“Worse, the ‘dog-pushers’ — the lowest-level scammers who initiate conversations
with victims — are often workers from around the region, tricked into indentured
servitude, held captive in dormitories and offices, and beaten by the managers
and bosses.”
posted 9/30/2022 8:00pm ∞
“The less optimistic possibility is that financial engineering is all crypto can
do. It may make money transfers more efficient, maybe it makes collecting
royalties quicker and more transparent…. Those are all great, valid use
cases. But they are narrow in scope: they were already financial
transactions.”
“When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much ‘better’ in the
immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone. … However, if they had built
a platform to buy and sell images that wasn’t nominally based on crypto … I
don’t think it would have taken off because this is a gold rush .”
Moxie Marlinspike ,
My first impressions of web3
(January 7, 2022 )
“Tether’s Chinese investments and crypto-backed loans are potentially
significant. … [I]f those loans fail, even a small percentage of them, one
Tether would become worth less than $1. Any investors holding Tethers would
then have an incentive to redeem them; if others did it first, the money could
dry up. The bank run would be on.”
Zeke Faux ,
Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions?
(Bloomberg October 7, 2021 )
posted 8/14/2022 8:00pm ∞
“To most consumers, Prime looks like a lovely convenience offering free
shipping, and it’s hard to find better prices elsewhere. But the reason you
can’t find better prices isn’t because Amazon sells stuff cheap, but because it
forces everyone else to sell stuff at higher prices.”