When Bitcoin Maximalists are Promoting/Shilling an Altcoin

[hatshepsut93]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, it's not though. I think what they're offering is business equity, just through a blockchain(not saying it's a good idea).

That's what I'm saying, why do investors need a blockchain token for equity instead of the traditional approach? There's not much advantages but there are risks. If this method was clearly superior, you'd see a lot of big names doing this, but it has been 5 years since Ethereum launched and no big companies or traditional exchanges rushed to adopt it for their operations. And 5 years is a lot in tech, it's more than enough time to adopt new frameworks and protocols if they clearly have advantages.

[fillippone]

This article explain quite well what has happened.
With the above sentence I mean it explain quite well why they decided to issue a token, why it is different both from an ICO or from an equity offering:

Bitcoin Maximalists Get Dragged for INX Hypocrisy

Even if the title is quite promising, the article do not explain at all is why the hypocrisy. And then why the subsequent twitter shitstorm.
Thinking about the person involved in the newslet, it is not difficult to understand why.
Hypocrisy over hypocrisy.

[Darker45]

This article explain quite well what has happened.
With the above sentence I mean it explain quite well why they decided to issue a token, why it is different both from an ICO or from an equity offering:

Bitcoin Maximalists Get Dragged for INX Hypocrisy

Even if the title is quite promising, the article do not explain at all is why the hypocrisy. And then why the subsequent twitter shitstorm.
Thinking about the person involved in the newslet, it is not difficult to understand why.
Hypocrisy over hypocrisy.

The title does not seem to represent the content. The opening line of Samson Mow that "Ethereum is garbage" was a good start but it went incoherent right after that. Didn't even detail why the pronouncement and whose mouth it came from were both significant. The controversy was not mentioned. The U-turn did not appear in the content either. What was the hypocrisy, then, that the title speaks of?

This article's title should be changed to "In Defense of the HypocritesU-turners."

[davis196]

Should we even care about this Twitter drama.Those "Bitcoin maximalists" can promote whatever shitcoin they want.This will most likely damage their credibility among their followers,but that's their own mistake and responsibility.Greed will ruin their life(and the life of all of us).I assume that they were paid(or bribed) to promote this token.I don't know how desperate for money they are,but this will ruin their social media presence.Anyway,that's not my problem.I don't use Twitter and I never will.

[shoreno]

Should we even care about this Twitter drama.Those "Bitcoin maximalists" can promote whatever shitcoin they want.This will most likely damage their credibility among their followers,but that's their own mistake and responsibility.Greed will ruin their life(and the life of all of us).I assume that they were paid(or bribed) to promote this token.I don't know how desperate for money they are,but this will ruin their social media presence.Anyway,that's not my problem.I don't use Twitter and I never will.

thats right , we should ignore them if we dont like shitcoins but shitcoin lovers and thier followers are willing to try whatever those people are promoting .  those people are being paid and theres also a posibility that they own what they are promoting . those guys dont only exist on twitter but they also present on other social media sites but we can easily ignore or block them if we spot them on the ads or on our timeline .

[Wind_FURY]

Jameson Lopp proclaimed himself a cypherpunk. It is a movement that has been advocating privacy and use of cryptography for years, it is on their ideas bitcoin is built, because it is based on cryptography and gives people a right "to selectively reveal oneself to the world." https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html

KYC is opposite to ideas of cypherpunks, because it doesn't allow you to selectively reveal yourself, to the contrary it forces you to reveal your identity completely in order to have a control over you.

Jameson Lopp, as a cypherpunk, was criticizing KYC when talked about DeFi and Libra:

https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1270134618604351488

https://blog.lopp.net/thoughts-on-libra--blockchain-/

However, when it comes to Bitcoin and his own benefit, he is no so categorical and instead pretty okay with KYC idea and idea of being tightly controlled.

https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1291450868093591552

https://help.inx.co/hc/en-us/articles/360015783180-Can-I-buy-INX-tokens-without-going-through-KYC-

If someone is not from that era before Bitcoin who started the movement to use cryptography as a tool for true socio-political change, then he's not a real Cypherpunk. Newbies should take some time to read the history before Bitcoin to separate the real Cypherpunks from the charlatans.

[Emitdama]

Seems like someone is not getting what this is all about; these people that the op has mentioned, who are shilling the ICO, are bitcoin maximalists who despise altcoins including Ethereum. Imagine when you despise something and then start promoting something else that came out from that same thing you despise so much, what makes you think that such thing is right?

It’s totally wrong, it would have been best that they closed their mouth. Cobra was right, if it was other people shilling this project they would have been the ones bad mouthing the project, but because they have got a share in it, they now want to say that it’s good and act nice lol.

[figmentofmyass]

https://help.inx.co/hc/en-us/articles/360015783180-Can-I-buy-INX-tokens-without-going-through-KYC-

that's anyone who wants to participate in the offering.

if anyone really wants exposure to INX tokens, i'm sure there will be aftermarkets for them---just like every other ERC-20 token. they can be traded p2p or through decentralized exchanges, and possibly also through centralized exchanges who allow unverified trading.

i certainly wouldn't buy at the ICO price (especially because we have no idea what the realistic prospects for this exchange even are) nor would i ever give up my KYC for a coin offering.

[gmaxwell]

Here is an email I wrote about this a few days ago:

I am really disappointed-- on the basis the content excerpted in this thread: https://twitter.com/francispouliot_/status/1298423415594840066

Long before cryptocurrency existed I was regularly asked by friends to help them understand investments, taxes, and finance stuff-- since I'm the sort of person that finds numbers and contract terms fun.  If cryptocurrency had never existed and a friend came to me asking about an investment with INX's terms I would strongly caution them away from it;  I might even say it smells like a scam.

-- because if it's a scam or not depends critically on unknowable post issuance management decisions: Do they actually pay out income or do they shovel all income back into operations and grow the company until they ultimately sell it out from under the token holders? AFAICT nothing about the terms suggests that they're particularly incentivized to ever pay the token holders even if their revenue becomes substantial, much less obligated.  I think at a minimum to be equitable there would need to be an option-like component to the terms which in the event that the company was sold token holders would receive a share of the companies' gain in value minus the dividends already paid out.  Otherwise, I think an argument can be made that the management is legally obligated to the shareholders to rip off the token holders in this manner.

Even with that I'd still probably caution against the investment due to how complex and unusual it is and the potential for gotchas.

The fact that it is issued on some cryptocurrency system just makes it a little less trustworthy (potential for technical snafu), taps into an established market of read-made victims, and imports a collection of people incentivized to pump a sketchy investment.  None of this helps but it is not the most fundamental issue.

Some people have pointed out that unlike many ICO's this one doesn't appear to be an outright scam.  I think it would be more accurate to say that it's not necessarily true that it is a scam, maybe it turns out to be one, maybe it doesn't.  Then again, if someone were making a really attractive offering in a market of scammy products you would expect them to put in a real effort to make it extremely clear that their investment isn't a bad one.  They haven't done that and I think that is a pretty bad sign.

So, sure, while they might meet a "not certainly a scam" bar, that is an extremely low bar and the fact people think this is noteworthy is really just an indictment of the ecosystem.

That well respected Bitcoiners are sticking their names on it-- for what sounds like more or less an immediate $250k payment-- is really disappointing to me.  If INX merely goes as poorly as explicitly permitted by the contracts their reputations should be justifiably trashed-- because it'll be impossible to tell if the holders weren't paid because the company tunnelled out real profits as payroll and other expenses vs just failed in the marketplace.  Considering the failure rate of businesses, even if all intentions are good, the odds of it going poorly can't be extremely low.

So to me that says that they assign a fairly low value to their reputations, or that they believe that it's likely that even if it fails and takes everyone's money they won't take a substantial reputational hit from it, or that they're being foolish and don't actually see what an inequitable setup the whole thing is.  I think the first two are likely and the last isn't likely. All of them are bad.

I don't know if other people have similar thoughts but this is my impression.

[Anna138]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, it's not though. I think what they're offering is business equity, just through a blockchain(not saying it's a good idea).

That's what I'm saying, why do investors need a blockchain token for equity instead of the traditional approach? There's not much advantages but there are risks. If this method was clearly superior, you'd see a lot of big names doing this, but it has been 5 years since Ethereum launched and no big companies or traditional exchanges rushed to adopt it for their operations. And 5 years is a lot in tech, it's more than enough time to adopt new frameworks and protocols if they clearly have advantages.

All because there are companies that work only for long-term loans. Companies like Ethereum. And there are companies that make a startup that takes off, then generates revenue at the moment and then fades. This is quite normal. There are small teams and profits are much smaller. Calm down! Everything is as it should be!

[pooya87]

everybody in the world likes making more money and they all love making it easily. but a very small percentage of people in the world have integrity and don't stoop to thieving or scamming others to make the "easy money".

and that's what ICOs are, an easy way to scam people specially if you have some moderate popularity. example is McAfee during 2017 who spent a lot of time gaining popularity by talking about bitcoin (specifically the price and how it will moon) and abusing the hype for his own benefit then started scamming people using ICOs and even got paid to promote them. you'd be surprised to learn how much money the scammers spend.

this is the same thing. these people had some popularity and are now using it to fill their pockets before the ICO scheme dies completely or ethereum disappears.

there is a lesson to be learned here though. people should never trust anyone who is asking for money. whether it is obvious begging or elaborate begging also known as fundraising also known as ICO which has aliases such as STO, IEO, and nowadays DeFi.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

We cryptocurrency enthusiast have to understand that in this space, nobody cares that much about what happens to our investment funds, you have to make that your number one priority. Them suggesting some shitcoin to you is just for their selfish benefits. No doubt the maximalist was paid well for him to put his reputation on the line for some random security token that its future isn't certain. All who likely do the same, they're are no saint either.

They hate on altcoins taking some liquidity off bitcoin since they do not have the bags but want people to buy into theirs so it'll profit them more. just ignore them and stay focused with your investing journey as that's the best way to keep yourself save from been used by this greedy fools to enrich their wallets.

[hatshepsut93]

This article explain quite well what has happened.
With the above sentence I mean it explain quite well why they decided to issue a token, why it is different both from an ICO or from an equity offering:

Bitcoin Maximalists Get Dragged for INX Hypocrisy

Even if the title is quite promising, the article do not explain at all is why the hypocrisy. And then why the subsequent twitter shitstorm.
Thinking about the person involved in the newslet, it is not difficult to understand why.
Hypocrisy over hypocrisy.

This is the newly-launched Bitcoin/crypto news site from some of the same people who got caught in the shitstorm. No wonder they defend those who are being accused in this scandal. This just shows how important it is to check the source of anything that you read.

there is a lesson to be learned here though. people should never trust anyone who is asking for money. whether it is obvious begging or elaborate begging also known as fundraising also known as ICO which has aliases such as STO, IEO, and nowadays DeFi.

I'm so glad I unsubscribed from all of the crypto twitter a few years ago. Of course I never took any financial advice from it, but it's much healthier to not follow any celebrities in general, especially on social media platforms that don't promote quality discussion.

[gentlemand]

I'm so glad I unsubscribed from all of the crypto twitter a few years ago. Of course I never took any financial advice from it, but it's much healthier to not follow any celebrities in general, especially on social media platforms that don't promote quality discussion.

I find crypto Twitter very useful myself. It's far better to have a self curated news source on there than any of the piece of shit news sites. You fairly rapidly learn who's a moron and who isn't and it's the information they come up with faster than anyone else that's interesting, not their opinions.

[hatshepsut93]

I find crypto Twitter very useful myself. It's far better to have a self curated news source on there than any of the piece of shit news sites. You fairly rapidly learn who's a moron and who isn't and it's the information they come up with faster than anyone else that's interesting, not their opinions.

In retrospective, 99.9% of those news and ideas feel insignificant, and if truly big thing happens, I'll see them posted on this forum or on reddit. There's really not much going on in crypto, despite the fact that each news site makes a dozen of articles per day. Even the really big news from the past, like "China (un)bans Bitcoin" really didn't have that much effect on anything. And it's easy to waste so many time reading pointless discussions on twitter, and the only people who benefit from it all are influencers, aka shills.

[gentlemand]

In retrospective, 99.9% of those news and ideas feel insignificant, and if truly big thing happens, I'll see them posted on this forum or on reddit. There's really not much going on in crypto, despite the fact that each news site makes a dozen of articles per day. Even the really big news from the past, like "China (un)bans Bitcoin" really didn't have that much effect on anything. And it's easy to waste so many time reading pointless discussions on twitter, and the only people who benefit from it all are influencers, aka shills.

This site is pretty shit for new developments. A lot of things never turn up on here compared to Reddit.

And I NEVER read the comments below tweets. Every time I step out of the narrow tunnel I've created I get drowned in a wave of mindless squit. 99.8% of Twitter is moronic junk.

[fillippone]

Jameson sorte a self defence blog post.
You can read it here:

 On Shitcoins and STOs

A breakdown of different types of cryptographic tokens and the controversies generated by their proponents.

Warning: as suggested on Twitter, a little bit of mental gymnastic required when reading this (guess much more had to be applied writing it).


On a different note tweet: he might be a shitcoin shiller, but how can you not love statements like this?

Most Bitcoin evangelists are small timers preaching to the choir. Bitcoin's greatest marketers are central bankers.

https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1300156269202993154

[witcher_sense]

Jameson sorte a self defence blog post.
You can read it here:

 On Shitcoins and STOs

A breakdown of different types of cryptographic tokens and the controversies generated by their proponents.

I didn't risk reading an article to avoid being frustrated again, but my guess here is in the article Lopp explains that he had a very good reason to start shilling for shitcoins.

On a different note tweet: he might be a shitcoin shiller, but how can you not love statements like this?

Unfortunately, that makes things even worse.

[Vatimins]

     Damn. This hypocrisy that these people are showing really make my cringe level shoot up to a hundred percent. I mean seriously, do they really think that people are so dumb to just believe their shilling attempts after all the trash they have said about it? Even if they were truly honest with what they are saying, it wouldn't matter since they already said a lot of crap about erc20. To top it off, they only started saying good things after they had coins under etherium in their possession. Damn. What a shame. All those years of gaining good reputation thrown away just for this.

[Darker45]

Jameson sorte a self defence blog post.
You can read it here:

On Shitcoins and STOs

A breakdown of different types of cryptographic tokens and the controversies generated by their proponents.

I didn't risk reading an article to avoid being frustrated again, but my guess here is in the article Lopp explains that he had a very good reason to start shilling for shitcoins.

Well, he is saying that "I've made no investment recommendations about INX" and that "people on social media tend to generate controversy."

But, for me, a recommendation does not have to begin with "I recommend..." If you start talking about a shitcoin in a positive manner, one which you are closely involved with and actually owns a bunch, by implication you are recommending it. I bet Lopp is very much aware that he is an influencer.

As for the controversy, it is not generated by the people on social media. It was generated by the actions of one man, a self-proclaimed Bitcoin maximalist, who considers the rest of the cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin as shitcoins but also shills for one.

On a different note tweet: he might be a shitcoin shiller, but how can you not love statements like this?

Most Bitcoin evangelists are small timers preaching to the choir. Bitcoin's greatest marketers are central bankers.

https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1300156269202993154

There is no issue with this. And, yes, the continuous powerful existence of central banks and their actions are the biggest arguments for Bitcoin.

The issue precisely is when Bitcoin evangelists start to flip-flop. The issue is when Bitcoin preachers start to shill for a shitcoin and, worse, one which is built on the network they are discrediting over and over again.