The Consequences of Silence

Those who have treated cryptocurrency as “optimistic skeptics” or “with an open mind” are partly responsible for this situation, because they failed to at the very least warn that returns from these companies - BlockFi, Celsius, Voyager, and beyond - were incredibly, unrealistically high, and that there was no legal financial institution that would give such high returns.

Whatever “noble” goals Bitcoin and cryptocurrency allegedly has or had are irrelevant - cryptocurrency does not generate freedom, it does not democratize finance, it does not create wealth for the majority of people that interact with it, and it has - this is not a “might” - led to billions of dollars of regular people’s money getting burned so that wealthy people can extract liquidity from them.

Maybe, the warnings for newcomers should be even louder.

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Do stupid things, win stupid prizes. Sorry, but when I read about this one person who “has always made sound financial choices but decided to put over 200.000 USD into crypto”, in my opinion, they forgot rule #1 and #2 in crypto: regard every penny you put in as a loss, and only put in what you can miss.

Of course, horrible, and stomach turning what happened to the countless victims. I’m not insensitive to that. Heart wrenching stories and horrible losses happening to real victims and companies. And real perpetrators, soulless scammers that probably sleep like babies at night without a single concern; may they fully be held to account for what they did.

But , there’s always a but. We all know what the many buts and ifs are. On one side, yes, it was all fueled by greed, pipe dreams, and illusions that frankly should have never been allowed to happen in the first place. The other but is one that I, with my fondness of Cardano, can’t help but feel towards the writer of the referenced story: don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, many scams in crypto, I hate that too, just like any in the dollar, euro, and other currencies, commodities and so on and so forth.

Where there is an ability to gain and profit, there will be dragons and exploiters, both for quick and easy gains and for the long con. It’s the nature of man. Shouldn’t be, but is, and locking up everything crypto under the sun under the guise of protection is not gonna help a single step, because after all, CBDCs and all kinds of other schemes are already walking similar paths. Be advised.

But I also know the large amount of good will and efforts, honest blood sweat and tears put into this ecosystem. In Cardano especially because that’s an ecosystem I have put my faith in. And if I lose it all, well, it’s a good thing I didn’t put my life savings, my kids’ tuitions, my retirement fund, my mortgage, my life savings, whatever, into it.

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Maybe I’m a heartless freak, but my sympathy leans towards the honest crypto developers and supporters who are indirectly damaged by these scams. Sorry, but these are not like rape or robbery cases: the victims are also responsible to some extent. One even admits that he reinvested his EIDL loan… What!? I’m not saying they deserved it. Far from that. What I’m saying is that those times are over when one could get away with something like that.

  1. ALL investment has a risk associated with it.
  2. Higher possible interest rates are ALWAYS associated with higher risk.
  3. ANYBODY telling otherwise is a SCAMMER.

It’s not crypto specific. Mortgage backed securities were the same: high yield, low risk magic…

It’s definitely something that we should tell to newcomers, but it would be even better if it would be common knowledge, common sense.

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Our future is crypto. I agree with you :3

Silence may be golden in certain circumstances, especially with investment advice. However, when it comes to the relatively new crypto blockchain technology there are many pro and con considerations that one should think about before jumping in the investment pool. The first thing to consider is if the technology merits investing some of your hard earned money. Second thing to consider is what is the potential use for this technology and it’s potential compared to existing technology. In other words, what is the long term outlook for this new technology and is it safer, faster, easier, more private and more scalable and sustainable than our current technology.

I was scared to invest $1,000 in WalMart in 1974. Scared to invest $1,000 in Apple way back when and scared to invest $1,000 in Amazon when it was cheap. Only if I had known their future value and if I had been a little more bolder, I would now be a multi-maga millionaire.

As of right now, ADA/Cardano is $0.47 cents per coin. BTC/Bitcoin is $21,474 per coin. Who do you think has the most sustainable, secure, and scalable technology?

A couple of other thoughts. Where is the founder and spokesman of Bitcoin, i.e the one who takes the heat all day long? No one. Who is the leader of Cardano, the one who takes the heat all day long? Charles Hoskinson. The founder and spokesman for the Cardano project is a real person who communicates to us frequently. That means a lot to me.