The Bullshit Monitor, Trust Us, Bro

[Pmalek]

Controversial posts, misleading marketing, absurdity, corporate spin, controversies, failed promises, and funny statements are things that many companies and services in the Bitcoin and crypto world have been guilty of. I would like all of us to collect such posts and statements to mock them a little bit and have fun. It can be brand-new posts (preferably) or something from the past that turned out to be false.

I will self-moderate this thread to avoid turning it into a spam fest, but I welcome everyone to contribute to it.
If you share a post, please also include your own comment, explaining what is wrong with the statement, what's questionable or misleading.

I call this segment The Bullshit Monitor, Trust Us, Bro.

I will begin with good ol' Ledger.
Two days ago, they wanted to remind everyone that they will never ask their users for their secret recovery phrases. Of course not. Why would they? They only created a feature, built into the firmware that extracts your keys for you and sends them over the internet to multiple third-parties for "safe-keeping."


https://x.com/Ledger/status/2060462385052172382

[Zaguru12]

While this has been discussed in its thread already but since this is a dedicated thread for such controversial posts, I think it’s best to have it here too.

This is unstoppable wallet actually marketing themselves while trying to de market the hardware wallets, in a wider space like this (crypto) they could have done the marketing without talking bad about other brands, they themselves aren’t doing so well in what they offer too,

They still can’t support bitcoin fees less than 1 sats/vbyte and no one has used that against them.
There swap provider exolix is been called out for a vulnerability of leaking customers data too.

So they belong to this thread and to the tag ”Trust us, Bro”

[UchihaSarada]

I will begin with good ol' Ledger.
Two days ago, they wanted to remind everyone that they will never ask their users for their secret recovery phrases. Of course not. Why would they? They only created a feature, built into the firmware that extracts your keys for you and sends them over the internet to multiple third-parties for "safe-keeping."

Ledger again.

From Ledger Recover years ago, now they are doing something more dangerous for users and stupid for their business growth because there will be more people feeling fearful about Ledger and its present products and future ones.
Ledger Recovery - Send your (encrypted) recovery phrase to 3rd parties entities.
Ledger Recover: What The Hell is Happening? With aantonop and lopp.

[Pmalek]

There swap provider exolix is been called out for a vulnerability of leaking customers data too.

I remember Exolix negatively ever since that incident when they sent stolen funds to one user who used their swap service. They showed back then that they don't care and this is just another proof of that. The ability for third parties to access sensitive swaps data that is supposed to remain hidden is apparently a "feature" for them and something normal.

[devisssss]

Controversial posts, misleading marketing, absurdity, corporate spin, controversies, failed promises, and funny statements are things that many companies and services in the Bitcoin and crypto world have been guilty of. I would like all of us to collect such posts and statements to mock them a little bit and have fun. It can be brand-new posts (preferably) or something from the past that turned out to be false.

I will self-moderate this thread to avoid turning it into a spam fest, but I welcome everyone to contribute to it.
If you share a post, please also include your own comment, explaining what is wrong with the statement, what's questionable or misleading.

I call this segment The Bullshit Monitor, Trust Us, Bro.

I will begin with good ol' Ledger.
Two days ago, they wanted to remind everyone that they will never ask their users for their secret recovery phrases. Of course not. Why would they? They only created a feature, built into the firmware that extracts your keys for you and sends them over the internet to multiple third-parties for "safe-keeping."

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2026/05/31/Ujy5U8.jpeg
https://x.com/Ledger/status/2060462385052172382

Sounds like a fun idea, as long as the focus stays on the claims themselves rather than personal attacks. There’s certainly no shortage of “trust us, bro” moments in crypto that aged poorly.

Are you planning to cover only recent examples, or are classic cases like unrealistic roadmap promises and failed exchange assurances fair game as well?

[buwaytress]

Not sure if this is in the same vein but I recall the gushing over PayPal when they suddenly announced that you could 'buy, sell, hold' Bitcoin. You know, to democratise Bitcoin access and allowing everyone to buy directly from the app.

Except, there was never any coin to begin with. All they did was offer a contract for speculation.  You could name any other app for selling this bullshit.

This was supposed to be "massive" for Bitcoin adoption.

[noorman0]

Sounds like a fun idea, as long as the focus stays on the claims themselves rather than personal attacks. There’s certainly no shortage of “trust us, bro” moments in crypto that aged poorly.

If this feature becomes a vulnerability, it is not just a personal attack, but a collective attack. If you fail to curate your wallet, your trust will be useless even if you conservatively choose old coins that tend to be stable risk.

[Pmalek]

Sounds like a fun idea, as long as the focus stays on the claims themselves rather than personal attacks.

Of course. That's the idea.

Are you planning to cover only recent examples, or are classic cases like unrealistic roadmap promises and failed exchange assurances fair game as well?

I think it's better to focus on recent cases and not recycle old incidents. All exchanges have probably been guilty of promising that their users are safe and nothing bad will happen to them at least once and so many of them have been hacked or had their data leaked. I wouldn't focus on that either. Same thing with roadmaps and unrealistic expectations.

Not sure if this is in the same vein but I recall the gushing over PayPal when they suddenly announced that you could 'buy, sell, hold' Bitcoin. You know, to democratise Bitcoin access and allowing everyone to buy directly from the app.

Except, there was never any coin to begin with. All they did was offer a contract for speculation.

I think that's how it started with PayPal but later they made it possible to withdraw bitcoin to external third-party wallets outside of their service. It's available in selected markets only, of course, just as the possibility of buying/selling bitcoin is.

[tread93]

I will begin with good ol' Ledger.
Two days ago, they wanted to remind everyone that they will never ask their users for their secret recovery phrases. Of course not. Why would they? They only created a feature, built into the firmware that extracts your keys for you and sends them over the internet to multiple third-parties for "safe-keeping."

Ledger again.

From Ledger Recover years ago, now they are doing something more dangerous for users and stupid for their business growth because there will be more people feeling fearful about Ledger and its present products and future ones.
Ledger Recovery - Send your (encrypted) recovery phrase to 3rd parties entities.
Ledger Recover: What The Hell is Happening? With aantonop and lopp.

Hey honestly im glad they did it so that we know not to use them! Its crazy that they ever thought that was ever a viable option. Like you run a crypto wallet company and you think we want people with their hands on our seed phrases yeah okay lol 😆 they are such a joke of a crypto company

[Pmalek]

Like you run a crypto wallet company and you think we want people with their hands on our seed phrases yeah okay lol 😆 they are such a joke of a crypto company

I doubt we will ever get official numbers, but I am still curious to see how many subscribers they got for Ledger Recover since the service became available. I guess we will never know. The danger isn't only that the feature could get hacked and keys might leak. Their third-party key holders will support and cooperate with government agencies and law enforcement, meaning they will assist in the confiscation of user funds. 

[DaveF]

I will begin with good ol' Ledger.
Two days ago, they wanted to remind everyone that they will never ask their users for their secret recovery phrases. Of course not. Why would they? They only created a feature, built into the firmware that extracts your keys for you and sends them over the internet to multiple third-parties for "safe-keeping."

Well, technically they never asked anyone so they didn't lie.


Does the entire bitkey thing work for this thread?
https://bitkey.world/

I mean for a hardware wallet that entire thing is a lot of just trust us.

-Dave

[Pmalek]

Does the entire bitkey thing work for this thread?
https://bitkey.world/

I mean for a hardware wallet that entire thing is a lot of just trust us.

-Dave

Who needs seed phrases when you can use a hardware device with no display. Just trust us, bro!
At least their newest device can be called a 'hardware wallet' because they decided to add a display to it. Their first model didn't have one, and you had to put absolute trust into whatever information was displayed by the software. That old model definitely works for this thread.

[Somegory]

If your hardware wallet company is doing anything stupid, drop them, I will always abandon any company that doesn't prioritise open source and decentralisation.

The likes of Ledger and Trust wallet among few others are bad ways to start storing your coins, many beginners won't know this unless they do their own diligent research first.

Trust me bro isn't enough, I've learned the hard way picking  crypto wallets anyhow, it's the most important part that everyone needs to be careful with, it's what will determine your long or short stay in crypto space.

[OgNasty]

Perhaps not totally on topic, but I’ve noticed something a little similar about the Bitcoin influencers online. They will post clips from speeches that are a year old and try to pass it off as new and bullish… I see this a great deal when markets turn. So my advice during the next bull run is when you see influencers online posting things from months before, it is time to run.

[Comeacross]

Except, there was never any coin to begin with. All they did was offer a contract for speculation.  You could name any other app for selling this bullshit.

This was supposed to be "massive" for Bitcoin adoption.

You just remind me of Chipper Cash. Chipper cash is a payment platform within Africa but it's funny they claim to offer crypto service by allowing you to buy, hold and sell crypto.




Imagine you want to withdraw your coin and then realise that the platform is under maintenance 

I suggest all payment platforms PayPal, Chipper and their likes to stay off crypto because they obviously not up to task.

[Cryptomultiplier]

I call this segment The Bullshit Monitor, Trust Us, Bro.

This is an exceptional post that actually hits on some of the stunts marketing teams use to capitalize on users trust and making them forget about what corporate gaslighting is always about in the first place.
Here's an example I could dig up about the institutional floor/volatility is dead narrative that took users unaware late last year and was on mainstream Media upon publication:

Firstly, from Farside Investors (Bitcoin ETF Daily Flows), they were so sure that the multi-day outflow streaks from BlackRock’s IBIT, Fidelity’s FBTC, and Grayscale’s GBTC was in perfect order and so precise it was that it measured accurately with the sharpest point of the price drop that happened at the time.

Another one was JPMorgan's Bitcoin Volatility Research Notes led by Managing Director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, which was explicit about the structural impact of institutional products and Bitcoin's volatility decay starting from the peak of the bull run, also contributes to the other evidences of wall street corporate spin that got those trusting users unawares.

Funny enough it was that the price of Bitcoin dropped from $82k to $67k in a blink of an eye thus leading to a downward price pressure as spot ETF was so much recording massive net outflows at the time.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/page-one-economics/2018/03/01/bitcoin-money-or-financial-investment?hl=en-US

https://hkifoa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-q3-crypto-industry-report-coingecko.pdf?hl=en-US

[Pmalek]

Perhaps not totally on topic, but I’ve noticed something a little similar about the Bitcoin influencers online. They will post clips from speeches that are a year old and try to pass it off as new and bullish…

I have noticed that as well. There are several accounts on X that are guilty of this. One popular topic they seem to recycle often is the Clarity Act. I often see X posts that begin with: "Trump just said..." "Senate just confirmed...", "Brian Armstrong this and that", but then you realize it's topics that were discussed a long time ago. One thing that often gives them away is segments where bitcoin's value is displayed in the background and you realize that their "BREAKING NEWS" stories happened at a time when bitcoin was at $90k.