Ethereum

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Ajax

Dishonorable mention goes to crypto.com, which is looking shaky right now.

While I haven't seen any evidence on the internets of malfeasance, they certainly seem to be lacking in the "preventing accidental transactions" department.

[Lightspeed]

Larry David played both sides.

[Ajax]

Originally Posted by Ab

While I haven't seen any evidence on the internets of malfeasance, they certainly seem to be lacking in the "preventing accidental transactions" department.

I'm not going to vouch for this info but it's potentially concerning:


https://mobile.twitter.com/chainsawd...93317138784256

[Ab]

I’m losing track of my crypto-exchange meltdowns. Anyway.

There’s a lot of qanon-level conspiracy theorising on the net right now, but Mark Pesce is a smart dude. If he’s going “wtf?” That means there’s something to wtf about.

https://twitter.com/mpesce/status/1592033452970237952

[Lightspeed]

I think these meltdowns are examples of the status quo in finance. Running a grift is the default agenda.

What's fantastic about the blockchain is it's all there for everyone to see. There's no pretending there wasn't a scam being perpetrated, which is what we see with banks.

Another difference with crypto is regulations can be built into and enforced by the infrastructure, rather than the situation with banks where even if you catch onto a scam, finding someone to enforce regulations can be an exercise in futility.

[Ajax]

Michael Lewis, the guy who wrote The Big Short and Moneyball, has reportedly been following SBF around for the last 6 months and is in the process of writing a book about him. Can scarcely imagine a more perfect project for Lewis. It’s going to have a quite an ending.

[Ajax]

Source:

https://theankler.com/p/hwood-ftx-fr...-michael-lewis

[Ab]

Oh man that will be awesome.

[DrTiTus]

I love it when my DCA is negative but I'm a fan boy anyway.

Because keeping buying.

That's how it works right, not just buying at 1200, selling at 1600 and laughing at you m0f0s.

[Know me.]

Michael Lewis following you around for 6 months. A bad omen for sure. His best book is Liars Poker if you haven't read it.

[Know me.]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I think these meltdowns are examples of the status quo in finance. Running a grift is the default agenda.

What's fantastic about the blockchain is it's all there for everyone to see. There's no pretending there wasn't a scam being perpetrated, which is what we see with banks.

Another difference with crypto is regulations can be built into and enforced by the infrastructure, rather than the situation with banks where even if you catch onto a scam, finding someone to enforce regulations can be an exercise in futility.

There's been plenty of pretending but since everyone's been getting paid including the players the games been allowed to continue. Regulating the exchanges will bring to light the part they have had to play in the run up of prices over the years.

[Ab]

Fascinating podcast “oral history” of the past month or so at FTX from an FTX employee.

https://overcast.fm/+N79cZkGyA

[Ab]

In which a surprisingly candid Sam Bankman-Fried drops the mask and basically admits to being a sociopath

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2...s-philanthropy

"yeah all that schmoozing to regulators, that was bullshit, fuck those guys... oh yeah and all that altruism stuff was fake too"

[Ab]

In a stinging court filing posted on Thursday John Ray III, the new boss of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, said the company had suffered an “unprecedented and complete failure of corporate controls”.

Ray has overseen some of the biggest bankruptcies ever, including the collapse of the energy giant Enron, and has 40 years of experience in restructuring companies. He said he had never seen anything as bad as FTX.

He wrote in a filing with the Delaware bankruptcy court: “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.

“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”

[Ajax]

Good grief, what a shitshow.

[Ab]

Highlights from a FT journo covering the filings:

https://twitter.com/kadhim/status/1593246720686981123

Sam Bankman-Fried's hedge fund lent billions to... Sam Bankman-Fried

FTX says the "fair value" of all the crypto that FTX international holds is a mere $659K!
Remember that SBF has been marking it at $5.5bn

FTX says that Bankman-Fried didn't include customer liabilities in FTX's financial statements (!)

"The FTX Group did not maintain centralized control of its cash. Cash management procedural failures included the absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories"

corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors

"what may be very substantial transfers of Debtor property in the days, weeks and months prior to the Petition Date"

FTX, FTX US and Alameda "do not have an accounting department"

[Know me.]

Accountants?, pfffft, its all on the blockchain mate.

[Lightspeed]

This one's good:

Federal regulators when Crypto investors come calling for help (after losing their money in a scheme meant to circumvent federal regulations)

[kRAdENkO]

Not sure if genuine or not, but I've heard that there is a sex tape....

[Ab]

oh god I so do not care.

[Ajax]

The Australian Stock Exchange cancels its blockchain project, writes off $250 million in costs. Ouch.

https://www.afr.com/companies/financ...0221117-p5bz24

“When you are driving in the desert and your life depends on it, you need a diesel Landcruiser and not a hybrid Ferrari”

[Know me.]

Sounds like a good use of blockchain. Nows a good time to dump projects like this. They probably found out that not everyone wants everyone else to see who owns what. Lot of people make a lot of money out of inefficiencies.

[Ab]

But a proprietary closed-source database based on DAML on VMWare is the future! A software vendor wouldn't lie to us!

TBH I'm amazed the client only took a 250M haircut, that's pretty benign by Accenture consulting-rate standards.

[Ab]

This is weird:

https://twitter.com/coinbasewallet/s...54819735031809

Apple has blocked the Coinbase wallet app from the app store because... gas fees on transactions... are payments... and thus attract the 30% in-app transaction tax by the App Store... and so 30% of the gas fee must go to Apple and fuck I don't know

[Ajax]

It seems like a convenient way for Apple to evict Coinbase from the App Store and avoid the fallout when Coinbase inevitably implodes.

[Ab]

Yeah, but this isn't the Coinbase trading app we're talking about. It's the wallet app. It's just... a wallet.

[Ajax]

Well, I'd say it's likely the trading app will also be removed before long.

[Ab]

Still doesn’t explain why Apple is doing this. It makes no sense. This is like... me killing some mobs in an iPhone RPG, collecting dropped items, taking them back to town, and selling them to an NPC... and Apple demanding that I pay 30% of my in-game gold to Apple since it's an an-app transaction.

[Lightspeed]

What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me - Vitalik

[Ab]

Sam Bankman-Fried is playing a very strange game at the moment. He's doing interviews and public appearances left and right, and seems to be trying to get his version of the story in the public consciousness before any actual forensic accounting results are known. He looks to be spinning a tale of "naivete, nobody could have foreseen, black swan, margin calls" and people are actually buying it.

[Lightspeed]

It doesn't sound like it's going all his way:

I Accidentally Got SBF To Admit to Fraud

I haven't watched the video, looks like a lot of people have tho.

[DrTiTus]

While not strictly "crypto":

CBDC Tracker

11 countries have already rolled out CBDCs... Nigeria, Jamaica, Bahamas and Eastern Caribbean (8 countries)

I guess there's no stopping it now.

[Lightspeed]

AI image generation tech can now create life-wrecking deepfakes with ease

At some point we are going to have to assume all images are fake. Sooner than later.

I think the eventual solution will be blockchain tech baked right into recording devices, at least for where we want to produce images or recordings for evidential reasons.

[_indigo1]

Isn't it interesting to consider our place on the timeline of photography.

At one time photographs didn't exist. The idea of photographic evidence didn't exist. Capturing a slice of reality in a still image was not a factor in peoples minds. Other than painting, there was no way to preserve a moment.
It was such a foreign concept that it freaked some people out, thinking a photograph did something to their soul.

In our time, we have gotten used to the idea, and also gotten used to it as a way to verify or trust that a moment occurred. We tend to believe this is the steady state that things would remain in forever and that not having a way to capture a moment to preserve that we trust is 'real' was the dark ages.

But instead - it seems we were the ones living in a transient space and the ability to capture moments for validity was a temporary aberration - and we are now returning back to the time as it was before, with no way to capture a moment that can be trusted other than first hand experience.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by _indigo1

It was such a foreign concept that it freaked some people out, thinking a photograph did something to their soul.

Maybe they were right, the human soul has been captured by the machine!

/Warhammer 40k intensifies

[_indigo1]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Maybe they were right, the human soul has been captured by the machine!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cpGY2u_vQA

(use spotify for proper quality - yt is poos)
https://open.spotify.com/track/4JKW3...1962a5f65643ad

[Lightspeed]

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas after U.S. files criminal charges

[Ab]

People who are under arrest don’t have to testify before Congress, damn, I’m sure Sam really wanted to do that too.

[DrTiTus]

U.S. prosecutors announce the indictment of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

A bit more detail on what the legal situation is.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

What in the Ethereum application ecosystem excites me - Vitalik

Finally got around to reading that. Really interesting. Thanks for posting it!