Coming soon: an interview with Marc Cohodes the guy who called the Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX scam before - and more loudly than - anyone else (and an old friend)
Coming soon: an interview with Marc Cohodes the guy who called the Sam Bankman-Fried/FTX scam before - and more loudly than - anyone else (and an old friend)
In the meantime, a fun multimedia homework assignment: spend three minutes and thirty-nine seconds watching this. Jargon aside, it will tell you what you need to know about cryptocurrencies - namely, that the whole game is just a digitized version of a scam that that’s been going on forever. Promise people off-the-charts returns to get them to give you their money…
FTX isn't even really a crypto story, just like Wolf of Wall Street isn't really a finance story and Smartest Men in the Room isn't a story about running an electric company.
This is not even a story about cryptocurrencies specifically. This is a story about people building some intermediary on top of crypto and then taking advantage of the fact that people have no clue that is what they are doing to scam people out of their cash. These failures are all in third party services like exchanges, lenders, bank-like-things and not failures of crypto at all. If you don't hold the private key you don't own crypto should be the lesson people are learning from this.
Hell, it's the modus operandi of both the Federal Reserve cabal and the central banking system that reaches worldwide. Dollars backed by nothing. Deposits loaned out dozens upon dozens of times--with ZERO dollars on deposit required to back the loans! FTX was nothing but a run on a crooked, upside down exchange and exactly what would happen if there were a run on the banks. I'm with SimulationCommander on this one--it's simply the setting for the fraud.
I don't totally agree with this. Our current monetary system is really based on the same blind faith that dollars are worth something ever since we went off of the gold standard. I am not a fan of crypto, let alone Bitcoin, but I do appreciate the idea of a monetary system outside the corruption of Government. So at least Bitcoin gives us a nice start to finding a new monetary system though it has many limitations one of which being the need for electricity and internet.
Alex, I love your work, however, calling all of crypto a scam is badly mistaken. Similar to , the dot com bust or all of Wall St, it has attracted numerous bad actors. Digital Assets are a real thing and Bitcoin and Ethereum are amongst the most important inventions every in technology. Think of much of crypto as digital Marriott Bonvoy points or Amex points. Please think of crypto as digital assets used to reward individuals in a particular context. Not a scam at all but a huge part of the next phase of the Internet.
crypto is for people who believe men can get pregnant, modern monetary theory fixes inflation, electric cars solve climate change, socialism works if done the "right way", and the vaccines are "safe and effective".
Marc Cohodes is a really good get. He's been blistering about SBF-Madoff and his ex-gf, the MSM deemed "alt right" Caroline as they passed off hundreds of millions and cool billions to each other with no accounting controls whatsoever. This is not virtue signaling progressive generosity on any examination. But oh, did SBF-Madoff know and love to play that game.
As SBF-Madoff had people shill about how he was interested in making money for altruism ends to give it away and drives a Toyota Corolla in the Bahamas, others like Cohodes noticed the guy was living in a $40 million monster-sized penthouse.
Maxine Waters blew SBF-Madoff a kiss after a Congressional hearing as he bribed, I mean contributed to her and most of her friends on this financial oversight committee. That changes come January but not after tens of millions paid off to Democrat pols and of course Joe Biden.
In addition, Jeff Childers highlighted how the left wing publication "The Intercept" was gifted the moolah via a SBF-Madoff news grant outfit. Because not setting up a third party gateway promoting lockdowns and passport mandates would be unseemly. Getting the picture?
I’m a simple living person while always striving not to be simple minded...let’s just say I simply can’t wrap my common sense brain around crypto currency and have grave concerns about its implications...
Think perhaps Alex should consider exposing the bigger picture of the FTX scandal-fallout, and especially the next day announcing of the "digital currency" trial being run in NY modeling in a very similar way the the digital yuan currency the CCP uses on it's people (China) in the ways of "social credit scoring" Forest for the trees...forest for the trees.
Disagree with you here Alex. In the first sentence I could tell these were "actors;" hard for me to watch, it's not great parody and the blockchain tech exists. One example, I use Brave. It's faster, private. On the blockchain video services and music apps exist and are potentially better. Yes there has been nonsensical tulip trading of "coin' that does nada. But this is similar to the beginning of the internet. Most of the initial co's don't exit. Google does and gmail, earthlink, yahoo...Blockchain is. And it will be everywhere.
FTX was a ponzi, Bitcoin and Ethereum are totally different. I'm not going to defend crypto here, but I do want to point out that FTX was an exchange that leveraged too too too far, which is how it ended up being like the video.
People in positions of power, influence, and control, are corrupted until proven otherwise.
It’s the 80/20 rule, if 80% of people are doing something that’s either wonderful or evil, and the other 20% are the opposite, who are you going to cater to?
I don’t get people who tell me you have to worry about the 20% who are good and tolerate 80% of evil, it’s just pathetic, lame and ignorant, and it’s a willful intended. Ignorance!
Thank you for letting me comment Mr. Berenson, God, I wish I could could control this addiction to comment here but, I need to be preoccupied with something more beneficial and I don’t have that right now…
oh, how well said in the article (and my preemptive apology, for the length):
“Our young are going to live with less material, social, and emotional security than their parents and grandparents, while our liberals are tearing down all sources of solidarity outside of radical politics, and our conservatives mostly don't care. The United States is busy destroying its higher education system, which used to be the envy of the world, all for the sake of ideologizing it. We are also destroying the capacity for excellence in science and nearly every other field of endeavor, for the sake of DEI ideology. The rich are getting richer, and the numbers of the economically precarious grow daily. And for the past two decades, Washington has not seen a war it didn't want to fight, even as the woke war machine understandably struggles to convince young Americans that serving in the armed forces is worth doing. Respect for God is in collapse among American youth. Violent crime is up. American pop culture celebrates what is most violent, sexual, and degraded in the human experience, and export that baseness globally.”
Again, that large hill you think you’re standing on, it’s next to a mass grave pit…
It's easy to sh!t on the crypto space right now with everything happening with FTX and before that LUNA but don't forget that banks are the biggest Ponzi schemes in history! And don't get me started on how Wallstreet and hedge funds play the market against the retailer, obviously never in the favor of the retailer. And the biggest scam of all is the FEDS who can print money out of thin air with nothing backing it. Oh and also maybe we can discuss JP Morgan and their manipulation of the gold market along with everything else. Anyone who has read the BTC white paper, actually read the entire thing, understands how different BTC is from anything else in crypto and how it has the capacity to give all of those who are NOT in the 1% their financial sovereignty back. That is the goal. And please never put BTC in the same group as the FED Coin/digital dollar/CBDC it is the antithesis to that!
Is crypto a scam? It's an interesting philosophical question. In a sane society, yes it would be effectively a scam. But we don't live in such a society. Fiat currency is underwritten by the force of law (legal tender), crypto is underwritten by the force of market confidence (belief it can be converted into legal tender and the market will remain buoyant). But in reality market confidence is necessary in all aspects of a hyper volatile, globalized capitalist economy, while conversely, in practice, a minimum of legal toleration is needed for crypto to operate.
Blockchain can have real value but current cryptos backed by nothing are effectively canned air. 100% speculative asset. A crypto currency backed by hard assets could have real value but then you have a middleman that kills some of the appeal of crypto.
Peter Schiff has been warning people about this stuff for years and has been the most vocal crypto critic of consequence and hated man by the crypto community.
Anyone reader here who thinks crypto and all things crypto isn't a con at its root, feel free to ID here for me the outfit I cry to for my assets back when anything makes my assets no longer available to me. Asking for a friend.
I have watched 2 or 3 different people explain crypto and I still can't grasp it. They said it was like property you own, but it still didn't make sence. The one guy borrowed 1 million dollars and invested it and explained he would do it again as soon as he paid back the loan. Interest rates were much lower then but it just didn't add up. Anyone that invested with the tubby vegan really should have known better. How stupid they all must be. They need to look in their selves in the mirrow and say 100 times, I'm a basketball player, I'm not qualified to make these decisions or anything else that happens off the court. Just like Kyrie, the world really isn't flat.
Ah, time to go back and watch 'The Big Short' once more. Today it's crypto, in 2008 it was credit default swaps. I enjoy reprising this film periodically to be reminded how gullible and greedy humans are. This FTX kingpin Bankman-Fried is a bit of a loon and a genius at the same time, but in the end he's the evil nephew of Bernie Madoff. Even if young Sam is in a protected zone where there is no extradition agreement, we need to send a team of Seals to drag his butt back to the U.S. where he can have a fair trial and then is properly euthanized. The bad guys in 2008 never paid a price. Maybe this time justice will be done.
Alex, I am sure you know, but Cory is one of the biggest advocates for Bitcoin around. Do you at least acknowledge that Bitcoin is different than "crypto" due to its unique first principles? Bitcoiners have been fighting the "crypto" scam from day one, but you never differentiate between the two, and I would be curious to know your thoughts. I would also be curious as to how much research you have done into Bitcoin, specifically.
BTC is not a scam. Amazing how Alex draws broad conclusions about something he knows so little about. His knowledge of the vaccines does not make him an expert on crypto. But the vax news is old so he has to move onto other topics. Unfortunately, he doesn't do any research on the topic before posting.
Alex, I'm a big fan. I was in medical school during the pandemic and am so thankful for all you've done.
I've also got a history working for a crypto VC and am still very much involved in the crypto space.
But to call all cryptocurrencies a scam, you miss the mark completely.
The FTX scam is a story as old as the financial system. A CENTRALISED entity becoming greedy and overleveraged and going belly up (aside from all the illegal things going on there too).
Crypto is the antithesis to this.
The distinction between technology and scam becomes clear when we focus on FTX specifically:
FTX could have been an exchange for roughly ANY commodity.
Sure Crypto is also rife with cashgrabs and scams, no doubt about it. I for one would welcome regulation in this space. But there's real innovation happening here. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and be sure to be nuanced. That's what makes a great journalist. So don't call ALL crypto a scam.
Bitcoin was created to solve the counterparty risk problem in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Also Decentralised Finance (DeFi) which are protocols built on top of Ethereum worked exactly as designed when all this excess leverage was wiped out during the FTX blow up (or earlier this year when a $50bn protocol went up in smoke). The point of crypto is to create antifragile systems where you don't have to trust anyone, it's trustless, decentralised and permissionless. You don't have to trust that a CEO or bank doesn't blow up or misuses your funds.
Lastly, here's some other brilliant research that may help you in your endeavor:
If you're going to make a forray into commenting on crypto, I hope you do so with the understanding that Bitcoin is not "crypto" as most people refer to it. "Crypto" is the generalized term people use to refer to the THOUSANDS of shitcoins (which are basically centralized, unregistered securities that pass the Howey Test and were issued to raise money for a project).
Bitcoin is not any of that. Bitcoin is the most pristine form of money mankind has ever devised. There is no central organization around it. It was not created to raise money for a project. It is the most secure and constant monetary system on the planet.
Bitcoin is gold, but better. Because when gold goes up in price people can just find more gold to mine. But nobody can find more Bitcoin to mine -- making it the hardest money history has ever known. And monetary history has a clear constant -- THE HARDEST MONEY ALWAYS WINS IN THE END.
Furthermore, I cannot send gold anywhere in the world 24/7 unless I store the gold with a trusted third party and use a derivative to then transfer the value of that gold over time and space. This is the problem that has plagued gold for centuries (third parties with gold on deposit issuing more derivative "IOU" notes than they have gold in the vault / treasury).
This is not the case with Bitcoin -- which requires no third parties to store or transfer or trade. Thus it removes the biggest problem with gold -- TRUST and EASE OF USE.
Finally -- Bitcoin is literally impossible to confiscate. You can travel anywhere in the world, across any international border with all of your wealth intact, and nobody can confiscate it from you.
For example, imagine trying to flee Russia or the Ukraine after Putin initiated this war with all your wealth in gold -- you couldn't do it.
But you would easily have been able to do it with all of your wealth in Bitcoin -- because you can literally carry it in your brain.
Bitcoin is the greatest achievement in monetary history and will replace gold as the global reserve currency, ending its 5,000+ year reign. There is no other conceivable outcome. No other path makes sense.
Everything that Bitcoiners have been saying FOR YEARS such as "Not your keys, not your coins" and "there is no second best" and so on have just come home to roost.
All those involved in Bitcoin knew that these ponzi schemes would fall. But Bitcoin remains -- and always will.
Now people realize that there is nothing better than Bitcoin. And, there is no better way to buy or store Bitcoin other than through self custody and peer-to-peer.
All roads lead to Bitcoin. All outcomes lead to hyperbitcoinization. No other alternatives exist.
Apparently they're still pushing Covid vaccines in the Philippines, but also wasting a lot of them. The US government is pushing them also in the Philippines, probably on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies as their uptake has plummeted in the US, especially for children, where they are far more harmful than helpful.
You should also contact Terry Duffy, CEO of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group. He called out SBF as a fraud back in March and was very scathing about it.
By the way, took a walk earlier and came to realize after hearing that Tony Fuck-i was at the White House again shrieking about masks, wouldn’t the irony be great if this guy got an infectious disease that no one can treat, and he wound up dying in the ICU, alone and unattended, being allegedly treated by careless uncaring cruel healthcare workers that Covid created?
Big supporter of your work Alex because you don't go for the "easy" explanation. Saying that crypto is all a scam is just false. Are there scam artists in the space - YES! Is the tech new and still working on effective Use cases and so risky - Also YES!
But given that $$$ is going to go digital, and governments are creating their own digital currency that can then be turned on and off depending on whether you are deemed a "good/compliant citizen" (which you of all people know about), then what crypto represents - and Bitcoin in particular - is our only hope for monetary freedom in the future. I so hope you can learn more about this space and give it the fair shot it deserves and needs.
If you actively seek to train millions of persons to believe that fraud is okay and legitimate, a certain proportion will go along. Even if that percentage is only one, it would still add up to tens of thousands of persons. So, I think pretty much depends on how we train the members of our society. And there is a constant on-going, always accelerating program to teach Americans that fraud is a reasonable or legitimate way to earn. And those persons who are training us are accelerating in their mania and desperation. Just look at R. Kiyosaki author 'rich dad/poor dad.' Well, I visited the B&N bookstore - where I spotted his latest book-thing, 'Capitalist Manifesto" - OMG He makes all this money. Why is he still unhappy? That is my question. In it he also make a peculiar claim. Says that as a returning marine from Vietnam, getting picking up in the car by "poor dad" (who, it turns out was not that poor after all) he was met by apparently throngs of protestors and spit on. Now I have read, elsewhere, that that such things did NOT happen and it is all "urban myth."
FTX isn't even really a crypto story, just like Wolf of Wall Street isn't really a finance story and Smartest Men in the Room isn't a story about running an electric company.
Those things are just the setting for the fraud.
This is not even a story about cryptocurrencies specifically. This is a story about people building some intermediary on top of crypto and then taking advantage of the fact that people have no clue that is what they are doing to scam people out of their cash. These failures are all in third party services like exchanges, lenders, bank-like-things and not failures of crypto at all. If you don't hold the private key you don't own crypto should be the lesson people are learning from this.
FTX was set up from the getgo to power the Democratic machine and set the stage for the Central Bank digital currencies.
More here:
https://decodetheworld.substack.com/p/the-ftx-crypto-central-bank-operation
Hell, it's the modus operandi of both the Federal Reserve cabal and the central banking system that reaches worldwide. Dollars backed by nothing. Deposits loaned out dozens upon dozens of times--with ZERO dollars on deposit required to back the loans! FTX was nothing but a run on a crooked, upside down exchange and exactly what would happen if there were a run on the banks. I'm with SimulationCommander on this one--it's simply the setting for the fraud.
"The love of money" is at the root...
I don't totally agree with this. Our current monetary system is really based on the same blind faith that dollars are worth something ever since we went off of the gold standard. I am not a fan of crypto, let alone Bitcoin, but I do appreciate the idea of a monetary system outside the corruption of Government. So at least Bitcoin gives us a nice start to finding a new monetary system though it has many limitations one of which being the need for electricity and internet.
Alex, I love your work, however, calling all of crypto a scam is badly mistaken. Similar to , the dot com bust or all of Wall St, it has attracted numerous bad actors. Digital Assets are a real thing and Bitcoin and Ethereum are amongst the most important inventions every in technology. Think of much of crypto as digital Marriott Bonvoy points or Amex points. Please think of crypto as digital assets used to reward individuals in a particular context. Not a scam at all but a huge part of the next phase of the Internet.
crypto is for people who believe men can get pregnant, modern monetary theory fixes inflation, electric cars solve climate change, socialism works if done the "right way", and the vaccines are "safe and effective".
DarkHorse podcast #150.
FTX funded a $15M "clinical trial" with dubious methodology of ivermectin...with results claiming that it does not work against COVID.
Now--regardless of whatever anyone thinks about ivermectin--knowing that FTX was in cahoots with the Dems...doesn't THIS sound interesting?
So glad I invested my money instead in tangible assets, like baseball cards and Beanie Babies.
Hey Alex, speaking of the FTX scam, have you seen the "research" they were funding???
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/ftx-funded-18-million-towards-research-claimed-ivermectin-hydroxychloroquine-didnt-work-covid/
Marc Cohodes is a really good get. He's been blistering about SBF-Madoff and his ex-gf, the MSM deemed "alt right" Caroline as they passed off hundreds of millions and cool billions to each other with no accounting controls whatsoever. This is not virtue signaling progressive generosity on any examination. But oh, did SBF-Madoff know and love to play that game.
As SBF-Madoff had people shill about how he was interested in making money for altruism ends to give it away and drives a Toyota Corolla in the Bahamas, others like Cohodes noticed the guy was living in a $40 million monster-sized penthouse.
Maxine Waters blew SBF-Madoff a kiss after a Congressional hearing as he bribed, I mean contributed to her and most of her friends on this financial oversight committee. That changes come January but not after tens of millions paid off to Democrat pols and of course Joe Biden.
In addition, Jeff Childers highlighted how the left wing publication "The Intercept" was gifted the moolah via a SBF-Madoff news grant outfit. Because not setting up a third party gateway promoting lockdowns and passport mandates would be unseemly. Getting the picture?
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/c-and-c-news-monday-november-21-2022?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=463409&post_id=85931871&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Please ask Elon to free Horsey: #FreeIronHorsey @Elon.
I’m a simple living person while always striving not to be simple minded...let’s just say I simply can’t wrap my common sense brain around crypto currency and have grave concerns about its implications...
Never got the jab, never bought bitcoin. I don’t do scams.
Think perhaps Alex should consider exposing the bigger picture of the FTX scandal-fallout, and especially the next day announcing of the "digital currency" trial being run in NY modeling in a very similar way the the digital yuan currency the CCP uses on it's people (China) in the ways of "social credit scoring" Forest for the trees...forest for the trees.
FTX being a democrat money laundering scam, even with a "TrumpLose" fund, won't open your eyes will it?
https://chrischambers.substack.com/p/alex-berenson-is-the-new-poster-boy
and get vaxx'd
Disagree with you here Alex. In the first sentence I could tell these were "actors;" hard for me to watch, it's not great parody and the blockchain tech exists. One example, I use Brave. It's faster, private. On the blockchain video services and music apps exist and are potentially better. Yes there has been nonsensical tulip trading of "coin' that does nada. But this is similar to the beginning of the internet. Most of the initial co's don't exit. Google does and gmail, earthlink, yahoo...Blockchain is. And it will be everywhere.
Not on subject for this column, but...
Al Roker with Blood Clots After Receiving Covid 19 Booster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KraLqLvLCPg
Yes more apparent than ever and it’s be apparent for a long time....I mean the demonrats🐀 have so many ways to cheat.
FTX was a ponzi, Bitcoin and Ethereum are totally different. I'm not going to defend crypto here, but I do want to point out that FTX was an exchange that leveraged too too too far, which is how it ended up being like the video.
For much more on the FTX subject, see this substack:
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/
People in positions of power, influence, and control, are corrupted until proven otherwise.
It’s the 80/20 rule, if 80% of people are doing something that’s either wonderful or evil, and the other 20% are the opposite, who are you going to cater to?
I don’t get people who tell me you have to worry about the 20% who are good and tolerate 80% of evil, it’s just pathetic, lame and ignorant, and it’s a willful intended. Ignorance!
Thank you for letting me comment Mr. Berenson, God, I wish I could could control this addiction to comment here but, I need to be preoccupied with something more beneficial and I don’t have that right now…
😊🦃☀️
One could argue that the federal reserve is the biggest scam that was orchestrated against the people of the US.
Again, sorry but I’m going to keep putting these links at Mr. Berenson’s sites that talk about disgusting behavior, so here’s my newest:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/through-gritted-teeth-a-good-word-for-qatar-world-cup-censors/
oh, how well said in the article (and my preemptive apology, for the length):
“Our young are going to live with less material, social, and emotional security than their parents and grandparents, while our liberals are tearing down all sources of solidarity outside of radical politics, and our conservatives mostly don't care. The United States is busy destroying its higher education system, which used to be the envy of the world, all for the sake of ideologizing it. We are also destroying the capacity for excellence in science and nearly every other field of endeavor, for the sake of DEI ideology. The rich are getting richer, and the numbers of the economically precarious grow daily. And for the past two decades, Washington has not seen a war it didn't want to fight, even as the woke war machine understandably struggles to convince young Americans that serving in the armed forces is worth doing. Respect for God is in collapse among American youth. Violent crime is up. American pop culture celebrates what is most violent, sexual, and degraded in the human experience, and export that baseness globally.”
Again, that large hill you think you’re standing on, it’s next to a mass grave pit…
It's easy to sh!t on the crypto space right now with everything happening with FTX and before that LUNA but don't forget that banks are the biggest Ponzi schemes in history! And don't get me started on how Wallstreet and hedge funds play the market against the retailer, obviously never in the favor of the retailer. And the biggest scam of all is the FEDS who can print money out of thin air with nothing backing it. Oh and also maybe we can discuss JP Morgan and their manipulation of the gold market along with everything else. Anyone who has read the BTC white paper, actually read the entire thing, understands how different BTC is from anything else in crypto and how it has the capacity to give all of those who are NOT in the 1% their financial sovereignty back. That is the goal. And please never put BTC in the same group as the FED Coin/digital dollar/CBDC it is the antithesis to that!
Is crypto a scam? It's an interesting philosophical question. In a sane society, yes it would be effectively a scam. But we don't live in such a society. Fiat currency is underwritten by the force of law (legal tender), crypto is underwritten by the force of market confidence (belief it can be converted into legal tender and the market will remain buoyant). But in reality market confidence is necessary in all aspects of a hyper volatile, globalized capitalist economy, while conversely, in practice, a minimum of legal toleration is needed for crypto to operate.
The name is Sam Bankster-Fraud.
Blockchain can have real value but current cryptos backed by nothing are effectively canned air. 100% speculative asset. A crypto currency backed by hard assets could have real value but then you have a middleman that kills some of the appeal of crypto.
Peter Schiff has been warning people about this stuff for years and has been the most vocal crypto critic of consequence and hated man by the crypto community.
Doesn't work; no three minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Is there a direct link?
FTX May Just Be the Tip of the Iceberg,' Posobiec and Darren Beattie on the 'Collapse of Crypto' | Human Events
https://humanevents.com/2022/11/21/jack-posobiec-and-darren-beattie-talk-collapsing-crypto-company-ftx?utm_source=PMI_Ecquire&utm_medium=deployer&utm_campaign=Human+Events+Daily&utm_term=6131
Anyone reader here who thinks crypto and all things crypto isn't a con at its root, feel free to ID here for me the outfit I cry to for my assets back when anything makes my assets no longer available to me. Asking for a friend.
As I've said to everyone I know since the beginning, there's no there there.
Here’s a lot of dot connecting. Take it slow: https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/a-grand-unified-theory-of-the-ftx
Thanks, Alex. Can't wait to read this. I understand so little about crypto.
I have watched 2 or 3 different people explain crypto and I still can't grasp it. They said it was like property you own, but it still didn't make sence. The one guy borrowed 1 million dollars and invested it and explained he would do it again as soon as he paid back the loan. Interest rates were much lower then but it just didn't add up. Anyone that invested with the tubby vegan really should have known better. How stupid they all must be. They need to look in their selves in the mirrow and say 100 times, I'm a basketball player, I'm not qualified to make these decisions or anything else that happens off the court. Just like Kyrie, the world really isn't flat.
Ah, time to go back and watch 'The Big Short' once more. Today it's crypto, in 2008 it was credit default swaps. I enjoy reprising this film periodically to be reminded how gullible and greedy humans are. This FTX kingpin Bankman-Fried is a bit of a loon and a genius at the same time, but in the end he's the evil nephew of Bernie Madoff. Even if young Sam is in a protected zone where there is no extradition agreement, we need to send a team of Seals to drag his butt back to the U.S. where he can have a fair trial and then is properly euthanized. The bad guys in 2008 never paid a price. Maybe this time justice will be done.
Crypto is just economic alchemy. The people who are losing their shirts deserve to.
Alex, I am sure you know, but Cory is one of the biggest advocates for Bitcoin around. Do you at least acknowledge that Bitcoin is different than "crypto" due to its unique first principles? Bitcoiners have been fighting the "crypto" scam from day one, but you never differentiate between the two, and I would be curious to know your thoughts. I would also be curious as to how much research you have done into Bitcoin, specifically.
Not ever going to watch anything from berensen who is voting for Joe & Ho
BTC is not a scam. Amazing how Alex draws broad conclusions about something he knows so little about. His knowledge of the vaccines does not make him an expert on crypto. But the vax news is old so he has to move onto other topics. Unfortunately, he doesn't do any research on the topic before posting.
F#@k, that's my broker!
Alex, I'm a big fan. I was in medical school during the pandemic and am so thankful for all you've done.
I've also got a history working for a crypto VC and am still very much involved in the crypto space.
But to call all cryptocurrencies a scam, you miss the mark completely.
The FTX scam is a story as old as the financial system. A CENTRALISED entity becoming greedy and overleveraged and going belly up (aside from all the illegal things going on there too).
Crypto is the antithesis to this.
The distinction between technology and scam becomes clear when we focus on FTX specifically:
FTX could have been an exchange for roughly ANY commodity.
Sure Crypto is also rife with cashgrabs and scams, no doubt about it. I for one would welcome regulation in this space. But there's real innovation happening here. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and be sure to be nuanced. That's what makes a great journalist. So don't call ALL crypto a scam.
Bitcoin was created to solve the counterparty risk problem in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Also Decentralised Finance (DeFi) which are protocols built on top of Ethereum worked exactly as designed when all this excess leverage was wiped out during the FTX blow up (or earlier this year when a $50bn protocol went up in smoke). The point of crypto is to create antifragile systems where you don't have to trust anyone, it's trustless, decentralised and permissionless. You don't have to trust that a CEO or bank doesn't blow up or misuses your funds.
Lastly, here's some other brilliant research that may help you in your endeavor:
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/a-grand-unified-theory-of-the-ftx
If you're going to make a forray into commenting on crypto, I hope you do so with the understanding that Bitcoin is not "crypto" as most people refer to it. "Crypto" is the generalized term people use to refer to the THOUSANDS of shitcoins (which are basically centralized, unregistered securities that pass the Howey Test and were issued to raise money for a project).
Bitcoin is not any of that. Bitcoin is the most pristine form of money mankind has ever devised. There is no central organization around it. It was not created to raise money for a project. It is the most secure and constant monetary system on the planet.
Bitcoin is gold, but better. Because when gold goes up in price people can just find more gold to mine. But nobody can find more Bitcoin to mine -- making it the hardest money history has ever known. And monetary history has a clear constant -- THE HARDEST MONEY ALWAYS WINS IN THE END.
Furthermore, I cannot send gold anywhere in the world 24/7 unless I store the gold with a trusted third party and use a derivative to then transfer the value of that gold over time and space. This is the problem that has plagued gold for centuries (third parties with gold on deposit issuing more derivative "IOU" notes than they have gold in the vault / treasury).
This is not the case with Bitcoin -- which requires no third parties to store or transfer or trade. Thus it removes the biggest problem with gold -- TRUST and EASE OF USE.
Finally -- Bitcoin is literally impossible to confiscate. You can travel anywhere in the world, across any international border with all of your wealth intact, and nobody can confiscate it from you.
For example, imagine trying to flee Russia or the Ukraine after Putin initiated this war with all your wealth in gold -- you couldn't do it.
But you would easily have been able to do it with all of your wealth in Bitcoin -- because you can literally carry it in your brain.
Bitcoin is the greatest achievement in monetary history and will replace gold as the global reserve currency, ending its 5,000+ year reign. There is no other conceivable outcome. No other path makes sense.
Everything that Bitcoiners have been saying FOR YEARS such as "Not your keys, not your coins" and "there is no second best" and so on have just come home to roost.
All those involved in Bitcoin knew that these ponzi schemes would fall. But Bitcoin remains -- and always will.
Now people realize that there is nothing better than Bitcoin. And, there is no better way to buy or store Bitcoin other than through self custody and peer-to-peer.
All roads lead to Bitcoin. All outcomes lead to hyperbitcoinization. No other alternatives exist.
Apparently they're still pushing Covid vaccines in the Philippines, but also wasting a lot of them. The US government is pushing them also in the Philippines, probably on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies as their uptake has plummeted in the US, especially for children, where they are far more harmful than helpful.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/11/21/22/p156-billion-worth-of-covid-shots-wasted-doh
https://news-aws.abs-cbn.com/news/11/21/22/us-gives-additional-5-m-covid-funds-for-vaccine-rollout-in-ph
You should also contact Terry Duffy, CEO of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group. He called out SBF as a fraud back in March and was very scathing about it.
By the way, took a walk earlier and came to realize after hearing that Tony Fuck-i was at the White House again shrieking about masks, wouldn’t the irony be great if this guy got an infectious disease that no one can treat, and he wound up dying in the ICU, alone and unattended, being allegedly treated by careless uncaring cruel healthcare workers that Covid created?
We can dream and hope……
Big supporter of your work Alex because you don't go for the "easy" explanation. Saying that crypto is all a scam is just false. Are there scam artists in the space - YES! Is the tech new and still working on effective Use cases and so risky - Also YES!
But given that $$$ is going to go digital, and governments are creating their own digital currency that can then be turned on and off depending on whether you are deemed a "good/compliant citizen" (which you of all people know about), then what crypto represents - and Bitcoin in particular - is our only hope for monetary freedom in the future. I so hope you can learn more about this space and give it the fair shot it deserves and needs.
By the way, per the new post just now 11-22 at Noon, wait till they bring back leprosy and maybe even the Black Plague…
And there is always Anthrax for laughs…
If you actively seek to train millions of persons to believe that fraud is okay and legitimate, a certain proportion will go along. Even if that percentage is only one, it would still add up to tens of thousands of persons. So, I think pretty much depends on how we train the members of our society. And there is a constant on-going, always accelerating program to teach Americans that fraud is a reasonable or legitimate way to earn. And those persons who are training us are accelerating in their mania and desperation. Just look at R. Kiyosaki author 'rich dad/poor dad.' Well, I visited the B&N bookstore - where I spotted his latest book-thing, 'Capitalist Manifesto" - OMG He makes all this money. Why is he still unhappy? That is my question. In it he also make a peculiar claim. Says that as a returning marine from Vietnam, getting picking up in the car by "poor dad" (who, it turns out was not that poor after all) he was met by apparently throngs of protestors and spit on. Now I have read, elsewhere, that that such things did NOT happen and it is all "urban myth."
fraud is just what we do