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> He has a crypto fund that he needs to make returns on, so he has been shilling crypto / web3 / "decentralized" / blockchain hard with his personal brand. Tha

> He has a crypto fund that he needs to make returns on, so he has been shilling crypto / web3 / "decentralized" / blockchain hard with his personal brand. That's unfair. What if the reason he has a crypto fund in the first place is because he genuinely believes it's the future? That seems to be the case with everything he's said for years and how he makes investment decisions.

MaknMoreGtnLess 5y ago
Here how you prove the fraud: The hard problem that needs to be solved in a Decentralized blockchain is the risk and effect of bad actors. None of the current funds, including that of MA, addresses this risk. Instead, all current plays are about building Managed Blockchains that's just needless complexity where federated databases would have sufficed and been far more efficient (perf., cost, complexity) There's a fine line between vision and orchestrated fraud. It's always been easier to commit fraud and once you're managing billions of other people's money, it's extremely hard to not take the easy path. Bottomline: This is a pump and dump speculation play. HN is too smart to fall for it.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  Which bad actors? One way MA manages at least some of them is by not investing in them, and instead investing in high quality teams. That’s a large part of the value-add of professional VCs, be it in blockchain/web3 or any other domain, that they have the expertise to discern legit teams from scam ones.
  - MaknMoreGtnLess 5y ago
    > Which bad actors actors on the blockchain > That’s a large part of the value-add of professional VCs, be it in blockchain/web3 or any other domain, that they have the expertise to discern legit teams from scam ones. That's a tiny part of it and as useful to society as hiring away nuclear physicists to work on ad prediction and tiktok recommendation algorithms.
    - SkyMarshal 5y ago
      Vetting early stage ventures is actually a large part of the VC job, not a tiny part. It's the entire reason for the accredited investor laws, to make it more difficult for scammers to scam the public.
  - verdverm 5y ago
    I see it as more how do we allocate resources to better causes in society, something blockchain based ecosystems purported to solve, but have this far not, exactly because it is a social problem not a technology one. Blockchain makes all of these things harder and more complex. I have yet to see something a blockchain can do that we could not with existing technology. The supposedly better incentive structures aren't and are rather the opposite from what I can tell.

MaknMoreGtnLess 5y ago

Here how you prove the fraud: The hard problem that needs to be solved in a Decentralized blockchain is the risk and effect of bad actors. None of the current funds, including that of MA, addresses this risk. Instead, all current plays are about building Managed Blockchains that's just needless complexity where federated databases would have sufficed and been far more efficient (perf., cost, complexity) There's a fine line between vision and orchestrated fraud. It's always been easier to commit fraud and once you're managing billions of other people's money, it's extremely hard to not take the easy path. Bottomline: This is a pump and dump speculation play. HN is too smart to fall for it.

SkyMarshal 5y ago
Which bad actors? One way MA manages at least some of them is by not investing in them, and instead investing in high quality teams. That’s a large part of the value-add of professional VCs, be it in blockchain/web3 or any other domain, that they have the expertise to discern legit teams from scam ones.
- MaknMoreGtnLess 5y ago
  > Which bad actors actors on the blockchain > That’s a large part of the value-add of professional VCs, be it in blockchain/web3 or any other domain, that they have the expertise to discern legit teams from scam ones. That's a tiny part of it and as useful to society as hiring away nuclear physicists to work on ad prediction and tiktok recommendation algorithms.
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    Vetting early stage ventures is actually a large part of the VC job, not a tiny part. It's the entire reason for the accredited investor laws, to make it more difficult for scammers to scam the public.
- verdverm 5y ago
  I see it as more how do we allocate resources to better causes in society, something blockchain based ecosystems purported to solve, but have this far not, exactly because it is a social problem not a technology one. Blockchain makes all of these things harder and more complex. I have yet to see something a blockchain can do that we could not with existing technology. The supposedly better incentive structures aren't and are rather the opposite from what I can tell.