Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Is It Crypto Currency or Klepto Currency?
Allegations are being made about FTX, a cryptocurrency investment company that donated $40 million dollars to political campaigns. 92% of these donations went to Democrat candidates.
From a Fox Business News report:
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried denied speculation on Twitter that he had flown to South America after the cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy.
When asked whether he had flown to Argentina, as rumors swirled on social media, the former chief executive told Reuters via text message that he was in the Bahamas, where the company is headquartered.
Bankman-Fried, 30, served as the CEO until Friday.
He also denied “secretly” transferring $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to his trading company Alameda research and denied implementing a “backdoor” in FTX’s bookkeeping system.
“We had confusing internal labeling and misread it,” he said of the $10 billion transfer.
Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter, that at least $1 billion of customer funds had disappeared, with records revealing the financial hole.
When asked about the missing funds, Bankman-Fried responded: “???”
In a release, FTX said John J. Ray III had been appointed CEO in his stead.
Also on Saturday, FTX said that it was moving funds into offline storage after reporting “unauthorized transactions.”
Analysts said millions of dollars worth of assets had been withdrawn from the platform.
Allegations are being made that financial aid sent to Ukraine might have been a money laundering scheme involving FTX and some politicians in Congress. Allegations are also being made that FTX accounts were ‘cracked’ and money taken from those accounts ended up in the campaign coffers of Democrat and some Republican candidates.
Allegations are not proof of wrongdoing; an investigation needs to take place.
In my opinion Crypto Currency investing is somewhat sketchy, especially when it involves offshore investment firms and the involvement of politicians that may have received $40 million dollars in campaign contributions.
Published in Finance
So, Magic Internet Money turns out to be a scam that benefits Democrats. This is my surprised face.
How . . . not-at-all-shocking.
Bankman-Fried is the second-largest donor to the Democratic Party, second only to Soros.
And here are some details about the Ukraine scheme
And then billions just . . . disappeared.
This could be very bad for Democrats. Or would be if someone bothered to investigate.
Much more shady stuff at the link above.
Quibble: Cryptocurrency isn’t the villain here. The whole point of crypto is that it shouldn’t require any “trusted 3rd party” to use it. The villain here is a company that made money off the ignorance of people who didn’t understand that the company’s “services” are mostly unnecessary, even if the company had been honest.
The scam could have been conducted nearly identically even if crypto didn’t exist, especially considering that it (allegedly) had the backing of the government of the United States.
Blaming the existence of cryptocurrency for this scam is like blaming the existence of real estate for the 2008 financial crisis.
…
Edited to take into account the fact that since the scam involved the exchange of crypto for cash, trusted third parties would indeed be necessary for that step in the scam. That being said, one does not have to rely on a single company for exchanging one’s crypto for cash. There are numerous cryptocurrency exchanges out there.
Also . . .
Quibble: One cannot convert crypto into fiat currency. One can only exchange crypto for fiat currency. Crypto is an asset like gold or real estate or oil. Once cannot convert such things into cash.
https://nypost.com/2022/11/14/sam-bankman-fried-broke-crypto-bank-for-dems/
It’s “harder” money that is really volatile. People want harder money because of bad public policy. Some people really need it in some crappy areas of the planet. The simple fact is, the effect of legal tender laws is almost at sketchy as cryptocurrency.
#3 is perfectly stated.
@AlderLaneEggs
is informative.
crypto as investment is very sketchy. It is downright reckless to give money to someone else to do it for you.
In the context of finance it is clear that “conversion” is exchange and not alchemy.
Re – “Crypto is an asset like gold or real estate”
Really? Or is it more like Dutch tulip bulbs or accounts with Bernie Madoff or Kingdom of Russia bonds?
The whole thing needs to be investigated.
If “Ukraine” then “corruption” doesn’t work for me. They don’t have to be involved for this to stink. They were involved to the extent that they set up an account whereby crypto donations could be deposited for their benefit. The donors need to be checked up on. If all Ukraine was doing was drawing on funds that they understood to be donations, they might not know anything more than that.
The other donors though … who might they be?
That picture is from back in September, I believe. The site I found it on is here.
I would argue that American currency is also a scam that benefits Democrats.
Or perhaps I’m being too cynical?
100%
You can’t expect conservatism and libertarianism to sell or work under this Fed regime and financial system.
It’s not “currency” if you can’t spend it most everywhere. Very few establishments accept cryptocurrency. It’s a commodity, and trades as such, with huge moves up and down on a daily basis. The big difference between crypto and commodities is that a commodity is tangible and useful in everyday life. Crypto is simply ones and zeros in “cyberspace”, with no uses outside finance. The fact that people actually believe in and use such a thing is curious. I have always been very skeptical of crypto, and the stories bear out my skepticism.
I don’t think it’s clear to as many people as one might think, least of all whoever wrote that sentence.
Is anyone still naive enough to believe the Justice Department is still some kind of non-partisan, non-corrupt organization that can do anything other than a coverup for their bosses?
As for political donations, here is a list.
$15,000,000 to a Republican group called American Dream Federal Action; $2,750,000 to Kevin McCarthy; and $2,500,000 to Mitch McConnell.
So it’s actually less than 80%.
So what is the incentive of the political class that is pro-war and completely corrupt to get to the bottom of this? Their incentive is to cover this up and to put regulations on cryptocurrency to increase their power.
Is the mysterious death of Nikolai Mukhgyan part of a coverup?
The other thing: would FTX have ever gotten to the point without CIA involvement and cover? This is classic CIA.
This is the simple version
http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/07/26/the-roundtable-insight-george-bragues-on-how-the-financial-markets-are-influenced-by-politics/
Back in the day, it was tulips. At least back then you could have a garden.
You can move it around really easy. That adds value, but in general I agree with what you are saying.
Lots and lots and lots of software and data that are “simply ones and zeroes” can be extremely useful in everyday life. In fact, they are often much more useful in everyday life than gold is for the average person.
However, just because this software/data is useful to oneself does not mean it would be useful to anybody else, hence one would be hard pressed to exchange this software/data for currency.
Intrinsic usefulness is not the only source of value. A commodity’s value is tied to what one can do with it AND/OR what one can exchange it for.
Furthermore, use cases vary according to the commodity AS WELL AS the user. For example, diamonds are a very useful commodity for some people in some situations while being virtually useless for other people in other situations. And yet both sets of people tend to recognize that diamonds have value.
The idea that one can define a commodity’s value across all use cases and across all users is one of the great fallacies of marxism.
Summary: If you can find another sucker, it’s all good.
No, a scam to benefits criminals and people with no ethics. Democrats are just a subset of that.
I finally decided to stop, the moment I discovered a Ricochet (or other forum member) who is economically literate, and figure out a way to keep track of who they are, by saving a link to the article where I discovered or re-discovered or re-re-discovered him or her. Some day when the Davos crowd finally take over, those of us who survive might want to form a variant on the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
(My memory for factual details is not as good as it used to be, and it never was.)
I tried an experiment just now, by creating a Brave browser “Folder” called “Econ-literate folk” and dragging the current URL to it.
Had it worked, you would have been the first entry!
= = = = = = = =
NB:
It failed, like everything I try to do to work around the humiliating, frustrating non-functionality of software in the Me (Me Too Stupid to Do Anything For Himself) Generation of tech. The link stored just takes me back to the Article, not to the Comment.
If I re-learned and relocated that one tool that Phil Turmel taught me, I could probably make a Ricochet button to do this. But I don’t have the energy any more. I am becoming more and more a member of the Me Generation, like the rest of the human race.
Unless they are alchemists!
If you mean the Misthiocracy comment, the link is https://ricochet.com/1338533/is-it-crypto-currency-or-is-it-klepto-currency/#comment-6530666
All currencies and all economic systems end up being Klepto.
In the late 1980’s, Soros and others manipulated small Pacific Rim nations to such an extent that their economies went into the toilet. Small nations usually hold currencies whose value can easily be manipulated.
Also Japan went through similar manipulations, such that their nation ended up inside a L-shaped recovery. But this was a good training ground for one Timothy Geithner, who was sent in by either IMF or World bank to “help” the nation of Japan “recover.” Then he imposed all the measures that resulted in that L-shaped recovery.
Then Geithner carefully dusted off that game plan for Japan when his buddy Barack Obama asked him to oversee the US Treasury starting Jan 20, 2009. Then he ignored very wise advise from the US House committee on Governmental Oversight, and of course, found it necessary to lie to Congress to put them off what he wanted to do for the Insider Cabal.
Then he allowed for not only the 700 billion dollar tax payer Bail Out that was discussed on the news. But for the more insidious “leakage”of another 16 to 32 Trillions of dollars over the next years.
Also witness the clever massaging of the latest “health crisis” in which the alliance of the UN, The WHO, and Bill Gates/Fauci our nation was placed under FEMA control once Trump designated a virus w/ a 99.084% survival rate to be a pandemic.
Part of the decade’s long massaging involved Fauci being the bag boy for the Wuhan lab during the 2nd Obama term. Without the millions of dollars that went to the lab because of Fauci’s involvement, it would have closed.
The mRNA vaxxes were also developed during that time period. The only reason that these bio weapons are even call “viruses” is due to all the re-configuration of standard definitions for medical situations that also included the definition for “epidemic” and “pandemic.”
Anyway the spending approved of by Congress and involving the money printing presses going into a most horrendous overdrive will end up costing the US tax payer some 6 to 17 trillions of dollars of monies.
Is it any wonder human being are trying to find an alternative? (Which apparently cannot escape the flaws inherent in currency/monetary protocols.)
Why is it always called crypto investing, not dollar investing?
You are trying to sell dollars high and buy them low, right?
“Because you are selling them first, and buying them second.”
OK. That is a good reason not to call it dollar investing. You are shorting the dollar, not investing in the dollar. Right?
“Well, no. Shorting is when you are just betting someone that the currency exchange rate will change one way or the other. Whatever one person gains, the other loses, like playing craps. That is just gambling, not investing.”
Ah. I see. It’s different from gambling. Somehow.
Maybe it’s “investing” when done by people who also have some ability to affect the outcome?
Well, Mark, consider: It is a new technology, not beholden to the insider cabal of top bankers.
So of course and and all standard manipulations regarding a nation’s currency supply may be called “financial savvy.”
Even if the manipulations involve a secret meeting by the top crowd of wealthy banking families on an island off the Carolinas.
And even if that meeting inspires a Congressional vote on a centralized banking system. That system is to be given the title of “The Federal Reserve” so Americans won’t think insiders control it.
And somehow this vote takes place over the standard December weeks of holidays, so only a few in Congress vote on it.
This is all Business Acumen 101.
But crypto currencies – why they are nothing but a devious and easily manipulated form of gambling. Period!! (Unless the Congress is assembled to vote on a national crypto currency that will involve each citizen being given a social credit score!!)