Bitcoin Forum

I started reporting some threads to be moved from altcoin announcements to token announcements because they sounded like all the other useless tokens to me but there are so many of them that it gives me pause. Is there some exception for this new defi scam wave that I'm not aware of?

I'm talking about shit like this - it even has "[off]shi[f]t" in its name so don't give me any shit about it not being shit: [ANN] Offshift (XFT & zkUSD) Private offshore storage & DeFi protocol on ETH (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5262262.0)

I realize nobody can be bothered to care about altcoins but it hurts my OCD that we have two separate boards but no clear line between them.

Afaik there should be a hard definition here:

A coin is something with it's own blockchain, it could be integrated with other blockchain but ultimately should be described as having it's own chain, network and nodes.

A token is a contract (or similar) of another coin. An ethereum erc20 coin for example has an ethereum contract at its root and thus is a token.

The only time I can see there should be argument is if the original coin gains a new system on its base implementation. Other than that it's a token.

If this hard line isn't being followed, I don't actually see why there's a board for each.

That was my understanding too and that's what it seems to say here:


But I'm not certain about #3 - for example does this include the defi totally-not-bitconnect yield farming nonsense? And what does that mean - are these... whatever these are... not allowed to have their own ANNs? That'd be awesome.

As much as I like to think theymos had those or something similar in mind when writing these examples I'm quite sure he and the mods will not agree to move all those into the ethreum and other topics as it will simply destroy them with tons of spam, the ETH topic is mostly on top due to the bumping rules and they will try to milk that traffic. Of course, it will also have the positive effect of containing the "shi[f]t"  ;D in a way smaller area but at some costs, not that I'm a fan of those altcoins topics who will be invaded or I care about them but there are a few who will.

Oh, and that being said I'm against creating a subforum specifically for DeFi, it would be more like acknowledging their importance.

I watching this now the last weeks and month also and i guess the problem is that the Users dont know where to post!
Just look around there and count how many Eth or token threads still posted in the Altcoin board even you can see clearly the Token board.
They just posting it , and i guess they will be doing again even we have or get a DEFI section.

Don't these projects have Tokens that run on eth? Is so, then they do belong to altcoin forum.

If you think they don't, then all the other projects that operate on ETH shouldn't be there also.

edit: my bad. I forgot there are separate sections for ANN's and tokens.

They do, that's why they should be in Token (Altcoin) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=240.0) section that is reserved for token based projects  and not in the Announcements (Altcoins) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=159.0) where only altcoin should be. But it's free for all situation there, it's a complete mess and I'm sure many that post there don't even know a difference between coin and token.


I sure hope this crap won't get special section as all this hype will die off sooner or later.

I guess and think that we dont get this special section and yes the hype about it is the same as the ICO thing was.
And suchmoon is right about that , that all threads should be done in the Token section as the most are Eth contracts.
If they get reported with the reason to move them to the Token section i guess it should be all good then.

Ok, so the first batch of reports is "good" and mprep merited jackg's post so I'm assuming I'm the right track ;D

I just need to figure out a better way of figuring out which of those threads are tokens. Reviewing 1000s of ANNs is not fun.

You could just consider every project a scam and not let anyone make any threads until somebody approves it. I think that would overrun whoever is doing it, but it would cut down on the amount of spam

Scams are not moderated here and I don't expect that to change. Nor would it be feasible to accurately determine if it's a scam just by looking at the ANN post. All I'm trying to do is get the shit moved to the shit token board so that lesser shit has 0.00001% better visibility.

You are right, likely. People likely don't know where to post their announcement threads at right board. It is more true if think of owners of scam projects that they don't have clear technical idea of what they are doing.

Classify DeFi scam as tokens or altcoins is as same as classify scam projects as fork or clones. Technically tech gurus can classify them easily and correctly but most of people don't know how to do it correctly.

There are dead altcoin projects try to be lively and build up their future again by swapping their dead coins to ERC20 tokens. What are solutions for their Announcement threads. They used to be an altcoins but now they are tokens.

Any token that runs on the Ethereum ecosystem can use the abbreviation DEFI.
I have always very easily distinguished between coin and token. The coin has its own blockchain. The token runs on someone else's blockchain.
I think it is wrong when Ethereum (2nd most famous cryptocurrency) is discussed in the same section as the new shitcoin, which takes 1xxx place on the coinmarketcap.
Perhaps  need to add new sections, for example "new projects" which are less than 1 year old. This time is quite enough, because scam projects die earlier.

Yeah, looks like it's working. For testing purposes I reported 9 ANN threads that should be in Tokens section, and so far 8/9 are moved to appropriate section, while one is still unhandled, waiting to be moved.

I don't see any other way other than manually checking each ANN. And yes, it won't be fun to check all of them as there are shit load of them, but job could be done if focused on active threads and ignore abandoned ones for now, or save for the end.


While it is 2nd most popular one with 2nd biggest mcap etc, but it is still an altcoin, therefore in the right section with all the other altcoins. All these new shitcoins will die soon anway, so imho no need for another section just for them, and then move  them to other section if they survive etc. Thanks to bump changes Ethereum thread is mostly on the top anyway, so it's not like you have to go through bunch of pages to find it.

I'd suggest trying to check the ones mist active. A tiny thread with only a few posts, if moved, would probably just be deleted and the op will relaunch back in the same place. A thread with a good level of interaction and number of replies is less likely to be deleted...

It's also probably a but of a tough task for the mods there to keep up with.

Then maybe  shouldn't make a drama out of it.
If someone mistakenly posts a topic in the wrong section, the moderators will move it to the right place.

Recently I have come across many topics with the same content: Is it a DEFI? What do you think DEFI scam? Why is it dangerous to invest in defi? ..

May wait a bit until the market settles everything in its place.

Yeah of course, that's what i did, I don't wanna waste mods and my own time by reporting abandoned/dead threads so I focused on brand new or active ones. So far all reported were moved, but I won't overdo it.


True, but for that to happen someone has to report it and somehow I doubt that mods are going through that board checking which one should be moved, seeing how many are in section. And that's fine, mods probably have too much on their plate anyway.


No surprise considering the amount of hype around these glorified ponzi schemes. Market will settle when enough people loose enough money, like in ICO bubble. History tends to repeat itself.

I would be happy to see DeFi moved somewhere in the same way HYIP scams got their own (dark) corner.

But I agree, it's hard to make a proper differentiation. There are coins adopting DeFi, there are blockchains allowing the DeFi tokens, there are the DeFi tokens, ... there's a lot of garbage and also a few "things" that may not be utter crap. As soon as a proper definition for the "special" ;) ones is made, those have to go to their own area. But is it possible to properly define those? I'm not sure.

The only separation I can think of is tokens vs actual coins, but that may be unfair for the (very) few honest tokens and may not solve the problem.

Of course, we can also think it this way: if one enters the altcoin "jungle", it's his own problem/risk, this is primarily a Bitcoin forum. (i.e. do nothing about the problem). Still, I'd prefer to see them just moved away so I can still follow (some of) the actual altcoins.

Tokens are tokens.

I know some very credible projects that are going to use defi, but even so unless something started or was issued as a token but moving to it's own independent design then it should be moved to tokens.

Defi has a huge potential but like with anything new abusers will be rife and it's up to investors to do their own homework.

Most of the projects tagged as "defi" are nothing but scam shit today, though "defi" as a technology itself has a lot of potentials, but just like some one already said here, there are lot of abusers of the system today and this is one of the reasons why defi hasn't gone far from where it is today.

What DEFI projects have you used?
Any project that promises more than 1% per day can be called a scam or a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme.

A lot of people invest in these projects with the understanding that they can be cheated / or the project was created to cheat.

Today there is a DEFI ecosystem, in a year they will invent a new ecosystem, but the fools will remain.

So what's the problem: DEFI or fools who want to get rich quick?

Any project that has a stated “guaranteed interest ” period, is a scam ( not to mention it’s illegal to guarantee a return via SEC rules ). 

SMoon thanks for posting this. DeFi reminds me very much of Bitconnect and those of the same ilk that caused countless people to go in to financial ruin, many people committed suicide, murder etc ..due to Bitconnect alone. I know Theymos isn’t  going to change the rules around scam projects, for many valid reasons, but at least something like what you proposed could really help save some people from ruin.

I'm not really proposing anything new, just trying to move them to another board... not sure how much that helps to keep people from losing money. Perhaps if the Tokens board had a warning at the top "You'll likely lose money if you give it to any of these shitcoiners" - that might help.

Reported ~50 threads so far and all have been moved.

Btw, Defi or non-Defi, almost all the altcoins are scam and shitprojects just copying the same idea and doing partnerships with one another lmao. Have you seen any coin survive against their btc(sats) value in the long term ? All of them are pump and dump ;)
Even ETH is crap I'd say lol. (pls dont hate me for this ,hah!).
You're likely to loose money if you invest anywhere and forget, you have to be updated each day in crypto to survive.

All DeFi "coins" are tokens afaict. They are running on blockchains like Ethereum, Tron, Waves, Komodo, Zilliqa, Binance, Polkadot, Cosmos, etc. I don't know if that helps or if you know what these other blockchains are hehe.

......
Reported these projects too
OpenDeFi - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286716.0
Chainlink - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2175467.0
PrimeDAO - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5286507.0

Dude have you ever done any research? There are a lot of good and promising defi out there, yet sadly, the 'ideology' of projects nowadays had been affected by the past drastic incident where almost all of the project published in this forum was turned onto scam. DeFis are good in its general purpose. Yes, it could and would be use by those scammers that would take the popularity of such systems astheir advantage. But still, justifying almost any defi projects isn't reasonable at all. Better look at these dozens of listed defi coins that is already popular on the market: https://coinmarketcap.com/defi/


Aren't all proposed projects back in 2018 and mid 2017 are more likely to be justified as a scam? Well, have you heard the success of Uniswap, not only its exchange but also their platform's initial token. Also, have you remembered that even Binance coin back then even gets some hate and false accusations? I mean, every existing platforms nowadays started from public offerings and project publications. How come that there had been tons of listed projects yet still the stereotype exists?  ???

There are very few projects which are good ones and work on the concept of Decentralized Finance. However most of the coins are only made to scam money from the people. This is quite similar to what we saw in last 2-3 year where many people used ICO/IEO to fool people.

Getting listed on some exchange doesn't equal to being legit, not even when it's listed on generally trusted exchanges like Binance. That Sushiswap fail is a good example how being listed on Binance means absolutely nothing  in terms of legitimacy. Same goes for other exchanges.

Regarding the stereotype, since 99.99 % of current defi crap won't exist in about year or two and will crumble like a piece of paper because 100% APY per year is not sustainable in the long run (let alone much higher APY that is pretty much defi standard) I would say that stereotype about defi is there for a pretty good reason.

Same thing happened with ICO back in 2017, huge majority of them are not around anymore and that's why we call it "ICO bubble" now.

Tokens are tokens and go on the tokens board.
What's hard about it.

There are tokens that will be swapped 1:1 with their own designs later. Then they will no longer be tokens.
Then the project will need to be swapped back.
Defi isn't a scam. Most tokens are a scam.
Defi is actually a very useful tool.

Some saying projects that slip and perhaps lose 90% or greater in sats terms are therefore a scam are wrong.
I see some excellent projects that have lost 90% from peak that will likely reach new ATH at some stage.
Sometimes projects lose due to exchange bias and scams. Lack of savvy investors etc

I agree, DeFi is not a scam it is a piece of technology that is quite innovative and not all projects are scams. This goes as with many alts, not all of them are good and some are comparatively scamming as DeFi. There isn't much of a distinction.

To keep things simple, best to go by the hard definition of a coin vs a token. This hard definition was nicely summed by jackg:

• A coin is something with it's own blockchain, it could be integrated with other blockchain but ultimately should be described as having it's own chain, network and nodes.
• A token is a contract (or similar) of another coin. An ethereum erc20 coin for example has an ethereum contract at its root and thus is a token.
  

Locking this since the question has been comprehensively answered and we now have trolls arriving here.

To sum up: DeFi shit - which is mostly copy-pasta scams a la ICO scam wave of 2017 but that's beside the point - runs on smart contracts therefore these aren't really altcoins. Report them when you see them outside of the Tokens board.