[HN Gopher] SEC's X Account Hacked, Bitcoin Spot ETFs Not yet Ap...
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SEC's X Account Hacked, Bitcoin Spot ETFs Not yet Approved
Author : Galanwe
Score : 211 points
Date : 2024-01-09 21:40 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.bitcoinsistemi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.bitcoinsistemi.com)
| paulpauper wrote:
| Yeah this is really bad for BTC longs. now it will probably be
| delayed. it's obvious that there is too much fraud and
| manipulation.. The SEC cannot in good conscious allow an ETF to
| protect investors (yes, ETFs which have lost all value like UVXY
| have been approved). Whoever did this furcked over wall street
| and these funds. Wow. never a dull moment.
| fullshark wrote:
| I think an ETF is inevitable do you not?
| paulpauper wrote:
| all of the hype is over approval this week. approval
| eventually could mean 2025 or later .
| cempaka wrote:
| I mean, I know it's the SEC and all, but did they _really_
| not have their account locked down with all kinds of fail-
| safes to prevent something exactly like this? One is
| tempted to speculate about an inside job to sabotage an
| approval they never wanted to grant in the first place.
|
| On the other hand, it _is_ the SEC ....
| enlyth wrote:
| You don't seem to understand the purpose of UVXY. It's not
| meant to be held for longer periods of time, it's a financial
| product for traders to make short term volatility plays.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Yeah but a lot of people have probably lost a lot by holding
| and not understanding how it works or underestimating the
| decay. Same for leveraged gold miners, which have also lost
| all value. A BTC etf is probably safer than UVXY.
| IKantRead wrote:
| Who in the world is still _long_ on crypto?
|
| In the past few years we've seen ample evidence that crypto is
| largely a complete scam, and likewise strong evidence that none
| of crypto's hoped for value will come to fruition (we didn't
| see it useful for fighting inflation, it's not being used to
| avoid sanctions, it certainly isn't being used as a currency,
| etc).
|
| The fact that crypto still has any market value, and that
| companies like coinbase not only exist but have had a stellar
| year defies the imagination.
|
| I get a few years back when there was still a lot of
| speculation/optimism, but clearly today _everyone_ see that it
| is just a con. Today even my most cynical view of markets seems
| naive.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Agree. I would not touch it. Poor risk to reward ratio
| compared to stocks or other alternatives, too much risk.
| sneak wrote:
| I'm still long bitcoin. Digital permissionless money is
| useful.
|
| There is no evidence to support your "complete scam" claim.
| JamesLefrere wrote:
| I've used DeFi for as long as it's been around and will
| continue to do so. It's safer and can be more profitable than
| TradFi, even with stablecoin yield. It's a larger area than
| you might realise, and there is a lot more to it than degen
| gambling.
| altairprime wrote:
| Just because it's obviously a con, doesn't negate the
| possibility of get rich quick outcomes for blockchain
| participants. Human beings are quite well known for being
| easily suckered into lazy profit opportunities, and for
| rationalizing away complex ethical concerns when complicit in
| suckering others. Otherwise pyramid schemes would never work.
| smeej wrote:
| I'm short "crypto," but long bitcoin.
|
| Most of the ecosystem _is_ scammy garbage, but I think there
| 's still going to be enough demand for sound money that a
| currency that can't be artificially manipulated by a central
| bank will do well, relative to currencies that can.
|
| Perhaps I'll be wrong, but that's why I'm not heavily
| leveraged and I hedge my bets.
|
| I don't think the entire ecosystem is garbage. I do think
| there are a few useful ideas other than bitcoin. But I can
| _easily_ support the assertion that more than 99% of the
| "crypto" things that exist are worthless and/or outright
| scams.
| codegeek wrote:
| In my opinion, only the scammers OR people who truly believed
| in the promise of crypto and still are delusional to think it
| will materialize some day. Either way, it is terrible. I
| can't believe that a digital currency that cannot be used by
| most people is worth $xx,0000. But may be I am dumb.
| x86x87 wrote:
| People are delusional _or_ you don't get it _or_ the truth
| is somewhere in between
| Shosty123 wrote:
| Takes like these are so moronic it hurts. I just paid an
| artist across the globe for some icons; the transaction took
| seconds to resolve and cost me cents to send via SOL. The
| closest I've come to that is Canada's eTransfer system, but
| it only works in Canada.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| For a 3% gain that they might well have missed holding out for
| more, lol.
| paulpauper wrote:
| leverage, options, etc. more than 3%
| infotainment wrote:
| I love watching crypto people obsess about the fabled Bitcoin
| ETF. You'd think it was some kind of religious movement.
|
| _" Oh glorious SEC, once thou bestowest thine blessing, Crypto
| shall rise a thousandfold! Glory to Bitcoin!"_
| zaphod420 wrote:
| Crypto people are more like: "Honey badger don't give a fuck.
| Not your keys, not your coins."
| mamonster wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of how whenever a stock starts getting rumors
| of being included in an index there are HF guys bidding it up
| to dump on the index ETFs.
| viraptor wrote:
| More approved use means more standard financial industry
| products using BTC, means more overall volume/value in BTC,
| means higher price. Of course people holding BTC will like
| that.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Of course people holding BTC will like that.
|
| Given that the original Whitepaper is titled: "A Peer-to-Peer
| Electronic Cash System" and a news article describing the
| 2009 bank bailout is literally baked into the very first
| block people celebrating slow morphing of Bitcoin into a
| traditional finance product is at least a little bit funny.
| Instead of a hedge crypto is now just effectively a correlate
| of the financial markets.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Conversely, traditional finance making products based on an
| asset which some of the most radical anarchocapitalists
| hold market-moving amounts of, bodes well.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Yes. If in the space long enough, this is a mainstream
| indicator of institutional adoption, paired with the inst
| trading volumes already there.
|
| Suggesting either could happen would get someone laughed out
| a room really not too long ago.
|
| If you were around for $3k btc, those intervening years saw:
|
| * first national current adoption (ES)
|
| * futures contracts from CME
|
| * institutional trading volumes CEXs and DeFi
|
| * first rounds of crypto being able to pull FAANG-types for
| jobs
|
| * countries approving it for contracts (Argentina)
|
| * looks like an imminent ETF
|
| * funding UKR war efforts faster than US govt could manage -
| $50m overnight iirc
|
| * arms deals via aforementioned funding
|
| A lot has happened! Bodes well
| codeflo wrote:
| It's not irrational: an ETF would make it a lot easier to buy
| Bitcoin, which would increase demand. It's funny though,
| because if Bitcoin would work as well as advertised, a
| traditional exchange shouldn't offer this kind of advantage.
| paxys wrote:
| > an ETF would make it a lot easier to buy Bitcoin
|
| How? Serious question. What would it enable that hasn't
| already been possible for many years now?
| NavinF wrote:
| It'll be marginable in a normal brokerage account
| paxys wrote:
| Again, already possible. Go to your Fidelity account and
| check.
| paulpauper wrote:
| A lot of people are expecting to get rich off Bitcoin. They
| still think it's a ticket to financial freedom even though
| returns since late 2017 have been mediocre. Relative to
| volatility, they would be better off with 3x tech etfs like
| TQQQ or TECL, which have more upside and less risk compared to
| Bitcoin for the same amount of volatility.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Original Post:
| https://twitter.com/garygensler/status/1744833049064288387?s...
| dcolkitt wrote:
| The price of BTC initially jumped 3% on the hacked tweet. That's
| $25bn+ of market cap. The irony is the SEC itself is probably now
| responsible for the largest crypto pump and dump in history.
| mulmen wrote:
| How is the SEC responsible for fraud committed on Twitter?
| lxgr wrote:
| By using Twitter as a communications channel for official
| announcements, they are at least legitimizing it.
|
| If they have any reason to be concerned about the security of
| their account (and it looks like they should have at least
| from now on), they should arguably reconsider their choice of
| platform.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Because it's their account?
| riversflow wrote:
| [delayed]
| huy77 wrote:
| how do we know if this website is spreading truth from the SEC
| itself, then?
| ksjskskskkk wrote:
| maybe trust the almost useless SSL certificate merchants,
| instead of the really useless 8 bucks blue checkmark
| merchants? i dunno.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| You don't. Verify any tweets at the SEC's own website:
| https://www.sec.gov/page/news
|
| And if it's actually important, a third source from a trusted
| media outlet wouldn't hurt either.
| paxys wrote:
| Twitter/X is not an authoritative source of news, regardless of
| whether it is an "official" account doing the Tweeting or not.
| Anyone can get a blue check by paying $8/mo.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| The SEC twitter account has a grey check, which you cannot
| get by paying $8.
|
| https://twitter.com/SECGov
| paxys wrote:
| And how does the average user know this?
| unleaded wrote:
| By clicking on it
| paxys wrote:
| Clicking on any blue check mark shows "this account is
| verified". But that isn't supposed to mean verified?
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| This is what it says when I click on it.
|
| > This account is verified because it is a government or
| multilateral organization account.
|
| Along with a link to "Learn More"[0]
|
| [0] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-
| policies/profile-label...
| paulgb wrote:
| Right, but I think paxys' point is that the message you
| get when you click a blue check _also_ implies the
| account is verified (which is not true in any rigorous
| sense of the word "verified"). The average user can't be
| expected to know that the white one is "more verified"
| when they both say "verified".
| solardev wrote:
| What does the grey check mean?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/profile-
| label...
|
| "The grey checkmark indicates that an account represents
| a government/multilateral organization or a
| government/multilateral official. Eligibility criteria to
| receive a complimentary grey checkmark are listed below.
| Additional government and multilateral accounts can
| receive grey checkmarks through Verified Organizations.
|
| Eligible government organizations at the national level
| may include: Main executive office accounts, agency
| accounts overseeing specific areas of policy, main
| embassy and consulate accounts, and parliamentary or
| equivalent institutional and committee accounts. Eligible
| government organizations at the state and local level
| include: Main executive office accounts and main agency
| accounts overseeing crisis response, public safety, law
| enforcement, and regulatory issues.
|
| Eligible government individuals may include: Heads of
| state (presidents, monarchs and prime ministers), deputy
| heads of state (vice presidents, deputy prime ministers),
| national-level cabinet members or equivalent, the main
| official spokesperson for the executive branch or
| equivalent, and individual members of all chambers of the
| supranational or national congress, parliament, or
| equivalent.
|
| Eligible multilateral organizations may include: the main
| headquarters-level, regional-level, and country-level
| institutional accounts. Eligible multilateral individuals
| include: The head and deputy-head or equivalent of the
| multilateral organization.
|
| US only: Accounts of current US state governors and
| senior military leaders are also eligible.
|
| Eligible accounts may apply here. (link)
|
| Any government or multilateral accounts that do not
| qualify under our current grey checkmark criteria can see
| if they're eligible under our Verified Organizations
| feature."
| solardev wrote:
| Thanks for the quote!
|
| Lol, I can't believe this is really what they ended up
| with: multicolored stars to indicate different things? I
| thought it was a joke at first, but no, that's really how
| it works now. What a strange world...
| parineum wrote:
| > I can't believe this is really what they ended up with:
| multicolored stars to indicate different things? I
| thought it was a joke at first
|
| What's the issue with it?
| codetrotter wrote:
| They used to have blue check marks which was this
| exclusive thing that meant that someone was important
| enough to have been verified. Then Elon decided to start
| selling blue check marks for money, so now there are
| apparently a bunch of different colored check marks that
| you need to keep track of and know the meaning of.
|
| Whereas it used to be just. Blue check mark = this is
| probably the real person I think it is.
|
| (But in this case it don't matter anyway. They were
| hacked and even if we still had only blue check marks
| their account would have been hacked all the same.)
| sp332 wrote:
| That's why Tumblr gives you two checkmarks, and lets you
| pick the color. E.g. https://www.tumblr.com/amtrak-
| official
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| didn't see anything about "required hardware security key
| to post" huh
|
| Twitter paywalls 2FA to premium users, and even then it's
| SMS only
|
| not a serious company, anyone who trusts a tweet for
| official information should think twice before trading on
| it
| psychlops wrote:
| And getting 500 thousand followers. Easy peasy.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| When the payout is say $100M from trading on the fake news,
| yes it is.
| supermatt wrote:
| Theres a few different colours now:
| https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/profile-
| label...
| data_monkey wrote:
| Blue checkmarks still got hacked when all it meant was the
| person was "popular".
| seydor wrote:
| what is an authoritative source? does it come with a
| certificate?
| solardev wrote:
| How about a .gov domain name?
| JLCarveth wrote:
| The SECs website?
| seydor wrote:
| for news in general? cool
| ziddoap wrote:
| Or, ya know, for news from the SEC?
| Eji1700 wrote:
| We really really really need some legislation about
| governmental agencies using privately owned companies to
| announce things.
|
| There was already some for radio/early news, but the
| landscape has changed so much, and it bothers me a ton that
| these platforms are being used.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > We really really really need some legislation about
| governmental agencies using privately owned companies to
| announce things.
|
| What kind of legislation? There's a whole lot of existing
| law that applies in that domain (both statute and
| Constitutional case law), but if you think we need
| different laws, it probably helps to at least present the
| general shape of the law you want rather than just that it
| should in some way touch impact government using private
| platforms for announcements.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| An example might be that the government sets up its own
| very basic one-way tweet-like notification service,
| something as simple as or simpler than an RSS feed, with
| the official content accessible directly via a .gov
| hosted web page.
|
| Whatever X is or becomes, as owned by private interests,
| is trusted with nothing more than scraping and
| rebroadcasting the original and authentic source.
|
| A solution with less developer and user overhead ma ybe
| that government webs host a list of public keys by which
| any "gray or blue check mark" type of authenticatuon
| signal capability on any private service can be validated
| against, and the government can revoke keys at any time
| if for some reason there's a suspicion that a counterfeit
| message is being distributed via these private services.
| Maybe repurpose the creaky old atomic clock time sync
| radio signal that is deployed almost everywhere as a
| means to distribute a rotating secondary factor. just old
| PKI tactics proven to work for two plus decades.
|
| But this approach is still open to exploiting human
| tendency to trust things that have been trustworthy for a
| long time, until they aren't. So I still think hosting
| official messaging feeds directly from a government run
| server, accessible by any barebones http client capable
| of displaying plain text with basic paragraph/item
| formatting at most, is the gold standard.
|
| The current situation, where X or meta or google or even
| a mastodon instance is entrusted with the entire conduit
| from human input to broadcast output, is a terrible
| precedent to normalize.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| Your ideas are honestly great and both of the solutions
| you presented (RSS->.gov site and public keys) feel like
| great solutions. I think the problem is that both of
| those require the general public to have some amount of
| technical knowledge which is, apparently, a big ask. The
| first would be a lot easier to present and avoid
| confusion but it'd still require people to know to go to
| that site.
|
| For what it's worth though, I think the solution to that
| is people should have some real amount of education about
| the function and potential dangers of the internet before
| getting on it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _both of those require the general public to have some
| amount of technical knowledge_
|
| Twitter and Instagram could repost the government feeds.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| Well we had this:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/politics/trump-
| twitter...
|
| (full opinion here):
| https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1365-trump-
| twitter-s...
|
| which while resolved, really opens more questions than it
| solves (which is fine because legislating from the bench
| shouldn't be the norm...)
|
| There need to be very clear laws about how social media
| and modern tech is used to present information. Hell for
| the first time the government should have the ability to
| directly release information and not be reliant on normal
| privately owned distribution, and that should be
| investigated as well.
|
| This whole thing is a giant can of legal worms anyways,
| and it only gets worse because our legislative branch has
| decided to devolve into high school popularity contests
| and just let the judiciary sort it all out.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| At the very least, there should always be the original
| release of the information on the official government
| website.
| riffic wrote:
| tell your congress critters to write laws requiring public
| infrastructure (public sector adoption of ActivityPub is an
| awesome use-case here)
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| All you need is HTTPs and HTML. Maybe RSS.
| paxys wrote:
| The government has always used privately owned companies
| (newspapers, news channels, news websites) to make
| announcements. Social media is just the latest iteration of
| that. The government operating its own websites is in fact
| the aberration, and I'd wager the vast majority of people
| don't even know they exist or visit them. So not sure what
| such a law would accomplish.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| I'm aware which is why I mentioned that.
|
| The big issue is you can't be banned from newspapers,
| radio, and news channels. And there was still some
| question about "can you just announce this on the news or
| is that going to be unfair to people who don't own TV's".
| You can absolutely be banned from twitter.
|
| There's also the standard of keeping records. The
| government is supposed to have immaculate records of
| these sorts of things with a whole shitload of legal
| nonsense involved in it. Twitter has complied with this
| under recent presidents but it's a big question of "do
| they need to?" and "what happens if they don't?".
|
| For starters it like violates the FOIA, which is a
| serious thing.
| riffic wrote:
| there's prior art for a government gazette (the federal
| register or whatever equivalent in your own country):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_gazette
|
| going back even further in time you had the town crier:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_crier
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The legislation could be "just don't" because:
|
| 1. The government owns it's own top level domain(s) to be a
| primary source
|
| and
|
| 2. There is the general media who can turn that into
| stories, and use whatever private companies they need.
|
| This delineates official statement from general news, which
| people will be slightly more skeptical of.
| frostix wrote:
| I think we just need media literacy at least for now while
| the noise is still manageable. It's perfectly fine to rely
| on private news to spread the information IMO, the issue is
| that people should independently verify said information.
|
| After reading said announcement on Twitter, the first thing
| I'd do (if I cared about it) would be to head on over to
| sec.gov or use a search engine to find the official SEC
| site, then from navigate to find the official announcement.
| Any reputable news source should include a link in their
| announcement to the official announcement to save you this
| verification step.
|
| At some point there may be so much targeted
| disinformation/misinformation out there that we need
| legislation to help protect against it but I don't think
| we're there yet.
| unleaded wrote:
| Imagine your bank balance is suddenly worth half as much
| because someone wrote a tweet. How is cryptocurrency still
| taken seriously?
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| I am not a fan of crypto, but I don't think tweet affecting
| something like that is an indicator of anything.
|
| Something big can happen and only a very little information
| can reveal it to have happened. That is the power of speed of
| information and the scale.
| hyperhopper wrote:
| Imagine your bank balance is suddenly worth half as much
| because somebody dropped a bomb? How is fiat currency still
| taken seriously?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Imagine your bank balance is suddenly worth half as much
| because someone wrote a tweet.
|
| That's just as possible with regular stocks, which Twitter's
| owner has (unrelatedly) demonstrated multiple times in the
| past with both Tesla and Twitter... or, a bit slower, in the
| early covid months.
|
| Stock markets are insanely sensitive to "insider" information
| and breaking news in general, which is why the regulations
| around them are so strict.
| solardev wrote:
| How is Twitter still taken seriously?
| derangedHorse wrote:
| "Half as much" is unnecessary exaggeration. All assets with a
| high reading volume can be manipulated with a tweet. News of
| a Bitcoin ETF is no different than positive news for any
| other asset. I think your bias is making you ignorant to
| general market mechanics.
| bogota wrote:
| So im guessing you feel like tesla shouldn't be taken
| seriously as well?
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| The price moved ~3% as a result of the tweet.
|
| There have been many flash crashes in traditional markets
| bigger than that, triggered by similarly stupid events.
| paulpauper wrote:
| _The price of BTC initially jumped 3% on the hacked tweet. That
| 's $25bn+ of market cap_
|
| more than that. all the alts went up too
| addicted wrote:
| This is quite literally not a pump and dump by the SEC.
|
| A pump and dump would require the same entity to be doing the
| buying, pumping up, and then dumping the asset.
|
| The SEC didn't buy, nor did it sell, nor did it pump up the
| price (someone pretending to be the SEC pumped up the price).
|
| Even assuming that the "largest pump and dump" claim is
| correct, at most, the SEC was used for that purpose and isn't
| "responsible" for it.
| altairprime wrote:
| Even if the hacking entity did the pump and dump, then their
| statement is valid: the SEC's incaution made this possible.
| epgui wrote:
| Since we're all being a bit pedantic here... the SEC would
| be responsible for negligently allowing a third-party pump
| to happen-- they would not be responsible for a pump and
| dump. Pump and dump requires intention (and requires
| dumping).
| altairprime wrote:
| [delayed]
| kevingadd wrote:
| Assuming the account was compromised due to errors
| committed by the SEC, and not the masterful engineering and
| security protocols of X Corp
| wlesieutre wrote:
| They didn't say the SEC did it, they said the SEC was
| "responsible" for it.
|
| Which may or may not be true, if they were using
| "password123" then sure that's negligent and they'd bear some
| of the responsibility, but it might not have been the SEC's
| fault at all.
| lxgr wrote:
| Creating a venue for large-scale market manipulation through
| negligence would qualify as "being responsible" for me.
|
| Since we don't know how they were hacked, we don't know if
| they actually were negligent, though.
| psychlops wrote:
| I'm sure many people can use this as their defense. "I didn't
| buy and sell on the news, my friend did!"
| nodesocket wrote:
| > The SEC didn't buy, nor did it sell, nor did it pump up the
| price (someone pretending to be the SEC pumped up the price).
|
| How do we know it's not an inside job? Pretty tempting to
| pull a twitter account takeover and make potentially millions
| if you a lonely cog in the SEC wheel.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Who cares about $25bn?
|
| These guys hacked the SEC, made huge announcement tweet, and
| only got a 3% move from that. More over, they only had a 10
| minute window to close whatever positions they had before BTC
| crashed through it's pre-hack price.
|
| There is a fair chance that they actually _lost_ money on this
| play, lol.
| yreg wrote:
| The expectation is that the ETF is going to be approved very
| soon, so it's priced in.
| Powdering7082 wrote:
| 3% gain on BTC is really not that much for crypto, it's the
| size of the movement within a given timeframe that makes it
| impressive (e.g. it was within a minute or two). It would have
| been very easy to take out a leveraged long position in defi &
| profit off this.
| nprateem wrote:
| POW crypto should be globally banned on ecological grounds.
| krunck wrote:
| Then so should GPU powered generative AI. Just kidding.
|
| Just because you do not derive utility from something does not
| mean it a waste and should be banned.
| snapcaster wrote:
| People say this all the time, but why don't they say that about
| videogames? or actual mining? I also think access to and
| freedom to use electricity as you wish is really underrated as
| a freedom. Maybe consider that if you start this precedent
| people will end up policing your energy use too
| solardev wrote:
| Because even video games have more worth than crypto?
| tromp wrote:
| You wouldn't say that if bitcoin used no more power than it did
| in its first 4 years, before all the speculative use that drove
| up prices and energy use.
| dageshi wrote:
| I am glad to see the cyberpunk future of hackers impersonating
| government agencies in order to pump and dump digital currency
| has finally arrived.
| thewanderer1983 wrote:
| Unlike the long history of price manipulation in traditional
| markets?
| phailhaus wrote:
| Yes.
| cubefox wrote:
| Unlike conventional science fiction.
| IKantRead wrote:
| The old crypto chants were that crypto would lead us _away_
| from the ills of traditional markets /finance.
|
| Glad to see that it's been watered down to "just as bad as"
| arguments.
| f-securus wrote:
| Greed will, uhhhhh, find a way.
| xvector wrote:
| Tomorrow your bank could cut you off from your own money
| because you protested the government[1], and what could you
| possibly do?
|
| Having the freedom to _truly own_ your own money and
| investments is valuable in and of itself, no matter how
| much crypto "devolves" towards traditional finance in
| other regards.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-
| pro...
| ekerstein wrote:
| Instead, you can lose access to your money just because
| you forgot your secret key.
| brewtide wrote:
| But one of those things has the responsibility placed up
| on you.
|
| The other, not so much.
|
| Plenty of downsides to crypto no doubt, but I'm not sure
| "personal responsibility" is one of them.
| codegeek wrote:
| Or Worse, coinbase decided you are no longer worth their
| time. Wait, I thought this was supposed to be
| decentralized.
| digging wrote:
| Yes, like you can lose your treasure by forgetting where
| you buried it. Or you can lose your silver when an
| accidental fire melts your palace into slag. Or you can
| lose your wheat harvest to mold! Self-storage is the
| default way of holding wealth, not a new one. And it's a
| tradeoff that people will always choose to make as long
| as personal wealth exists.
|
| Among the innumerable problems with cryptocurrency, this
| is not one of them.
| JoshuaRogers wrote:
| Honestly, the first thing I'd do is hope that they forgot
| that I make house and car payments though them and that
| they forgot how much damage they could do to my
| professional life just by intentionally sabotaging my
| credit. Crypto doesn't provide any realistic protection
| to me from their whims should they become bad actors.
| huijzer wrote:
| Apart from some edge cases, Western democracies have
| quite solid property rights upheld also by the judicial
| system. But yes if you're in Russia or China then this
| argument is moot. They have much less property rights.
| However, Bitcoin is also not a solution because there is
| no point in owning Bitcoin if you fell trice out of a
| Russian window or are sentenced to a labour camp or to
| the death penalty in China for "fraudulus activities".
| Difficult to spend your Bitcoin in both cases.
| xvector wrote:
| I certainly wouldn't call being Canadian an "edge case."
|
| Protesting ought to be something you can do in any
| Western democracy without fear of losing access to your
| accounts.
| huijzer wrote:
| I would hope that the judicial system fixes the
| government intervention. I haven't heard of similar cases
| in Canada or other liberal democracies.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Being a trucker in Canada is a edge case. Also being a
| human interacting with police in the US.
|
| Did you mean intellectual property? You draw Mickey a
| year ago and a FBI helicopter would soon be overhead to
| kill your dog and take any cash they find in your wallet.
| bluish29 wrote:
| Not only Russian or Chinese, you should open the bracket
| for any individual, organization or country that the
| western democracies will deem bad in their view. Or even
| have the any doubt of association with them. For example
| we can talk to many Muslims in the UK where no banks will
| grant them accounts (close account without notice) and
| how safe they feel [1]
|
| Not that I am a crypto supporter, but the current western
| based financial system hegemony is good until you are
| have wrong name, religion, country... etc.
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-16/br
| itish-m...
| Tao3300 wrote:
| > what could you possibly do?
|
| Magical Amulets?
|
| Fake your own death, move into a submarine?
| lolinder wrote:
| If your government wants to cut you off from your money,
| they'll do it for crypto just as easily as they do it for
| traditional banks. With the exception of direct-crypto
| purchases from shady internet sites, at some point your
| payment rails _must_ pass through an entity that your
| government has some degree of authority over--you 're not
| going to buy your groceries using Bitcoin over an onion
| service.
|
| Even if crypto becomes 100% ubiquitous, the end game
| isn't "now the government can't control finance" the end
| game is "now the government will find a new way to
| control the new finance". Eventually, the government will
| intervene because people will be _begging_ them to,
| because they don 't actually want to live in a world
| where theft and fraud are irreversible and their entire
| financial life is tied to a set of cryptographic keys
| that they barely understand.
|
| You're trying to push a technological solution to
| authoritarianism, and it's not going to work for the
| masses. Canada doesn't need crypto, Canada needs voters
| to hold the government accountable for its abuses.
| wfme wrote:
| What "chants" are you referring to specifically re
| differences in markets? AFAIK it has always been pushed as
| a decentralized alternative to sending money, but that has
| little bearing on the way the traded price changes?
| transcriptase wrote:
| I'll admit it has been deeply entertaining watching the
| crypto community speed-run 200 years of "finding out the
| hard way why modern financial regulations exist" and "how
| to recognize a blisteringly obvious ponzi scheme" in the
| span of 15 years.
|
| I say this as someone who got his first 0.05 btc for
| signing up for a newsletter in 2009 or 2010.
| mrb wrote:
| 0.05? You probably misremember the amount. For reference,
| in 2010 the Bitcoin faucet gave away 5 BTC just for
| visiting a web page. A decent incentive for subscribing
| to a newsletter, more involved than visiting a web page,
| would have to have been higher than 5 BTC.
| Jenk wrote:
| In about the same time frame someone offered me 16,000
| BTC for a mediocre graphics card I put on a listing. (I
| turned it down.)
| nicwolff wrote:
| Someone has to post it: that'd be worth $736,592,000
| today if you'd kept it all.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| Crypto guys will never stop whataboutery..
| rvz wrote:
| That isn't whataboutery. Every market has its insiders, and
| it is manipulated.
|
| This event is no different.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Is it surprising that cybercrime is just crime in cyberspace?
| QuantumGood wrote:
| Barely makes an impression in the parade of crime that is
| web3isgoinggreat.com/
| a_JIT_pie wrote:
| Can you explain how web3 is responsible for all the crypto
| nonsense for a layman?
| epgui wrote:
| I can't speak for the other commenter, but I don't think
| they said that "web3 is responsible for all the crypto
| nonsense". My impression is that they're just hinting at a
| relationship between the two.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Web3 _is_ the crypto nonsense. It was a rebrand attempt.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3
| bbor wrote:
| From this forum we shall organize the great retaking of
| "Web3" for the 3D paradigm it was always meant to be.
| It's in the name!!
|
| It's sad that blockchain went the way it did, because
| it's probably a great technology when you don't expect it
| to revolutionize the entire internet.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| > it's probably a great technology
|
| It really isn't. There's nothing legal it can do that
| something else can't do better. It's not even that good
| at the illegal stuff.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _nothing legal it can do that something else can 't do
| better_
|
| Eh, Treasuries should probably be traded on a blockchain.
| Crypto _currency_ is nonsense. But the tech has legs. It
| just needs to, ironically, clear its way of the crypto
| /web3 crowd first.
| ChainOfFools wrote:
| Blockchain is not a technology in the sense of being a
| better "how" for some existing problem. blockchain is
| before anything else, a social contract requiring
| enforcement through technology. It is different enough
| from expectations people normally have about how they
| relate to one another that it would require quite a
| revolution indeed to be adopted in the capacity in which
| it is intended to function as intended, that is, to
| become the ultimate source of truth for every transaction
| on Earth.
|
| It's a back door attempt to fundamentally rewire how
| value is routed through society, and in the abstract this
| might be a good thing but in practice it cannot possibly
| happen due to physical constraints on consensus formation
| at the global, realtime scale that it would have to
| happen. As a result shortcuts are taken (or appear
| organically, i.e. exchages) in the form of centralized
| nodes of consensus settlement (what the promoters like to
| call Layer 2, sharding, or similar), and it's the people
| controlling these centralized nodes who end up becoming
| the new kings of this "revolutionized" system. I've met
| some of them, and they are not people who I would ever
| want to have anyone I care about to be under the thumb
| of.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| Its sad to think web 2.0 so long ago was a move towards
| more human centric websites, UI's, AJAXy sites, etc and
| now web3 is just a marketing term for fraudsters, exit
| scammers, shady VC's, and criminals. The late-stage
| capitalism of the internet is obvious to see.
| rjbwork wrote:
| web3 is the moniker these crypto-zealots use for their
| crypto-currency-all-the-things efforts.
|
| It secondarily has connotations of decentralization with
| stuff like Mastodon, but relatively few people care about
| that stuff.
| abujazar wrote:
| web3 is a term coined by some of the people behind the
| crypto nonsense, as if it could be a successor to 'web 2.0'
| orwin wrote:
| Blockchains are a fun tools, i really like some ideas
| (ipfs, etherium and solidity), but i want to separate it
| from the cryptocurrency nonsense. Luckily, almost all
| grifters and zealots started talking about "web3", to re
| appropriate the term (like they did "crypto", which mean
| cryptography for old and cybersec people).
|
| Hence i associate web3 with the grift, and blockchain with
| the technology. Probably gp does the same.
| appplication wrote:
| That's a fun site.
| moose_man wrote:
| Crypto is a scam (including Bitcoin) anybody treating it
| otherwise is overly credulous or in on the scam. Maybe it
| started out with better intentions but it is irredeemable.
| cft wrote:
| And so is economic growth by printing USDs. Let's see
| which one collapses first.
| happytiger wrote:
| It's such a reasonable thing to expect any level of hacking.
| Consider the idea that w3 is the transition of assets into
| literal Internet money. We digitized wealth and w3
| concentrated those supplies into readily available large
| quantity targets.
|
| The idea that there would be anything but a massive
| acceleration of crime and fraud as a result of the
| digitization of actual money is actually hilarious.
|
| It's a fact that North Korea relies on hacking it for funding
| critical imports at this point...
|
| The real question is who and how this massive
| financialization and tokenization exercise will benefit,
| because it's increasingly clear that the old guard has
| designs on how to control it pretty effectively and it's not
| actually as free or anonymous as many people think. Some
| exceptions apply.
| traeregan wrote:
| This is so wild. Assuming it was financially motivated, wouldn't
| the involved party stand to benefit more by shorting and posting
| that the ETF was denied?
| paulpauper wrote:
| no, because they make money on both ways: on the pump and then
| shorting. The account being hacked lowers odds of approval.
| paulgb wrote:
| You could still make money on the way down and then the way
| back up. And you'd probably move the market more than the ~3%
| that it was moved because the market consensus already gives
| a high probability to an approval this month.
|
| I get your point that it may not rebound quite as much
| because the hack itself lowers the odds of approval, but
| imagine the optics of Gary Gensler saying "it's not true that
| we denied the ETFs" -- bitcoin boosters would read that as a
| signal that it will be approved.
| paulpauper wrote:
| The fact BTC is a lot lower means that the odds of approval have
| fallen.
|
| Manifold markets still giving 90% odds.
|
| https://manifold.markets/123Newsletter/will-a-spot-btc-etf-b...
|
| this would be a good short but no liquidity
| josu wrote:
| Here you go: https://polymarket.com/event/bitcoin-etf-approved-
| by-jan-15
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Well this certainly makes them seem more legitimate.
| jakderrida wrote:
| I know making millions off crypto doesn't make me an authority,
| but... It's not an investment. I made money off people
| speculating by taking advantage solely off an inefficient market.
| There's nothing else to it. Money put in is not used to generate
| more wealth. Whether it's going to be used as an official
| currency in the future in no way would make an investment, nor
| would it mean it should even go up an value.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| This is half a joke, but maybe there is demand for a vehicle
| for speculation that isn't tied to anything real, at all.
|
| It achieves some sort of purity of concept. Plenty of people
| _gamble_ on the stock market but there has always been some
| sort of link to reality. With crypto, you can cut that tether
| and really treat it like gambling, rigged odds and all.
| jakderrida wrote:
| > but maybe there is demand for a vehicle for speculation
| that isn't tied to anything real, at all.
|
| I'll go with completely agreeing with this statement, the way
| it's written. Let's be honest...There's nothing semantically
| or generally wrong with it to argue against.
|
| As far as the "gambling" part... My objection would be that
| speculative vehicles aren't really on the "stock market" as
| much as they are the "derivatives market", if anything.
| Problem here is that the derivatives are, by definition, tied
| to the value of something else that could be called an
| investment. I'm not opposed to people trading. I made my
| money with market making algorithms and will make more as
| people keep trading. I'm just saying that classifying it as
| an "investment" poses quite a few issues for the SEC in terms
| of regulating it. Introducing it into an ETF that does
| nothing but hold crypto will be viewed by the public (that
| doesn't understand what crypto is) into presenting it as an
| investment. There are issues with that.
| wmf wrote:
| There is absolutely demand for that, especially when you add
| in artificial scarcity.
| paxys wrote:
| Is this fabled Bitcoin ETF really going to be the "to the moon"
| moment that everyone in the ecosystem seems to be expecting? From
| personal experience, I can't think of anyone who wants to buy
| Bitcoin but hasn't been able to by now. It takes a few clicks on
| Coinbase/Robinhood or a similar exchange. Plenty of 401k/IRA
| managers (including Fidelity) offer it as an option. So what
| exactly changes once this ETF is live?
| paulpauper wrote:
| Right, at this point, exposure to bitcoin is easy . this is not
| 2012 anymore.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I'd expect some upward pressure on price because the ETFs will
| own bitcoin.
|
| But to your larger, exaggerated ("everyone"), question: It'll
| make it easier to include bitcoin as a part of larger trades
| when it can be bought and sold and used as collateral like a
| regular stock. It'll be another tool used by professional
| traders. I don't think it'll be a world-changing event, and
| like you said, it's probably not going to increase aggregate
| demand as trading desks will shift out of complicated ownership
| structures to use the ETF instead.
| smeej wrote:
| Being able to buy it in a run-of-the-mill tax advantaged
| account would be a very big deal.
|
| It's _possible_ to do it now, but not easy.
| paxys wrote:
| Why is it not easy? Your fund manager has to click a button
| to enable it. You have to click a button to buy it. How will
| an ETF make it easier?
| throw310822 wrote:
| I live in Europe. I don't have a fund manager and I have
| invested in stocks on a low cost trading platform. Now I
| also have an account on Coinbase, which is an entirely
| different beast- different security, different
| responsibilities. It feels much more like owning physical
| goods than investing.
|
| There is a friction that would undoubtedly be solved by
| bitcoin ETFs. There's hundred of millions of causal
| investors who prefer to simply treat btc as any other stock
| and don't want to bother with actual ownership of the asset
| in any form and don't want to have to deal with anything
| different from normal stocks. And lowering friction
| increases usage.
| mamonster wrote:
| The main thing I think is that if there is an ETF then this
| could be the green light for big MMs to open/re-open crypto MM
| activities, on its own term and as part of being APs for the
| ETFs. Wintermute/Portofino/etc are good but if the big guys
| come in liquidity/order book depth will probably get way
| better.
| mrsilencedogood wrote:
| ETF's are so pervasive because they're so easy. VIX futures can
| be held, but people still buy VIXY and similar products. You
| can buy literal physical gold, but people still buy GLD et al.
|
| And it hardly matters that wrapping it in an ETF makes it
| potentially really weird (like how GLD and other gold ETFs are
| only barely nominally like holding gold, and VIX ETFs often
| hold cash-settled futures based on the value of a formula that
| is based on another formula that takes in various parameters of
| the prices and durations of options which themselves are priced
| based on the price movements of various equity securities and
| .........). The depths of weirdness have already been pretty
| well-explored by existing weird ETFs. A bitcoin ETF wouldn't
| even be particularly notable levels of weird, imo.
|
| So, just the fact that it makes it really easy is typically a
| big boon to people getting exposure to whatever financial force
| the ETF holds.
| paxys wrote:
| It's the "it makes it easier" part that I am debating. Yes
| buying into a gold ETF is obviously easier because going out
| and buying physical gold takes more effort. But for a bitcoin
| ETF you are trading two clicks on one site vs two clicks on
| another. And in the ETF case you don't actually get to own
| any Bitcoin. So where's the advantage?
| samsin wrote:
| I believe the argument is that it makes it easier for
| institutions like fund managers and businesses because they
| don't need to be concerned with custodianship.
| paxys wrote:
| That may have made sense 8 years ago, but the problem has
| long since been solved. Coinbase can act as a custodian
| for your Bitcoin. Fidelity has its own service for it, as
| does every other fund/brokerage/bank of its scale. You
| can buy it as part of your 401k.
| tromp wrote:
| Two click on the other site also doesn't get you to own any
| Bitcoin (as in, hold the keys).
| initplus wrote:
| Bitcoin futures ETF's already exist - I'm not convinced that
| a spot price ETF is any huge breakthrough.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| There already are bitcoin ETFs you can trade anyway, they track
| bitcoin futures.
|
| $BITO and $BITI
| MBCook wrote:
| It's very important because if you don't like the standard
| finance system and want to use an alternate one that isn't
| corrupted by greed and incumbents, the best way to do that
| is... to buy it through the current financial system?
|
| It gives credibility to the thing that explicitly does not want
| credibility. Or at least didn't. Maybe it does now. I don't
| know.
| Legion wrote:
| There are two kinds of people who declare a crypto is going "to
| the moon":
|
| - The ones who don't believe it, and sell off their inflated
| coins after the price jumps
|
| - The ones who do believe it, and are the rubes the first group
| is counting on
| x86x87 wrote:
| I should save this and come back to it in 10 years.
| initplus wrote:
| Bitcoin futures ETF's are already allowed - several exist and
| they track the BTC:USD rate relatively accurately. I'm not sure
| that a spot price ETF is really a huge breakthrough in terms of
| actual mechanics.
|
| But approval is an opportunity to create hype and buzz around
| cryptocurrency.
| derangedHorse wrote:
| 401k accounts at Fidelity don't generally allow one to hold
| Bitcoin even if they do have a self directed account. With a
| Bitcoin ETF people don't need permission from their employer
| anymore. I'm also skeptical of their current plans and whether
| they actually allow people to hold Bitcoin. Employees I've
| spoken to in the department have told me the most Id be able to
| get in a retirement account is "exposure" to the broader crypto
| market which is undesirable to those who are just interested in
| Bitcoin.
| gumballindie wrote:
| I see, ai and crypto currencies pulling in all the good folks.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I wonder if the fact that their account was hacked for this will
| influence their decision about whether to actually allow Bitcoin
| ETFs
| cempaka wrote:
| From a Slack of market observers I frequent: "Right now, someone
| is explaining to the BlackRock board, 'you got rugged, it happens
| all the time in crypto.' "
| AustinDev wrote:
| It'd be funny if it wasn't a $45k to $45.7k change for a +$700
| delta.
| cempaka wrote:
| I have a hard time seeing the SEC not delaying until at least
| March after that fiasco (or even pushing back against the
| tweet itself if they were intending to approve anyway), but I
| guess tomorrow will tell the tale. It's fees BlackRock cares
| about, not the Bitcoin price.
| AustinDev wrote:
| If fees are all they care about they make money anyway. No
| idea how that constitutes them being Rugged.
| cempaka wrote:
| They don't make anything if the ETF doesn't get SEC
| approval.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Blackrock is huge. This is a rounding error to it. The people
| who got rugged were retail who bought into the hype since
| October.
| disruptalot wrote:
| You may be misreading the effects - Bitcoin is trading above
| what it traded yesterday, and 50% higher than october.
| scrlk wrote:
| > "Careful what you read on the internet. The best source of
| information about the SEC is the SEC."
|
| https://nitter.net/SECGov/status/1714020932509982771
|
| ...until the SEC's account gets hacked?
| wnevets wrote:
| "this is good for bitcoin"
| johnea wrote:
| This is exactly why official agencies should have their own
| mechanismm of public communication, and not rely on 3rd party
| corporate chat platforms...
|
| How the FED, SEC, and any government office thought having a
| faceplant or twit account was good idea is beyond me...
|
| Of course, those who throw themselves gushingly at every
| corporate slime to crawl out from under a rock will have a hard
| time understanding this opinion. That is also part of the
| problem...
| Hash-Basher wrote:
| Anybody else not buying the fact that they got hacked? Seems more
| like they fat fingered the tweet, we'll see tomorrow.
| ericliuche wrote:
| The account had other suspicious activity, e.g.
| https://x.com/spreekaway/status/1744839020654334457 that makes
| it not seem like a scheduled tweet.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Is anyone else wondering what the password was?
| mike_d wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Elon just as a "Tweet as this account" button
| by now.
| cempaka wrote:
| Matthew C. Klein pointed out on Twitter: "the owner/operator of
| this website has a longstanding grudge against America's
| securities regulator."
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| Also this should be a massive warning to companies, non-
| profits, and governments who think "Sure, Elon is mismanaging
| this and platforming the worst people and making it a cult of
| personality, but its not that bad. We get to reach a lot of
| people, so its still good for us."
|
| Now they have to worry about whether Elon is in the mood to
| give your account proper security or if your password hash
| leaked "by accident" by a "junior dev." Or just the everyday
| incompetence of all personality-cult organizations. Elon went
| from being sued by the SEC to hosting its humiliation.
|
| Elon is chuckling it up right now. The problem with
| personality-led companies is that if you get on the bad side of
| that personality, then anything goes.
| josu wrote:
| Here is a tweet from one of the main ETF experts:
|
| @EricBalchunas "On TV right on talking about this.. and yes, I
| think someone prepped a planned tweet and put wrong date, bc the
| tweet would have made PERFECT sense tomorrow at this time. The
| language sounds legit SEC-ish IMO vs a crypto knucklehead pulling
| a prank but I guess we'll see.."
|
| https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744835562643595652
| paulpauper wrote:
| nope. this is 100% a hack. the sec would not make such a post
| using that picture. why would there be a picture of Gensler?
| that makes no sense. it would be a press release of some sort,
| maybe followed by a tweet.
|
| yup
|
| https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1744841094997680477
|
| why would the SEC 'like' random accounts? hacked
| moose_man wrote:
| This is icing on the cake of this manipulated attempt to restart
| the crypto craze. These morons are so greedy that they undermine
| themselves.
| qwertox wrote:
| Probably just the SEC testing the waters for their friends in the
| finance industry in order to check what will happen when they
| release the actual news. If the son should buy some Bitcoin
| before they release the news.
|
| TBH, i just don't trust them to be truely honest people.
| neilv wrote:
| Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary
| walled-garden online platforms? Those are for purposes like
| celebrity publicists, influencer brand promotion, disreputable
| mob behavior, and astroturfing.
|
| The SEC doesn't need brand promotion, nor to be caught up in
| nastiness like pervades X/Twitter. The SEC already has the
| authority, they do their job with it, and presumably they value
| respectability.
|
| Earlier Web showed us how to do this right, before commercial
| entities steered the influx of the newbie masses back towards
| being captive to proprietary walled gardens.
|
| Stop choosing proprietary walled gardens to endorse with the
| government seal of approval.
|
| Put press releases on your .gov open-systems Web site. Optionally
| do supplementary alerts with an open-systems email announcements
| list and/or Atom feed. Let journalists, citizens, and lawmakers
| take it from there.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| There is value in government agencies engaging with people
| where they are. Even the SEC gets some value out of promoting
| their activities, even if it's just awareness of their
| existence and function and corresponding public support.
|
| That said, now that the Fediverse exists, ideally all of those
| government agencies would self-host their accounts, either
| individually or via a server for many different agencies of the
| same government. It makes sense for the SEC to be @sec@sec.gov
| or @sec@usa.gov rather than example.com/SECGov .
| sokoloff wrote:
| While your point is perhaps valid for _publishing information_
| , it doesn't (for me) extend to not even having an account.
|
| Companies have cited that their Twitter account is an official
| source of company comms and that gives the SEC a reason to have
| an account and access that information as part of enforcing
| securities laws.
| neilv wrote:
| Good point. I should've said "presences" rather than
| "accounts".
| krapp wrote:
| >Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary
| walled-garden online platforms? That's for purposes like
| celebrity publicists, influencer brand promotion, disreputable
| mob behavior, and astroturfing.
|
| You're describing some of the behaviors that occur on those
| platforms, not their purpose. Governments have accounts on
| those platforms because it makes communicating with their
| constituents easier, because that's where the people are. It
| would be grossly irresponsible in this day and age for a
| government not to have any social media presence at all.
| tamimio wrote:
| I have never looked at BTC as a quick trading rather a long
| investment, I still have many BTC since 2010 and never sold it.
| Ajay-p wrote:
| Reminds me of when Eli Lilly's Twitter was hacked to falsely
| proclaim free insulin.
| romanixromanix wrote:
| Market manipulation by SEC itself?! So strange.
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