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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Interesting how the players change but the script is exactly the same and yet, people keep falling for it. I really don't get it.

I once knew some people that were up to their necks in an MLM/pyramid scheme, it was like a cult, no matter how many examples you gave them of people ending up losing their shirts they would buy more of the crap and stuff it in every nook and cranny of their house being sure that they were the ones to cash out this time. Only they weren't.

If you have any money at all at one of those crypto companies get it out now, don't wait to see if this time it will be different because it won't be.

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> the script is exactly the same and yet, people keep falling for it. I really don't get it.

For every voice attempting to warn others, there are 10 others shouting them down with claims of FUD/jealousy/fiat shill. Just visit the subreddits of any of the dead exchanges/rugpull coins.

You would be surprised at human greed.

Was it last week when there was an interview with several "investors", and pretty much all of them admitted they knew they were speculating in a highly volatile and unregulated market before they lost all their savings in FTX' crash?

They knew the risks, they tried anyway, some really needed that money.

It is greed for sure. But it is also the lack of legit opportunities to invest, unless one is an accredited investor. I found a handful of places I wanted to invest, but I can't, because I am not an accredited investor. I am left with stock market and crypto.

It is super funny (sad?) that I can go to Vegas and blow up my life savings in a matter of hours. There are no rules to save me from that. But there are rules conveniently banning non-accredited investors from so many legit investment opportunities. What % of the population are accredited investors? I bet it is not even 10%

At this point, there doesn't seem to be any difference between Vegas and Crypto...

This is a good insight -- not just for non-accredited, but for everyone. The persistent low-interest era meant lack of investment opportunities for a decade which explains much of the crypto boom and many other phenomena.

> The persistent low-interest era meant lack of investment opportunities

Is that true?

Just putting your money on an index fund like S&P would've yielded you an average 14.5% per year in the last decade or an almost 400 % return in a decade.

Stock market more than doubled in the last 5 years and it highly outperformed crypto markets.

There has been no shortage of investment opportunities, but you people sound simply...looking for highly volatile quick gains.

Paradoxically, the booming of S&P was due to the same: a lot of money lying around, lacking a sound growth opportunity, flowing into stocks and real estate.

Per https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/accreditedinvestor.asp#... the requirements to be an accredited investor are well within reach of quite a few software developers. Apparently I qualify despite being in the Midwest where salaries are lower than the coast and I'm not a particularly great developer.

Based on these requirements I would guess that 10% of the population could certainly qualify given that a quick Google search says that almost 9% of the population are millionaires.

There are literally thousands of public US companies to pick from across many industries and sizes.

> left with stock market and crypto

I used to advocate for loosening accredited investor standards, and was involved in a 2014 effort that did so. Then I see this. Where public equities are put on the same pedestal as crypto (and implicitly, private equity), while the universe of commodities, fixed income, credit, real estate and their myriads of derivatives are ignored. Like, I dabble in angel investments. But they’re as risky as crypto, and require thousands of dollars of legal diligence per investment, even to do irresponsibly.

We have a gambling problem in our markets that’s been sold to everyday Americans under the guise of democratising finance. We don’t need to block people from being irresponsible. But there should be a low cap, in line with a responsible fraction of one’s wealth that could be burned in a casino, and strict exemptions guarded with exams, not a wealth test. Particularly for the socially useless forms, such as slot machines and crypto futures.

> At this point, there doesn't seem to be any difference between Vegas and Crypto...

I'm not sure this is fair to Vegas. Sure the odds are against you but if you somehow win they'll cash your chips out.

I'm also not sure about the lack of investment opportunities. Returns in the public market and real estate have both been quite decent. In my adult life I've bought index funds and a small, crappy house and they're both worth more than what I bought them for.

I appreciate the desire to get involved with early stage companies but I'm not sure how many really want to put in the effort to bring in someone who doesn't have enough money to be an accredited investor. That accreditation bar isn't very high, anyone under it doesn't have much capital by definition.

> But it is also the lack of legit opportunities to invest

I think you mean lack of legit opportunities to get rich quick, which is not a new phenomenon. Getting rich quick requires a lot of luck.

Generally, for people who are not accredited investors, the best investment is human capital -- your own education -- so that you can increase your lifetime wage income.

In Vegas at least you're supposed to be having a good time blowing through your cash.

I bet if they were re-interviewed the risks they believed were crypto going to zero not the entire exchange folding with crypto essentially holding up for other exchanges or your own wallet.

Everyone knows it's a scam, they are all just betting they won't be the last sucker out the door. The people you see hyping this stuff are all, save for a clueless minority of largely actual children, doing so hoping to bring in a few more rubes to drive the price up and exit. Sometimes (always if you aren't on the inside to know when the rug is going to be pulled) you are the rube and you try to recoop your losses. MLM works the same way "If I only could get a few more people to sign up under me, then I'd be able to get some of my money back."

In magic/mentalism I think this technique is called "instant stooge"[0], basically play off the agreeable nature of people to get them to shill for you once, at that point they are trapped and you can escalate the ask. Come to think of it cults work the same way, after you made a fool out of yourself it's easier to double down rather than see yourself as a fool.

In short, most people aren't victims but instead aspiring coconspirators who didn't make the cut.

[0]https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-instant-stooging-in-mag...

I think "cult" is the exact dynamic at play here. As much as I love the internet, it has enabled distributed cults on a level rarely seen before. Not only does it support traditional cults with central leaders and official dogmas (which I think includes most MLMs), but they've allowed for a sort of emergent, leaderless cult based on collective creation of the memes that drive it. E.g., QAnon and the cryptocurrency bubble.

And cults can be very persistent, even in the face of spectacular failure! The Great Disappointment predates the US Civil War, but it spawned at least one group that is still going today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment

> they've allowed for a sort of emergent, leaderless cult based on collective creation of the memes that drive it.

with a high entertainment appeal, might i add!

Yep, right down to the Potemkin village of relentless positivity, and 'faith' in the supremacy of [TOKEN].

I mean what else are they supposed to say?

"I invested my families money or corporate funds in a lower yielding account resulting in me being poor or having gotten fired from my pension management advisory position years ago".

Chase that yield, or get replaced by someone who will.

bc some "schemes" do work, like that friend or relative who got in early on a hot stock. any investment, including those granted the veil of legitimacy, can collapse at any time just as they can continue to skyrocket nonsensically. herd behaviour

The desire to build a better life/make money outweighs the risk. There is some desperation involved for sure.

Its very simple, bad money always pushes out good money.

I truly honestly believe Coinbase is reputable. No sarc I personally believe in that company and I'm trying to be complimentary, although I have no personal affiliation other than having been an active historical customer. Anyway, they are/were/IIRC offering a loan product as an investment paying something like 5% APR (back when inflation was running about 10% LOL)

The problem is FTX was/IIRC offering a similar loan product as an investment paying something like 8%. Pyramid schemes always advertise larger numbers than the market can honestly support, its not like that have to actually earn the money LOL.

So you end up with rando speculator-investors tossing money at FTX, who wants to flush 3% down the drain by signing on with the "wrong" website?

Thus either Coinbase has to go out of business, get acquired by FTX, or hope FTX crashes and burns before the first two happen. Apparently the last option happened LOL, bye FTX.

The FTX business model was to get real big real fast and pay politicians for regulation to put their competitors out of business. Can't lose if you're the biggest and its illegal to compete with you. Ran out of money too quickly, oh well.

This is how markets work. The winners are not the "best" in some vague sense of goodness, they're the ones who took on the most risk possible without getting caught, and the more perfect the market and easier it is to flood capital in a different direction, the worse the effect gets.

The biggest dog on the block is always the first to keel over because they ran the most risks to get to be that biggest dog on the block.

This isn't a unique to finance situation, this happens in everything from automotive to mining to fro-yo fad restaurants.

> MLM/pyramid scheme, it was like a cult, no matter how many examples you gave them of people ending up losing their shirts they would buy more of the crap

Let me introduce you to my little friend, the biggest real estate hyperinflation in history. It's double plus ungood badthink to even hint in polite company that once the boomers are done, prices are going to implode to a level the latter generations can actually afford, which isn't much...

Another financial thing to look at, melt ups. Some markets that implode don't melt "down" then melt "up" as the ever shrinking number of people supporting the price disappear, upward pressure on prices actually increase as only the true believers are left.

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