It’s amazing to me that enough people still believe in the crypto scam to keep pumping BTC above $15k. I guess they are still managing to mint fools at a fast enough pace to keep the price up.
> Sam Bankman-Fried stormed on to the US political scene with multimillion-dollar donations that led lawmakers, particularly Democrats, to believe he was ushering in the next generation of donors. But in a matter of days, his business empire collapsed into bankruptcy and the prospect of millions more in donations evaporated.
https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-joe-bid... (https://archive.ph/BBpQN#selection-417.0-424.0)
> The 30-year-old Bankman-Fried has been a major force in Democratic politics, ranking as the party’s second-biggest individual donor in the 2021–2022 election cycle, according to Open Secrets, with donations totaling $39.8 million. That ranks only behind George Soros (about $128 million) but ahead of many other big names, including Michael Bloomberg ($28.3 million). What’s more, he had promised to spend far more on Democrats moving forward, predicting in May that he’d fund “north of $100 million” and had a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion for the 2024 elections.
Because he donated money to Democrats it makes people still want to invest in cryptos, is that the message?
If you want to complain about BTC, complain about BTC. FTX was not BTC.
Market participants that do this aren't market makers anymore.
Anyone doing international money transfers. Hell, that included intra-EU money transfers not 5 years ago.
Anyone in a bunch of countries. Lebanon being the most recent addition. Venezuela, Columbia, Turkey, Russia, Greece (sort-of-not-quite-anymore) ...
Anyone in legal but unfairly treated business/professions. Situations vary from country to country. From sex work, even website admins, to "the unbanked", who can expect the authorities to impound their money at the drop of a hat.
Anyone who wants to do large cash transactions safely without using a bank. And that DOES NOT mean drugs. Reality: you do this because you're afraid bank transactions can be reversed, which is possible in a bunch of places. Large, in the EU, has now become smaller than the cost of a used car.
Recently, if your transaction involves anyone on social security, your or their bank transactions may be monitored very closely by non-judicial institutions. If this is unwanted (and I guarantee it'll be unwanted) that will means you either use cash or crypto, depending on the amount. Although a lot of people in this segment haven't really discovered crypto yet.
This stays very much viable. Right up to the point that it isn't. Then, people will wonder what is backing those tokens, and if they want to risk the event that they aren't worth their advertised value. Then, a liquidation crunch happens and the company collapses in onto itself.
That said, the Tether situation is clearly fraudulent in some way, just not the one people usually put forward. So stay away, if you aren't already.
source? Sources like these[1] don't any mention recent issuances by tether.
After all, BTC is the reserve currency of all these crypto scams, as you call them.
And no, BTC is not the reserve currency; Ethereum is. Nearly all of these "crypto tokens" are just ERC-20 contracts that run as contracts on the Ethereum network. They're not even cryptocurrencies, just contracts with sets of rules that mimic the properties of a currency.
Using the sticker price to decide if a crypto/stock is a scam or not a very good idea.
The Winkelvoss’s net worth [1] is less than half of FTX’s shortfall alone [2]. These folks didn’t get rich by giving their money away.
[1] https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/tyler-...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-10/sam-bankm...
So, in terms of "crypto scam," there's nothing to see here.
I can too promise the moon and never deliver.
Even if you have the most cynical opinion of cryptocurrency, you must admit it's alive and well. It is as long as there are enough people who believe that it is - and your honest answer to the above would reveal that you know that to still be very true.
Interrst rate hikes kill zombie companies. Scams put dumb people under the lash of their betters.
Continuing this line of thought, isn't the next level of "betters" the people who would readily employ violence to get retribution on those who scammed them? Or even those who would just employ violence to take what they want in general?
I can understand the law of the jungle as-it-currently-is point that boils down to "lol normie rubes fell for advertising", but extrapolating that out into an overarching moral judgement makes no sense unless you're also repudiating the specialization of labor that has led to most of our current prosperity.
Really no price? Even given the opportunity to buy at $10, you still wouldn't hold?
If it hits x sell. So if I was given a coin currently "worth" $15,000 for $5. I could set a stop loss of $6 and always make a profit since my initial investment was $5. Asleep, awake, doesn't matter.
I just don't understand all of the "BTC will never fall below <some level not far from the current price>" thinking.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but maybe that, the improbable 12000%, is the thinking that you're trying to understand?