If your question really is "how can I make and sell an NFT of my stuff to try and extract some money from this NFT fad without giving a load of real money to support the environmental destruction caused by etherium mining" then I would suggest you look at hic et nunc. You do need to spend real money on some Tezos, but you only need ~0.05 tezos per NFT and they cost $3.90 each (so I guess about 10p a go), and it is a proof of stake blockchain so it is not too environmentally damaging. The instructions are here, it looks easy.
They have a "H=N Tezos Fountain" where artists can register and sponsors can support them by paying the tezos.
If you prefer your instructions in video form you could look at this, but I do not have the patience.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
We use WAX for this reason, it's carbon neutral and environmentally friendly. It's also cheap to get started, but you would need to set up a wallet and transfer some WAX to it... which might not be a straightforward process for somebody who has never interacted with crypto.
The first time we minted art on the WAX blockchain and held an event to advertise, a guy showed up who sponsored us. He was giving out free WAX to people to buy our art with, and the only thing they had to do is join his discord. Super nice guy. Not saying that would happen to you, but there's more than one way to end up with WAX, in theory at least.
edit: there is also a thing known as a "faucet", which dispenses free crypto for you, but.. it's usually small amounts, meant to pay for gas fees and not to fund your nft venture. WAX is so cheap that it might be enough, but first you have to find a legit faucet. I quickly googled this and there might or might not be one on the official site. The way they work, is you paste in your wallet address, and it sends you a small amount of free WAX, and you can only do it once a day. This is set up so you don't have to buy crypto on an exchange, then send it to some place where you can trade it for wax, and then send that wax to your wallet. Instead you can use a faucet and bypass all that, if you don't mind doing it every day and slowly accumulating some amount of WAX that will allow you to mint an NFT and put it up for sale.
Apparently you can also claim free NFTs from various places and then sell them for profit. No idea about this, but here's a link I found.
If you really don't want to do any of this, you'll have to find somebody who is willing to send you some WAX because they like you. You'll have to set up a wax wallet and send them your address.
Or look into the possibilities of doing something like this on another cheap/green blockchain, like one of the other ones listed earlier
The first time we minted art on the WAX blockchain and held an event to advertise, a guy showed up who sponsored us. He was giving out free WAX to people to buy our art with, and the only thing they had to do is join his discord. Super nice guy. Not saying that would happen to you, but there's more than one way to end up with WAX, in theory at least.
edit: there is also a thing known as a "faucet", which dispenses free crypto for you, but.. it's usually small amounts, meant to pay for gas fees and not to fund your nft venture. WAX is so cheap that it might be enough, but first you have to find a legit faucet. I quickly googled this and there might or might not be one on the official site. The way they work, is you paste in your wallet address, and it sends you a small amount of free WAX, and you can only do it once a day. This is set up so you don't have to buy crypto on an exchange, then send it to some place where you can trade it for wax, and then send that wax to your wallet. Instead you can use a faucet and bypass all that, if you don't mind doing it every day and slowly accumulating some amount of WAX that will allow you to mint an NFT and put it up for sale.
Apparently you can also claim free NFTs from various places and then sell them for profit. No idea about this, but here's a link I found.
If you really don't want to do any of this, you'll have to find somebody who is willing to send you some WAX because they like you. You'll have to set up a wax wallet and send them your address.
Or look into the possibilities of doing something like this on another cheap/green blockchain, like one of the other ones listed earlier
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US arrests couple for allegedly laundering $4.5BN in Bitcoin
Article needs more details. How did they catch them? When they say "the money moved through a major darknet exchange tied to a host of crimes, as well as cryptocurrency addresses tied to child sexual abuse materials" is this not like criticizing you because the dollar you bought a beer with had also been used to buy drugs?
Article needs more details. How did they catch them? When they say "the money moved through a major darknet exchange tied to a host of crimes, as well as cryptocurrency addresses tied to child sexual abuse materials" is this not like criticizing you because the dollar you bought a beer with had also been used to buy drugs?
The FBI arrested a husband and wife on Tuesday morning, alleging they conspired to launder cryptocurrency stolen from the 2016 hack of virtual currency exchange Bitfinex, and said law enforcement has already seized over $3.6bn in cryptocurrency tied to the hack.
The pair is accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 Bitcoin that was stolen after a hacker attacked Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,0000 unauthorised transactions.
Justice Department officials said the transactions at the time were valued at $71m in Bitcoin, but with the rise in the currency’s value, it is now valued at over $4.5bn.
“As the complaint alleges, the FBI and federal prosecutors were able to trace the movement of Bitcoin from this hack,” said Matthew Graves, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
He added that the money moved through a major darknet exchange tied to a host of crimes, as well as cryptocurrency addresses tied to child sexual abuse materials.
The pair is accused of conspiring to launder 119,754 Bitcoin that was stolen after a hacker attacked Bitfinex and initiated more than 2,0000 unauthorised transactions.
Justice Department officials said the transactions at the time were valued at $71m in Bitcoin, but with the rise in the currency’s value, it is now valued at over $4.5bn.
“As the complaint alleges, the FBI and federal prosecutors were able to trace the movement of Bitcoin from this hack,” said Matthew Graves, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.
He added that the money moved through a major darknet exchange tied to a host of crimes, as well as cryptocurrency addresses tied to child sexual abuse materials.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
It's funny that some people think that Bitcoin is "untraceable" or whatever. Even the hit show Euphoria repeats that lie, although to be fair it is repeated by a little kid who might not know any better.
Bitcoin is designed to be completely transparent, you can look up any transaction you want. Connecting faces to wallet addresses is another question, though.
Bitcoin is designed to be completely transparent, you can look up any transaction you want. Connecting faces to wallet addresses is another question, though.
Justice reveals $3. 6B cryptocurrency seizure
Department’s largest financial takeover
BY ERIC TUCKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced Tuesday its largest ever financial seizure — more than $3.6 billion — and the arrests of a New York couple accused of conspiring to launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency stolen during the 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange.
Federal law enforcement officials said the recovered sum was linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange whose systems were breached by hackers nearly six years ago. Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, a citizen of Russia and the United States, and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested in Manhattan Tuesday morning, accused of relying on various sophisticated techniques to launder the stolen money and conceal the transactions. They face federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. It was unclear if they had lawyers or people who could speak on their behalf. They were in custody pending an appearance in Manhattan’s federal court later Tuesday.
“The message to criminals is clear: Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven. We can, and we will, follow the money, no matter what form it takes,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a video statement released by the Justice Department. The couple was not charged in the Bitfinex hack itself, during which a hacker was able to initiate more than 2,000 unauthorized bitcoin transactions. About $71 million in stolen bitcoin — valued today at more than $4.5 billion — was transferred to an outside digital wallet, officials said. Investigators using what Monaco described as “old-fashioned police work” located a wallet containing more than 2,000 bitcoin accounts and followed the trail to accounts at a dark web criminal marketplace called AlphaBay that was dismantled by the Justice Department in 2017.
Authorities say they ultimately traced the stolen funds to more than a dozen accounts controlled by Lichtenstein, Morgan and their businesses. Court documents accuse them of relying on classic money-laundering techniques to hide their activities and the movement of the money, such as setting up accounts with fictitious names using computer programs to automate transactions.
Millions of dollars of the transactions were cashed out through bitcoin ATMs, and used to purchase gold and non-fungible tokens, as well as more mundane items such as Walmart gift cards for personal expenses, prosecutors said. Justice Department officials say that, though the proliferation of cryptocurrency and virtual currency exchanges represents innovation, the trend has also been accompanied by money laundering, ransomware and other crimes. The Justice Department last year announced the formation of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team in recognition of the trend.
“Today’s arrests, and the Department’s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” Monaco said in a statement. “In a futile effort to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter the form it takes.”
Department’s largest financial takeover
BY ERIC TUCKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced Tuesday its largest ever financial seizure — more than $3.6 billion — and the arrests of a New York couple accused of conspiring to launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency stolen during the 2016 hack of a virtual currency exchange.
Federal law enforcement officials said the recovered sum was linked to the hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange whose systems were breached by hackers nearly six years ago. Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein, a citizen of Russia and the United States, and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested in Manhattan Tuesday morning, accused of relying on various sophisticated techniques to launder the stolen money and conceal the transactions. They face federal charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. It was unclear if they had lawyers or people who could speak on their behalf. They were in custody pending an appearance in Manhattan’s federal court later Tuesday.
“The message to criminals is clear: Cryptocurrency is not a safe haven. We can, and we will, follow the money, no matter what form it takes,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a video statement released by the Justice Department. The couple was not charged in the Bitfinex hack itself, during which a hacker was able to initiate more than 2,000 unauthorized bitcoin transactions. About $71 million in stolen bitcoin — valued today at more than $4.5 billion — was transferred to an outside digital wallet, officials said. Investigators using what Monaco described as “old-fashioned police work” located a wallet containing more than 2,000 bitcoin accounts and followed the trail to accounts at a dark web criminal marketplace called AlphaBay that was dismantled by the Justice Department in 2017.
Authorities say they ultimately traced the stolen funds to more than a dozen accounts controlled by Lichtenstein, Morgan and their businesses. Court documents accuse them of relying on classic money-laundering techniques to hide their activities and the movement of the money, such as setting up accounts with fictitious names using computer programs to automate transactions.
Millions of dollars of the transactions were cashed out through bitcoin ATMs, and used to purchase gold and non-fungible tokens, as well as more mundane items such as Walmart gift cards for personal expenses, prosecutors said. Justice Department officials say that, though the proliferation of cryptocurrency and virtual currency exchanges represents innovation, the trend has also been accompanied by money laundering, ransomware and other crimes. The Justice Department last year announced the formation of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team in recognition of the trend.
“Today’s arrests, and the Department’s largest financial seizure ever, show that cryptocurrency is not a safe haven for criminals,” Monaco said in a statement. “In a futile effort to maintain digital anonymity, the defendants laundered stolen funds through a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions. Thanks to the meticulous work of law enforcement, the department once again showed how it can and will follow the money, no matter the form it takes.”
Beeb, crypto and cuts seem like they are not a great mix
The BBC has pulled a documentary about a cryptocurrency entrepreneur from television schedules at the last minute after the Guardian raised questions about some of its central claims.
The programme, called The Crypto-Millionaire and due to be broadcast at 7.30pm on Wednesday night, was to tell the story of Hanad Hassan, a 20-year-old from Birmingham who said he had become incredibly wealthy by trading cryptocurrencies. The programme claimed he had turned a $50 (£37) investment at the start of 2021 into $8m (£5.9m) by the end of the year – suggesting he had made an astonishing investment return of almost 16,000,000% in just nine months.
The Guardian asked the BBC if it was confident in his claimed financial returns and questioned why the programme’s promotional material did not mention that Hassan’s cryptocurrency Orfano was abruptly shut down in October, with many unhappy investors claiming they were left out of pocket as a result.
The BBC swiftly said it had withdrawn the show but did not make any further comment on its editorial checks. An accompanying online article, which had featured prominently on the BBC News homepage, was also deleted without explanation shortly after the Guardian raised questions. Hassan has also been approached for comment.
The decision to pull the show from BBC One schedules hours before it was due to be broadcast is embarrassing for the corporation, as it was one of the channel’s headline commissions for its new regional television news show We Are England. This new show replaced the long-running Inside Out regional current affairs series, which was cancelled as part of BBC funding cuts in a decision that resulted in many investigative journalists based outside London losing their jobs.
The BBC has a patchy track record of covering cryptocurrencies and publishing stories about young entrepreneurs making large amounts of money from online trading. In October the corporation infamously promoted the rapidly rising price of a cryptocurrency that used the name of the Netflix show Squid Game, days before its price collapsed in an apparent scam.
A BBC Three show about a 20-year-old from Wales who claimed to be making £8,000 a day from online currency trading was also removed from iPlayer in 2020 after the broadcaster accepted it “wasn’t explicit enough about the potential risks involved in forex trading”.
The programme, called The Crypto-Millionaire and due to be broadcast at 7.30pm on Wednesday night, was to tell the story of Hanad Hassan, a 20-year-old from Birmingham who said he had become incredibly wealthy by trading cryptocurrencies. The programme claimed he had turned a $50 (£37) investment at the start of 2021 into $8m (£5.9m) by the end of the year – suggesting he had made an astonishing investment return of almost 16,000,000% in just nine months.
The Guardian asked the BBC if it was confident in his claimed financial returns and questioned why the programme’s promotional material did not mention that Hassan’s cryptocurrency Orfano was abruptly shut down in October, with many unhappy investors claiming they were left out of pocket as a result.
The BBC swiftly said it had withdrawn the show but did not make any further comment on its editorial checks. An accompanying online article, which had featured prominently on the BBC News homepage, was also deleted without explanation shortly after the Guardian raised questions. Hassan has also been approached for comment.
The decision to pull the show from BBC One schedules hours before it was due to be broadcast is embarrassing for the corporation, as it was one of the channel’s headline commissions for its new regional television news show We Are England. This new show replaced the long-running Inside Out regional current affairs series, which was cancelled as part of BBC funding cuts in a decision that resulted in many investigative journalists based outside London losing their jobs.
The BBC has a patchy track record of covering cryptocurrencies and publishing stories about young entrepreneurs making large amounts of money from online trading. In October the corporation infamously promoted the rapidly rising price of a cryptocurrency that used the name of the Netflix show Squid Game, days before its price collapsed in an apparent scam.
A BBC Three show about a 20-year-old from Wales who claimed to be making £8,000 a day from online currency trading was also removed from iPlayer in 2020 after the broadcaster accepted it “wasn’t explicit enough about the potential risks involved in forex trading”.
The Super Bowl might have nothing but crypto commercials.
Is this the peak for crypto?
From 2005:
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6877753
And recently:
http://www.thelowdownblog.com/2022/02/do-multiple-crypto-super-bowl-ads.html?m=1
Is this the peak for crypto?
From 2005:
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6877753
And recently:
http://www.thelowdownblog.com/2022/02/do-multiple-crypto-super-bowl-ads.html?m=1
How Are Crypto Riches Being Spent?
It’s time to start contemplating how vast wealth created in cryptocurrencies filters through the economy
Cryptocurrency companies just spent millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads. What’s harder to say is how much crypto investors spent on game day. Vast wealth has been created in cryptocurrencies, which globally now have a value of nearly $2 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. While that pales in comparison to many other asset classes, it has risen quickly. The global value of crypto grew by nearly $1.5 trillion last year, compared with the S& P 500’s rise of nearly $9 trillion in market value, according to Fact-Set. Crypto wealth might be harder to spend in some key ways than gains from rising stock or house prices, making its impact on overall economic activity more difficult to predict. But it’s time to start contemplating how that wealth filters through the rest of the economy.
Some crypto wealth could now be filtering through to spending on a daily basis. Though only some merchants accept crypto directly as payment, firms like Coin-base Global and PayPal Holdings are making it possible to pay with it via typical instruments. These are cards or digital wallets funded by crypto holdings. Visa has attributed about $6 billion in payment volume to crypto-linked debit cards from October 2020 to the end of 2021. That sounds big, but for now is still a drop in the overall bucket. Visa’s global debit volume increased by over $1 trillion last year.
One obstacle is that spending crypto in the U.S. is like selling it for tax purposes. It also might be anathema to long-term believers who think prices are ultimately going far higher. Recall the cautionary tale of the man who paid 10,000 bitcoin to get two Papa John’s pizzas in 2010; those coins would now be worth over $400 million. For the wealthy, stock portfolios can be spent without a sale using a “ buy, borrow, die” maneuver of getting low-interest loans secured by their investments. That kind of secured lending is emerging in crypto as well. There are a number of firms and decentralized finance, or DeFi, applications that offer crypto-backed lending. For example, Milo Credit has started working with individuals to use bitcoin as collateral for home loans.
Some people who have made vast wealth by owning crypto or by starting crypto businesses are making their presence known in the high-end real-estate market. But anyone trying to get a more typical mortgage, like one eligible for a guarantee by Freddie Mac, might have trouble using their crypto wealth. Last year the mortgage giant put out guidance for mortgage qualifications that said that income paid in crypto couldn’t be counted. Crypto assets also can’t be counted as a basis for repayment or potential sources of income the way stock dividends might be. And even if you borrow dollars against your crypto, those obligations would have to be included in your debt-to income ratio. By contrast, loans secured by salable non-crypto financial assets don’t have to be included.
Of course crypto can be sold and converted into fiat currency and used for whatever purpose. Already, about 12% of first-time home buyers surveyed by brokerage Redfin in the fourth quarter said selling crypto investments helped with down payments. Less than 5% of home buyers said that in a third-quarter 2019 survey.
Rick Palacios Jr., director of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting, predicts that more originators might try to consider crypto as part of a borrower’s assets, which could be a way to respond to rising mortgage rates. Counting some adjusted portion of a crypto portfolio, as they would a 401(k) retirement account, could be a way to expand the pool of people to underwrite without going further down the credit spectrum, he says.
Some crypto wealth might also be recycled within the digital ecosystem. Believers in the asset class may not be eager to convert their money into fiat currency. So they may diversify by borrowing against existing holdings to buy new coins, or by spending crypto to buy nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. People who sell or “mint” NFTs might view this as a source of traditional income if they cash out their earnings. Chainalysis estimated that at least $44 billion worth of cryptocurrency was sent to contracts associated with NFT marketplaces and collections in 2021. That made a splash in pop culture, but it’s still a fraction of the crypto wealth grown in recent years.
It could also be the case that someone who has generated meaningful wealth in the digital realm spends more today because they simply feel richer, or if they expect to be able to use crypto more readily in the future. In addition, it is likely that many investors are putting more discretionary money into crypto. They might have a greater propensity to spend or leverage those gains than their traditional retirement savings.
Whether or not you think it is really money, we are now talking about real money. Crypto is starting to matter even to people who have never bought a cent of digital tokens. Investors and economic observers should be watching as closely as they do a splashy TV commercial. — Telis Demos
GUY PARSONS
It’s time to start contemplating how vast wealth created in cryptocurrencies filters through the economy
Cryptocurrency companies just spent millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads. What’s harder to say is how much crypto investors spent on game day. Vast wealth has been created in cryptocurrencies, which globally now have a value of nearly $2 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap. While that pales in comparison to many other asset classes, it has risen quickly. The global value of crypto grew by nearly $1.5 trillion last year, compared with the S& P 500’s rise of nearly $9 trillion in market value, according to Fact-Set. Crypto wealth might be harder to spend in some key ways than gains from rising stock or house prices, making its impact on overall economic activity more difficult to predict. But it’s time to start contemplating how that wealth filters through the rest of the economy.
Some crypto wealth could now be filtering through to spending on a daily basis. Though only some merchants accept crypto directly as payment, firms like Coin-base Global and PayPal Holdings are making it possible to pay with it via typical instruments. These are cards or digital wallets funded by crypto holdings. Visa has attributed about $6 billion in payment volume to crypto-linked debit cards from October 2020 to the end of 2021. That sounds big, but for now is still a drop in the overall bucket. Visa’s global debit volume increased by over $1 trillion last year.
One obstacle is that spending crypto in the U.S. is like selling it for tax purposes. It also might be anathema to long-term believers who think prices are ultimately going far higher. Recall the cautionary tale of the man who paid 10,000 bitcoin to get two Papa John’s pizzas in 2010; those coins would now be worth over $400 million. For the wealthy, stock portfolios can be spent without a sale using a “ buy, borrow, die” maneuver of getting low-interest loans secured by their investments. That kind of secured lending is emerging in crypto as well. There are a number of firms and decentralized finance, or DeFi, applications that offer crypto-backed lending. For example, Milo Credit has started working with individuals to use bitcoin as collateral for home loans.
Some people who have made vast wealth by owning crypto or by starting crypto businesses are making their presence known in the high-end real-estate market. But anyone trying to get a more typical mortgage, like one eligible for a guarantee by Freddie Mac, might have trouble using their crypto wealth. Last year the mortgage giant put out guidance for mortgage qualifications that said that income paid in crypto couldn’t be counted. Crypto assets also can’t be counted as a basis for repayment or potential sources of income the way stock dividends might be. And even if you borrow dollars against your crypto, those obligations would have to be included in your debt-to income ratio. By contrast, loans secured by salable non-crypto financial assets don’t have to be included.
Of course crypto can be sold and converted into fiat currency and used for whatever purpose. Already, about 12% of first-time home buyers surveyed by brokerage Redfin in the fourth quarter said selling crypto investments helped with down payments. Less than 5% of home buyers said that in a third-quarter 2019 survey.
Rick Palacios Jr., director of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting, predicts that more originators might try to consider crypto as part of a borrower’s assets, which could be a way to respond to rising mortgage rates. Counting some adjusted portion of a crypto portfolio, as they would a 401(k) retirement account, could be a way to expand the pool of people to underwrite without going further down the credit spectrum, he says.
Some crypto wealth might also be recycled within the digital ecosystem. Believers in the asset class may not be eager to convert their money into fiat currency. So they may diversify by borrowing against existing holdings to buy new coins, or by spending crypto to buy nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. People who sell or “mint” NFTs might view this as a source of traditional income if they cash out their earnings. Chainalysis estimated that at least $44 billion worth of cryptocurrency was sent to contracts associated with NFT marketplaces and collections in 2021. That made a splash in pop culture, but it’s still a fraction of the crypto wealth grown in recent years.
It could also be the case that someone who has generated meaningful wealth in the digital realm spends more today because they simply feel richer, or if they expect to be able to use crypto more readily in the future. In addition, it is likely that many investors are putting more discretionary money into crypto. They might have a greater propensity to spend or leverage those gains than their traditional retirement savings.
Whether or not you think it is really money, we are now talking about real money. Crypto is starting to matter even to people who have never bought a cent of digital tokens. Investors and economic observers should be watching as closely as they do a splashy TV commercial. — Telis Demos
GUY PARSONS
Azem.Ocram
King
The Art Trade being a massive money laundering scheme is one of the worst kept secrets. NFT's seem even more blatant.
Etherium is a trainwreck s storm and each fork leaves some miners and wallet holders holding onto the older version.
I don't plan on ever using crypto currency. The closest I'll do is donate computer resources for research, such as Fold@Home.
Etherium is a trainwreck s storm and each fork leaves some miners and wallet holders holding onto the older version.
I don't plan on ever using crypto currency. The closest I'll do is donate computer resources for research, such as Fold@Home.
Markodanic
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2022
- Messages
- 2
Two weeks ago I invested in YoFarm, which is the native crypto currency on Yobit. By providing liquidity it has been paying me about 1-2% daily, which is over 365% APY and is nice income. Yobit has been around since 2014. What are you thoughts? It is currently at a low, down 40% from its high, so there might be upside on the coin itself.
Narz
keeping it real
How quickly and without justification the government can seize money and freeze accounts will likely drive more interest in crypto.
People don't trust those who control national currencies and w good reason
People don't trust those who control national currencies and w good reason
This is true. In this day and age I find it hard to understand organisations that are espousing unpopular (with the PTB) things that do NOT use decentralised funding. Are not people like the truckers supposed to be into ron paul cryptorands?
There is an interesting business model question. Most of the crypto is owned by people that are much wealthier than I am, which means that for them to make money we've got to shuttle money upwards.
Are people still predicting some type of utility driven demand? Like, at some point I'm going to buy a crypto in order to spend it quickly?
Are people still predicting some type of utility driven demand? Like, at some point I'm going to buy a crypto in order to spend it quickly?
I guess "predicting" and "I" are debatable, but that is the point. They do solve real world problems and if you want to solve those problems yourself they you may choose to buy and spend them quickly. Whether I can actually predict that you in particular will try and solve the problem like "how do I buy drugs on the internet" or "how do I contribute to organisation X who does not use major payment processors" is quite another question.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Watch out for Impermanent Loss (when providing liquidity). Assuming you are providing liquidity with a pair of tokens. When you do that, and one of the tokens shoots up (or crashes) in value while the other one doesn't - your LP position will take a hit.
Also watch out that the DEFI space is still fairly risky overall. Mark Cuban wrote this big article about how amazing DEFI is.. and a week later his entire position was wiped due to a rugpull (IIRC). So.. what happened to him, was.. he seemed to have been providing liquidity with a pair of tokens.. and one of the tokens nosedived to zero.. wiping out his position via IL
So.. watch out. DEFI promises high APR and APY rates but those come with an added risk.
Another problem with high APR/APY rates is that if they are super high.. then that's a red flag right there. It could be a sign that the platform's native token continues to emit, increasing supply, which is essentially where the high apr comes from.. but that doesn't necessarily translate to value.
I think the people who have a lot invested in crypto are hoping that more and more people come onboard and that the marketcap goes up and up until they've made enough of a profit. Bitcoin's marketcap is about the size of Tesla's right now IIRC. I think they are hoping that it blows up a lot more than that. Apple's market cap is like 3 times as large as Bitcoin's. So.. Those who have invested a lot of money in Bitcoin probably believe in the tech and think that banks and other large financial institutions will continue to embrace the tech, driving Bitcon's marketcap up. They probably still see that marketcap as relatively low, and think that it can grow a lot.
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Well, chances are that they're hoping someone poorer comes on board, so that the crypto can be dumped on them. That's why I was asking about the business case.
