Apple Looking for a Manager With Experience in Cryptocurrency

[strwrsfrk]

Would you prefer the term Ponzi scheme?

Actually no. SOURCE

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return with little risk to investors. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam which generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors. This is similar to a pyramid scheme in that both are based on using new investors' funds to pay the earlier backers."

Bitcoin is highly volatile. While I believe investors will see a high rate of return in general, there is a ton of risk and the long-term value is in the development of the technology and its global applications. People who talk about investing in crypto technology as a means by which to get rich quickly, or who believe there is no-to-low risk, are wrong.

It's not a pyramid scheme because they're seeking investors. It's a pyramid scheme because more people buying into it is the only way existing people actually make money back from their investment.

(You could say that's also true of the stock market, but the stock market is at least somewhat based on real values, rather than thin air.)

By this logic, professional sports teams are pyramid schemes. They only generate value because people are interested in the sport and the entities that run the corporations can sell tickets, ads, and licenses. The more people buy into the sport's ecosystem, the more valuable the sport or team in question is. If the fans disappeared, so would the sport.

I don't understand the argument that there is zero value or that blockchain functionality is being conjured from thin air. People are doing things with it, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of examples as such online. Even something as simple as a video game being built on blockchain is something (EXAMPLE). It doesn't have to be your particular something, but it exists and is meaningful to a group of people.

 

[31 Flavas]

You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

If you got cut a paper check for wages or payment (let say, you sold something on eBay). Would you be opposed to traditional banks and traditional infrastructure using technology or implementing a system that allows for settlement in seconds to minutes vs days or a week, right?

I mean, your bank may give you instant access to the cash on that paper check. But if it bounces, they'll claw that money back.

Are you saying you'd reject a system that would provide near instant settlement just because it has crypto in its name or pedigree?

 

[31 Flavas]

It's not a pyramid scheme because they're seeking investors. It's a pyramid scheme because more people buying into it is the only way existing people actually make money back from their investment.

(You could say that's also true of the stock market, but the stock market is at least somewhat based on real values, rather than thin air.)

Well, it's great you're recognizing there is a flaw in assigning the pyramid scheme model to all of crypto -- Because you realize it could just as much be assigned to all of the stock market, too.

Individual stocks can be bogus and can be scams. Just as individual cryptos can be scams. But, there are legitimate businesses who create a valuable product or service and the investors get rewarded for it. Likewise, individual cryptos can provide a valuable product or service which will reward those who invest in them.

It'll take time to understand the value being provided by crypto. But once you get it - there's no going back like when you realized how powerful access to the internet is.

That doesn't mean that at that point you dump everything into bitcoin or etherium or dogecoin. But, like the internet, you realize why would I want to limit myself to just the old way of doing things.

 

[chucker23n1]

"Sure, most multilevel marketing is bad, but… the next one won't be! Pinky promise!"

 

[31 Flavas]

The point is not that "well banks don't need branches to operate" the point is "human civilisation as we know it is not going to stop using bank branches 'because bitcoin'".

Isn't that what blockbuster said? What retail stores said? What was said about CD’s, dvd, and blue-ray disks?

Noone will stop using video rental stores… No will stop going to stores… Everyone will always want physical media…

One thing COVID showed us was that business woefully underutilize and, as individuals, woefully under demand remote work options where appropriate.

It’s not that we don't need video rentals, or retail shopping, or personal audio and video collections. But how we do those activities will absolutely change overtime. Just as how a business will operate, how the employees will work, etc

Banks won't be immune and you’re a fool if you think everyone will need the corporate structure of a bank. Now, everyone will need banking. But how its performed and conducted will absolutely change over time.

If you do think people will suddenly no longer need bank branches "because bitcoin", you have zero clue about why people go to a bank branch.

But, what if you no longer need the physical protection for your cash that a bank provides? What if you have a wallet that can't be robbed or pilfered? Where your employer or customers can directly deposit to? What if you can get a loan instantly using assets that you have digitally stored in your “wallet” whether thats your house or car or your business or your sports cards or pokemon cards.

To futuristic to believe? Try explaining to someone from the 1980’s or earlier that you won't need to go to the store anymore for anything because of magical rectangle you hold in your pocket.

 

[Stephen.R]

Isn't that what blockbuster said? What retail stores said? What was said about CD’s, dvd, and blue-ray disks?

Noone will stop using video rental stores… No will stop going to stores… Everyone will always want physical media…

Video rental started in 1975 in Germany.
If we assume it died this year that’s a 46 year life span.

banks have existed since at least the 1400s. One of the primary things that a bank does (lending people money) has been a concept since Ancient Greece.

Try explaining to someone from the 1980’s or earlier that you won't need to go to the store anymore for anything because of magical rectangle you hold in your pocket.

Online shopping is an evolutionary step from television shopping which was an evolutionary step from shopping catalogs.

Any other bad examples you’d like to try?

 

[31 Flavas]

"Sure, most multilevel marketing is bad, but… the next one won't be! Pinky promise!"

Eh, i promise you i wont judge you for the opinions you hold crypto today when you need it tomorrow.

 

[31 Flavas]

Video rental started in 1975 in Germany.
If we assume it died this year that’s a 46 year life span.

banks have existed since at least the 1400s. One of the primary things that a bank does (lending people money) has been a concept since Ancient Greece.

And how long did the Roman empire exist until it didn't?

 

[chucker23n1]

And how long did the Roman empire exist until it didn't?

Ah yes, you should definitely use the analogy of an era that threw a continent into turmoil for an entire millennium. Great sales pitch for crypto.

 

[Stephen.R]

And how long did the Roman empire exist until it didn't?

That seems kind of irrelevant as the concept I mentioned survived the collapse of the Roman Empire until today.

 

[Stephen.R]

Eh, i promise you i wont judge you for the opinions you hold crypto today when you need it tomorrow.

Why would anyone “need” cryptocurrency?

 

[31 Flavas]

Ah yes, you should definitely use the analogy of an era that threw a continent into turmoil for an entire millennium. Great sales pitch for crypto.

Really is more apt then you think it is.

 

[31 Flavas]

Online shopping is an evolutionary step from television shopping which was an evolutionary step from shopping catalogs.

Any other bad examples you’d like to try?

"Crypto" isn't much different. It's just an extension of using the internet applied to money. This isn't a redesign of money as much as it is moving it to the internet and using the tech we use to secure commutations for those transfers.

 

[31 Flavas]

Fixed it.

If you say so.

 

[ninethirty]

I mean, that describes basically any cryptobro.

But what I did was describe you. You’re passionately against crypto, while displaying a stunning ignorance of the subject, and, well, that’s fascinating.

It’s always the people who know the least, yelling the loudest.

 

[chucker23n1]

It’s always the people who know the least, yelling the loudest.

Indeed.

 

[aleni]

Some guys here will lick their own spit someday in the next couple of years when they use blockchain technology in their daily life.

 

[ArPe]

I just minted 21 million Cowcoin 🐮 🪙

Each Cowcoin will make you super rich one day when the world economy converts to the Cowcoin Standard.

Cowcoin will be listed on all exchanges next week. On unregulated exchanges offshore and on “regulated” exchanges managed by top class criminal elites.

Get ready to invest in Cowcoin.

Cowcoin will make you a lot of mooooolah.

Because Cowcoin is going to the mooooooon 🚀 🚀 🚀 🌝

 

[SuperMatt]

Actually no. SOURCE

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam promising high rates of return with little risk to investors. A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investing scam which generates returns for earlier investors with money taken from later investors. This is similar to a pyramid scheme in that both are based on using new investors' funds to pay the earlier backers."

Bitcoin is highly volatile. While I believe investors will see a high rate of return in general, there is a ton of risk and the long-term value is in the development of the technology and its global applications. People who talk about investing in crypto technology as a means by which to get rich quickly, or who believe there is no-to-low risk, are wrong.


By this logic, professional sports teams are pyramid schemes. They only generate value because people are interested in the sport and the entities that run the corporations can sell tickets, ads, and licenses. The more people buy into the sport's ecosystem, the more valuable the sport or team in question is. If the fans disappeared, so would the sport.

I don't understand the argument that there is zero value or that blockchain functionality is being conjured from thin air. People are doing things with it, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of examples as such online. Even something as simple as a video game being built on blockchain is something (EXAMPLE). It doesn't have to be your particular something, but it exists and is meaningful to a group of people.

This renowned economist thinks it IS like a Ponzi scheme. This economist correctly predicted the crash in 2008.

Finance

The latest news, videos, and discussion topics on Finance - Entrepreneur

www.entrepreneur.com

People who profited from its volatile market like it. I don’t think it has any true value. It’s a major contributor to climate change and outlandish GPU costs.

 

[SuperMatt]

If you got cut a paper check for wages or payment (let say, you sold something on eBay). Would you be opposed to traditional banks and traditional infrastructure using technology or implementing a system that allows for settlement in seconds to minutes vs days or a week, right?

I mean, your bank may give you instant access to the cash on that paper check. But if it bounces, they'll claw that money back.

Are you saying you'd reject a system that would provide near instant settlement just because it has crypto in its name or pedigree?

This system is much less safe for the average person than putting their money in the bank. There are stories of people that have Bitcoin on encrypted hard drives that they forgot the password to and they are just plain out of luck.

It’s like carrying a huge wad of cash and hoping you don’t lose it or get robbed. If somebody hacks your bank account, you have recourse with the bank who can fix the problem and also insurance if the bank fails. If you have Bitcoin on a laptop that is stolen, you are screwed.

It’s also a great currency for criminals.

Bitcoin Money Laundering: How Criminals Use Crypto

Learn how Bitcoin is used for money laundering and how blockchain analytics can detect and prevent it. Read Elliptic's blog on Bitcoin money laundering.

www.elliptic.co

 

[strwrsfrk]

This renowned economist thinks it IS like a Ponzi scheme. This economist correctly predicted the crash in 2008.

Finance

The latest news, videos, and discussion topics on Finance - Entrepreneur

www.entrepreneur.com

People who profited from its volatile market like it. I don’t think it has any true value. It’s a major contributor to climate change and outlandish GPU costs.

Before I respond, I'd like to thank you for your relevant comment and source. There have been too few of those in this thread from both sides of the fence.

This article makes many excellent points. I mostly agree with this quote: "Basically, there is no connection between inflation and bitcoin. None. I mean, you can have hyperinflation and Bitcoin going to zero. There is no connection between the two." However, I think the point being missed is that Bitcoin is and always has been a highly speculative investment (SOURCE - WSJ): "[An investment] with a high degree of risk where the focus of the purchaser is on price fluctuations. The investor buys the tradable good (financial instrument) in an attempt to profit from market value changes." (SOURCE - Market Business News).

Bitcoin (and legitimate cryptocurrencies by extension) are features of a token economy. An excellent high-level overview of why cryptocurrencies exist with respect to their respective underlying blockchains can be found HERE. The value of the token, in theory, reflects the value of the network. This is fundamental to the evaluation of cryptocurrency valuation and the concept of Metcalfe's Law, which states (at a high level) that the value of a network is proportional to the square of nodes or uses on that network (SOURCE - Wikipedia).

Furthermore, you can break down point-by-point why Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme by definition. HERE is an excellent article that does exactly that. A few key takeaways:

1. Bitcoin does not promise a return on investment. Unscrupulous, uneducated shills do. This would be akin to some random guy trying to sell (the royal) you on penny stocks and (the royal) you taking away "the stock market is a scam" as a result.
2. Bitcoin is entirely open-source, and one major tactic of Ponzi schemes is secrecy.
3. Bitcoin is leaderless. Satoshi put the project into the world and the power is now in the hands of the developers. It was PUBLICLY AVAILABLE to everyone at the same time; the developers and investors that believed in the project's value early may be benefitting at an absurd rate but so are the early investors in other successful tech projects like Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc.

Bitcoin and blockchain are so new and information travels so quickly thanks to the internet that the crypto explosion is compressing the cycles of the volatility of this new asset class into days, weeks, and months instead of years and decades. The true value of Bitcoin may be $0 per coin, or it may be $1 million per coin. I have no idea, and I make no promises. Anyone that does is at best an optimist and at worst a scammer. And the many hundreds of unscrupulous other crypto projects are certainly giving Bitcoin and other legitimate projects a bad name.

 

[ninethirty]

This system is much less safe for the average person than putting their money in the bank. There are stories of people that have Bitcoin on encrypted hard drives that they forgot the password to and they are just plain out of luck.

It’s like carrying a huge wad of cash and hoping you don’t lose it or get robbed. If somebody hacks your bank account, you have recourse with the bank who can fix the problem and also insurance if the bank fails. If you have Bitcoin on a laptop that is stolen, you are screwed.

It’s also a great currency for criminals.

Bitcoin Money Laundering: How Criminals Use Crypto

Learn how Bitcoin is used for money laundering and how blockchain analytics can detect and prevent it. Read Elliptic's blog on Bitcoin money laundering.

www.elliptic.co

Cash is a great currency for criminals.

 

[ArPe]

1. Bitcoin is leaderless.

lmao.

The devs, mining pools and exchanges are The Leaders and they are a very small, concentrated and colluding gang of people who pump and dump, create fake volume, wash trading, price manipulation, bribe influencers, fill the internet with bots and trolls.

Worst part is that something around 80% of the coins are owned by a tiny amount of people. They either stole them, earned them with illegal activity like human trafficking and drugs and ransoms, had a mining monopoly subsidized by dictator regimes.

So you all “investors” are just fighting for the few scraps like beggars in Mad Max Fury Road who are given some milk to drink once a week. You are controlled by them and making them your Lords.

 

[ninethirty]

Indeed.

You realize you're the one yelling, right? Anytime this topic comes up, you and folks like you come out of the woodwork to yell and scream about how awful and useless crypto is. Meanwhile it continues to grow, it's becoming more mainstream, and more and more financial and technology companies are working with it/building on it.

 

[SuperMatt]

Before I respond, I'd like to thank you for your relevant comment and source. There have been too few of those in this thread from both sides of the fence.

This article makes many excellent points. I mostly agree with this quote: "Basically, there is no connection between inflation and bitcoin. None. I mean, you can have hyperinflation and Bitcoin going to zero. There is no connection between the two." However, I think the point being missed is that Bitcoin is and always has been a highly speculative investment (SOURCE - WSJ): "[An investment] with a high degree of risk where the focus of the purchaser is on price fluctuations. The investor buys the tradable good (financial instrument) in an attempt to profit from market value changes." (SOURCE - Market Business News).

Bitcoin (and legitimate cryptocurrencies by extension) are features of a token economy. An excellent high-level overview of why cryptocurrencies exist with respect to their respective underlying blockchains can be found HERE. The value of the token, in theory, reflects the value of the network. This is fundamental to the evaluation of cryptocurrency valuation and the concept of Metcalfe's Law, which states (at a high level) that the value of a network is proportional to the square of nodes or uses on that network (SOURCE - Wikipedia).

Furthermore, you can break down point-by-point why Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme by definition. HERE is an excellent article that does exactly that. A few key takeaways:

1. Bitcoin does not promise a return on investment. Unscrupulous, uneducated shills do. This would be akin to some random guy trying to sell (the royal) you on penny stocks and (the royal) you taking away "the stock market is a scam" as a result.
2. Bitcoin is entirely open-source, and one major tactic of Ponzi schemes is secrecy.
3. Bitcoin is leaderless. Satoshi put the project into the world and the power is now in the hands of the developers. It was PUBLICLY AVAILABLE to everyone at the same time; the developers and investors that believed in the project's value early may be benefitting at an absurd rate but so are the early investors in other successful tech projects like Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc.

Bitcoin and blockchain are so new and information travels so quickly thanks to the internet that the crypto explosion is compressing the cycles of the volatility of this new asset class into days, weeks, and months instead of years and decades. The true value of Bitcoin may be $0 per coin, or it may be $1 million per coin. I have no idea, and I make no promises. Anyone that does is at best an optimist and at worst a scammer. And the many hundreds of unscrupulous other crypto projects are certainly giving Bitcoin and other legitimate projects a bad name.

Thanks for those points.

It may not be a Ponzi scheme by the exact definition. However, the fact that early adopters benefit far more than newer investors is a large similarity.

Bitcoin is a very risky investment for a number of reasons.

1. It has no inherent value. If everybody lost interest in it, it would just be a bunch of encrypted data. A stock is a percent ownership in a company that makes and sells goods and/or services. Currency may not have inherent value, but it is backed by a nation‘s government. As you said, “Bitcoin is leaderless,” meaning nobody backs the currency.

2. A massive breakthrough in computing could decimate its value. If somebody came up with a very fast computer that could mine it at a rate far faster than what is possible today, it could lose value very quickly.

3. As mentioned before: there is no insurance like there is with a holding you have at a bank. If it gets lost or stolen, you’re up the creek.