In 2003, more than $100 million worth of diamonds, gold, and silver were stolen from a vault in Antwerp, becoming one of the largest heists in history. It took an incredible amount of planning, using a combination of social engineering by mastermind Leonardo Notarbartolo and physical engineering by a group including a still-unknown man called the “King of Keys” to break into a secure facility. While there have been arrests, many of the stolen goods have yet to be found.
This line tho..."Cryptocurrency has grown from a nerdy libertarian doodad into a large collection of ticking timebombs where users surrender control of their finances to imperfect code,..." Wow.
I'm more than a bit skeptical about the "we've been hacked, we're victims too" defense that often comes up in these cases. It usually looks like either gross negligence or even an inside job.
There are probably a lot of desperate people who got caught up in this but I have limited sympathy for people who have thousands of dollar to spare (or are able to borrow it) and then put it into something as insanely stupid as this. How many have ignored all the warnings and called those who question this stuff haters and boomers and whatnot?
Am from the Philippines, i know several people who play the game. I myself used to play the game.
One thing the author got wrong : the average Filipino player didn’t really lose much money in this hack. They earn exclusively in SLP, and these can still freely be transferred out to Binance to be sold. Most live hand to mouth, so players tend to convert to fiat immediately.
But the richer investors, managers and guilds like YGG that were accumulating WETH on their ronin wallets… they will be the ones mostly affected.
Caveat emptor. There are good investments and bad investments and you can't expect the police, the FDIC, or anyone else to save you from a bad investment. If a crime has been committed the perpetrators should absolutely be prosecuted; otherwise, it's buyer beware. It has to be- because the alternative is far worse.
I've still never heard from the crypto evangelists of any actual practical use for everyday people that crypto has, all I ever get are dumb platitudes about it being "the future"
100%, Ed. Not a sentence out of place. This is a true, reflective snapshot of WAGMI off a cliff that everyone fears but greed or desperation makes them take the leap of faith anyway.
Ed's Substack continues to provide a small but mighty oasis of reality, surrounded by a massive swamp of delusion - thank you, Ed! Your truth-telling give others the courage to question what they're told to just accept.
There are PLENTY of scams and issues here. Although volatile, BTC is getting some investment from "serious" thinkers and financial institutions. It will be the wild west for years, but I think there is something of value once it shakes out.
It’s an inside job for sure. Somebody at Sky Mavis looking to secure their future no matter what happens to the Axie universe. Imagine the co-founder going to Los Angeles a day after they lost $600 million!!! What does that say about his character.
Must be there to hide the stash! Or to secure an alternate future. And to say they don’t even visit the Philippines, the country who gave them all their money!!!
And my account is basically impossible to hack as i have a hardware key and my passphrase written to a paper, not to some text file in my pc. People can get into your shit, as long as its online.
How about my 3 Axies that got hacked back in September 23rd. I never got any help from the devs. Just basically wasted 1000 Dollars investment on their game "Axie Infinity" just for it to get hacked after a week of buying those. Never got help from them even after spamming them for a week.
This guy is totally not seeing that the future is 100% heading to crypto. It is not even a question at this point. Every company is forming a web3 strategy, banks are readying for the day when crypto is the new currency standard, and every developer is rushing to work on web3 projects.
So for all the crying that this dude is doing, the only thing that is going to happen is he will be left behind. Crypto is not going to become dust, this Ed guy will be the one turning to dust along with his feeble attempts at dismissing what is the greatest innovation mankind has ever seen!
A big part of the crypto “problem” is many are looking for a quick, easy score because they’ve seen others do it and don’t understand it. Volatility also is misunderstood as it is part of the game. For long term holders or “beliebers”, the answer is ask me in 2-3 years!
The Infinite Exploitation Of Cryptocurrency
This line tho..."Cryptocurrency has grown from a nerdy libertarian doodad into a large collection of ticking timebombs where users surrender control of their finances to imperfect code,..." Wow.
I'm more than a bit skeptical about the "we've been hacked, we're victims too" defense that often comes up in these cases. It usually looks like either gross negligence or even an inside job.
There are probably a lot of desperate people who got caught up in this but I have limited sympathy for people who have thousands of dollar to spare (or are able to borrow it) and then put it into something as insanely stupid as this. How many have ignored all the warnings and called those who question this stuff haters and boomers and whatnot?
Am from the Philippines, i know several people who play the game. I myself used to play the game.
One thing the author got wrong : the average Filipino player didn’t really lose much money in this hack. They earn exclusively in SLP, and these can still freely be transferred out to Binance to be sold. Most live hand to mouth, so players tend to convert to fiat immediately.
But the richer investors, managers and guilds like YGG that were accumulating WETH on their ronin wallets… they will be the ones mostly affected.
Spot. On. I’m still looking for the second use case. In 13 years only one case has emerged: facilitating crime.
Caveat emptor. There are good investments and bad investments and you can't expect the police, the FDIC, or anyone else to save you from a bad investment. If a crime has been committed the perpetrators should absolutely be prosecuted; otherwise, it's buyer beware. It has to be- because the alternative is far worse.
I've still never heard from the crypto evangelists of any actual practical use for everyday people that crypto has, all I ever get are dumb platitudes about it being "the future"
100%, Ed. Not a sentence out of place. This is a true, reflective snapshot of WAGMI off a cliff that everyone fears but greed or desperation makes them take the leap of faith anyway.
Ed's Substack continues to provide a small but mighty oasis of reality, surrounded by a massive swamp of delusion - thank you, Ed! Your truth-telling give others the courage to question what they're told to just accept.
There are PLENTY of scams and issues here. Although volatile, BTC is getting some investment from "serious" thinkers and financial institutions. It will be the wild west for years, but I think there is something of value once it shakes out.
One of the fundamental properties of a currency is that it is a "store of value". Crypto is a not a currency.
It’s an inside job for sure. Somebody at Sky Mavis looking to secure their future no matter what happens to the Axie universe. Imagine the co-founder going to Los Angeles a day after they lost $600 million!!! What does that say about his character.
Must be there to hide the stash! Or to secure an alternate future. And to say they don’t even visit the Philippines, the country who gave them all their money!!!
And my account is basically impossible to hack as i have a hardware key and my passphrase written to a paper, not to some text file in my pc. People can get into your shit, as long as its online.
That was September 23rd, 2021.
How about my 3 Axies that got hacked back in September 23rd. I never got any help from the devs. Just basically wasted 1000 Dollars investment on their game "Axie Infinity" just for it to get hacked after a week of buying those. Never got help from them even after spamming them for a week.
This guy is totally not seeing that the future is 100% heading to crypto. It is not even a question at this point. Every company is forming a web3 strategy, banks are readying for the day when crypto is the new currency standard, and every developer is rushing to work on web3 projects.
So for all the crying that this dude is doing, the only thing that is going to happen is he will be left behind. Crypto is not going to become dust, this Ed guy will be the one turning to dust along with his feeble attempts at dismissing what is the greatest innovation mankind has ever seen!
A big part of the crypto “problem” is many are looking for a quick, easy score because they’ve seen others do it and don’t understand it. Volatility also is misunderstood as it is part of the game. For long term holders or “beliebers”, the answer is ask me in 2-3 years!