The worst week: Putin, Trump, or Elon?

I wouldn’t call Madoff or crypto investors rubes. Very smart people get sucked into scams all the time. Let’s be a little more humane, danmann.

However, I would be very careful with Coinbase or any crypto exchange. Their fees are typically predatory. I used to support crypto, but there have been way too many scandals and their accounting practices are very suspect.

 

I wasn’t speaking purely of the security. I was thinking that the whole think is a giant pyramid scheme. It has lasted longer than I thought it would but it’s final days are numbered.

 

Madoff ran a pyramid. So I would call him a fraudster not a rube. Lots of people have made fortunes in crypto but I think that number is shrinking as we speak.

 

Well, you called Madoff’s investors rubes and crypto investors stupid. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. That said, I’ll go a little further on your later point in that I believe a majority of crypto investors have lost. I don’t know that I’d call it a pyramid scheme. It’s just a scheme where exchanges rip people off, charge high commissions and use large spreads to make money off of every day investors.

 

you are right, It's not a Ponzi or a pyramid. It's a "pump and dump" scheme, often. 99.9% of the coins and tokens out there are absolute garbage, and exchanges are untrustworthy. I buy only Bitcoin and ether when it's down, and sell into the rallies. I made a little in the 2017 rally. In the 2020 rally, I paid off my house...

 

i would agree. black Monday, tech stock of late 90's, real estate pre-2008 - a lot of people get caught up in bubbles.

 

Smart people can be rubes. I guess crypto people aren’t stupid they just took a gamble I wouldn’t have. I like long term investments. I think you make money through your work investments are to preserve and hopefully expand your wealth. People have made and lost fortunes in crypto it still isn’t an investment any more than poker is investing.

 

It is amazing crypto gets so much publicity and attention, has TV channels dedicated to discussing it 24/7, etc and its total global market cap is less than Apple. I agree many of the coins are just people pumping new shit online as if there is really something of value behind it.

 

Poker with friends is actually safer, lol. The crypto exchanges are set up to rob you blind by design. They manipulate prices and conveniently often stop trading if there is a run up in a certain token’s price. And then you have the FTX’s of the world. WarDamn, be careful as that will be Coinbase at some point.

 

The poker point I was trying to make was there is some skill there but it isn’t investing. There must be skill in gambling on crypto. I don’t consider either investing.

 

Didn’t bitcoins value peak at close to 3 trillion dollars. Doing quick math in my head makes me think it’s worth close to 700 billion now It’s crash no longer threatens to take down the whole economy.

 

The “skill” in trading crypto is akin to the Blackjack table. If you can walk away when you’re ahead, you’ll win. If you stick around, you’ll generally lose without a good dose of luck.

 

Crypto as a whole might have peaked around $3 trillion in global market cap, but that was relatively short-lived and for the most part, Apple by itself has eclipsed its total combined global market cap except for that few weeks of time crypto was riding high. (If memory serves)

 

hehe

 

Putin. Trump closely behind.

Elon is taking his lumps, but my guess is he knew they would come

 

… and said half sister also being a chick your dad said he wants to bang…