[HN Gopher] SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misapprop...
___________________________________________________________________
SEC Charges Hex Founder Richard Heart with Misappropriating
Millions of Dollars
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 158 points
Date : 2023-07-31 14:53 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sec.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sec.gov)
| davidgerard wrote:
| fun fact, Richard used to sell email spam software. Is shitcoin
| pumping a step up or a step down?
|
| Richard is a very charming fellow, very likable, but in a way
| that cautions you not to let any of your money within a mile of
| him.
| Djle wrote:
| Don't forget this article: '$HEX for the Financially
| Illiterate' Explains exactly what the "Spam King" had moved
| into: https://archive.ph/AjfcV
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Charming??! I've known enough of his kind that his "charm"
| immediately sets off all of my Malignant Narcissist Klaxons.
|
| He's charming in the same sense that the creepy guy driving the
| windowless "FREE CANDY" van is generous.
|
| And you only mentioned the tip of the Spamberg -- it goes MUCH
| deeper:
|
| His real name is actually Richard J Schueler, under which he is
| famously known as the "Spam King", for being one of the first
| people in the world to be successfully sued for online spam,
| specifically the Viagra spam scheme that he ran from Panama
| (which he lost).
|
| Richard Heart - Spam, ICOs, and Death Threats:
|
| https://imnotdead.co.uk/blog/richard-heart
|
| PSA: Crypto HEX Founder is Actually Notorious Criminal 'Spam
| King':
|
| https://blockcast.cc/news/psa-crypto-hex-founder-is-actually...
|
| Richard James Schueler - Friggin Spam King:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190416235350/http://www.panama...
|
| HEX Founder found to be Notorious Criminal:
|
| https://cryptotraderspro.com/hex-founder-outed-spam-king/
|
| Why HEX is a Ponzi and not a solid investment (Part 2): Richard
| Heart:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kwhjxa/why_...
|
| >During the interview at ANON, Richard confirmed that he was
| one of the first people in the world to be sued for online
| spam, back in 2002. This shows us Richard has experience
| abusing unregulated markets, as he is doing with crypto these
| days.
|
| Hasn't the last eight or so years of Trump trained people to
| instantly see through that kind of bullshit, and easily
| recognize a malignant narcissist for what they are, or does he
| specialize in fooling the same kind of people Trump still
| fools?
|
| What kind of person actually makes videos and web pages about
| themself with titles like:
|
| RICHARD HEART IS THE BEST PERSON EVER! I OWN THE WORLD'S
| LARGEST DIAMOND.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TQGzltcKNk
|
| Richard Heart is a force for good:
|
| https://richardheart.com/
| latchkey wrote:
| Trump is spending $40m of his donations on a legal defense
| fund, so I'm pretty sure the answer to your question is no.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-pac-spent-40m-legal-
| bi...
| thesausageking wrote:
| The SEC is just the wrong organization to be enforcing laws in
| crypto. This was a scam that was done out in the open and
| launched 4 years ago. People conned into buying this have already
| lost their money and they're not getting it back. The founder
| will use some of the $1B+ he's made of it to defend himself in a
| long, drawn out court case that the SEC will eventually settle.
|
| The SEC's purpose is supposed to be to protect investors and no
| one is being protected by this.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| If not the SEC then who?
|
| It took decades before Bernie Madoff's crimes came to light
| under SEC investigation (and then eventual criminal
| prosecution). Most of his victims had already lost their money
| and were never getting it back, even with the criminal suits
| they eventually joined that was mostly to show justice to
| Madoff not to recover lost funds.
|
| From that perspective, 4 years is possibly a record in
| speediness for scams of this scale. (Cryptocurrencies sure have
| sped up the scams, but also seem to have greatly sped up the
| investigations into the spams, perhaps in a way that some will
| find ironic.)
|
| The SEC can't protect all investors _a priori_ (ahead of time).
| There 's always going to be a long tail of investigations into
| past misdeeds and airing the dirty laundry. In theory the more
| dirty laundry the SEC can air from previous misdeeds the more
| it educates the public on things to look for and the more it
| assures would-be scammers that _eventually_ they will be caught
| and will have to face the American justice system. (Whether or
| not you think the American justice system capable of doling out
| enough criminal charges that stick to these sorts of
| injustices, it is always still worth trying.)
| martin8412 wrote:
| You can't pay for your legal defense with illegal funds. Well,
| you can, but the lawyers if not careful might be subject to
| clawback and therefore not likely to defend you.
| paulpauper wrote:
| the sec also does not bring criminal investigation, only refer.
| it's not even that effective as a deterrent. only jail stops
| criminals, not lawsuits.
| bhouston wrote:
| Thank god, that guy was incredibly obnoxious.
| rlt wrote:
| Among other crimes against humanity is his incredibly gaudy
| sense of style
|
| https://twitter.com/RichardHeartWin/status/15402954048178831...
|
| https://sybershel.com/he-invented-the-crypto-that-gives-inte...
| codyb wrote:
| Wow imagine spending 80,000 dollars to look that bad.
| artursapek wrote:
| This guy was famous for posting these photos flaunting how
| much money he was wearing. It blows my mind to think someone
| could be this open about doing this
| Terr_ wrote:
| When it comes to both scams and investing, sometimes a kind
| of ancient "look at me I'm _obviously_ wealthy and
| successful, so clearly you should treat me favorably and
| maybe link your fortune to mine " thing going on.
|
| > It was quite a crash, Nakamura Lines. Respectable middle-
| aged businessmen took to leaving their hotel windows
| without their lift belts. Me, I kept spending. If I'd
| started living frugally, my creditors would have done some
| checking... and I'd have ended in debtor's prison.
|
| -- _Neutron Star_ by Larry Niven
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Relatedly, the bizarre "Prosperity Gospel" thing where
| preachers of a religion ostensibly following a teacher
| who believed that you should give all your money to the
| poor (and be sure to toss all the bankers lending money
| out of your church while you are at it) spend incredible
| amounts of money on fashion and private jets and
| expensive homes in some religious message that spiritual
| wealth is "trickle-down".
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| I knew this guy from before he was a major league crypto
| scammer. I assure you although part of this is actual lack
| of taste, he is quite conscious of how he looks and
| intentionally turns the tackiness and gaudiness up to 11
| even beyond his own sensibilities. It is a filter, designed
| to screen out people who might have enough common sense the
| question the legitimacy of his claims.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You can rent a fancy car, take a selfie with it, post it on
| instagram saying "DM me for a ONCE IN A LIFETIME
| investment" and take home $100k no problem. Some people
| have no idea how money works.
| conductr wrote:
| It blows my mind people invest money with a guy doing this
| so openly
| codyb wrote:
| I feel like it's fairly common for scammers to show off a
| fabulously wealthy lifestyle real or imagined.
|
| For some people it makes them think "whose money did they
| spend to get all that?" and for others it makes them
| thing "if I give them my money to invest too soon I'll be
| on the plane"
| DonHopkins wrote:
| You can say that again. A total narcissist scammer of the worst
| kind. He started with Viagra spam and then found crypto
| shilling. He liked to hang out on HN to shill his scams and
| recruit developers, but I may have accidentally made him feel
| uncomfortable by asking him lots of pointed questions about his
| past, and he hasn't shown his face in a while. His go-to
| response is literally "Dodge, dodge!"
|
| His real name is actually Richard J Schueler, under which he is
| famously known as the "Spam King", for being one of the first
| people in the world to be successfully sued for online spam,
| specifically the Viagra spam scheme that he ran from Panama
| (which he lost).
|
| Richard Hart (aka "Spam King" Richard J Schueler) wins the
| "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New Scam" for his POS shitcoin
| Ponzi scheme "HEX":
|
| https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/1233242355995750400
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&v=tf-lJu5iDh...
|
| Peacefire.org beats spammers in court.
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-i...
|
| >Free-speech group Peacefire.org wins a legal round in its
| fight against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's
| anti-spam law.
|
| >The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday
| granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints
| filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims
| suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard
| Schueler [who now operates under the pseudonum "Richard Hart"]
| sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore
| deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or
| misleading subject line.
|
| More embarrassing facts and proof he doesn't want you to read
| here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36944841
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Given the difficulties in payments when it comes to gray-
| market dick pills, I'm surprised he wasn't an early bitcoin
| whale and made more than enough from that to just retire.
| confoundcofound wrote:
| The biggest lie in crypto is that tokens are bought for utility
| and not speculative gains. I don't know if it's delusion or
| intentional deception. I have friends who are "thought leaders"
| in the space, who opine on the disruptive potential of crypto yet
| spend their days tweeting about the latest memecoin that just
| 100x'd.
|
| The entire concept of crypto "value" rests upon the marriage of
| token utility and economic value. Financial gain is baked into
| the mechanic. And between the two, people care far more about
| financial gain. It's a fundamental misalignment of incentives.
| verteu wrote:
| > The biggest lie in crypto is that tokens are bought for
| utility and not speculative gains. I don't know if it's
| delusion or intentional deception.
|
| It's an attempt to avoid the scope of US securities law:
| https://www.taftlaw.com/news-events/law-bulletins/utility-to...
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Ironically, the only tokens with any actual utility have stable
| prices - stablecoins.
| Pixie_Dust wrote:
| [flagged]
| dboreham wrote:
| To be fair the same thing happens in the regular world. e.g.
| look at a list of the richest people in the USA and see how
| they made their money.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| All of the 10 richest people in the US, with the exception of
| Warren Buffett (and even that I wouldn't really call an
| exception, more on that below), built real businesses with
| real products that are used by millions of people and
| companies. I think wealth inequality is a major problem of
| our time but I despise this painting everything with a
| (factually incorrect) bad brush.
|
| Re: Buffett is the only "pure investor" in the top 10, but
| even then Berkshire Hathaway is pretty famous for having a
| portfolio of some of the best managed companies in the
| business. It's not like Buffet is a day trader.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Elon, Bezos, Bill Gates, Ellison, Buffet, Paige, Brin,
| Ballmer, Bloomberg, Walton --- which of those
| billion/trillion dollar companies do you think in any way
| compares to the shambolic crypto world?
| fnimick wrote:
| I mean, we joke that Oracle is a legal company with an
| engineering department... but at least they _build_ things.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Right. I don't like most of the people on that list and
| e.g. Oracle is a mess of a company that is actively
| hostile to the software world -- but they still sold $42
| billion worth of goods/services to willing customers last
| year. Nothing at all like crypto trading.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| The 20 richest people in the USA all make their wealth via
| profitable companies that have returned value to
| shareholders.
| confoundcofound wrote:
| My problem is with the collective gaslighting the crypto
| industry is doing with respects to utility vs speculation. I
| never thought I would find myself on the side of the SEC, but
| I have enough experience in the space with investors to
| builders to confidently say the vast majority of the industry
| is about speculative gain. Specious claims of utility are
| often just a means to that end.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| He raised over $1 billion?!...there was really too much money
| floating around begging for where to invest circa 2020. The same
| goes for many questionable startups that raised money.
|
| Notice how these schemes have disappeared in tough times.
| delusional wrote:
| $1 billion in crypto, so not real money. $1 billion on IOU's
| from some other ponzi scheme. Right after it states that
| they're also charged "misappropriating at least $12 million of
| offering proceeds" which seems like a more reasonable figure.
| They probably stole in the order of $12-20 million.
| iancarroll wrote:
| The article mentions at least 2 million Ethereum, which is
| certainly liquid enough to be a couple orders of magnitude
| above $10 million.
| Retric wrote:
| There's a fair amount of liquidity, but trying to withdraw
| 1 billion in Eth is going to impact it's valuation.
| latchkey wrote:
| ETH has a $223b market cap, so 1b is .45%.
| delusional wrote:
| No? It's not?
| latchkey wrote:
| https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/
| umanwizard wrote:
| Regardless, 1 billion is not 4% of 223 billion. You're
| off by a factor of ten.
| latchkey wrote:
| fixed... =)
| arcticbull wrote:
| Market cap is not market depth, you can't withdraw $223B
| from a speculative asset with a $223B market cap. Just
| look at SafeMoon lol. Market cap isn't a bank account.
| It's determined at the margin by the last transaction
| price multiplied by the number of units outstanding.
| Bringing it up in this context is just misleading.
| colecut wrote:
| 0.45%
| latchkey wrote:
| damn maths. thanks!
| everfree wrote:
| Ethereum's daily trading volume is $7 billion, so it's
| likely that $1 billion would hardly affect its valuation.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Now subtract out the wash trading. I'm not saying it
| would or wouldn't affect the valuation, I'm saying that
| the top-line volume is a known fiction. Remember when
| "Coinbase Employee A" traded some 99% of the entire
| global LTC volume between two bots at Coinbase? Sure it's
| old news, but that's the _most_ reputable exchange. [1,
| 2]
|
| Much of the crypto market is a digital Potemkin village
| designed to make you feel like you're not nearly as alone
| as you are.
|
| [1] https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8369-21
|
| [2] https://news.bitcoin.com/ipo-coinbase-pays-
| cftc-6-5-million-...
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Potemkin as an adjective is such a useful tool when
| talking about the crypto scene. here's a post from when I
| used it extensively I guess about 8 years ago, in the
| same vein. Unfortunately as part of the cold war argot it
| seems to just draw blank stares from a lot of people
| under 35 or so.
|
| <https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3hrum5/degene
| rate...>
|
| "Potemkin exchange, Potemkin conversation, it's Potemkins
| all the way down. Like a matrioshka doll each layer
| deeper is identical to the one before, but smaller and
| less articulately defined. "
| arcticbull wrote:
| I wish I could take credit for the term, but I'm also a
| huge fan of 'Sierpinski scheme'.
|
| Also, what on God's green flat earth was that article
| about? The one you were responding to, lol. I mean the
| late Mircea Popescu was a real piece of work, but, just,
| wow.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Popescu is like the ur-bitcoiner, and by extension the
| ur-kleptocurrency scumbag. He's one of the handful of
| people who have (or in his case, had) quite a bit of
| influence over the perpetual number go up movement of the
| market cap due to being one of the very earliest large
| hoarders of coins at penny prices, and a complete Kool-
| Aid drinking Central bank/central government hating
| misanthropic troll.
|
| Although I will say in his direct company, he was fairly
| well-mannered and clearly had a curious mind but one
| warped by what must have been some sort of Trisomy on the
| asshole gene.
|
| That article was lifted directly from his blog which, I'm
| not sure may still be active even now, that contain much
| of his musings on that same topic as well as lots of
| others, all as reprehensible and in my view absolutely
| would have entitled him to an early death - assuming he
| didn't fake it.
|
| Sierpinski scheme, hah! Now I really want to somehow tie
| that end with Zooko's triangle. Reminds me of the guy who
| made a guide to "writing your first ethereum contract in
| Pyramid Scheme" oh another variation just occured to me:
| Fractal Fraud
| tornato7 wrote:
| You can sell $150M worth of ETH right now on-chain
| without moving the price much. If you aggregate the other
| chains and exchanges it's probably close to $1b in an
| instant sell, of course if you TWAP you'll get much
| better execution.
| DANmode wrote:
| You...don't have to subtract anything.
|
| Liquidity is liquidity.
|
| If liquidity goes away when big boys start selling, then,
| well, someone would have picked up on that, shown that,
| with data.
|
| Otherwise, the (very real!) accusations of wash trading
| and other price fixing don't have tons to do with
| available liquidity, which as a term, refers to an
| investors ability to sell in a timely fashion.
| Retric wrote:
| Daily trade volume doesn't represent what it used to as
| market makers/HFT algorithms get into and out of
| positions several times a day. What matters for
| estimating impact is essentially the net flow across the
| day/week/whatever not the transaction volume. It's
| unlikely to precipitate a sell off but a 1+% dip in the
| short term isn't unrealistic.
| everfree wrote:
| Ethereum has 1% dips regularly, on the hourly. In crypto,
| that's generally considered very stable.
| Retric wrote:
| By short term I mean weeks to months not minutes.
|
| I doubt anyone would try and liquidate it in a single
| transaction on public markets.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| _One_ transaction accounting for _at least_ 15 per cent
| of the trading volume for a day absolutely is going to
| affect its valuation.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Even on Uniswap, swapping 10,000 ETH ($18.5M) has just
| 0.9% slippage.
|
| There is pretty decent liquidity for ETH and BTC at
| least, both on and off-chain.
| delusional wrote:
| If we're both running our own ponzi scheme and you give me
| $1 worth IOUs to your ponzi scheme, before later
| readjusting your ponzi scheme to be worth 1000x what it was
| previously. I would on paper have $1000 of your money,
| since that's what my IOU in your ponzi scheme is now
| "worth". If my ponzi scheme then folds before yours, you
| could claim that I've defrauded you for $1000, but I'd
| argue I haven't defrauded you in any real sense, in fact
| you tried to defraud me, and I just so happened to fail at
| defrauding my customers first.
|
| Maybe Ethereum is "liquid" enough to absorb that withdrawal
| (Madoff was plenty liquid until he wasn't), that doesn't
| mean there's actually any real value.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Lots of stuff has value, until it doesn't. Tulips,
| beanie-babies, or pet rocks come to mind. Doesn't mean
| it's a scam necessarily, could just be a fad --
| irrational, but with no fraudulent intent behind it.
| chx wrote:
| oh bitcoin, ethereum and any such crypto"currency" (even
| the name is chosen to evoke certain emotions) is pretty
| solidly established to be scams. Read
|
| https://ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2020-12-31-bitcoin-
| pon...
|
| https://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/bitcoin/2021-01-16-yes-
| pon...
|
| or if that's too long then consider how any of these
| crypto"currencies" with transaction fees are _negative
| sum games_ and such they are scams (and no, stocks, gold
| and cash are not such).
| kyleblarson wrote:
| That's as good as money sir, those are IOU's.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Centralized ~exchanges~ (edit: services) defeat the point of
| crypto (particularly of a blockchain), so people responsible for
| said centralization are only in it for the money. Thus, the
| question with all of these companies is how long before they get
| outed for scamming their customers.
| kelthuzad wrote:
| That's a reductionist view, there can be many reasons why
| somebody would want to temporarily park a portion of their
| assets on a centralized exchange. It's a a trade off between
| convenience, security, higher liquidity, trading opportunities
| et cetera, these are just some that come to mind. One can do
| all of that and still have the majority of their assets in cold
| storage. The world is not white and black.
| sdfghswe wrote:
| [flagged]
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Should have donated more money to democrats, like SBF.
| bhouston wrote:
| That didn't seem to help SBF though - he is still arrested and
| bring prosecuted for his financial crimes.
|
| Also SBF contributed to both D and R equally apparently - but
| he did his R contributions dark to avoid scrutiny, but is that
| claim of his true? I don't know: Although
| federal election receipts show that Bankman-Fried donated
| almost exclusively to Democrats, he claimed on a November phone
| call with YouTuber Tiffany Fong that he donated an equal amount
| to Republicans and Democrats. "All my Republican
| donations were dark," he said, referring to political donations
| that are not publicly disclosed in FEC filings. "The reason was
| not for regulatory reasons, it's because reporters freak the f
| --k out if you donate to Republicans. They're all super
| liberal, and I didn't want to have that fight."
| Given that he donated nearly $40 million to Democrats in the
| 2022 election cycle--and he admitted to giving an equal amount
| to Republicans--his total political contributions may have
| actually been around $80 million.
|
| https://time.com/6241262/sam-bankman-fried-political-donatio...
| pessimizer wrote:
| https://unusualwhales.com/politics/article/senate_ftx
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Please ;)
|
| "Federal prosecutors are dropping campaign finance violation
| charges"
|
| "Bankman-Fried -- who is accused of stealing from customers
| of his now-defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange -- still faces
| 12 other charges in the case, though five more of the counts
| are still in question"
|
| https://nypost.com/2023/07/27/feds-drop-one-charge-
| against-s...
| bhouston wrote:
| The reason is because the extradition agreement didn't
| mention those charges, which is a technicality
| unfortunately. He is still be prosecuted for his financial
| crimes.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The pretense is that the US respects our agreements with
| powerful governments like Bermuda's. especially when they
| come to US political corruption, which Bermuda for some
| reason feels is very important to protect. This is
| sillier than the parliamentarian tanking the $15 minimum
| wage.
| adrr wrote:
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66631291/united-states-...
|
| Seems like a bad investment.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Richard Heart is a force for good.
|
| https://richardheart.com/
| bebop404 wrote:
| It's a shame it took this long to go after such a blatant Ponzi.
| There is even an ad for this scheme painted on a wall near my
| home (in Mexico), so one would hope that the US will not be the
| only country where he will face charges.
| kelthuzad wrote:
| It's crazy how many crypto natives were warning "hexicans"
| about hex and pointing out the most obvious indicator that it's
| a scam, namely Richard Heart defrauding them, yet most of his
| fanboys were not even willing to listen or evaluate the
| evidence with an open mind.
| DANmode wrote:
| Came to this thread just to say RIP Hexicans, thanks for
| providing the space!
| HappySweeney wrote:
| That would have had them admitting to themselves that their
| money is gone, including the promised gains they likely
| already spent.
| blueyes wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/HEXcrypto/comments/zotxtv/father_of...
|
| Kind of a shoe-shine boy indicator ... time to get out.
| rideontime wrote:
| > He wears the same hat in every interview
|
| Jesus christ. Guy uses interviews about his murdered daughter
| to shill his shitcoin?
|
| e: Yep, they're proud of this: https://hex.buzz/steve-
| goncalves-hex/ Scumbags.
| houseatrielah wrote:
| I had some interest in HEX after I saw an airplane with a "BUY
| HEX" banner fly over my house. The major trick is the decimal
| point. Launch a crypto worth 0.000000001 USD per unit, then when
| it goes to 0.0000001 USD per unit because of low supply, scream
| into YouTube: "I GAVE YOU 100X PEOPLE, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM
| ME?"
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Apart from _maybe_ Coinbase, I just take as a given that every
| single actor in crypto is a criminal, and so far this assumption
| has been pretty much bang-on accurate.
| aionaiodfgnio wrote:
| _Maybe_ Coinbase won 't just waltz off with their depositor's
| money, but their business model appears to be illegal from top
| to bottom. The SEC alleges that basically everything they are
| doing is illegal. Even if the SEC is wrong, Coinbase's practice
| of operating as broker, exchange, and clearing agent is a
| massive conflict of interest.
| [deleted]
| loeg wrote:
| Just to expand a bit on the "maybe," it seems pretty clear that
| the SEC's opinion is that most of Coinbase's business model is
| being an unregistered securities broker (except for perhaps
| allowing trading bitcoin and ethereum), which is illegal.
| dcist wrote:
| And although there hasn't been any evidence of top-level fraud,
| a Coinbase product manager was sentenced to two years in prison
| for an insider trading scam:
| https://fortune.com/crypto/2023/05/09/former-coinbase-employ...
| dpflan wrote:
| Coinbase is dressed up nicely, but you say basically that all
| actors and therefore coin creators/owners are criminal, then CB
| facilitates criminal and is criminal implicitly by turning a
| blind eye to facilitation at a minimum assumption of
| involvement. It's been called a casino.
| SamPatt wrote:
| I co-founded an a16z and USV funded crypto startup in 2015, and
| I knew lots of people in the industry.
|
| There are certainly bad actors, probably more than other
| industries. But it's absolutely nothing like "every single
| actor."
|
| Many were (and presumably still are) true believers in the
| technology, and got into it the field with good (though perhaps
| naive) intentions.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Richard Hart (aka "Spam King" Richard J Schueler) has an account
| on Hacker News that he used to shill his scams and attempt to
| recruit gullible HN developers to debase themselves by working on
| his shitcoins, just like Rick and Morty's "Glooty" alien who's
| always asking "Do you want to develop an app?":
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=RichardHeart
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=RichardHeart
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27139757
|
| RichardHeart on May 13, 2021 | prev | next [-]
|
| Elon is still promoting Dogecoin which is also proof of work.
| Lots of people will be harmed when it crashes. Nearly all
| cryptocurrencies crash 85% every once in a while.
|
| DonHopkins on May 13, 2021 | parent | prev | next [-]
|
| Humor: So I'm sure your explanation of why somebody hasn't
| already successfully implemented practical proof of stake before
| is totally credible and unbiased! ;)
|
| Not Humor: If somebody will work on it for free, do you promise
| to pay them in your own cryptocurrency? "Will work for stake!"
|
| RichardHeart on May 13, 2021 | root | parent | prev | next [-]
|
| You don't have to destroy the environment to maintain a database.
| There's other ways to achieve censorship resistance than waste.
| Blockchains are are all social consensus anyway.
|
| DonHopkins on May 13, 2021 | root | parent | next [-]
|
| "Do you want to develop my new cryptocurrency?" is the new "Do
| you want to develop an app?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVy0JWX5XEY&ab_channel=Adult...
|
| Edit: [You spoiled the joke by retroactively editing your post
| and removing your amusing disclaimer that you had a financial
| stake in shilling POS, and your hilarious call for programmers to
| help you develop your new cryptocurrency! "Dodge, dodge." That's
| what makes you so funny! The "Glooty" character parody is spot
| on.]
|
| RichardHeart on May 13, 2021 | root | parent | next [-]
|
| I see your joke and raise you one joke
| https://paywithexposure.com/ Also, you should actually watch the
| interview on the page you just linked. It's amazing.
|
| DonHopkins on May 13, 2021 | root | parent | next [-]
|
| Not a joke:
|
| Confronting Richard Heart of HEX - SPAM KING and Crypto Scammer
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20201115205631/https://www.coint...
|
| So will you again confirm what the article claims you already
| confirmed?
|
| >Richard Heart was sued for spamming in 2002 under WA state law.
| Source:
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-i...
|
| >During the interview at ANON, Richard confirmed that he was one
| of the first people in the world to be sued for online spam, back
| in 2002. This shows us Richard has experience abusing unregulated
| markets, as he is doing with crypto these days.
|
| Is this an accurate quote of your own words?
|
| >When I pressed the matter and asked for a simple "yes" or "no"
| as to whether he, as the FOUNDER of HEX, knows who benefits from
| the funds sent to the "Origin Address" he flat-out said "I'm
| dodging your question." Dodging the question! He proceeds to
| repeat "Dodge, dodge."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29367412
|
| DonHopkins on Nov 28, 2021 | parent | context | favorite | on:
| Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consens...
|
| Speaking of POS scammers, what ever happened to Richard "Dodge
| Dodge" Heart, winner of the "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New
| Scam" for his POS get-rich-quick pyramid scheme called "HEX", who
| falsely claims that proof of stake is a proven successful
| replacement for proof of work, and who shills HEX and tries to
| recruit unsuspecting developers and victims here on HN and many
| other places, by making illegal false claims of providing CDs
| (certificates of deposit)?
|
| To be fair, I'd love to hear him chime in on this discussion, and
| tell his side of the story, relate his exploits and prosecution
| as a viagra spammer, and finally answer all those unanswered
| questions people have asked him, to which he replied "Dodge
| Dodge".
|
| Not that he's unique or special: POS shills like him are a dime a
| dozen. But he hangs out here and shills on HN, and has won awards
| for his deceptive scams (and also lost court cases too), and
| claims to "help people" on his web site, so I hope to hear from
| him again.
|
| https://richardheart.com/
|
| His real name is actually Richard J Schueler, under which he is
| famously known as the "Spam King", for being one of the first
| people in the world to be successfully sued for online spam,
| specifically the Viagra spam scheme that he ran from Panama
| (which he lost).
|
| Richard Hart (aka "Spam King" Richard J Schueler) wins the
| "Golden Pump Award" for "Best New Scam" for his POS shitcoin
| Ponzi scheme "HEX":
|
| https://twitter.com/JuanSGalt/status/1233242355995750400
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=857&v=tf-lJu5iDh...
|
| Peacefire.org beats spammers in court.
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/peacefire-org-beats-spammers-i...
|
| >Free-speech group Peacefire.org wins a legal round in its fight
| against unsolicited e-mail, invoking Washington state's anti-spam
| law.
|
| >The King County District Court in Bellevue, Wash., on Monday
| granted Peacefire $1,000 in damages in each of three complaints
| filed by Peacefire Webmaster Bennett Haselton. The small-claims
| suit alleged that Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard
| Schueler [who now operates under the pseudonum "Richard Hart"]
| sent unsolicited commercial messages to Haselton that bore
| deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or
| misleading subject line.
|
| Confronting Richard Heart of HEX - SPAM KING and Crypto Scammer
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20201115205631/https://www.coint...
|
| >During ANON Summit 2020, I participated in a "fireside chat"
| with Richard Heart, founder of HEX. HEX is one of the most
| sophisticated, if not THE most sophisticated scams I have ever
| seen.
|
| >Why was I so aggressive with Richard? I have a lot of experience
| fighting with scammers, at events, and in online discussions. I'm
| familiar with their bullshit techniques. Richard is the sort of
| "master debater" who will answer a question without actually
| answering the content of the question. I watched more than 6
| hours of his previous talks and learned how to tell when he was
| trying to avoid a real answer.
|
| >If you don't want to sit through hours of interviews yourself,
| this 4 minute video not only sheds light on Heart's motivation
| for establishing HEX, but also shows just how abrasive and crude
| he can be. This video was not created or edited by
| Cointelligence.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MIdlXHedlU
|
| >I want to draw your attention to the quote in the video above:
| "What am I going to make more money doing? Promoting my token,
| that I own a whole ton of? Or promoting bitcoin, where I own one-
| one zillionth of the available supply?" He's clearly in this to
| make money for himself in any way possible. [...]
|
| >When asked why HEX was not categorized as a security, at around
| the 21 minute mark, Richard offered an explanation that has no
| legal grounding. On the website, HEX claims that it is "The first
| high interest blockchain certificate of deposit." However, HEX
| has no legal authority to issue CDs. Richard is illegally
| claiming to provide CDs when in fact the instruments are nothing
| but glorified savings accounts.
|
| More quotes: "What's up now, fggot? What are you going to do now,
| you little btch? Get the fuck out of here! That's the dumbest
| piece of shit I've ever seen in my fucking life. [...] Let me
| give you some more bullshit, ok?" -Richard Heart aka Richard J
| Schueler
|
| Richard Heart - Spam, ICOs, and Death Threats
|
| https://imnotdead.co.uk/blog/richard-heart
|
| Richard James Schueler - Friggin Spam King
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190416235350/http://www.panama...
|
| Why HEX is a Ponzi and not a solid investment (Part 2): Richard
| Heart
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/kwhjxa/why_...
|
| >During the interview at ANON, Richard confirmed that he was one
| of the first people in the world to be sued for online spam, back
| in 2002. This shows us Richard has experience abusing unregulated
| markets, as he is doing with crypto these days.
|
| Richard: this an accurate quote of your own words?
|
| >When I pressed the matter and asked for a simple "yes" or "no"
| as to whether he, as the FOUNDER of HEX, knows who benefits from
| the funds sent to the "Origin Address" he flat-out said "I'm
| dodging your question." Dodging the question! He proceeds to
| repeat "Dodge, dodge."
|
| Richard, your tag-line "Do you want to develop my new
| cryptocurrency?" is the new "Do you want to develop an app?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVy0JWX5XEY&ab_channel=Adult...
|
| "Dodge, dodge." -Richard Heart aka Richard J Schueler
| jacquesm wrote:
| I knew this comment would be here.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| The craziest part to me is that he was so incredibly open about
| it and people just kept giving him $. He just made video after
| video showing himself wearing outfits worth tens of thousands of
| dollars. Not a video about something else where he happened to be
| dressed up, but the video was literally about how much the items
| he was wearing cost. On top of that he looked absolutely
| ridiculous. I have never seen such a real life example of money
| not being able to buy class.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| I had the strange luck to have known Richard Hart before he
| became a crypto huckster. In the year or so leading up to his
| transition from random spammer nobody to wealthy scamming
| random nobody, he was pretty aggressively critical and cynical
| about all things cryptocurrency, especially about the abject
| gullibility and willful ignorance of the people who sign on to
| all of the ideological nonsense about the blockchain and
| decentralization, and people who take all of the obviously
| manipulated metrics about market cap, volume and activity at
| face value. He could have been your very standard hn
| cryptocritic, going by his stated positions.
|
| I'm not sure exactly what happened to him in the year or so
| between when I last encountered him in certain telegram
| channels, but I get the sense that his reaction to the shit
| show of cryptocurrency was rather than settling for being
| another Cassandra with a lot to say and no money to say it
| about the dangers of the crypto Ponzi scene, he went full
| Mirror Universe and decided to simply take advantage of the
| people who he had contempt for, as openly and boldly and
| shamelessly and transparently as he possibly could. This way he
| wouldn't have to feel as guilty about fooling them. Like a
| Stephen Colbert or Sacha Baron Cohen but with more meanness and
| less talent, and without any remorse for bilking the naive
| minnows snagged in the bycatch of his cryptobro trawling net.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| He very much took advantage of the adage, "a fool and his
| money are soon parted". On some level I can't even blame him.
| People are literally sending hundreds/ thousands of dollars
| in eth to people that just list an address and give vague
| mention of getting something valuable back. He probably
| figured, why not me? He could have just moved to Russia and
| have been fine. SEC frowns upon blatant scams though.
| arp242 wrote:
| It sounds like the old "create an elaborate smokescreen
| comprised of the truth" trick. "Surely if he was a REAL
| scammer he would never do all these blatant scammy things?!"
|
| Jimmy Savile was a master of this: "no actual pedophile would
| say he will stick his dick in to anyone he can lay his hands
| on, especially not with all the rumours floating around!?"
| Well...
| colesantiago wrote:
| Good.
|
| Almost every 'founder' of a token is a scammer. Bitcoin and
| Crypto have no use case other being than an unregulated scammers
| paradise which ransomware, fraud and pyramid and ponzi schemes
| run rampant.
|
| It should all be regulated out of existence.
|
| Stephen Diehl, Molly White, David Gerard, Ben McKenzie and other
| crypto sceptics makes this clear which I highly recommend
| reading.
|
| https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html
|
| https://ben-mckenzie.com/
|
| https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
|
| https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/
|
| https://blog.mollywhite.net/blockchain/
| LexiMax wrote:
| And of course, Dan Olson's amazing "Line Goes Up."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g
|
| https://eizebasa.baby/line-goes-up (Complete script)
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Dan Olsen is fantastic. "line goes up" is great. So is Hhis
| video is about flat earthers.
| paulpauper wrote:
| meh civil suit. these people are used to being sued or threated
| lawsuits .
| hobs wrote:
| I almost was very sad because I thought this was referring to
| hex.tech which I love and is great
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