Celcius crypto ponzi falling apart (crypto network)

[dj230]

This morning it was announced that Celsius (crypto network) has disabled users from withdrawing, swapping or transferring their crypto holdings, so anyone who had their money in Celsius' crypto network will not have access to any funds. Like with any crypto exchange the company isn't responsible for your holdings if they go bankrupt so if they do go under everyone who had their money on that network will lose everything.

 

Their Celsius crypto is currently crashing as well...the crypto ponzi is falling apart at this point. 

 

https://blog.celsius.network/a-memo-to-the-celsius-community-59532a06ecc6

[steven100]

????  .......   

 

 

 

 

[dj230]

6 minutes ago, steven100 said:

????  .......   

 

 

 

 

I said crypto ponzi was falling apart months ago, staking was the sign, institutions locking up retail from selling and shorting crypto, wouldn't be surprised to see a full out crash from here.

[1FinickyOne]

whoever invented bitcoin must be laughing like crazy that people bought into this stuff...

 

the pet rock of the millenium.. except you don't even get a rock. 

[dj230]

4 minutes ago, 1FinickyOne said:

whoever invented bitcoin must be laughing like crazy that people bought into this stuff...

 

the pet rock of the millenium.. except you don't even get a rock. 

The interesting thing is bitcoin as a technology (blockchain) actually is fairly useful, it's just the underlying value of bitcoin itself is worthless. 

Only time it would be useful is if you held USD or fiat currency and used the blockchain to transfer funds and then convert back to fiat. Probably only real use case is if you're doing something illegal or want to transfer money anonymously. 

Whether bitcoin trades at $50,000 or $1 makes no difference in the actual blockchain technology and how the money gets transferred using it. 

[dj230]

Binance has now suspended withdrawals of Bitcoin as well 

[lkn]

11 hours ago, dj230 said:

The interesting thing is bitcoin as a technology (blockchain) actually is fairly useful, it's just the underlying value of bitcoin itself is worthless. 

Beg to differ, I am not aware of any problems that blockchain solves for a (legal) business that hasn’t already been solved cheaper and faster by existing technology.

 

It is only for black market stuff / legal arbitrage where it “solves” a problem, but this actually only works if you have one of these tokens you can exchange for money.

 

The reason is that for us to rely on settling transactions on the blockchain, we need enough nodes/miners so that we are fairly sure that no bad actor can control majority of the network, but the only way to get people to participate in running such giant network is by rewarding them with something that they can convert to money, to pay for electricity and equipment.

[dj230]

1 hour ago, lkn said:

Beg to differ, I am not aware of any problems that blockchain solves for a (legal) business that hasn’t already been solved cheaper and faster by existing technology.

 

It is only for black market stuff / legal arbitrage where it “solves” a problem, but this actually only works if you have one of these tokens you can exchange for money.

 

The reason is that for us to rely on settling transactions on the blockchain, we need enough nodes/miners so that we are fairly sure that no bad actor can control majority of the network, but the only way to get people to participate in running such giant network is by rewarding them with something that they can convert to money, to pay for electricity and equipment.

You forgot the quote the my whole response

 

"Only time it would be useful is if you held USD or fiat currency and used the blockchain to transfer funds and then convert back to fiat. Probably only real use case is if you're doing something illegal or want to transfer money anonymously. "

 

Albiet, I can see blockchain technology eventually replacing the current banking system in the future, not the current cryptocurrencies those are all junk but eventually I believe the government will create their own "cryptocurrency" backed by the government which I will be okay with buying and holding, I can't remember all the tedious steps it takes for the current banking system to transfer funds, but blockchain would allow quicker more efficient transfer of data for banking systems. China is already creating theirs. 

 

Blockchain technology has been and is solving a lot of inefficiencies in business' though, one example is Danaos, they use blockchain for shipping containers records as it's more efficient. I think they were working with IBM, I read about it maybe a year or two ago so I can't really remember. Lots of companies use blockchain technology already, I'm not a huge blockchain person so I rarely study or do research on it, more interested in other financial technologies right now.

 

 

[lkn]

3 hours ago, dj230 said:

I can't remember all the tedious steps it takes for the current banking system to transfer funds, but blockchain would allow quicker more efficient transfer of data for banking systems

The tedious stuff is AML procedures, which is not a technology problem. There is also a problem with cross-country transfers if the sending bank has no relationship with the receiving bank, as then an intermediary has to be used. For Europe, the ECB will act as intermediary for the SEPA area, which is why we have instant cross-border transfers in Europe (free of charge with many banks).

 

You can argue that having it all on a blockchain would make international payments easier, as then you would never need an intermediary. But effectively you are just introducing a new closed system (the blockchain) and have the on/off ramp issue. So this is no different than Western Union, PayPal, Wise, etc. which already solved this problem, and did the on/off ramp integration with majority of banks, WU even offering cash on/off ramps. So again, blockchain offers nothing new, and is less efficient than the previously mentioned providers.

 

3 hours ago, dj230 said:

Blockchain technology has been and is solving a lot of inefficiencies in business' though, one example is Danaos, they use blockchain for shipping containers records as it's more efficient

Sorry, but I call BS. A distributed database (like the blockchain) will always be less efficient than a centralized one.

 

So it is never more efficient. What might be argued is that it is trustless, but this is just stupid with respect to supply chain, because tampering with data records is not the issue.

 

This video goes over the oracle problem with using blockchain in supply chains.

 

If anyone is selling “blockchain technology” most likely they are just using blockchain as a buzzword, and effectively it’s just a regular old database. Notice how many will call it either a permissioned or private blockchain, which makes little sense, because the idea with blockchain is that it is a public ledger that anyone can (try) to add blocks to.

 

 

[dj230]

2 hours ago, lkn said:

The tedious stuff is AML procedures, which is not a technology problem. There is also a problem with cross-country transfers if the sending bank has no relationship with the receiving bank, as then an intermediary has to be used. For Europe, the ECB will act as intermediary for the SEPA area, which is why we have instant cross-border transfers in Europe (free of charge with many banks).

 

You can argue that having it all on a blockchain would make international payments easier, as then you would never need an intermediary. But effectively you are just introducing a new closed system (the blockchain) and have the on/off ramp issue. So this is no different than Western Union, PayPal, Wise, etc. which already solved this problem, and did the on/off ramp integration with majority of banks, WU even offering cash on/off ramps. So again, blockchain offers nothing new, and is less efficient than the previously mentioned providers.

 

Sorry, but I call BS. A distributed database (like the blockchain) will always be less efficient than a centralized one.

 

So it is never more efficient. What might be argued is that it is trustless, but this is just stupid with respect to supply chain, because tampering with data records is not the issue.

 

This video goes over the oracle problem with using blockchain in supply chains.

 

If anyone is selling “blockchain technology” most likely they are just using blockchain as a buzzword, and effectively it’s just a regular old database. Notice how many will call it either a permissioned or private blockchain, which makes little sense, because the idea with blockchain is that it is a public ledger that anyone can (try) to add blocks to.

 

 

 

Currently, the customer has an issuing bank (Bangkok bank), then using a financial instrument (credit/debit), which goes through a network (payment system processor like visa), which goes to a merchant bank, which goes to the merchant.

 

With a blockchain/cryptocurrency you can go straight from the customer to the merchant bank, to the merchant, so payments/transfers could be cheaper and faster.

 

You can research things like Project Jasper (canada) and Project Ubin (Singapore).

 

In terms of the blockchain technology being used in shipping containers like I mentioned, you can go over the information available publicly to see if that's the case, I don't think IBM would involve themselves in something that's just a "buzzword".

https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/container-logistics

 

Like I said I don't follow blockchain that much because it's not interesting to me but I am aware lots of people are working with blockchain technology to create more efficient solutions. 

 

In terms of private blockchains, I am pretty sure there are both private and public blockchains that have advantages/disadvantages. 

[Celsius]

Butbut....

 

I got my crypto credit card and am getting crypto back with every purchase not to mention the amazing interest rates on staking!

 

Where's that crypto pumper anyway?

[Celsius]

Rekt I guess

 

[FritsSikkink]

10 hours ago, dj230 said:

You forgot the quote the my whole response

 

"Only time it would be useful is if you held USD or fiat currency and used the blockchain to transfer funds and then convert back to fiat. Probably only real use case is if you're doing something illegal or want to transfer money anonymously. "

 

Albiet, I can see blockchain technology eventually replacing the current banking system in the future, not the current cryptocurrencies those are all junk but eventually I believe the government will create their own "cryptocurrency" backed by the government which I will be okay with buying and holding, I can't remember all the tedious steps it takes for the current banking system to transfer funds, but blockchain would allow quicker more efficient transfer of data for banking systems. China is already creating theirs. 

 

Blockchain technology has been and is solving a lot of inefficiencies in business' though, one example is Danaos, they use blockchain for shipping containers records as it's more efficient. I think they were working with IBM, I read about it maybe a year or two ago so I can't really remember. Lots of companies use blockchain technology already, I'm not a huge blockchain person so I rarely study or do research on it, more interested in other financial technologies right now.

 

 

"Blockchain technology has been and is solving a lot of inefficiencies in business' though, one example is Danaos,"

Blockchain is a way to store data, it has NOTHING to do with inefficiencies in businesses.

[dj230]

5 minutes ago, Celsius said:

Butbut....

 

I got my crypto credit card and am getting crypto back with every purchase not to mention the amazing interest rates on staking!

 

Where's that crypto pumper anyway?

speaking about that crypto credit card, I saw on some data feed they're starting lay-offs,

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/crypto-com-says-lay-off-094828946.html

[dj230]

7 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

"Blockchain technology has been and is solving a lot of inefficiencies in business' though, one example is Danaos,"

Blockchain is a way to store data, it has NOTHING to do with inefficiencies in businesses.

 

https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/container-logistics

Quote

Benefits

A single connected ecosystem

Imagine the various efficiencies that could be achieved if everybody involved in the supply chain was truly on the same page. Now they can be, through TradeLens’ single, secure data-sharing and collaboration platform.

Here's a pdf of the inefficiencies it solves

www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/VOAPQGWX

Quote

With blockchain, delays will be reduced, resulting in significant cost savings for all parties.

 

Blockchain can help all parties involved in a shipment:

 

Reduce or eliminate fraud and errors

Reduce delays from paperwork

Improve inventory management

Reduce waste

Minimize courier costs

Identify issues faster

 

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, dj230 said:

 

https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/container-logistics

Here's a pdf of the inefficiencies it solves

www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/VOAPQGWX

 

Digitalization of paper trails makes things more efficient, doesn't have to be through blockchain technology at all.

I help companies with Digital Transformations so do know quite a bit about this. Have been in multiple technical and managerial IT roles for 40 years.

[Excel]

9 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

Digitalization of paper trails makes things more efficient, doesn't have to be through blockchain technology at all.

I help companies with Digital Transformations so do know quite a bit about this. Have been in multiple technical and managerial IT roles for 40 years.

Guess you are on LinkedIn as well ? ???? 

[FritsSikkink]

Somebody is not feeling well;

 

Michael Saylor (MicroStrategy) Portfolio Tracker (saylortracker.com)   more than 1 billion USD down the drain, banks will take what is left soon.

 

Not long ago MicroStrategy said Bitcoin would be worth a million soon. Most likely because he needs a lot of people to buy it for crazy prices to cover his losses. 

[GroveHillWanderer]

According to the article linked to below:

 

Quote

Overall, bitcoin is down 23 percent in the last five days while ethereum has plummeted 30 percent during that time; both now sit at their lowest prices in nearly 18 months. Celsius’s own coin, meanwhile, has dropped from a high of $7 last year to 21 cents.

Crypto bank’s freeze on withdrawals sends major cryptocurrencies down

[dj230]

51 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

Digitalization of paper trails makes things more efficient, doesn't have to be through blockchain technology at all.

I help companies with Digital Transformations so do know quite a bit about this. Have been in multiple technical and managerial IT roles for 40 years.

So before you were saying it doesn’t solve inefficiencies and now you’re saying it does solve inefficiencies, but other technology can do the same?
 

Can you explain how blockchains will be inferior to other forms of digitization in the shipping container industry? 
 

Everyone I know of in Silicon Valley, engineers, CEOs and tech companies themselves are looking into blockchain technology, as well as top colleges such as MIT. You’d think if it was nothing special, they wouldn’t be wasting their time and money on it. 

[John Drake]

Mega pumpers Saylor and Pomp all over fintwit howling "I have faith."

[OneMoreFarang]

On 6/13/2022 at 10:22 AM, dj230 said:

The interesting thing is bitcoin as a technology (blockchain) actually is fairly useful, it's just the underlying value of bitcoin itself is worthless. 

That's like saying computers are actually fairly useful. 

Yes, they are, and they can be used for good and bad things.

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, dj230 said:

So before you were saying it doesn’t solve inefficiencies and now you’re saying it does solve inefficiencies, but other technology can do the same?
 

Can you explain how blockchains will be inferior to other forms of digitization in the shipping container industry? 
 

Everyone I know of in Silicon Valley, engineers, CEOs and tech companies themselves are looking into blockchain technology, as well as top colleges such as MIT. You’d think if it was nothing special, they wouldn’t be wasting their time and money on it. 

The technology as such (way of storing data) doesn't solve inefficiencies. Because you store it differently (not on paper) you can create automation which will be more efficient.

 

Everybody always looks into new technologies, some will find a good use case others don't.

[lkn]

10 hours ago, dj230 said:

With a blockchain/cryptocurrency you can go straight from the customer to the merchant bank, to the merchant, so payments/transfers could be cheaper and faster.

Isn’t that just PromptPay? Blockchain is not needed for this. What VISA/MasterCard offers is credit (to some consumers), risk management (to some merchants), currency exchange (for tourists), purchase insurance, etc.

 

This is just a product that some have chosen to use, there are many other alternative payment methods, as mentioned Thailand has PromptPay which is gaining popularity, which takes money directly from my bank account and deposits into merchant’s bank account via QR code, in China they like WeChat Pay, in India there is UPI, in the U.S. they used to use PayPal but now there is Venmo, and also some new system introduced by the banks, etc.

 

And actually, blockchain is not what you want for any of this, because the two things that is important in payments are the two “features” of blockchain, namely pseudonymous and irreversible. But in the real world we a) want a recourse incase a merchant does not deliver, and b) want to know the identity (KYC) of whom money is sent to/from (this is both a regulatory issue, but also incase of fraud).

 

10 hours ago, dj230 said:

In terms of the blockchain technology being used in shipping containers like I mentioned, you can go over the information available publicly to see if that's the case, I don't think IBM would involve themselves in something that's just a "buzzword”

I have looked into more of these stories than I can count, and there is never any real meat to it. I already looked at IBM’s blockchain stuff, and their department has long since been effectively shut down and what they are selling is a hosted instance of the open source Hyperledger software, so it is just centralized software running at IBM’s servers, nothing trustless, no consensus algorithm, no nodes run by random people on the internet.

[lkn]

2 hours ago, dj230 said:

Can you explain how blockchains will be inferior to other forms of digitization in the shipping container industry? 

Are we talking about a trustless blockchain with a proof-of-work consensus algorithm (i.e. what the Bitcoin whitepaper introduced)?

 

Do you understand that the security of such a setup comes from the scale of the network? I.e. the more nodes that contribute to running the blockchain (software), the more secure it will become (because it becomes uneconomic for an attacker to add enough new nodes under their control, to gain a majority).

 

Do you then understand that running a database that require thousands of computers (if not more) to constantly work on running hard computations (proof of work) inferior to just running a database on a single machine under the control of whoever need this supply chain database, and this computer can even run idle most of the time.

 

E.g. the bitcoin network only does about 3 transactions per second, this is something my old Commodore 64 could easily do, yet the bitcoin network require something like 500-1,000 kWh per transaction.

[lkn]

4 hours ago, dj230 said:

Everyone I know of in Silicon Valley, engineers, CEOs and tech companies themselves are looking into blockchain technology

Maybe you only know the grifters? ????

 

From CNBC: In speaking off-air to tech executives during his trip to San Francisco last week, Cramer said he got the sense that Silicon Valley thinks crypto is a con and its promoters have taken an awful lot of money from unsuspecting investors.

 

I don’t normally put much weight on Cramer’s word, but my own background is in computer science, so I do follow forums/news about the field and have lots of friends in the field, and honestly, crypto/blockchain has a pretty bad reputation, being a (bad) solution in search of a problem or outright snake oil / ponzi scheme enabler, wasting tremendous amounts of energy in the process, and causing a lot of people to lose money.

[dj230]

3 hours ago, lkn said:

Isn’t that just PromptPay? Blockchain is not needed for this. What VISA/MasterCard offers is credit (to some consumers), risk management (to some merchants), currency exchange (for tourists), purchase insurance, etc.

 

This is just a product that some have chosen to use, there are many other alternative payment methods, as mentioned Thailand has PromptPay which is gaining popularity, which takes money directly from my bank account and deposits into merchant’s bank account via QR code, in China they like WeChat Pay, in India there is UPI, in the U.S. they used to use PayPal but now there is Venmo, and also some new system introduced by the banks, etc.

 

And actually, blockchain is not what you want for any of this, because the two things that is important in payments are the two “features” of blockchain, namely pseudonymous and irreversible. But in the real world we a) want a recourse incase a merchant does not deliver, and b) want to know the identity (KYC) of whom money is sent to/from (this is both a regulatory issue, but also incase of fraud).

 

I have looked into more of these stories than I can count, and there is never any real meat to it. I already looked at IBM’s blockchain stuff, and their department has long since been effectively shut down and what they are selling is a hosted instance of the open source Hyperledger software, so it is just centralized software running at IBM’s servers, nothing trustless, no consensus algorithm, no nodes run by random people on the internet.

PromptPay is a digital bank, blockchain is a way to store data, the technology in question is the transfer of data in finance (blockchain). 

 

I think you are confusing blockchain, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, if a government created a cryptocurrency, it would not pseudonymous senders/receivers.

 

1 hour ago, lkn said:

Maybe you only know the grifters? ????

 

From CNBC: In speaking off-air to tech executives during his trip to San Francisco last week, Cramer said he got the sense that Silicon Valley thinks crypto is a con and its promoters have taken an awful lot of money from unsuspecting investors.

 

I don’t normally put much weight on Cramer’s word, but my own background is in computer science, so I do follow forums/news about the field and have lots of friends in the field, and honestly, crypto/blockchain has a pretty bad reputation, being a (bad) solution in search of a problem or outright snake oil / ponzi scheme enabler, wasting tremendous amounts of energy in the process, and causing a lot of people to lose money.

Apple, Google, Facebook, Palantir to name a few tech companies off the top of my head, these are grifter companies? I guess MIT is a grifter university as well? Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, Steve Wozniak, Peter Thiel, to name a few, all grifters?

 

Once again you're confusing blockchain with crypto. 

Cramer is an interesting person, a few months ago he was saying crypto was great, now it's crashing he is saying people in Silicon Valley said it was a con. In reality people in Silicon Valley have said it's a "con" for a while now, in fact Sam bankman-fried said most crypto's are a ponzi, the person who is the founder of FTX 

[lkn]

1 hour ago, dj230 said:

I think you are confusing blockchain, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, if a government created a cryptocurrency, it would not pseudonymous senders/receivers.

I understand the difference, I could implement it from scratch if you wanted me to. That is how I know that there is nothing innovative or useful about “blockchain technology”, which is what you said, and where I begged to differ, and then you started to talk about removing intermediary in transactions, supply chains, etc.

 

Please give a single example of a problem being solved by blockchain, which previously was either unsolved, or solved in a less efficient way!

 

Don’t give me hand-wavy stuff or say “it’s still early” but people are working on it, or soon we’ll get something, or some big tech company is looking into blockchain, MIT is teaching a class, etc.

 

An actual use-case that works right now, and which works better than existing solutions!

[lkn]

1 hour ago, dj230 said:

Apple, Google, Facebook, Palantir to name a few tech companies off the top of my head, these are grifter companies?

I am not aware of any blockchain products from Apple or Google. Facebook did try with their Libra thing, but this was not about blockchain, this was about issuing their own currency, which is why regulators shut it down!

 

1 hour ago, dj230 said:

I guess MIT is a grifter university as well?

That they have a class about blockchain does not mean they think it is a disruptive technology.

 

1 hour ago, dj230 said:

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Max Levchin, Steve Wozniak, Peter Thiel, to name a few, all grifters?

Musk, Zuckerberg, and Thiel are definitely not people which I would look to for moral guidance. Wozniak is a little weird, and you know he actually got scammed out of hit bitcoins, right? I am not too familiar with Levchin. But anyway, what have these people said about the usefulness of blockchain? To me, those who have spoken about crypto has just been trying to hype it up, but never given us any idea about why it is good.

 

1 hour ago, dj230 said:

In reality people in Silicon Valley have said it's a "con" for a while now, in fact Sam bankman-fried said most crypto's are a ponzi, the person who is the founder of FTX 

Actually, SBF described how yield farming worked, and seemed to unknowingly describe a ponzi scheme. Though I am confused, above you said that everyone you know in Silicon Valley are looking into blockchain, now you admit that these people are fully aware that it’s a con and ponzi schemes?

 

Do you know that these people (like SBF) subscribe to the Effective altruism philosophy? This basically means that SBF is happy to e.g. allow Luna/UST to be traded on his exchange (FTX) even though he said before, that it was destined to collapse, because it makes SBF richer, and then, at some unknown time in the future, he will use his accumulated wealth for charity, so it doesn’t matter where the money is from, as long as he does more good with them, than the harm caused by earning them.

[peter zwart]

On 6/13/2022 at 10:18 AM, 1FinickyOne said:

whoever invented bitcoin must be laughing like crazy that people bought into this stuff...

 

the pet rock of the millenium.. except you don't even get a rock. 

will talk again when btc is up again and your inflated fiat money is good enough to wipe your.......