This is new funding for new super yachts, houses, drugs and 1-day girlfriends. SEC wants to play politics with crypto and act as pesudo-enforcers, yet not one mention of USDT. Or perhaps their internal investigations about Tether will eventually come to light, in the near-future. FTX will be absolutely nothing compared to anything unraveling the true malicious nature behind Tether -- if there is anything. But the reality is, there's not 1 shred of evidence to support any of their backings are real. If a day comes were Tether is cracked down on, we will witness an event unlike anything we've ever witnessed since the inception of Bitcoin.

And if anyone is curious, what Tether does most likely is fraction reserve banking, like every successful bank. Meaning only 10% of USDT is backed by cash, 90% of their money is loaned out/diversified/invested. By law, they only required 10% real backing. The problem is unlike traditional banks, Tether has no one to report to other than the authorities/U.S. They are not a publicly traded company on the stock exchange, they are a private firm. So who knows what regulators behind the scenes know -- if anything at all? FINCEN? SEC? They've all must of looked into this shit by now since it is a very obvious target -- being the largest decentralized (loosely stated) "bank" of crypto.  

This too was a good explanation of the validity of Tether



Also, since the investigations by NYC ended without incident(?) most people put aside the question about USDT and concluded that Tether was safe; based on the conclusions of NY State and obviously their very heavy hand when it comes to regulating financial institutions.




More historical news compiled on Tether in another thread i made a while back:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5399926.msg60209650#msg60209650

Your story is what a lot of the more legitimate members here on BTT preach to newcomers to crypto on a very regular basis - always DYOR and never invest more than you can afford to lose. What has occurred and been occurring for the last decade is wolves social engineering sheep into buying into their scams. There are very few influencers in crypto and in general the masses (ie tiktok or IG) that actually have the wealth and lifestyle they portray. It's a life lesson in this digital age, crypto is a direct involvement of monetary funds so all examples of scams and social engineering get multiplied by ten-fold and people can get financial very hurt.

You've learned your lesson and you're continuing to persevere. That's ultimately what separates a winner from a loser - a successful person from a person who's failed. Never give up. Crypto first and foremost is a game of technology. Meme's and shitcoins have their moments, but they come with extraordinary risk, they are intrinsically just a gamble. The line between crypto and gambling have basically become one at this point and time.

I want to award merits to those whom seldomly get awarded merits for their extraordinary efforts or opinions that had an impact on you.

If you found a particular post or thread this year that has helped you in anyway, feel free to post the link in this thread and let us know why it has helped you. I (and probably others) will be meriting of these gem posts that you found to be exquisite. It will also help me recap some of what you guy's have been discussing as of late.


Happy Holidays everyone!



Rules:

1) Has to be a post by someone else other than yourself
2) Has to pertain to altcoins, if it's a broader piece about Bitcoin and the markets these are valid as well.
3) Don't try manipulating this thread, everything will be checked accordingly.
4) Please post the link to the thread post and why it has helped you.
5) Posts or Thread must be from 2023 only.



2019 Version - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5212250

More shit that's geared for failure and to enrich those at the top of the pyramid. Anyone who supports this is chasing the money or is plainly delusional

Obviously this thread is outdated in the respective dates and timelines mentioned, but in terms of the core concepts and ideas this thread is more relevant than ever. CZ is an intelligent individual and Binance has done a world of good for crypto as a whole. In the end it's survival of the fittest. Binance will continue to crush its competition and gain more market share. As long as user's feel safe* and continue to profit from Binance.

Coinbase is shackled by regulations in the U.S. to make any significant grounds. But where Coinbase ultimately lacks is on the international stage, the territories were Binance has claimed supremacy over all other CEX's. Binance is bounded by almost no country (due to being shielded by subsidiaries that are not linked to the core Binance company) and their pockets are deeper than any other business currently operating in this space.

Is a monopoly in crypto a good thing? No monopoly is good due to a stagnation in innovation. But the general sentiment is that user's don't really care about the core philosophy behind blockchain and cryptocurrencies as much as they used to. So having a monopoly isn't seen as a bad thing currently, but will become a bigger problem years down the line. Governments are also a big pressure on this front in terms of regulation. Although, that's an entirely different topic. I will say most of Binance's success has come from not obeying regulations or doing the absolute bare minimum. And any company executive would do exactly the same. There's no reason for Binance to do anything but the bare minimum in each of their respective countries they are operating in. That's essentially their edge along with their trusted brand name.

Ask yourself this, where's the proof of any backing? Where are the journalists questioning USDT's holdings? The true state of obliviousness in crypto is still baffling. Despite billions of dollars and repeated offenses by countless wolves over the past 10 years in all of crypto, no one bats an eyelash at the lack of any tangible* evidence from the largest stablecoin.  

USDT will become the biggest scam in crypto history, bigger than XRP by 5-fold. The day of reckoning will arrive soon enough. Maybe a few more years before this speculative prophecy comes to fruition.




From user Yogee



From CNBC about the NYC Lawsuit - Ryan Browne - Feb 21st, 2021 - *Note that their investigation was highly limited in scope.*





Accounting Firm Report Card - Coindesk by: Helene Braun - March 30, 2021



Coindesk Report about Moore Cayman (Auditor) - now known as MHA Cayman - Jan 26th, 2022

(This was originally posted, by me, in mid-2021, for 1 day)

Since DeFi was the major trend early last year, it has since flatlined, in hype, many months ago. Now both DeFi and NFTs are in their infancy, but this topic will specifically focus on the latest trend, NFTs. This initial NFT hype boom, that started roughly 12 months ago, will eventually fade away and mature quietly in the background. We are already hearing mostly dead-silence in regards to this, since the Bitcoin fallout with the wider stock market.

The concept of bridging a physical tangible good, into a tokenized system, is fundamentally game-changing and is not a new concept in this space. What has recently occurred is the proof-of-concept of NFTs, the actual application and adoption of the tech, which has thousands of practical applications and will continue evolving dramatically in the coming years. There's a great parallel that can be struck currently to 2013-2015, NFTs today are what Foodcoin, titcoin, dogecoin and the 100s of other real-world like POW cryptos, and of those 100-400 shitcoins only 1 survived, Dogecoin. But, they represented a: physical, tangible good, service, idea or etc. And I suppose as crypto has been evolving, there has been a subconscious desire to tokenize everything this world represents, often for malicious schemes, but the pattern goes far beyond then just monetary incentive. People like collecting things and owning them. But in the end, you are no more the owner of your NFT than I'm. That's the reality. That really goes for anything that's digital, be it your collectables in a video game or music album, movies... whatever. The idea of digital collection and digital ownership is an entire field in itself and is highly subjective - I'm not going to get into too much debate about. Ultimately, the majority of digital ownership is subjective in the end, without any governing force or law. With that subjective thought each individual will assign a value to that specific item and thus value is created if another individual agrees on that value. That's essentially what's occurring with cryptos, NFTs, stocks and virtually everything that is tangible.

But alas, what we are witnessing now in the NFT space is speculative gambling, similar to the collection of any other object in existence be it baseball cards, pokemon and etc. The reason being, is that people are assigning a value to a specific arrangement of pixels, in hopes that someone will assign a similar value to those arrangement of pixels in the future. The bigger problem with the current NFT market value or digitization of media is the accessibility to anyone and everyone, which is the inherent reason for the ballooning and inflation of seemingly worthless markets, concepts and etc. With accessibility comes highly-manipulative practices, the wolves are eating the sheep up and making no longer just baby change, but multi-million dollar schemes are operating day-by-day. Just like with everything, a small majority of NFTs - be it your "artwork," music or whatever you've purchased, will actually be worth something. The vast majority of NFTs will have no inherent value, because they were made for a specific purpose in fooling unwary modern-day mom-and-pop "investors." In the end, if you are investing in NFTs, I would urge you to tread very carefully. There are teams, individuals and more who are operating very carefully orchestrated schemes and enacting very diligent forms of social engineering to make you believe you are buying something that is desired and has value. Just know, there are only so many people in this world and only so many people will find worth in what you are so-called investing in, if any. Don't gamble your life-savings away.

NFTs are headed towards major adoption in the future, specifically with the recent buzz about the metaverse and ownership... etc. There's no doubt that NFTs will become standard when it comes to ownership, but don't expect your "artwork" to be worth anything in the future. Just like with any collectible that ever existed, only a fraction are worth anything and the vast majority become useless and worthless due to inflation and lack of appeal. 80-20 rule.

If you are new to this space, just take great caution. Be sure you are sound of mind and body before making any irrational or rational decision. If you're ready to gamble it all away, so be it. The reality is, yes many become millionaires over-night, but the vast majority do not. And for every millionaire that's minted, hundreds of others probably lost their life-savings or are drowned further into debt.

It's important to understand that the crypto market is being flooded by new users, new projects, new scams and therefore, fortunetellers. Before investing your life savings into some random new shitcoin, be sure to have a clear thought processes on why you're investing in this crypto.

We are witnessing unprecedented territories and this space is being flooded by naive individuals and the wolves who are herding you into the next ponzi-scheme. I can soundly say, despite what many have stated, technical analysis and moonboy shills are some of the worst tools to rely on. Strictly speaking, most of you are relying on word-of-mouth investments and are not fully understanding you're being controlled and socially engineered by intelligent individuals, scammers and wealthy individuals who've been in this crypto space for several years now and understand what it takes to manipulate the average crypto user.

Take a step back, analyze, take in all possible sources of information, compare, contrast and understand what you're investing your money into before you invest or make your next trade. This Bitcoin bullmarket is in a territory that no one can predict the outcome of. If you're taking that risk, great. But that risk also can come with severe repercussions. Learn from your predecessors in the 2017-2018 bull-market, where the majority lost their life savings and the minority made it out big.

There will be another bear market, there will be a day were the market once again falls through. Be prepared and be ready. No one knows when and how it will come, but it will come. Nothing in crypto grows forever and the majority of newer-projects (<6-8months) will die out, just like the ICO boom of 2017. Tech analysis and your favorite shill will not save you, no one will but yourself and your intuition.

This entire thread is delusional. XRP is not a crypto, XRP deserves to hammer drop on them by the SEC and I sincerely hope the SEC pulls it off. This will send a message to other scammers that creating multi-billion dollar ponzi schemes will not go unnoticed.

Break incentivized posting on altcoin sections. Break the mass spam of the puppet masters.

You didn't read the topic of the thread, you only read the clickbait title. FYI, you're commenting in this thread about something irrelevant.


This type of careless posting is why the entire altcoin discussion section has turned into a sub-forum of useless spam (it was always spammy, but more than ever since about a year or two ago), with gem threads quickly getting buried by the same five subjects everyday. All to promote your signature that nobody will ever-click and so you can make an extra $0.50 per week.

These are the classic XRP shills/botnet that have been spamming these forums and all outlets for years by the way. The single most intricate and aggressive marketing agencies & individuals of any crypto.

That's incorrect. SEC has been cleaning up the scams and corruption for ICO's that launched in 2017-2019, since 2018-ish. Did that stifle innovation and startups? No, it helped legitimize the industry further. A lot of those scams disappeared entirely. The new breed of ICO is DeFi tokens, in which will equally get hit has hard as ICO's, but is significantly more tricky due to being highly decentralized.

XRP is a major exception. They have as much authority to go after Ethereum if they chose to, but this is virtually an impossibility. XRP is not a crypto, not a blockchain, it's one big manipulated scheme to fool user's and individuals into buying and investing into their centralized scamcoin, in which they hold billions of XRP. No accountability, no transparency no nothing.



Again, XRP being sued is nothing but positive news. Unfortunately, there are many who are tricked, fooled and misled into thinking otherwise.

The day of reckoning has finally arrived and this is should be liberation for all legitimate cryptocurrency teams out there. Ripple set out to create a remittance platform under the pretense of being a "cryptocurrency" when in fact, XRP has never and will never be a cryptocurrency. It's a centralized ponzi scheme that has been reportedly going on for 7 years, since 2013. I and many others have been calling out this scam for years now. Anyone halfway serious and understands crypto, knew this day was eventually coming and should be rejoicing.

To those who've been seeing XRP shills fill this board for years, in the comments and making threads, on social media and etc, just know that the vast majority of these accounts are manipulated bots and guerilla marketing teams that have been pumping their scam for years.

Altcoin markets took a very short shock, but since have all but recovered and will quickly resume their pace with Bitcoin. XRP in fact, had an insignificant impact on the crypto markets and any markets impacted will soon recover. This is a day you shouldn't fear, but should rejoice at the cleansing of scam coins from the broader market.


The biggest scam, which will cause a shock to crypto markets (for better or worse, capital flight will fly to other stablecoins and or back to Bitcoin) is Tether, USDT. This is the next monstrosity that will be targeted in the near future and will have a direct impact on all crypto, but it's long overdue. Tether prints billions of dollars and is the single most obscure and least transparent of any stablecoin, even moreso in the last 2 years when it overthrew XRP for the top spot.
 








Nice list by Tash: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=477706

An attack on XRP is not an attack on any crypto, XRP is not a cryptocurrency. Altcoins will recover from the small shock as it's clear that XRP had very negligible impact on legitimate cryptos.


XRP is the biggest scam in digital currency history and anyone halfway serious about cryptos understands this. This is a week of victory for crypto enthusiasts.

No one has truly mastered the art of predicting future prices. More often than not, you're being highly misled. The very few who day-trade and are successful. They're usually not the average individual's who are tweeting or shilling out the coins they are invested in on a daily basis. There is a lot of noise in crypto, from news, to "influencers," to shillers and a whole lot of manipulation in between. The majority of day-traders lose heavily.

There is nothing you can do to ensure a prediction is accurate, the future is not certain and will never be certain. No one has a crystal ball. All you can do is estimate with the current data, knowledge and etc that you currently have. There of course many things you can do to reduce risk, such as controlling markets with more liquidity, social engineering, analyzing big data, and etc. But if you're not actively at the helm or leading these efforts or have direct insight, then you're just a pawn, a fish for the whales. There are many who seek to social engineer or pretend they have capital or insight, but again, the majority are creating this illusion, for the more ignorant, who believe without actually understanding what's occurring to them.


I'll stress again, no one has a crystal ball. If you truly read even the best estimates and wash away the excuses or inter-personally make excuses for them, then you will find the truth.. that they know no more about the future of crypto than you do. That's the honest reality. The ones who do make an accurate prediction, most likely did it out of pure-luck or predicted based on common knowledge and understanding. There are general and blanket statements you can make, like "Bitcoin will go to 20k again." But this is a purely empty statement, because I did not associate when. Bitcoin will go to 20k again in the next 100-years. Do you believe me? If you're in crypto and invested in Bitcoin this statement seems laughable, since the majority will almost concur with my line of reasoning even without evidence. All I would need to do is draw some trend-lines, do some elementary-school drawings of technical analysis, and suddenly I will become a "prediction expert" What if now I predicted Bitcoin will go to 50k in the next 1 day and backed it up with the most ridiculous TA chart? I'm willing to be I would get people to believe me.

The point I'm making is that predictions find the grey area based on current trends, sentiments, volume, capital.. etc. If they are even remotely close, that indvidiaul is claimed to be an expert. If you have significant capital or are a big name making a prediction, then of course that prediction must be correct! Not the case at all. They have their personal investments at stake and often are claiming 50-100k Bitcoin, but in reality are ready to cash out at any insignificant profit.  Predictions that can be argued one way or another. Predictions mostly based on past trends, but mostly just sentiment "how do you feel about Bitcoin's current price/market as a whole."

Anyways, this is something that truly is frustrating in crypto for me. There are so many opinions and so much noise, they actively devalue the entire crypto sphere with their "Get rich quick, get rich quick in 1 day" mentality. The most detrimental and dangerous types of individuals to crypto are these types of morons.

Please do not shill or talk about specific coins in this thread. There are thousands of areas where you can shill or talk about a coin you like or think will do well or ask for people to shill you the next billion dollar investment. This is not the place for it. Please read the topic post.

Yes, this is typically a wise move. But I wouldn't count on being as "lucky" or well positioned as the first time he/she invested. I really don't want to speculate any further on this matter.


It's a balance. There have been countless projects that have both technical superiority and have seen success and marketing-based projects that have seen significant success. I would argue, on average, a technical superior project often wins the long-race over marketing hype/sway over investors. This is at least true to a significant extent. The outliers remain once certain crypto's hit a "threshold," shitcoins like XRP, Bitcoin clones and etc, with hundreds of million or billions in volume.

Monero or Dash for example have held tightly in the top-50, their presence is solidified not based on hype, but the technical superiority they offer.


There are hundreds of examples and types of coins you can pick and choose from to argue both points, marketing or technical.


For new coins, it's a balance. At the start, new coins need significant hype and attention to achieve milestones or goals such as getting funded or etc. But, without sustained and continued improvements to technical foundations or continued innovation, they will eventually die out due to the lack of hype or excitement. The majority of marketing can't exist without a solid technical foundation or a tech team that is continually delivering on objectives. Marketing in crypto is at its core, communicating what the project is doing.


I can get much more detailed on this, since it really does pertain to what I work on with teams. If you want more information or want a more detailed explination, feel free to ask a more specific question.

1. Now that the court is demanding for users data from centralized exchanges do you think that users will stop using centralized exchanges and finally move to DEX? Are centralized exchanges going to lose their reputations after this?

No, CEX will not lose the confidence of traders or investors. I will even argue they will never be usurped by DEXes.

Let me be quite frank here, there are many negatives to centralized exchanges: centralization of crypto supplies, security vulnerabilities, monopolistic tenancies, hacks... etc. But, for an average person, a DEX will always be a niche.

If people are attempting to avoid or are afraid of the law, then I'm going to assume they are most likely doing something wrong or not according to their countries law. Does that make it bad? That's not really for me to judge. There are of course scenarios were there are legitimate reasons why someone would absolutely need to be off the radar, such as people from authoritarian counties, China and etc.

For the average person, a CEX will be the most convenient and in most scenarios, the safest option to invest/trade cryptos with.


Does this thought process strip away the ideals of what a crypto is. Yes. But, I'm talking reality here and tendencies of human behavior and what has transpired over the last years. Binance continues to be largest exchange because they consistently innovate, are the most convenient, safe and trusted. Binance is also the most centralized and monopolistic exchange in all of crypto, especially now that they fall under Chinese law since Hong Kong has been stripped of its democracy.

The biggest threat to crypto in the immediate future is Binance. But I've not seen any conversations, critiques or warnings of what a danger Binance poses to the entire crypto ecosystem. That's because no one really cares anymore. As long as investors and traders can make money, then any exchange that's not a scam will be sufficient.


2. Some new projects are still finding it very hard to use exchanges like binance to raise fund through IEO because of the cost, what could be the best solution for such young crypto projects?

A general rule of thumb is that the market dictates what a good and bad project is. This is determined on how experienced teams are, how balanced they are, what types of resources and connections they draw from.

There are hundreds if not thousands of teams who would love to make a crypto and have attempted to do so. The reason many fail is due to having various of issues, including poor communication, marketing, tech, bad ideas, useless ideas, etc etc. I could make an enormous list for you on why teams fail and can't raise funds. It generally means because the project is a failure.

A good team and good project will almost always succeed to raise funds and launch whatever they are launching. Bad projects can succeed too, often maliciously or by a miraculous mirage.



3. If IEO have good hype presently will they perform as good as ICO did in 2017 when the bullrun and altcoin season are present?

This is a highly speculative question. If you want to ask me a different variation of this question, I may answer it.

In summation, the general trend in crypto is that altcoin rises come on the heels of any major Bitcoin gains. Most altcoins don't follow Bitcoin's trail though, they follow Ethereum's gains. Ethereum follows Bitcoin. So, if you're waiting for an alt-season boom ever, then watch Ethereum. Eth generally dictates all the ERC-20 tokens and competitors.

But yes, Bitcoin booms generally coincide with altseasons, if Bitcoin doesn't dump too quickly.

Ah, Worldcoin back in 2014. I thought it was going to make it the big time, like overthrowing Bitcoin. I was pretty naive and new to crypto, turned out there was some scam or dumping that occurred, can't even recall. It was a much different era back then though.

- There was another coin called eMunie that was around 2014-2015, was in development for like a year or two. Thought that would be massive. Turned out to be a massive scam.
- Syscoin is another, but the Mintpal fisaco permanently damaged their reputation and prospects.

More recently, It's been me being surprised that X coin gained or moved ridiculously high and sustained, (recently, Band and Elrond), but I never invested in them.


To be completely honest, I have of course have my own portfolio (I don't directly invest in any crypto or trade though) and I've always been super bullish on every crypto I acquire (usually from projects/teams I work for directly), but nothing really surprises me massively anymore. I've seen crazy gains, crazy losses, huge fakeouts and etc.

I don't really see much potential in any crypto anymore to usurp the current status of the majority of coins. There will always be new gems, but chances are that we won't see them until they are massive, even I miss major crypto launches despite spending hundreds of hours per month researching and reading about old and new cryptos. I've been acquiring a more cynical view of cryptocurrency teams and new coins to launch in the past year. This is mainly due to DeFi shitcoins that flooded the environment and continue to do so, 2017 ICO boom all over again. Although, DeFi token launches now mimic the crypto climate in 2013-2015 rather than 2017-2018. Strange how cyclic things seem to be in retrospect.