What is now the difference with Ponzi platforms with cryptocurrency exchanges

[gantez]

I am not surprise that some media now started to report crypto exchange as Ponzi and comparing it that way. This is because of the FTX crash making customers fund disappearing to $1 billion. The exact amount is still not clear because different people are giving different amount to what is lose and  Sam Bankman-Fried saying he will write his own story about the issue but the point is he "secretly" transferred money to a trading company Alameda Research. This is IMO a black weekend for people in cryptocurrency because just when people start to look for investment in cryptocurrency now we have FTX top officials secretly embezzling customer money to secretly invest in trading to make personal gain.



Where now is the trust? This is blackmail to crypto industry. There was ICO scam and others happened to cryptocurrency.


We try to running off from Ponzi and we begin to have exchange crash not because of hack but someone trusted with customer money is taking it away secretly. . This is not good to hear. It is sad to read about it and I know you are not happy about Sam Bankman-Fried action that is putting cryptocurrency investors into economic challenge in this hard knock inflation season.

Don't say you have to put your coins in your personal wallet or Dex. There you have someone you trust and breaking the trust. This is not good for cryptocurrency or what do you think about the trust broken?

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Don't say you have to put your coins in your personal wallet or Dex. There you have someone you trust and breaking the trust. This is not good for cryptocurrency or what do you think about the trust broken?

To put your savings in your own wallet and secure it with well-known means of protection, including not to share your private keys and passwords with anyone. Any damage that occurs to it will be your responsibility alone, and we cannot blame anyone.
As for decentralized platforms, they may be more secure than centralized platforms, but this does not mean that they are the best way. I remember the CryptoBridge platform when it was launched it was a decentralized platform and then suddenly they started asking for identity documents from users before the platform stopped and users' money was lost. There are many other examples that confirm that it cannot be trusted one hundred percent.

[Flexystar]

Don't say you have to put your coins in your personal wallet or Dex. There you have someone you trust and breaking the trust. This is not good for cryptocurrency or what do you think about the trust broken?

I will go with "IT IS WHAT IT IS".

Exchanges was not the real "idea" behind satoshi's vision. It is actually exactly opposite what he thought and launched the blockchain. It's like Satoshi created apples for us but some thinker later created their own oranges and covered with the Apple skins.

These days what you see is that skin is peeling off and reality is getting exposed. Imagine if there was only bitcoin and the only way to trade it was via sending them from one wallet to other wallet with trust factor being the mutual understanding. I think it would have been the best case scenario.

May be the price would have been little but loss wouldnt have been in billions.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Don't say you have to put your coins in your personal wallet or Dex. There you have someone you trust and breaking the trust. This is not good for cryptocurrency or what do you think about the trust broken?

I never trusted those people, so I can't say that they let me down in anything or that the trust was broken. Bitcoin was conceived as a decentralized system and everyone should use it that way, everything else is wrong and risky, which has been proven many times throughout the short history from 2009 to today.

As a result of everything, it is easy to conclude that most people did not understand the essence of the existence of Bitcoin, but they understood that various shitcoins can be very profitable, especially when they are in a direct relationship with some people who position themselves as so-called crypto leaders whom people unreservedly trust.

This whole industry is full of illusions of meaningfulness in false promises, which unfortunately many grasp as the last straw of salvation, but unfortunately they do not know that the foundations of this illusion are built on very shaky foundations, and that they are doomed to a complete collapse sooner or later.

Unfortunately for all honorable and honest people who are in the world of cryptocurrencies, such events definitely send a very ugly and negative image to the public, who are wondering how all this is possible and why it is not regulated.

[mu_enrico]

You can't trust exchanges since they're not regulated, at least not as regulated as banks, where they have many safeguard systems in place to ensure the fund's security. Many people don't understand that putting money on crypto exchanges won't get any protection, bailouts, or whatever. When it's lost, it's lost... People can't ask for their money back. At the moment, just use wallets that only you have access to the keys. This situation will be improved with better regulations, but not in the near future IMO, so it's best to get used to the "not your keys, not your coins" thing.

Btw DEX is also not secure, remember there's this rug pull thing...

[Inwestour]

To put your savings in your own wallet and secure it with well-known means of protection, including not to share your private keys and passwords with anyone. Any damage that occurs to it will be your responsibility alone, and we cannot blame anyone.
As for decentralized platforms, they may be more secure than centralized platforms, but this does not mean that they are the best way. I remember the CryptoBridge platform when it was launched it was a decentralized platform and then suddenly they started asking for identity documents from users before the platform stopped and users' money was lost. There are many other examples that confirm that it cannot be trusted one hundred percent.

You need to have good knowledge in order to be able to protect your investments from fraudsters. But for this you need to spend a lot of time to thoroughly understand all aspects, it is difficult and therefore most people study these important issues superficially. In the end, it's about your money, and so it should be one of the main things you need to worry about.

[Despairo]

Ponzi is where you deposit 1 and get 2 in short time, few tokens also offer staking that similar like ponzi where the return is to good to be true. Centralized exchanges isn't a ponzi if you only use the exchange feature and you wouldn't lose your coins since in staking you need to leave your coins on the exchange.

Btw DEX is also not secure, remember there's this rug pull thing...

I believe you're refer to Uniswap, Pancakeswap etc that's not a DEX, but they're just a swap platform. A real DEX doesn't hold your coins, similar like Bisq and it's really high security since the exchange never got hacked and the developer purpose is not to make money.

[Yatsan]

Ponzi Platforms would always be a downside but cryptocurrency exchanges won't. Not because one exchanger have failed, means every exchangers would be the same. It is always wrong to generalize. Exchangers will be needed for years as long as cryptocurrencies are not yet widely accepted as a mode of payment; you just have to choose one trusted exchanger to ease your worries.

To put your savings in your own wallet and secure it with well-known means of protection, including not to share your private keys and passwords with anyone. Any damage that occurs to it will be your responsibility alone, and we cannot blame anyone.
As for decentralized platforms, they may be more secure than centralized platforms, but this does not mean that they are the best way. I remember the CryptoBridge platform when it was launched it was a decentralized platform and then suddenly they started asking for identity documents from users before the platform stopped and users' money was lost. There are many other examples that confirm that it cannot be trusted one hundred percent.

You need to have good knowledge in order to be able to protect your investments from fraudsters. But for this you need to spend a lot of time to thoroughly understand all aspects, it is difficult and therefore most people study these important issues superficially. In the end, it's about your money, and so it should be one of the main things you need to worry about.

Everything is online. Expect that there are risk because you don't physically hold your assets. Worrying would just waste your time. If you're anxious then pull your money out, that's how simple it is. But to those who are here in this industry for years, you just need to secure important details from other people, never also access untrusted websites. If the platform itself is the problem, how'd you know? It is hard to tell especially if platforms have good reputation.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Where now is the trust? This is blackmail to crypto industry. There was ICO scam and others happened to cryptocurrency.

It's not blackmail but apparently a straight-up scam--and it very much reminds me of the Mt. Gox disaster, where there was essentially one individual in charge of a lot of people's money, and that individual was inept at finance at best.  This guy SBF looks like a complete tool to me, and it's amazing that he was treated so well in the media prior to this given that he made a statement to the effect that he's in the Ponzi business.  I mean, Jesus.

FTX's extensive advertising probably pulled in a shitload of money from people who otherwise would never have invested in crypto and who were too ignorant to know not to keep their crypto on a platform like FTX.  That's why this thing is much worse than Mt. Gox, which affected investors who were into bitcoin in the early days.  This brand of shenanigans attracts the attention of regulators like nothing else, and I can't imagine the outcome is going to be good for any of us.

[Accardo]

Since actions like this persists, then cryptocurrency exchanges should be regulated. They should be a certain amount, just like banks, on reserve before an exchange gets established, so if they go bankrupt the funds can be used to settle affected customers. The differences between a Ponzi site and exchange is the eligibility to swap currencies on exchanges and Ponzi sites don't come out plain to tell customers that their money is gone, they disappear.

[mu_enrico]

I believe you're refer to Uniswap, Pancakeswap etc that's not a DEX, but they're just a swap platform. A real DEX doesn't hold your coins, similar like Bisq and it's really high security since the exchange never got hacked and the developer purpose is not to make money.

Yep, Uniswap et al. however, it doesn't mean Bisq never got hacked tho:
https://www.google.com/search?q=bisq+hack

I remember playing with Bisq years ago I think the reason the last hacked news was in 2020 is that there are not many activities/money on the platform. It never got popular. Wait until it becomes as big as FTX et al., and we'll see the same shenanigans.

Since actions like this persists, then cryptocurrency exchanges should be regulated. They should be a certain amount, just like banks, on reserve before an exchange gets established, so if they go bankrupt the funds can be used to settle affected customers.

There's no such protection like that AFAIK. The only protected fund is your bank savings hence the term "risk-free" assets.

[mk4]

Exchanges being insolvent due to whatever reason isn't anything new — that's one of the reasons why the quote "not your keys, not your coins" has been repeatedly said thousands of times already.

But to answer your topic question, ponzi schemes are ponzi schemes and exchanges are exchanges. What made FTX a ponzi scheme in this case is because of how the CEO(and company) handled their user's funds.

[AmoreJaz]

Exchanges being insolvent due to whatever reason isn't anything new — that's one of the reasons why the quote "not your keys, not your coins" has been repeatedly said thousands of times already.

But to answer your topic question, ponzi schemes are ponzi schemes and exchanges are exchanges. What made FTX a ponzi scheme in this case is because of how the CEO(and company) handled their user's funds.

they are of different types of businesses. because ponzi schemes at the very beginning have their intentions of screwing up people. on the other hand, if you are running legit exchange, you want your business to grow and expand throughout the years. so in case of ftx, i don't think sam was thinking of having this failure knowing that it will surely ruin his reputation in crypto world.

[blockman]

They may be a regulated company and these exchanges have the blessing of the government where they're operating. But their moves are unregulated and they can do inside jobs just as what happened to FTX.
They don't care about the trust that has been in them from their depositors, it's a thing that they've taken advantage and I doubt it that they'll feel sorry for what they've done.
It's worrying that this has happened from one of the ex-trusted exchanges and who knows how long they've been doing this.

[ChiNgadOr]

FTX had become the recent trend of fail exchange that lack strong team that will make a better exchange. We should know that their is a different between an exchange and ponzi scheme. Most exchanges that short down do not do so because they intend to go away with customers funds. This happens mostly because of hacking, bad management and other factors that can easily tag a company bad and we should not be happy when many had lost their funds without having a an that they will get compensated.

[mk4]

so in case of ftx, i don't think sam was thinking of having this failure knowing that it will surely ruin his reputation in crypto world.

He saw an opportunity to take a huge risk, and he stupidly did. Dude was printing so much money with the FTX platform but yet he decided to a unnecessarily retarded risk.

[Die_empty]

Don't say you have to put your coins in your personal wallet or Dex. There you have someone you trust and breaking the trust. This is not good for cryptocurrency or what do you think about the trust broken?

Trust is a priceless virtue and it is earned and cannot be bought. These exchanges have to prove that they can be trusted. From recent happening,most of them if not all cannot be trusted. Even if they have good intentions, the government would influence their actions. Most of these exchanges are managed by smart young chaps that are not well grounded in business management that is why they make costly mistakes. What is your explanation for some promotion and unthinkable bonuses and profit some of them offer to customers, they are operating like ponzi schemes. Until we have an exchange that is free from individual(s) or government control, keeping your coins in a personal wallet would always remain the safest option.

[Kakmakr]

I think in most cases it boils down to greed and poor management decisions. Let's look at Mt Gox as an example... When Jed McCaleb handed over Mt Gox to Mark Karpelès.... he was under the impression that Mark Karpelès was capable to run it. Mark Karpelès had no business sense, he was simply a PHP developer and a small time entrepreneur.  

Sam Bankman-Fried  has a degree in physics and a minor in mathematics... but to his credit, he made his wealth with Cryptocurrency arbitrage, so he gained some knowledge on Crypto Exchanges.  

[Adamlaria]

A Ponzi scheme is a scam with no real underlying business generating revenue, and later contributor funds simply pay off earlier contributors.

Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes are both ways of generating the appearance of spending without real income. While tulips can be very valuable, the outlays in the business are usually so small that it can hardly be called a true investment versus speculation.

[hugeblack]

This happens everywhere. cryptocurrency exchanges need hot money to compete, and this hot money is not present in the form of investments, shares from investors, government support, etc. Therefore, many platforms resort to self-financing, which is printing more tokens to obtain funds to buy REAL cryptocurrencies or enter into a spiral of loans and others.

If the platform manages this money well, it will prosper and may not stand if a blow is directed at it, but what happened with FTX is a complete mess that led to this rapid collapse.