say is the 2018 bear market was exactly the same and know-it-all commenters predicted mass casualties, Tether destruction, ponzi, and so on and so forth while the industry rose back to new highs.
In 2018 the market penetration of crypto was nothing compared to now. Now there are public companies blasting ads 24/7 on every single channel, so the amount of naive new money may be tapped out for good. And all of the existing “investors” are getting burnt real bad.
It has the benefits of cash (from an annonyminity point of view) but without the need for a risky physical handover.
It also allows illegal cross-border money movement. Whether this movement is moral or not, its still illegal. There are cases one can make that it allows the bypassing of laws for morality reasons, but unfortunately that attribute works equally well more mial and immoral reasons.
For Joe Public getting on with his life, crypto adds no functionality that isn't better, cheaper, and faster done another way.
But ponzi schemes and greed go together like bread and butter - they are baked into the human condition.
PS. I have some tulip bulbs, willing to swap for Bitcoin. Contact me please if you are interested.
The Supreme Court says no state can prevent a citizen from having a concealed gun, and New York immediately passes an obvious violation of the new law to restrict rights.
I’m not passing judgement on anything. What I’m saying is what is “illegal” doesn’t have a basis on morality - or else thousands of years of state-sanctioned slavery (literal human bondage) you would justify as “The Law” regardless of morals.
Crypto facilitates illegal activity. You may consider that a feature or a bug - I make no judgement either way.
I would suggest though that when the primary utility is for illegal activity, then it's likely to attract more regulation, and fewer honest users. And that may ultimately affect its attractiveness as a store of value.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
I mean ... good?
People shouldn't be fighting for economic products and systems, they should be evaluating them fairly based on present capabilities. As such, even you seem to think we're 5-10 years from delivery on effectiveness (personally I'm on the 'never' side).
The current wave of speculation-mania and its associated out-and-out scams needs to come to an end. If there's any real use-case here, it'll emerge quietly and with little fanfare, because it can actually do things better than existing or alternative systems and will take over the market that way. It's not going to emerge from "HODL TO THE MOOOOON".
(And it's certainly not seeming to emerge from an incestuous community of 'funds' and 'investments' offering unrealistic returns while all speculating and investing with each other!)
(I see you agree that it's good these things get shaken out - great! My hope is they get shaken out so much that the regulators step and in and severely restrict anything marketed to the public, and anything related to PoW. After that, you do you, feel free to chase those unicorns)
At least with realworld complex financial products, the underlying commodity is useful.
However the fact is, if they are going the bankruptcy route and have to sell/distribute their existing asset, then this asset is up for grab in the order that people have the right to the asset. This isn't an asset protected for the customers only. So while there might be money left, it doesn't mean I twill end up in the hands of the customers as they are the last one in line to get proceeds back.
If really the money was under the customer's name, "on their behalf", then it wouldn't be an asset under the balance sheet. It would not have been theirs.
EDIT: It's an image. Search for "enterprising Voyager customer" instead.
I would argue, more lessons to be learned on the way down :)
Voyager deliberately misled its customers by claiming their assets were FDIC insured. The only lesson to be learned here is that fraud is alive and well.
People were genuinely duped, and I hope there is some consequence to Voyager leadership.
This is one of those cases where litigation to "pierce the corporate veil" and go after the parent companies and the company officers individually may be worthwhile. Wikipedia:
"In the United States, corporate veil piercing is the most litigated issue in corporate law. Although courts are reluctant to hold an active shareholder liable for actions that are legally the responsibility of the corporation, even if the corporation has a single shareholder, they will often do so if the corporation was markedly noncompliant with corporate formalities, to prevent fraud, or to achieve equity in certain cases of undercapitalization."
A case can be made for fraud here, in that the company represented that it was investing money in "risk free" investments while actually loaning money to high risk debtors. Piercing the corporate veil is rare outside of bankruptcy, but not that unusual when bankruptcy is involved. This is a case of undercaptitalization, where someone went into the financial services business without enough money of their own to cover risks.
Their headquarters is in Jersey City, NJ. Where there are lawyers who go after corporate fraud routinely.
But where are they incorporated? Delaware ?