zlacker

>>donsup+(OP)
They’re just one of several shiny fintech apps/websites running the same scam, a modern two-and-twenty on a ponzi — but with really nice UI.

Alice (alice.co / @alice_finance) is another prominent one that may have lost customer funds, which was also using the Anchor protocol. It’s unclear how much they lost, but it’s interesting that Do Kwon’s name is still an actual logo listed on their home page.

And Vertex Protocol (vertexprotocol.com / @vertex_protocol) recently raised $8.5m to launch a trading platform based on the Anchor protocol, but because their Phase 1 beta had just closed and the open launch was not planned until this summer, it looks like they may have just barely dodged the bullet?

What I’m really curious about are the new and (of course) unregulated “insurance” products meant to cover catastrophic crypto depegs, as happened to Terra/Luna. Unslashed (https://app.unslashed.finance/cover) is supposed to kick in after fourteen days, I believe. We’re not quite there yet, it’s barely a week so far. But I’m sure with this kind of implied loss reserves, it’ll be fine…

https://mobile.twitter.com/CurveFinance/status/1416392630754...

>>Aspara+M7
I publicly called out LUNA/UST on Twitter a few times a few months before the collapse [0] [1]. Just stating this so it's clear that I don't have any interest defending them.

That being said, calling these platforms "ponzis" isn't correct, the most you can say is that they were front ends for a ponzi. It would be like setting up a front-end to receive investments, and then depositing the money with Madoff. I'm not saying that it is a legitimate business, just not a ponzi.

And I'm not defending these companies either, a very light DD [2] made it obvious that the LUNA-UST mechanism was broken and the collapse was inevitable. It's really messed up that they put clients' money at risk, and that they lost it. I also think that YC is somewhat responsible for this.

What makes the situation even worse is that the collapse didn't happen from one day to the next, they actually had time to pull the money out at a 0.5%-5% loss, but they still decided to wait and see if it would repeg.

[0] https://twitter.com/josusanmartin/status/1478185473499615233

[1] https://twitter.com/josusanmartin/status/1478188494463848448

[2] This DD took me less than 1 hour: https://twitter.com/josusanmartin/status/1524323026942242818

>>josu+Ed
> That being said, calling these platforms "ponzis" isn't correct

I feel like "ponzi" has become the "magazine/clip" derailer of crypto discussions.

>>saalwe+8w
A ponzi is when an investment that supposedly produces a return actually pays the funds needed to deliver that return from new entrants to the scheme rather than productive enterprise.

Given that there’s literally no productive return-producing enterprise underpinning any of this it’s totally fine to consider the word ponzi at least loosely applicable to the entire concept of cryptocurrency as practiced.

>>CPLX+eL
By this definition most crypto wouldn‘t be a ponzi. E.g. bitcoin doesn‘t claim that funds are invested in productive entreprise. It is clear that it is only a value store (like gold). Whether it is any good at storing value long term, we will see.

>>daanlo+7c1
Bitcoin proponents definitely (for a time) claimed that it was Bitcoin's utility as a currency that gave it value in the first place. That everyone would need some because everyone would use it to transact. That's a claim of an inherent investment value that didn't actually exist, making Bitcoin exactly like a distributed Ponzi scheme.

>>spanka+5l1
It was originally created to be a form of non-fiat democratized currency. It is exactly that even though it's not its most popular use which is as a store of value. I don't see how that makes it a Ponzi scheme. I buy things with it a few times per year and do my degenerate sports gambling with it all the time. It works within seconds for almost no cost.