{"id":36450,"date":"2022-07-01T21:15:23","date_gmt":"2022-07-02T02:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=36450"},"modified":"2022-07-01T21:15:23","modified_gmt":"2022-07-02T02:15:23","slug":"currency-always-has-costs-ctd-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2022\/07\/01\/currency-always-has-costs-ctd-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Currency Always Has Costs, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing the saga<\/a> of the seamy underside of human greed:<\/p>\n

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In London\u2019s Wembley Arena, there were stage lights flashing, pyrotechnics bursting and even flames going off to a cacophony of cheering as Alicia Keys\u2019s \u201cGirl on Fire\u201d came on over the speakers. That\u2019s when Ruja Ignatova, dubbed the \u201cCryptoqueen,\u201d walked onto the stage in a long, sparkly red dress, promising her cryptocurrency, OneCoin, would take over the world and become \u201cthe bitcoin killer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience at the 2016 event went wild. Amid a crypto boom, OneCoin\u2019s status was surging in the United States and across the globe. But the company\u2019s meteoric rise would eventually meet a swift end.<\/p>\n

Just one year later, Ignatova disappeared without a trace, and authorities in Europe and the United States have tried to catch her ever since. The FBI on Thursday added Ignatova to its list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a notoriety normally bestowed on suspected cartel leaders, terrorists and killers. Ignatova, meanwhile, is accused of spearheading a pyramid scheme that\u00a0defrauded investors of over $4 billion<\/a>, one considered to be among the largest in history. [WaPo<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Oh, well, something didn’t go well in the technical world?<\/p>\n

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But the story,\u00a0<\/b>as outlined in court documents, isn\u2019t one of overhyped promises that its founders couldn\u2019t deliver upon \u2014 like the case of\u00a0Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos<\/a>. Instead, OneCoin was meant to be a Ponzi scheme from the get-go, investigators allege.<\/p>\n

Despite supposedly being a form of crypto, OneCoin didn\u2019t actually have a payment system or a blockchain model, the crucial technology that underpins cryptocurrencies<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 thus rendering OneCoin\u2019s tokens essentially worthless. Ignatova and the company\u2019s founders are accused of knowing as much. (In a statement\u00a0to the BBC<\/a>\u00a0in 2019, OneCoin denied any wrongdoing.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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This is what transforms this from a story of not understanding how cryptocurrencies will interact with the real world into a a Shame on you!<\/em> story.<\/p>\n

Not on Ignatova.<\/p>\n

On the investors scammed of their money<\/strong>. This is the persistent belief that Too good to be true<\/em> will come true, and that, of course, is the recipe for disaster.<\/p>\n

Come on, folks. Ignatova may have taken advantage of greedy people, and done so illegally, but to put her on the FBI’s<\/strong><\/em> Most Wanted List<\/em> seems … like overkill.<\/p>\n

I still wonder if the Amish really do have the proper way to run a society<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing the saga of the seamy underside of human greed: In London\u2019s Wembley Arena, there were stage lights flashing, pyrotechnics bursting and even flames going off to a cacophony of cheering as Alicia Keys\u2019s \u201cGirl on Fire\u201d came on over the speakers. That\u2019s when Ruja Ignatova, dubbed the \u201cCryptoqueen,\u201d walked \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-36450","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\/36450","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=36450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36451,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36450\/revisions\/36451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}