Who thinks DCG / Genesis / Grayscale / Barry are bad actors?

[adaseb]

I used to respect Barry alot. I think he did lots for crypto. Especially getting the GBTC up and running so there was some retail that could hold Bitcoin in their retirement accounts. However after reading these tweets from,

https://twitter.com/zhusu

I am not so sure what to think. I know that Zhusu can't be fully trusted after what he did however why would he be making this stuff up? Also it doesn't help since he is saying all of this after its too late.

Wondering what everything here thinks of the FTX and Genesis situation?

[Wind_FURY]

I used to respect Barry alot. I think he did lots for crypto. Especially getting the GBTC up and running so there was some retail that could hold Bitcoin in their retirement accounts. However after reading these tweets from,

https://twitter.com/zhusu

Ser! You continued to respect Barry Silbert "a lot" after he tried to organize the top Bitcoin miners, exchange owners, and top Bitcoin merchants in New York to co-opt Bitcoin, and fork it without any agreement with the Core Developers or reach consensus from the community?

I am not so sure what to think. I know that Zhusu can't be fully trusted after what he did however why would he be making this stuff up? Also it doesn't help since he is saying all of this after its too late.

Wondering what everything here thinks of the FTX and Genesis situation?

I don't know Zhusu, or his opinion towards Barry Silbert, but I know what to think = Barry Silbert is a BAD ACTOR!

[jackg]

Grayscale seems like a bad actor in itself by not doing a lot of things (such as buybacks with the huge premium they have).

DCG seems to be one of the biggest venture capital companies in the cryptospace. They might be able to offer some things such as stability in mining power but they feel a lot more like they're profiting from a lack of competition in the sector.

A lot of centralised companies nowadays look more like they're into profits and exploitation over the original more hobbyistic values that were once employed (it'd seem to me a lot of the hobbyists quietly sold up and left too).

[buwaytress]

Hate to say it but you cannot really be a good actor if you're a corporate that prioritises profit -- especially in an largely unregulated space where there really is no need to be ethical or even honest.

Not saying any of those guys named are bad actors. Just find it really hard to call a corporate a good actor. Neutral, sure, even positive.

[OgNasty]

Wondering what everything here thinks of the FTX and Genesis situation?

I think it's clear that there's been a lot of dishonesty surrounding Genesis and their earn program.  Everyone is trying to pass the buck, but it seems to be landing on Barry.  A lot of promises were made about liquidity and who was holding what BTC, and now nobody seems to know what happened.  It seems clear to me that they built a product that was unsustainable with the legal protection of being able to make money while not having to hold customer funds responsibly.  The next couple of days should shed some light on what is going to happen, but I don't have much faith in Grayscale to do anything except what makes them the most money by screwing their customers the hardest.

[mk4]

I know that Zhusu can't be fully trusted after what he did however why would he be making this stuff up?

Not saying that he's right or wrong here(as they probably might be), bit Su Zhu and Kyle Davies are on Twitter trying to paint a picture that they're innocent and that they blew up because of FTX and stuff. I'd take anything they with a grain of salt.

[o48o]

First sentence made me question him right away:

1) they conspired w FTX to attack Luna and steth and made a fair bit doing so

So we should believe him despite the fact that he didn't provide any proof of it?
This is pretty serious accusation and with that amount of people following him, there will be damage.
Which makes me think he might get sued for defamation, because it's hard to prove conspiracy even with evidence, and he just decided to accuse them without any ammo.

[bbc.reporter]

First sentence made me question him right away:

1) they conspired w FTX to attack Luna and steth and made a fair bit doing so

So we should believe him despite the fact that he didn't provide any proof of it?
This is pretty serious accusation and with that amount of people following him, there will be damage.
Which makes me think he might get sued for defamation, because it's hard to prove conspiracy even with evidence, and he just decided to accuse them without any ammo.

It might be true or it might not, however, what is true is we in bitcointalk.org appear to have no knowledge of much of what is happening in the cryptospace. I reckon there is some truth to what Su Zhu has tweeted. He might be a corrupted gambler, however, he might not be lying about this. But he might have an agenda in exposing the truth hehehe.

In any case, on stETH/ETH depegging, @lookonchain has this analysis onchain that shows that Su Zhu might be telling the truth.

https://mobile.twitter.com/lookonchain/status/1610177926145900545

[TrustedBitcoiner]

Ser! You continued to respect Barry Silbert "a lot" after he tried to organize the top Bitcoin miners, exchange owners, and top Bitcoin merchants in New York to co-opt Bitcoin, and fork it without any agreement with the Core Developers or reach consensus from the community?

was this during the blocksize war, and when BCH forked off? Barry Silbert was pushing for bigger blocks?

[hatshepsut93]

Ser! You continued to respect Barry Silbert "a lot" after he tried to organize the top Bitcoin miners, exchange owners, and top Bitcoin merchants in New York to co-opt Bitcoin, and fork it without any agreement with the Core Developers or reach consensus from the community?

Came here to post exactly this. I don't know much about Barry Silbert, but I remember what he did during the SegWit2x times, and that's all I need to know - he is indeed a bad actor.

A lot of high-profile people in Bitcoin are here only to make money, and that's okay, but unfortunately a lot of them also don't share Bitcoin's values and would do anything for a profit. We've seen it many times, we don't need any "Bitcoin Jesuses".

[adaseb]

I actually never knew that. All I remember from the Segwit days was that Bitmain CEO who refused to activate Segwit on his pool and it created a lot of drama and ETH almost flipped BTC on the market cap before he finally caved in. Never knew Barry was apart of it.

With Genesis I am pretty sure they will just go and claim bankruptcy. In their point of view they will benefit the most that way. They don’t care about their relationship with Gemini or Gemini Earn customers and won’t want to upset their board members. Only question is when they will claim bankruptcy.

[bitgolden]

I am not so sure what to think. I know that Zhusu can't be fully trusted after what he did however why would he be making this stuff up? Also it doesn't help since he is saying all of this after its too late.

Wondering what everything here thinks of the FTX and Genesis situation?

I am not sure if the yare bad actors, but it could be basically a confusing actors to say the least. They are not all the same to be fair, but they are close and I think having some sort of unexplained situations and people in the crypto world is not that bad.

It could have been bad if we didn't ignore it, but to be fair we have been ignoring them all this time, and I think it's really not that important to keep ignoring them, it's not going to be anything like that. Just continue to look elsewhere and these people will talk nonsense and companies will do many things and market will continue as if nothing happened because they are them, and we are going to do us.

[TrustedBitcoiner]

if i had to guess the DCG situation is not nearly as bad as FTX, they might be forced to sell some assets to cover a loan or something, but i don't see full on implosion due to miss management. but i guess this same feeling may have been true of FTX before it was clear what was going on. We will find out soon enough once the investigation is done.

[GreatArkansas]

(.....)
I am not so sure what to think. I know that Zhusu can't be fully trusted after what he did however why would he be making this stuff up? Also it doesn't help since he is saying all of this after its too late.

I think what Zhusu is doing right now is exposing all these crypto actors that became big players on the market right now, especially DCG and FTX.
Zhusu connected all the dots here starting from the Luna fall, which for me, Luna case was the trigger point before which Three Arrows Capital also started when Luna popped. Now Zhusu is starting to gain the trust of everyone again after what happened but it's already difficult for me.

What happening right now is best example of not trusting anybody on the cryptocurrency, look how lot of people admire Sam Bankman-fried but look at now.

[adaseb]

(.....)
I am not so sure what to think. I know that Zhusu can't be fully trusted after what he did however why would he be making this stuff up? Also it doesn't help since he is saying all of this after its too late.

I think what Zhusu is doing right now is exposing all these crypto actors that became big players on the market right now, especially DCG and FTX.
Zhusu connected all the dots here starting from the Luna fall, which for me, Luna case was the trigger point before which Three Arrows Capital also started when Luna popped. Now Zhusu is starting to gain the trust of everyone again after what happened but it's already difficult for me.

What happening right now is best example of not trusting anybody on the cryptocurrency, look how lot of people admire Sam Bankman-fried but look at now.

Even if it wasn't for the Luna collapse do you think it would of been any different? We are in a bear market and most of crypto assets would of went downhill anyways. The Luna collapse maybe expediated everything and it happened sooner.

However even if it wasnt for that first domino falling being Luna, FTX and all these other companies might of been exposed and failed anyways. Maybe if we were in a strong bull market then the Luna collapse might of not made all these exchanges fail but that's not the case here.

[Lucius]

It seems to me that a lot of people respect some let's call them celebrities from the crypto world just because they made a real fortune mostly by doing things that are always a little bit in the gray zone. Therefore, I always consider all these people to be ordinary opportunists who take what is offered to them at some point, and at the same time they often do not choose the means to achieve the goal, which then puts them more in the category of bad than good people.

Even if it wasn't for the Luna collapse do you think it would of been any different? We are in a bear market and most of crypto assets would of went downhill anyways. The Luna collapse maybe expediated everything and it happened sooner.
~snip~

Of course, it would have been different (at least I think so), because Kwon caused financial damage that was up to three times greater than FTX and that strongly shook the market. Without that scandal, the price of BTC would certainly be much higher than it is now and would not go below the 2017 ATH.

In that case, all these companies you mention (and many others) would be in a much better position, and now they are in a rather unenviable situation that somewhat resembles a dried-up lake with only a little water in which every fish is trying to survive until the next rain - unfortunately only few will survive.

[Wind_FURY]

I actually never knew that. All I remember from the Segwit days was that Bitmain CEO who refused to activate Segwit on his pool and it created a lot of drama and ETH almost flipped BTC on the market cap before he finally caved in. Never knew Barry was apart of it.

With Genesis I am pretty sure they will just go and claim bankruptcy. In their point of view they will benefit the most that way. They don’t care about their relationship with Gemini or Gemini Earn customers and won’t want to upset their board members. Only question is when they will claim bankruptcy.

It would have been very easy not to have come across the topic if you were not very active in the forum during that time. I admit, I too was just learning, and I actually thought Bitcoin Unlimited "might be a good upgrade" for Bitcoin.

But, after going through all of it, it was probably all just hand-waving, and trying to convince the community to join them in forking Bitcoin away from the rightful stewards of the Bitcoin network, the Core Developers. Gavin Andresen wanted his "block size increase" with Mike Hearn, Roger Ver had his own with Jihan Wu, and Barry Silbert organized the "New York Agreement". All of them had one thing in common = Core Developers excluded.

THE NEW YORK AGREEMENT

Meanwhile, the block size debate raged on. Another software client to increase Bitcoin’s block size limit per hard fork, Bitcoin Unlimited gained traction among Bitcoin’s mining community. Endorsed by Bitmain’s Wu in particular, the project appeared to be heading toward a potential (and controversial) hard fork.

This looming threat, and the possibility of a “split” in Bitcoin’s blockchain, was reason for DCG founder and CEO Barry Silbert to organize a meeting ahead of the Consensus 2017 conference in New York. Initially announced on a private email list for Bitcoin entrepreneurs and other prominent industry members, the meeting would bring together a significant chunk of the Bitcoin industry, including miners — though, notably, no Bitcoin Core contributors.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/the-long-road-to-segwit-how-bitcoins-biggest-protocol-upgrade-became-reality

[adaseb]

So the Winklevoss twins on their Twitter posted what has happened with Gemini Earn, Genesis and 3AC. It actually all boils down to GBTC.

Remember when the premium was very high. It was free money to put BTC into the fund and collect the premium. They loaned 3AC those bitcoins which they kept the premium and in turn GBTC had a higher market cap and more money for Barry. Everyone was happy, making money for taking no risk pretty much until the premium magically disappeared and created all this mess.

Now that I think of it, Barry really should be under investigation for this entire ordeal which created this entire mess.

[TrustedBitcoiner]

https://twitter.com/HeyItsMeTheDev/status/1612808365444403200

ill just leave this here.

[bbc.reporter]

So the Winklevoss twins on their Twitter posted what has happened with Gemini Earn, Genesis and 3AC. It actually all boils down to GBTC.

Remember when the premium was very high. It was free money to put BTC into the fund and collect the premium. They loaned 3AC those bitcoins which they kept the premium and in turn GBTC had a higher market cap and more money for Barry. Everyone was happy, making money for taking no risk pretty much until the premium magically disappeared and created all this mess.

Now that I think of it, Barry really should be under investigation for this entire ordeal which created this entire mess.

Are you talking about this tweet?

https://mobile.twitter.com/cameron/status/1612806661508567042

I think that it might be much more than GBTC's premium that magically disappeared that created this problem. According to Cameron Winklevoss there were public lies, private lies and accounting fraud on the side of Barry Silbert.

However, it appears that Barry is winning hehe. Winklevoss twins appear to have a case on Barry but do they want to take this to court? They might not want to do this because it might implicate themselves. The SEC is watching hehehe.



The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday charged crypto firms Genesis and Gemini with allegedly selling unregistered securities in connection with a high-yield product offered to depositors.

Source https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/12/sec-charges-genesis-and-gemini-with-selling-unregistered-securities.html



Gemini might be the next exchange to bite the dust?