Riding The Wave News Summary 110
Bitcoin or gold? Beware the ‘malignant tumor,’ says ‘Black Swan’ guru Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Hedge funds subpoenaed by U.S. prosecutors as Binance probe unfolds: Report, & more.
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Bitcoin or gold? Beware the ‘malignant tumor,’ says ‘Black Swan’ guru Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Hedge funds subpoenaed by U.S. prosecutors as Binance probe unfolds: Report
Bluechip NFT project Moonbirds signs with Hollywood talent agents UTA
Public or Private? NFT Holders Will Decide Fate of Niall Dailly's VR Music Experience
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Bitcoin or gold? Beware the ‘malignant tumor,’ says ‘Black Swan’ guru Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Is Bitcoin or gold the better investment? Opinions vary widely, with billionaire crypto fan Mark Cuban favoring Bitcoin—and slamming gold—and Euro Pacific Capital CEO Peter Schiff going the other way.
This week, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the 2010 New York Times bestseller The Black Swan and one of the few to foresee the 2007–2008 financial crisis, weighed in on the debate during an interview with the French weekly L’Express.
It’s safe to say Bitcoin, which has fallen more than 60% since the start of 2022, fails to impress him.
‘Technology comes and goes’
One problem with Bitcoin, he said, is that “we are not sure of the interests, mentalities and preferences of future generations. Technology comes and goes, gold stays, at least physically. Once neglected for a brief period, Bitcoin would necessarily collapse.”
What’s more, he said, “It cannot be expected that an entry on a register that requires active maintenance by interested and motivated people—this is how Bitcoin works—will retain its physical properties, a condition for monetary value, for any period of time.”
Asked about the origins of the “craze for cryptocurrencies,” he pointed to the low interest rates of the past 15 years.
“Lowering rates creates asset bubbles without necessarily helping the economy,” he said. “Capital no longer costs anything, risk-free returns on investment become too low, even negative, pushing people into speculation. We lose our sense of what a long-term investment is. It is the end of real finance.”
Taleb also warned that “the crypto universe attracts manipulators and scammers.”
He’s certainly not alone there.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said at the a16z crypto Founder Summit in late November: “We have to kind of come to terms as an industry with the fact that, I think our industry is attracting a disproportionate share of fraudsters and scammers. And that’s really unfortunate. That doesn’t mean it’s representative of the whole industry.”
I agree with his point regarding it being easy to get capital for weak projects/companies, but I would disagree with Bitcoin fitting this bucket. Due to the adjusting difficulty of Bitcoins coin, if interest in Bitcoin decreased, the computing power needed to run the network would drop proportionally.
In regards to the notes about scamming and manipulators I think those types of bad actors are always attracted to new cutting edge spaces, especially if they are complex/require expert knowledge because its easier to trick people in them.
Hedge funds subpoenaed by U.S. prosecutors as Binance probe unfolds: Report
United States prosecutors are investigating hedge funds' relationships with cryptocurrency exchange Binance for money-laundering violations.
According to anonymous sources cited by the Washington Post, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Washington in Seattle subpoenaed investment firms to provide records of communications with Binance in the past months.
The allegedly subpoenas do not mean prosecutors are bringing charges against the crypto exchange or hedge funds, as authorities are still evaluating evidence and a possible settlement with Binance, according to legal specialists.
Binance is under probe in the United States since 2018, when prosecutors began investigating a number of cases about illicit funds moving through the exchange. Alleged violations include unlicensed money transmission, money laundering conspiracy and criminal sanctions violations.
Binance recently joined the American crypto lobbying group Chamber of Digital Commerce, after receiving criticism for being unregulated. The group advocates for a variety of public policies, including tax parity for digital assets, Anti-Money Laundering/Know Your Customer regulations for crypto exchanges, increased regulatory clarity for security tokens and research on central bank digital currencies.
It’s possible that due to Binance instigating with the FTX situation, this recent probing might be due to upset donor receivers. Even if they disagree with SBF’s decisions, a ton of politicians just lost out on a huge amount of future donations for their campaigns.
Bluechip NFT project Moonbirds signs with Hollywood talent agents UTA
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