patrick.net

Onvacation says

Crypto is a scam that uses an incredible amount of energy.

I learned this week that there are ~85% of dams in the US where: They thought about adding turbines for energy but didn't do it.

Now bitcoin (in particular) interested institutional investors are plowing money into refitting these with turbines. The idea is renewable energy for mining AND during high demand energy that didn't exist for locals. This apparently started in Norway first and is called, "The Norway Model".

There are others.

Mr. Wonderful (8.5mins):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MOj6S2-zJo&source=patrick.net

FJB says

Now bitcoin (in particular) interested institutional investors are plowing money into refitting these with turbines. The idea is renewable energy for mining AND during high demand energy that didn't exist for locals. This apparently started in Norway first and is called, "The Norway Model".

So what are you saying, crypto will electrify the rural world?

Still waiting for answers from the fanbois.

How do you get your money out without someone paying you more than you paid?

You can't.

What backs crypto if all of the incoming money is consumed by the miners, who slowly dribble coins out to auction?

Nothing.

What would happen if the HODLers try to cash out?

Onvacation says

So what are you saying, crypto will electrify the rural world?

lol. Probably once the last coin is mined and we built all this infrastructure. Until then or it going to zero, I'm all for the expansion of "green" energy.

Problem is the new turbines will probably create too much vibrations in the water for the fish to be comfortable and will probably never happen. Sarcasm aside, this is literally the only positive (outside of trading it back and forth) for crypto. You can make money trading, but nobody, anywhere can tell me what IT is. Every person gives a completely different answer.

It's not an investment, but say I go to 10 different car dealers and ask about the Bronco. I get 10 different pitches about the features of the car that are waaaaaay different. That's crypto. It's the same car and you all can't explain it?

WookieMan says

You can make money trading, but nobody, anywhere can tell me what IT is

But they can post a gazillion links to various articles and videos and then whine you didn't read/watch them all. =))

My rule of thumb: if you can't explain something to someone in your own words you don't really understand it yourself. (Or was it Feynman who said it?)

Eric Holder says

But they can post a gazillion links to various articles and videos and then whine you didn't read/watch them all. =))

That's my biggest beef and I agree. I like footnotes and credits for ideas, but if YOU cannot explain it, it's bullshit in my world. Don't rely on others to make your argument or point. TELL me what it is. Every link is word salad 100% of the time.

It takes 2 seconds to find a positive crypto link. Thousands actually. Explain. IT.

Hasn't happened to date here at Patnet or any other sites I visit. It's a spreadsheet that verifies mining and transactions with a fuck ton of electric usage and ZERO physical utility and is valued in fiat currency. It's literally an excel spreadsheet. I've sent 5 figures over seas in seconds to family without crypto. There is no value proposition with crypto. It's 1,000,000% speculation.

Trade it, but know where it's going. I think most do, but will be stubborn to the end and get fucked over by their own stupidity.

WookieMan says

That's crypto. It's the same car and you all can't explain it?

The fanbois don't even try to explain it.

They think it's digital gold. Never mind that it has no intrinsic or real useful value. The fanbois just think they can find someone to pay more than they paid for it.

Re: me

I'm not 'On Vacation'. I work my ass off all day and sometimes evenings. Last thing I want to do is argue with people who simply refuse to see reality over and over.

But I'll pop in once in a while to poke the bear and keep this thread going.

For posterities sake...

Most of the time though I will be spending my time reading all of the other interesting stuff on patnet when I have the time.

Digital Gold

There are a lot of idle bitcoins out there. HODLers and lost passwords account for a majority of bitcoins. Nobody knows how much of either. Nobody really knows for sure who owns what except for the "ledger" of addresses of "Coin" ownership and the record of transactions. Imagine all the geeks who are kicking themselves for losing the passwords to the accounts that had "just a few thousand" bitcoins from the early days when "mining" was a geeky thing to do.

Onvacation says

lost passwords

I do agree that this is an issue. I don't have an answer for it. It's the one thing. Probably primarily affecting bitcorn.

The price of bitcoin is so high because there are a lot of buyers for the the small amount of coins that are mined or traded at any given time.

There are no doubt a lot of people who "stack" some Satoshi's because they can purchase them from a kiosk at the local liquor store. They know a brother, or a cousin, who cashed out some crypto and made some bank. They "dollar cost average" $50 each paycheck will get around 100,000 Satoshi's.at the current price. If the price goes down the $50 will buy MORE Satoshi's.

More nefariously it is used for human trafficking, ransoms, and other forms of payoff. It's a lot easier to transfer some crypto than transport some cash.

I started this thread to warn people about how the crypto scam works. I do not think it is an ethical way to try and make money. It is a gamble that is costly to everyone.

Bitcoin very well may take another leap to 100,000 fiat. If you get in now and cash out at the peak, you too can be a bitcoin millionaire.

Onvacation says

More nefariously it is used for human trafficking, ransoms, and other forms of payoff.

This is commonly stated with no evidence. In fact, as Janet Yellen has recently realized, quite the opposite. It's easier to do crime with $ than bitcorn and not get caught.

That may change when they push us all onto CBDC though. People can use intermediaries for bitcorn and maintain anonymity. Most aren't so bright though and just use an open ledger.

Most crime is paid for in dolla dolla bills.

FJB says

This is commonly stated with no evidence. In fact, as Janet Yellen has recently realized, quite the opposite. It's easier to do crime with $ than bitcorn and not get caught.

So bitcoin is useless?

How To Avoid Cryptocurrency Scams

Scammers are always finding new ways to steal your money using cryptocurrency. One sure sign of a scam is anyone who says you have to pay by cryptocurrency. In fact, anyone who tells you to pay by wire transfer, gift card, or cryptocurrency is a scammer. Of course, if you pay, there’s almost no way to get that money back. Which is what the scammers are counting on.

Investment and business opportunity scams

*Some companies promise that you can earn lots of money in a short time and achieve financial freedom.
Some scammers tell you to pay in cryptocurrency for the right to recruit others into a program. If you do, they say, you’ll get recruitment rewards paid in cryptocurrency. The more cryptocurrency you pay, the more money they promise you’ll make. But these are all fake promises, and false guarantees.

*Some scammers start with unsolicited offers from supposed “investment managers.” These scammers say they can help you grow your money if you give them the cryptocurrency you’ve bought. But once you log in to the “investment account” they opened, you’ll find that you can’t withdraw your money unless you pay fees.
Some scammers send unsolicited job offers to help recruit cryptocurrency investors, sell cryptocurrency, mine cryptocurrency, or help with converting cash to bitcoin.

*Some scammers list scam jobs on job websites. They’ll promise you a job (for a fee), but end up taking your money or personal information.

Look for claims like these to help you spot the companies and people to avoid:

*Scammers guarantee that you’ll make money. If they promise you’ll make a profit, that’s a scam. Even if there’s a celebrity endorsement or testimonials. (Those are easily faked.)

*Scammers promise big payouts with guaranteed returns. Nobody can guarantee a set return, say, double your money. Much less in a short time.
Scammers promise free money. They’ll promise it in cash or cryptocurrency, but free money promises are always fake.

*Scammers make big claims without details or explanations. Smart business people want to understand how their investment works, and where their money is going. And good investment advisors want to share that information.

*Scammers emphasize FOMO.

Checklist: How to detect a crypto scam

Unsure whether a particular crypto website is a scam or not? Use this checklist to help sort legitimate providers from those platforms you’re better off avoiding altogether.

*Does the company’s app glitch out and make it impossible to log in? If you can’t access your account, you can’t access your funds either.

*Does the website connect securely over https (not http)? If the address starts with “http” instead of “https,” the data you send to the website is not secure.

*Can you see the word “Secure” or an image of a padlock in your web browser’s address bar? This indicates that a website is secure.

*Does the website’s URL have any noticeable spelling mistakes or errors? If so, it could be a fake.

*Does the site feature bad grammar, awkward phrasing or spelling mistakes? If it does, this doesn’t necessarily indicate a scam, but it does mean you should proceed with caution.

*Does the website promise abnormally high returns? (For example, does it claim you’ll be able to double your investment?) This should raise a big red flag and is a common indicator of a scam.

*Is there an “About us” page? Does it show the real people behind the company? Does it provide any details about where the company is registered? If there’s little or no information about who the company is and what it does, you could be dealing with a scam.

*Do legitimate, reputable websites link to this site? This could indicate that the site is trusted and respected.
What do other users say about the website? Are there any negative reviews and, if so, what do they say? The crypto community is usually pretty quick to spread the word about scams.

*Who is the registered owner of a domain or website? Is the owner hidden behind private registration? Has the domain been registered for less than six months? (You can find this information by searching for the platform’s URL registration details on a site like WHOis.net). The more information you can find about the people/company behind a website, the better.

*Is there anything else about the website that raises red flags or just seems too good to be true? If there’s something that just doesn’t seem right, trust your gut.
Does the website claim any celebrity endorsements?

*Many investment scams use fake celebrity endorsements to get people to lower their guard.
Did you first hear about it on social media, or did they approach you first? Social media and unsolicited messages are common ways for scammers to reach new victims.

Remember, crypto has no recourse. Once you have given your cash up you may never get it back.

Still waiting to hear how to make money in crypto without finding a bigger fool.

5 Top Crypto Scams to Watch in 2022
From the "pig butchering" crypto scam to the classic pump and dump, watch out for these schemes.
https://money.usnews.com/investing/cryptocurrency/articles/top-crypto-scams-to-watch?source=patrick.net

'Pig Butchering' Crypto Scam
At least some of the top crypto scams out there have colorful names. For victims of this cruel scam, however, the results are very serious.

This scam typically begins on online dating sites, where the scammer uses an attractive profile picture to lure in the "pig," then proceeds to "fatten up" the proverbial swine over a period of time via online messaging, with the victim steadily growing closer to and more trusting of the perpetrator.

The scammer eventually tells the victim about some huge gains they've made in cryptocurrency markets and gets their mark to follow along in some investments, which initially pay off handsomely on paper. Of course, the money is lost as soon as it's sent, with the scammer using phony sites to dupe their victim into sending greater and greater sums of money to this fake account.

Withdrawals prove impossible, and the "pig," now fattened up to the point of slaughter, is left in the wind. This type of scam is thought to have originated in China and is notable for its relatively long duration.

Pump and Dump' Scam
"Pump and dump" scams aren't unique to cryptocurrency, but without the regulation enjoyed by stocks traded on major U.S. exchanges, for instance, the Wild West of finance suffers with a good degree of fraud, including the pump-and-dump scam.

Such scams, which are also primed to occur in the stock market in penny stocks, are characterized by a small group of insiders who own a given asset – in this case, a digital currency. These thinly traded assets are then hyped up through publicity, whether it be through social media, word of mouth or other forms of promotion.

When the unknowing investing public rabidly buys up the cryptocurrency, which is often newly issued with little trading history, the insiders begin to sell, or dump, the shares at high prices, sparking a steep sell-off and profiting at the expense of the duped masses.

In one case from June 2021, some members of FaZe Clan, one of the world's most popular esports organizations, were involved in promoting a new cryptocurrency called Save the Kids, with a portion of proceeds promised to charity. It took mere days for the coin to plunge, and the members of FaZe involved with the launch were all either suspended or removed from the group, which distanced itself from their activity.

The team member who was dismissed tweeted that he had "no ill intent" in promoting the cryptocurrency, but some investors accused the group of taking part in a pump-and-dump.

Rug Pull' Scam
"One particular scam to avoid is 'rug pulls,'" says Vincent D'Agostino, head of cyber forensics and incident response at BlueVoyant. Rug pulls happen "when a cryptocurrency's promoters pump their new coin to get prices up before disappearing with the funds. Investors are left with a valueless token," D'Agostino says. "This especially happens with coins with zero fundamentals and no real future."

One key difference between a pump-and-dump scam and a rug-pull scam is that the latter often doesn't even allow the non-insider owners to sell, with the token coded in such a way as to allow only insiders to exit. There are several other ways insiders execute these scams, which are specific to cryptocurrency.

The rug-pull scam got a lot of attention in late 2021, when a newly debuted cryptocurrency known as Squid Game – named after the suddenly popular Netflix Inc. (ticker: NFLX) series about a game in which all contestants are killed except one, who emerges with riches – lived up to its name and disallowed selling.

SQUID, the ticker for the coin, began selling at one cent, then rocketed above $90, before immediately plunging back toward zero when the scammers "rugged" the masses.

D'Agostino says

. "This especially happens with coins with zero fundamentals and no real future."

The commonality in all of these scams is the inability for the speculators to recover any money when things go south and the necessity for a bigger fool to pay you in order to make any money.

Next: Airdrop Crypto Scam

Airdrop Crypto Scam
Another scam, prominent in the decentralized finance, or DeFi, field, is related to something in crypto called an airdrop.

"More recently popular, nefarious actors have grabbed ahold of the popular trend of airdropping tokens, which is typically done to start and grow a grassroots community," says Alan Eschweiler, chief revenue officer at Stacked, a simplified crypto investing platform.

An airdrop literally drops tokens in your digital wallet as a reward for taking certain actions with a given platform or software.

The scam works like this: "An entity will airdrop you a token that appears to have value, and when you go to exchange that airdrop for another more well-known token, you give a protocol more permissions than you realize," Eschweiler explains. This "allows the hacker to access all of the assets in your wallet," he says.

The simplest way to avoid this scam? "Never give an unknown user permission to your decentralized wallets," Eschweiler says, "without understanding the abilities you are granting this person."

Onvacation says

The simplest way to avoid this scam?

Stay away from crypto!

Bitcoin is a great investment!

If you don't mind the massive environmental impact and you think you can find a greater fool to pay you more than you paid for it.

Bitcoin is not a commodity. It is not digital gold. It has no intrinsic value and little utility. It is like a pyramid scam in that you have to find a greater fool to cash out. Unlike a pyramid scheme all incoming money is consumed by the "miners". It's a scam.

Next: The crypto phishing scam.

BTC at 34k, close to half of its all time high.

Buying opportunity?

Nope! Not yet....

Cash says

Nope! Not yet....

Now? Or should we wait for it to go under 30K per coin? 20K per coin? How low can it go?

I still believe it can go back up to 100K, but I don't gamble.

There is no law that says crypto can't go negative value. Other assets, financial and otherwise, have done so in the recent past.

With as manipulated as crypto is, that remains a valid concern.

The exchanges are legally able to sell out a person's crypto holdings if the account falls under certain thresh holds. Therefore, if the crypto goes negative the exchange can sell out the holder at the negative price and claim they did it for fear the currency would go down even further.

Onvacation says

Now? Or should we wait for it to go under 30K per coin? 20K per coin? How low can it go?

Im not a BTC guy so am not looking to buy any nor am I a ETH guy but will give my 2cents when I think some test buying might be considered. BTC could go all the way back down to 14k+/- or not, the price I mentioned to buy before the big 400% run up when I did own a few BTC and sold near the top of that run, I did disclose when I went flat BTC as well ;).

Until the USD hits some sort of critical mass which it has not, most all things likely including oil will stay sideways and perhaps go lower. I have crypto I am looking for 1st buys or adding to my stacks but BTC isn't included although I may have to buy some ETH to purchase some of the other coins I am after. BTW my next tgt of interest in USD is DXY 105.500 so just to be clear as long as USD raging higher I'm not looking to buy much of anything.

l also stated some of my "expectations" in this posting > a month ago.
https://patrick.net/post/1344030?120#comment-1831934

My friend married a guy who makes good money in a hospital. He's not an MD but evidently is highly paid.

My friend doesn't wear jewelry so no engagement ring, but he brought her a couple of 2 karat diamond earrings.
Just recently he got her a Rolex. She doesn't wear watches and had it on upside down.

He likes Bitcoin and wants the new wife to buy it too.
Her mother is scared. I told her to make sure her daughter doesn't do what the guy tells her to with her money.
He owns a BMW to commute and a bought a new Jeep Gladiator for the weekends.
He also has 8 motorcycles in his home town, one is with him in Florida.
Let's see what happens next.

Onvacation says

In my opinion, it’s a colossal pump-and-dump scheme, the likes of which the world has never seen. In a pump-and-dump game, promoters “pump” up the price of a security creating a speculative frenzy, then “dump” some of their holdings at artificially high prices. And some cryptocurrencies are pure frauds. Ernst & Young estimates that 10 percent of the money raised for initial coin offerings has been stolen.

The losers are ill-informed buyers caught up in the spiral of greed. The result is a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary families to internet promoters. And “massive” is a massive understatement — 1,500 different cryptocurrencies now register over $300 billion of “value.”

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17275202/bitcoin-scam-cryptocurrency-mining-pump-dump-fraud-ico-value?source=patrick.net

Lol

Of course it is a Ponzi scheme.

Bitcoin like all other crypt currencies are completely unregulated by any third party whatsoever independent from them.

What that does is invite and incentivize financial criminal activity.

not just theft but also money laundering and tax evasion.

The best way to loot is not to own a bank but to own a crypto currency printing operation.