{"id":36341,"date":"2022-06-21T21:04:59","date_gmt":"2022-06-22T02:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=36341"},"modified":"2022-06-25T16:05:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T21:05:15","slug":"currency-always-has-costs-ctd-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2022\/06\/21\/currency-always-has-costs-ctd-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Currency Always Has Costs, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

And the stories concerning the dark side of cryptocurrencies<\/a> keep coming:<\/p>\n

In 2018, Alex Mashinsky held a dinner at an upscale restaurant in New York. The entrepreneur\u2019s goal was to attract \u201cwhales\u201d \u2014 crypto-speak for large-scale currency holders who can move markets \u2014 to invest in a nascent entity he\u2019d created called Celsius Network.<\/p>\n

The Ukraine-born, Israel-raised businessman spoke charmingly and passionately, according to a person who was at the dinner and described it on the condition of anonymity because it was a private event. He laid out his mission of \u201cunbanking,\u201d in which investors can deposit cryptocurrency outside the traditional financial system. Central to the pitch were unusually high yields for depositors in his Celsius Network \u2014 as much as 30 percent \u2014 made possible, the New York-based Mashinsky explained, because their money would be loaned out at high rates to those needing it for short-term crypto investments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was incredible to watch \u2014 everyone in the room was enthralled,\u201d said the guest. \u201cThe whales were excited and ready to write checks. Even people who might have been skeptical were on board.\u201d [WaPo<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds like a classic grift<\/em>. Charismatic representative, referencing utopian ideals and, more importantly, appealing to the dark side of the human, or at least Western, psyche: Greed<\/strong>. Replace whale<\/em> with mark<\/em>; whale is far too euphemistic. If you don’t know the what of a mark<\/strong>, go look it up and get out of crypto now,<\/em> and don’t return until you’ve learned to sniff out the con man.<\/p>\n

Still having doubts?<\/p>\n

Yet many of Mashinsky\u2019s adherents have refused to give up. They see the freeze not as a sign of malfeasance but as one more piece of evidence that traditional finance wants to destroy crypto and will stop at nothing to realize its aim.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone take a look. If this is true, it\u2019s a coordinated attack to take Celsius out. My anger is not at Alex & Celsius but at the short sellers. Spread the word!!!\u201d said a user with the handle @evanrodts, referring to a theory that the company has been victimized by those betting on its failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have all my savings in Celsius because I trust your company,\u201d noted the Celsius advocate @MichalMike18. \u201cPlease pull through.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All set to throw good money after bad, which is a classic psychological symptom of someone thoroughly taken in. Even if this wasn’t a grift – and guaranteeing 30% returns sound like a grift to me – those with stars in their eyes are acting out, while others are going to swallow their losses and never say a thing.<\/p>\n

Ego has its day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And the stories concerning the dark side of cryptocurrencies keep coming: In 2018, Alex Mashinsky held a dinner at an upscale restaurant in New York. The entrepreneur\u2019s goal was to attract \u201cwhales\u201d \u2014 crypto-speak for large-scale currency holders who can move markets \u2014 to invest in a nascent entity he\u2019d \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36341"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36387,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36341\/revisions\/36387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}