Ethereum Co-Founder Says Cryptocurrencies Are 'a Ticking Time Bomb' (bloomberg.com) 64
randomErr writes from a report via Business Insider (alternate source): Ethereum, the rival to bitcoin, has been on a tear. Its founders said the latest trend in the cryptocurrency space may not be as good for the cryptocurrency as some might think. Ethereum is up 1,700% over the last year, and that spike has occurred in tandem with the growth of the hottest new trend in fundraising: initial coin offerings. Approximately $1.2 billion has been raised by the new cryptocurrency-based capital raising method this year, according to Autonomous Next, a financial technology analytics service. It is a trend that has sparked excitement across Wall Street. But the cofounder of the company behind the cryptocurrency, Charles Hoskinson, told Bloomberg that initial coin offerings may not benefit Ethereum. "People say ICOs are great for ethereum because, look at the price, but it's a ticking time-bomb," said Hoskinson. "There's an over-tokenization of things as companies are issuing tokens when the same tasks can be achieved with existing blockchains. People are blinded by fast and easy money."
Woo-hoo! (Score:5, Funny)
I can practically hear the GPU prices dropping!
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Only took twenty years...
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Re:Woo-hoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be jealous because you missed out on the gold train....
The miners forty-niners were not the ones who made big money on gold. It was the entrepreneurs who serviced them, like A P Giannini, founder of Bank of America. One of the more successful was a dry goods merchant who arrived in San Francisco with a shipload of sturdy canvas sailcloth, intending to cash in on the need to re-rig all the ships that had to round the Horn and sail up the uncharted Pacific coast of the Americas to get to the goldfields. Though he badly misjudged the market for sailcloth, he dyed his fabric blue and made pants out of it. Miners needed lots and lots of pants, and the rest was history. His name was Levi Strauss.
Re:Woo-hoo! (Score:5, Funny)
So his "round the Horn" prediction came true after all.
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...we move to more profitable coins as they come out.
I think I see a flaw in this cunning plan.
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Nonsense, Baldrick! It's a perfectly cromulent plan! Cannot Fail!
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I can practically hear the GPU prices dropping!
So Ethereum will never achieve its lack tulip?: http://www.amsterdamtulipmuseu... [amsterdamtulipmuseum.com]
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EDIT: Black tulip...
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I'm sure they meant "tickling bomb".
Re: Time Bombs (Score:2)
Blinded by the Light (Score:2)
Remember the Pyramid Parties in SoCal in 1980? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cryptocurrency speculation reminds me of the pyramid "parties" in Los Angeles back in 1980.
At least in a pyramid party if you were standing in line to get in and nobody else was getting in line behind you you could bail.
If you were smart.
There were a lot of not smart people.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. --George Santayana
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I'm going to start my own so I can get a billion dollars out of people before it crashes. It'll be the Tickle-Me-Furby Coin.
More like (Score:2)
A multibillionaire game of hot potato.
Ha-ha! (Score:1)
Well, yours sure was! Next time set the timer for a bit longer.
Hilarious.
Not Quite (Score:4, Informative)
He said ICOs are a problem, not cryptocurrency per se. Basically, he's saying there are too many cryptocurrencies.
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The two correlate strongly. In a market of a fiat currency, imposed by organizations with no strength behind their fiat, the barrier to entry is minimal (The ICO) and consequently, crreating a nwe cryptocurrency and cashing out on the chumps is very easy and will eventually cause the death of cryptocurrency. The market will see that cryptocurrencies are inherently weak, and move back to commodities and currencies backed by nations.
The Headline is Incorrect (Score:3, Informative)
He says ICOs are a ticking time-bomb, not cryptocurrencies directly.
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It's the same as the stock market (Score:3, Insightful)
When I buy a stock I don't actually get a stock certificate, instead I get a number in a computer or TOKEN.
Could the whole thing come crashing down tomorrow?
You Betcha!
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Stocks are not equatable to cryptocurrencies at all.
Cryptocurrencies have nothing backing them. Stocks are backed by assets. Owning a share of stock means you own a percentage of the corporation's assets. This means cryptocurrencies are more like fiat cash and less like owning stock.
When one says that the stock market may "crash" that means the value of the corporations may lose significant value. But as long as the corporation exists, the stock will have some intrinsic value. If the company owns 50,00
Re:It's the same as the stock market (Score:4, Informative)
You might want to read the fine print on the "normal people" stocks that you can actually buy on an exchange or have in your retirement portfolio. All but the most preferred of preferred stock offerings are subordinate to basically everything in any kind of bankruptcy or reorganization. Generally the employees pensions come before common stock. You don't realistically own even a paper clip's worth of assets from any company you hold stock in. In the event of the company collapsing, the amount of leverage held by most companies means common stock isn't much better than junk paper in terms of what investors will recover. Literal pennies on the dollar would be a exceptionally good outcome.
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Generally the employees pensions come before common stock.
Liabilities before equity. The problem as you mention is that by the time the company is bankrupt, it's soo deep in debt that it cannot meet payments---by that point, there's no equity left.
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employees pensions
Now I know you're making stuff up :-)
Of sourse they are (Score:3)
Ethereum Co-Founder Says Cryptocurrencies Are 'a Ticking Time Bomb'
No shit, Sherlock, what was your first fucking clue?
Was it when an unknown hacker used a vulnerability in an Ethereum wallet client to steal over 153,000 Ether, worth over $30 million dollars? Was that the event that clued you in? Or was it the non-stop shitfest of Bitcoin thefts and scams and robberies?
I've been saying for years that crypto currencies are a wonderful way to lose all your money in the blink of an eye. The security technology of crypto currencies is and always will be waaaaaaaaaaaay behind that of the skill needed to hack them.
Re:Of sourse they are (Score:5)
It's far smarter to kick back against the intended slavery of the banksters and corrupt governments and make cash king. Asking for permission with credit cards is going too far. Of course with legalised theft in the US, the feds and law enforcers being able to straight up steal your stuff without any conviction which is wildly unconstitutional, you have a real problem in the US. Don't let them fool you, a cashless capitalist society is a slave society.
Re: Of sourse they are (Score:2)
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That's the great thing about the American dollar ... the way it is immune to theft and scams.
The difference between my American dollars and crypto currency is that if my bank is robbed, I still have my money.
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What I find somewhat unnerving is that most p
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I have seen countless individuals on Reddit claiming that they are using it almost exclusively for their kid's college funds, retirement funds and so forth.
Yikes. Some of those people (possibly a lot of them) are going to wake up one day and find out that their whatever-coin wallet has been hacked, and sometime during the night all of their money just went *bloop* and disappeared.
Clickbait headline (Score:3, Insightful)
He says ICOs are a timebomb. He did not say cryptocurrencies or blockchain are, they are are clearly here to stay. Currencies are insane volatile though. Still a poor headline
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> Currencies are insane volatile though.
Great "article"! (Score:2)
Dude with ETC (forked off blockchain) says things for much more successful ETH are bad and a "time bomb".
Name one fucking crypto that is not a potential "time bomb". As if ETC didn't crash badly ever for practically no reason.
Yes ICOs can be dangerous. Like any investment you could lose everything. Crypto is even more volatile so higher risk reward/loss.
ETH is becoming more popular and common place. It's becoming a better platform every day. If there were a bunch of fraudulent business that scammed pe
As opposed to ..? (Score:1)
Shorting cryptocurrency (Score:2)
Is there some way to short cryptocurrency that doesn't involve the same bullshit wild west risks of getting involved with these bitcoin exchanges? I smell a lot of dollars to be made, but not if some asshole Russian can just steal them from me after my bet comes in.