Well, this morning they must have shutdown the website. 😩. Funds are now locked. We will see how this all turns out. Lost my mind when Luna went down and I lost a lot. Lost on Celsius and now ftx. Got a lot of learning to still do.
That would be a massive regulatory failure for the US government. all US exchanges must keep customer assets custodied separately, retrievable any time. WTF?
Was wondering how you'd compare the events of 2022 with other cycles which I didn't experience personally. It seems absolutely nuts to me how many implosions and failures there have been this year, the scale of them and the level of contagion. And the fact that these weren't hacks like Gox or others. Just straight up negligence by players in the space. Tbh, I'm surprised at how well DeFi infrastructure has held up while CeFi crypto collapses. From your perspective is this just high risk crypto as usual?
Second, I was wondering why you specifically don't use a Ledger device among your wallets of choice. I know some ppl like Trezor better for some reasons but I was curious if you had a specific reason why you don't mention or use Ledger devices?
Finally, this whole thing sucks! I've used up most of my capital at prices well above where we are now and where we could be going down further. I feel like it's done for me for a while and has just become a waiting game. Who knows how long it will take for current, and more importantly, future participants to feel safe and worth the risk of crypto again? Feels like a pretty major setback. I think I've reached my threshold for risk at this point. Probably gonna take a break from this space for a while until there's reason to pay attention again. Any fresh funds that become available for risk instruments will go to my boomer index funds lol. My crypto net net is so far underwater at this point I have choice but to HODL and hope. It makes me laugh really when I think about some of the prices I bought various tokens at over the last 2.5 years. Crypto has been many things but definitely not at all Easy! Not enjoying the ride anymore so it may be time to pull over personally. :-/
Thanks for all the helpful content over the last year! I learned a lot. Cheers!
Thanks. Too many people in the same position. This is all part of the process. VC money is toxic but, to your point, the protocols themselves persist.
The difference was, in 2018, nobody had anything to show for it. Quite a few projects launched in 2017, and then people just give up. Literally, give up. I was new and didn’t really understand a lot about how any of this stuff worked, but I remember reading a Medium post from a project that I had tokens from. I bought the tokens on the recommendation of a trading service. The guy who started the project said “ I don’t wanna do this anymore, sorry.“ and that was that. But these were amateur operations, mostly either people who honestly believed that they could build great protocols, or small time hustlers taking advantage of a frothy market.
But it was the same thing. You thought everything was dead, and then some of the protocols and some of the projects kept plugging away, building, iterating, persisting, finding backers and growing their communities, or in some cases, sustaining communities that had already grown around the projects. And those are now some of the largest, most durable projects in the industry. We’re talking about LINK, ADA, ETH, AAVE, even BNB tho with a different path. None of these projects started with VC money. That came later. And I would expect the same this time.
A lot of those VC tokens will not succeed. They were crafted in a lab and launched in a boat of hype, with no good sailors to man the rigging and amateur captains steering the ship. And right now, that’s a lot of what you seen the top 100. VC tokens and remnants of past bull markets.
In the last cycle, it was “like bitcoin but better” tokens, ICOs, and remnants of past bull markets.
I suspect the next bull market will see the true builders grow quite a bit, and then, in a year or two, you’ll see an explosion of Wall Street cryptocurrencies and NFT projects.
Yeah I think the VC wave this cycle was a major factor. Sure, good projects need capital but it got out of control so quickly. To the point that I think VCs saw how easy it was to offload their risk onto retail - They saw how they don't need an actual product to ship; a nice website, a techy sounding white paper and tons of hype would be enough to send their coin equity to the moon with near certainty and very little risk since they surely could cash out over and over again at 1000x, leaving retail with the bags and risk.
I mean I look at 95% of crypto charts and they all look the same. Exactly the same. Low volume accumulation for a while as insiders and influencers get tipped off. Then the hype mooning FOMO then dumpening (all while CT is yelling buy buy buy! - they've already sold)
Question is, everything is so opaque now. It has been for most of 2022. I don't trust or believe anything I read cuz doesn't matter what the project "aims to do". If you're not on the inside you're exit liquidity left holding and waiting, hoping they go back up again, even just to break even. Every time I think I'm early, I'm still late. Esp now with everything at lows I never thought I'd see again.
I hate to say it but the absence of trust in crypto is not a good thing always. Humans need to be able to trust SOMEONE, SOMETHING. But the ponzis get so elaborate that everything checks out, everything looks and sounds great, devs active in social media, I can audit code though so WTF do I know if there is a flaw or backdoor or ponzinomics ?
I mean, I don't like TradFi banks and all but at least I know they aren't going to empty my account or if there is a fraud issue I call em up and boom, credit reversed. I don't trust their big picture motives but I trust the basics enough so that I don't go crazy suspecting every single person on every single crypto project and media. It's fking exhausting tbh. Feel like I'm looking over my shoulder while in a minefield trying to get out with at least my shirt.
And btw, i put sooo much time into this. I research and sleuth and compute and analyze and project and engage and ask questions like 8-10 hours A DAY. For like 2 years now. And tbh it's net net only been pain. Knew too little in 2020 when I started so I ended up lost in the hysteria UP ONLY, and by the time I learned some shit it was too late and just been trying to rebuild more focused positions. Mitigated the risk of the drawdown from Jan till May but then LUNA, 3AC, lenders and now FTX just relentlessly nuking. It's a dirty dirty space. And IMO near impossible to find the diamonds in the rough of 9,999 shitcoins. Don't have enough capital to buy a worthwhile amount of 50 SCap alts.
Eh, as I said before, it may be time to get a normie life back, unplug my Ledger and check in again after a year or so. Can't handle buying the dips that dip and keep dipping anymore. 2.5 years and I'm exactly 50% sure it's the tech of the future and 50% sure it's the biggest scam in the history of finance. 🤷🏻
Thanks Mark, again, for your insight and advice and long term hope. I have funds on FTX.US, only because it was one of my on ramps, and they held oncoming funds for 12 days before you could withdraw at all. FYI, I just withdrew half of my funds without an issue to a cold wallet. They will be shutting down the on-site trading, but they say all funds will be available to withdraw. So far, so good.
Hi. I don't know how these things work but FTX and FTX.US filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US. Your funds might be at risk of being mixed together with all other secured and unsecured funds tied up under the bankruptcy laws that have a specific hierarchy of who gets taken care of first, and when and at what ratio on the dollar.
Not trying to FUD or cause panic but I would suggest talking to a professional or someone knowledgeable about what happens to customer funds once bankruptcy protections go into play for these companies. Personally, I would withdraw everything first and ask questions later based on how this played out with other crypto companies recently. SBF said FTX.US funds were fine a day ago but then tweeted today that all 3 entities have filed and thus could become commingled.
Hi,
As always, there is nothing certain in crypto. However, there seem to be several links between FTX, BlockFi and Gemini. For example:
1. Gemini may own BlockFi: https://www.zippia.com/answers/who-owns-blockfi/
2. Or is at least the custodian of BlockFi: https://www.gemini.com/blog/gemini-crypto-under-custody
3. BlockFi has run into trouble after the FTX collapse: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/11/10/crypto-lender-blockfi-pauses-withdrawals-in-wake-of-ftx-collapse/
The question is: if BlockFi becomes insolvent due to FTX, how would that affect Gemini? That's anybody's guess
Gemini doesn’t own BlockFi. BlockFi held its crypto in Gemini’s custody service (also used GUSD as the platform stablecoin).
You’re not the only person with concerns about Gemini. Thanks for flagging that. Ugh how deep does this go?
From the names you provided Gemini would appear the weakest. Researth the FTX -> BlockFi -> Gemini connection to verify.
👀
Can you connect the dots for us?
Which cold and hot wallet combo would you recommend? Is Trezor or Ledger better for cold? Thank you
I like Trezor. Not sure ones better than the other.
I use electrum wallet for active usage and Trezor/Atomic for most storage, plus Altcoin-specific wallets where applicable.
Well, this morning they must have shutdown the website. 😩. Funds are now locked. We will see how this all turns out. Lost my mind when Luna went down and I lost a lot. Lost on Celsius and now ftx. Got a lot of learning to still do.
That would be a massive regulatory failure for the US government. all US exchanges must keep customer assets custodied separately, retrievable any time. WTF?
Hey Mark. Two questions-
Was wondering how you'd compare the events of 2022 with other cycles which I didn't experience personally. It seems absolutely nuts to me how many implosions and failures there have been this year, the scale of them and the level of contagion. And the fact that these weren't hacks like Gox or others. Just straight up negligence by players in the space. Tbh, I'm surprised at how well DeFi infrastructure has held up while CeFi crypto collapses. From your perspective is this just high risk crypto as usual?
Second, I was wondering why you specifically don't use a Ledger device among your wallets of choice. I know some ppl like Trezor better for some reasons but I was curious if you had a specific reason why you don't mention or use Ledger devices?
Finally, this whole thing sucks! I've used up most of my capital at prices well above where we are now and where we could be going down further. I feel like it's done for me for a while and has just become a waiting game. Who knows how long it will take for current, and more importantly, future participants to feel safe and worth the risk of crypto again? Feels like a pretty major setback. I think I've reached my threshold for risk at this point. Probably gonna take a break from this space for a while until there's reason to pay attention again. Any fresh funds that become available for risk instruments will go to my boomer index funds lol. My crypto net net is so far underwater at this point I have choice but to HODL and hope. It makes me laugh really when I think about some of the prices I bought various tokens at over the last 2.5 years. Crypto has been many things but definitely not at all Easy! Not enjoying the ride anymore so it may be time to pull over personally. :-/
Thanks for all the helpful content over the last year! I learned a lot. Cheers!
Thanks. Too many people in the same position. This is all part of the process. VC money is toxic but, to your point, the protocols themselves persist.
The difference was, in 2018, nobody had anything to show for it. Quite a few projects launched in 2017, and then people just give up. Literally, give up. I was new and didn’t really understand a lot about how any of this stuff worked, but I remember reading a Medium post from a project that I had tokens from. I bought the tokens on the recommendation of a trading service. The guy who started the project said “ I don’t wanna do this anymore, sorry.“ and that was that. But these were amateur operations, mostly either people who honestly believed that they could build great protocols, or small time hustlers taking advantage of a frothy market.
But it was the same thing. You thought everything was dead, and then some of the protocols and some of the projects kept plugging away, building, iterating, persisting, finding backers and growing their communities, or in some cases, sustaining communities that had already grown around the projects. And those are now some of the largest, most durable projects in the industry. We’re talking about LINK, ADA, ETH, AAVE, even BNB tho with a different path. None of these projects started with VC money. That came later. And I would expect the same this time.
A lot of those VC tokens will not succeed. They were crafted in a lab and launched in a boat of hype, with no good sailors to man the rigging and amateur captains steering the ship. And right now, that’s a lot of what you seen the top 100. VC tokens and remnants of past bull markets.
In the last cycle, it was “like bitcoin but better” tokens, ICOs, and remnants of past bull markets.
I suspect the next bull market will see the true builders grow quite a bit, and then, in a year or two, you’ll see an explosion of Wall Street cryptocurrencies and NFT projects.
Yeah I think the VC wave this cycle was a major factor. Sure, good projects need capital but it got out of control so quickly. To the point that I think VCs saw how easy it was to offload their risk onto retail - They saw how they don't need an actual product to ship; a nice website, a techy sounding white paper and tons of hype would be enough to send their coin equity to the moon with near certainty and very little risk since they surely could cash out over and over again at 1000x, leaving retail with the bags and risk.
I mean I look at 95% of crypto charts and they all look the same. Exactly the same. Low volume accumulation for a while as insiders and influencers get tipped off. Then the hype mooning FOMO then dumpening (all while CT is yelling buy buy buy! - they've already sold)
Question is, everything is so opaque now. It has been for most of 2022. I don't trust or believe anything I read cuz doesn't matter what the project "aims to do". If you're not on the inside you're exit liquidity left holding and waiting, hoping they go back up again, even just to break even. Every time I think I'm early, I'm still late. Esp now with everything at lows I never thought I'd see again.
I hate to say it but the absence of trust in crypto is not a good thing always. Humans need to be able to trust SOMEONE, SOMETHING. But the ponzis get so elaborate that everything checks out, everything looks and sounds great, devs active in social media, I can audit code though so WTF do I know if there is a flaw or backdoor or ponzinomics ?
I mean, I don't like TradFi banks and all but at least I know they aren't going to empty my account or if there is a fraud issue I call em up and boom, credit reversed. I don't trust their big picture motives but I trust the basics enough so that I don't go crazy suspecting every single person on every single crypto project and media. It's fking exhausting tbh. Feel like I'm looking over my shoulder while in a minefield trying to get out with at least my shirt.
And btw, i put sooo much time into this. I research and sleuth and compute and analyze and project and engage and ask questions like 8-10 hours A DAY. For like 2 years now. And tbh it's net net only been pain. Knew too little in 2020 when I started so I ended up lost in the hysteria UP ONLY, and by the time I learned some shit it was too late and just been trying to rebuild more focused positions. Mitigated the risk of the drawdown from Jan till May but then LUNA, 3AC, lenders and now FTX just relentlessly nuking. It's a dirty dirty space. And IMO near impossible to find the diamonds in the rough of 9,999 shitcoins. Don't have enough capital to buy a worthwhile amount of 50 SCap alts.
Eh, as I said before, it may be time to get a normie life back, unplug my Ledger and check in again after a year or so. Can't handle buying the dips that dip and keep dipping anymore. 2.5 years and I'm exactly 50% sure it's the tech of the future and 50% sure it's the biggest scam in the history of finance. 🤷🏻
Yeah. That’s what I heard a lot in May and June. Like, a lot.
I’ll still be here when you’re ready to return. Stay safe.
Thanks Mark, again, for your insight and advice and long term hope. I have funds on FTX.US, only because it was one of my on ramps, and they held oncoming funds for 12 days before you could withdraw at all. FYI, I just withdrew half of my funds without an issue to a cold wallet. They will be shutting down the on-site trading, but they say all funds will be available to withdraw. So far, so good.
Thanks again
Tom S
Hi. I don't know how these things work but FTX and FTX.US filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US. Your funds might be at risk of being mixed together with all other secured and unsecured funds tied up under the bankruptcy laws that have a specific hierarchy of who gets taken care of first, and when and at what ratio on the dollar.
Not trying to FUD or cause panic but I would suggest talking to a professional or someone knowledgeable about what happens to customer funds once bankruptcy protections go into play for these companies. Personally, I would withdraw everything first and ask questions later based on how this played out with other crypto companies recently. SBF said FTX.US funds were fine a day ago but then tweeted today that all 3 entities have filed and thus could become commingled.
Just my opinion though. Stay safe and good luck!
Agree
Yes, lucky for you. Thank you for sharing that, I had heard rumors of the opposite, which, as you can imagine, was quite alarming to me.