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The Solana trenches are effectively a giant crime-riddled casino. Everyone who plays understands this -- you can make money but you're essentially gambling. I'm

The Solana trenches are effectively a giant crime-riddled casino. Everyone who plays understands this -- you can make money but you're essentially gambling. I'm not saying this is OK, but it's the current state of things. When this $Libra token launched, everything else dumped as capital flowed into it, and then effectively got siphoned off by insiders. So even people that didn't chase "Argentina's coin" got screwed. Rinse, lather, repeat. There are some winners in this game, mostly insiders and cabals, but a whole bunch of losers. I would say something's gotta give, but the stark reality is that America's casinos are always jampacked with dream chasers.

manquer 2y ago
> you can make money but you're essentially gambling. It is much worse than that, legitimate gambling is fine. In meme coins everyone knows they are scamming and and it is a pump and dump but just think that there would be some dumb "bag holder".
- quantified 2y ago
  Sort of like a casino version of musical chairs, but the there's no music.
- maxbrt 2y ago
  I was at an (academic!) conference about Crypto recently with a friend. I am an outsider to the whole topic and wanted to "expand my horizon" and see if maybe my expectations of if it being mostly a scam were wrong. In one of the first talks we went to, the panel speaker mentioned that Trump pumping-and-dumping his memecoin was a good thing, because that more or less justifies their own position in doing so, and that it would maybe lower their legal fees in the future. This was followed by a big laugh from the audience. These people fully know what they are doing.
TZubiri 2y ago
I don't get the crime part for the most part. If you know the rules of the game and you willingly participate, then how is it different from any casino? I don't buy into any of the people that claim they were scammed, they knew the rules and they tried to make money out of nothing. Other than perhaps trading unregulated securities, I don't see the actual fraud. To be clear it is distinct from pretending to be a security for an actual productive company, that is actual fraud, but usually the coins are very transparent about having no underlying value.
- andyferris 2y ago
  Is there such a thing as truly "unregulated" here? What I mean is - pyramid schemes are illegal irrespective of the mechanism, so there's always _some_ basic regulation for these things. I feel pyramid schemes are just a special kind of pump-and-dump scheme, and I don't understand how these aren't being punished effectively and swiftly by the existing laws and enforcement agencies...
  - TZubiri 2y ago
    Unregulated means that it isn't presented to the regulating authorities, not only is it not submitted for approval to the SEC or the Argentina equivalent (CNV), but it wasn't even submitted for chartering as an LLC (SRL) or Corp (SA) in any Argentina Jurisdiction.
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  >I don't get the crime part for the most part. Neither do many of the people who say such a thing here. Instead they regurgitate classic HN talking points around crypto without really considering their logic. Simple example: calling something like bitcoin a "ponzi scheme" when it's literally run by nobody in particular and has no specific fraudulent promotion being done by its administrators (since there are none) for the sake of personal gain through redirected funds.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    _Bitcoin_ isn't a Ponzi scheme, though it does tend to behave a little like one. Many of these memecoins are, essentially, intentional Ponzi schemes, tho.
  - TZubiri 2y ago
    I do think that there' nuances to crypto. But even bitcoin has some ponzi like properties: 1- high reward to early adopters 2- needed to be shared to have value Although I will make the important distinction that the asset doesn't lose value once it can no longer be shared, which is typical of pyramid schemes. Quite the contrary, it reached critical mass and gained first mover monopoly

manquer 2y ago

> you can make money but you're essentially gambling. It is much worse than that, legitimate gambling is fine. In meme coins everyone knows they are scamming and and it is a pump and dump but just think that there would be some dumb "bag holder".

quantified 2y ago
Sort of like a casino version of musical chairs, but the there's no music.
maxbrt 2y ago
I was at an (academic!) conference about Crypto recently with a friend. I am an outsider to the whole topic and wanted to "expand my horizon" and see if maybe my expectations of if it being mostly a scam were wrong. In one of the first talks we went to, the panel speaker mentioned that Trump pumping-and-dumping his memecoin was a good thing, because that more or less justifies their own position in doing so, and that it would maybe lower their legal fees in the future. This was followed by a big laugh from the audience. These people fully know what they are doing.

TZubiri 2y ago

I don't get the crime part for the most part. If you know the rules of the game and you willingly participate, then how is it different from any casino? I don't buy into any of the people that claim they were scammed, they knew the rules and they tried to make money out of nothing. Other than perhaps trading unregulated securities, I don't see the actual fraud. To be clear it is distinct from pretending to be a security for an actual productive company, that is actual fraud, but usually the coins are very transparent about having no underlying value.

andyferris 2y ago
Is there such a thing as truly "unregulated" here? What I mean is - pyramid schemes are illegal irrespective of the mechanism, so there's always _some_ basic regulation for these things. I feel pyramid schemes are just a special kind of pump-and-dump scheme, and I don't understand how these aren't being punished effectively and swiftly by the existing laws and enforcement agencies...
- TZubiri 2y ago
  Unregulated means that it isn't presented to the regulating authorities, not only is it not submitted for approval to the SEC or the Argentina equivalent (CNV), but it wasn't even submitted for chartering as an LLC (SRL) or Corp (SA) in any Argentina Jurisdiction.
southernplaces7 2y ago
>I don't get the crime part for the most part. Neither do many of the people who say such a thing here. Instead they regurgitate classic HN talking points around crypto without really considering their logic. Simple example: calling something like bitcoin a "ponzi scheme" when it's literally run by nobody in particular and has no specific fraudulent promotion being done by its administrators (since there are none) for the sake of personal gain through redirected funds.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  _Bitcoin_ isn't a Ponzi scheme, though it does tend to behave a little like one. Many of these memecoins are, essentially, intentional Ponzi schemes, tho.
- TZubiri 2y ago
  I do think that there' nuances to crypto. But even bitcoin has some ponzi like properties: 1- high reward to early adopters 2- needed to be shared to have value Although I will make the important distinction that the asset doesn't lose value once it can no longer be shared, which is typical of pyramid schemes. Quite the contrary, it reached critical mass and gained first mover monopoly