I could never tell how much was incompetence vs fraud, but either way without the hype vastly fewer suckers would be holding the bag right now. The crypto ecosystem has been just been terrible for just about everyone and things are far from over.
Bitcoin was $6,000 in March 2020. It hit $63,000 in April 2021. And if you didn't sell that top, it hit $67,000 again in November 2021.
Even now, it has dropped less than Netflix, a supposed bluechip.
I don't know what's the scam in this - you had plenty of entry opportunities and plenty of exit opportunities. The underlying system itself still works exactly as described.
It’s not that Bitcoin or any alt coin has X paper value right now, it’s nobody can get out without someone else getting stuck holding the bag. The underlying system is predatory because mining isn’t free so it’s a negative sum game where people have already cashed out.
I remember being saddened when it was less than 1/1,000th isn’t current value I realized how many suckers where lining up for the fleecing. I briefly thought the odds are very good it’s going sky high, but I didn’t want to be part of someone losing their retirement when things eventually fell apart.
i haven't bought any myself. i just enjoy reading tech and economics stories in general so i've been reading about cryptocurrencies since 2013 or so. but i don't intend to buy any unless one fulfills some need i have better than other solutions. and i certainly don't intend to hold onto any if i can help it.
Look morality is only meaningful when it comes at a cost. I sincerely hope you are discouraged from scamming, robbing, kidnapping etc because you think it’s wrong rather than insufficient gain to be worth the effort.
That's true for practically every asset class. If you sold your Netflix stock at $600, someone had to buy it at $600 as well. And now they're out of $430.
There's a losing counterparty in every winning trade.
No, this is false. With stocks, the holder can get paid in dividends. With real estate, you gain value from actually using the land. A bond is actually a form of credit. Et cetera. Which other assets are you thinking of?
Edit: You must be conflating it with the funny money private stocks and their buybacks that a lot of startups have. Those are obviously a gamble, they're not really "investments" for most participants. It's no surprise that the same type of companies tried to go deep into ICOs a few years ago which are like the crypto equivalent of a bogus penny stock.
> There's a losing counterparty in every winning trade
the counterparties are equal in every trade; any winning takes place afterward in the future
and if one party is selling a publicly traded security or commodity at a loss, that doesn't mean it wasn't a good investment, it means it was bought at a fair price and conditions changed
Who are you going to prosecute in this case? The developers of Ethereum who are making a digital peer2peer smart contract system and have no interest in running a ponzi scheme?
Are you going to arrest Bram Cohen for inventing Bittorrent for what happens on it? What about the people behind Tor?
Can you tell me where the Ponzi is on this page: https://compound.finance/
Isn't that how fraudsters justify their tactics?
Crypto isn't big enough to do that on it's own.