Digging up Cotten
December 18, 2019 8:11 AM Subscribe
When Canadian blockchain whiz Gerald Cotten died unexpectedly last year, hundreds of millions of dollars in investor funds vanished into the crypto ether. But when the banks, the law, and the forces of Reddit tried to track down the cash, it turned out the young mogul may not have been who he purported to be.In the wake of the revelations, investors want to exhume Cotten's body to be certain that he's actually dead. And Drew Millard argues that It should be easier to fake your own death, at least for people who don't have millions to spend on it.
Controversy over Cotten's death discussed previously.
I just ran into this on Ars, what a shitshow. Fave comment so far: "Putting the crypt in cryptocurrency."
posted by aspersioncast at 8:26 AM on December 18, 2019 [25 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 8:26 AM on December 18, 2019 [25 favorites]
I just read David Gerard's Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain book, which I would recommend for anyone who wants a quick overview of the craziness going on the in the cryptocurrency world. Unfortunately the book was published in 2017 so the reader misses out of all the subsequent craziness that has happened recently. His blog (at the same site) provides updates every couple of days.
posted by AndrewStephens at 8:29 AM on December 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by AndrewStephens at 8:29 AM on December 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
Computer science guys keep telling me how blockchain will solve all the problems of fiat currency and I'm like, OK, you go dig up the guy who has your money if it's worth anything it's six hours and I'll be over here with my dollars that have been safe and reasonably stable for hundreds of years....
posted by klanawa at 8:33 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by klanawa at 8:33 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
I'm absolutely convinced that nobody has actually made any meaningful money from cryptocurrency and those who claim they have are actually making their money from selling drugs or worse on the dark web, the same way the mob used to claim they made their money from a big win at a casino.
posted by maxsparber at 8:37 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 8:37 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
And Drew Millard argues that It should be easier to fake your own death, at least for people who don't have millions to spend on it.
Why does everything published by the Outline feel like the introduction to a really fun longform piece that just suddenly stops a quarter of the way in? (Vice used to be like that for a long time, too.)
posted by chappell, ambrose at 8:38 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
Why does everything published by the Outline feel like the introduction to a really fun longform piece that just suddenly stops a quarter of the way in? (Vice used to be like that for a long time, too.)
posted by chappell, ambrose at 8:38 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
Crypto scandals are always so delightfully sordid. It's like what I imagine enjoying celebrity gossip to be like.
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:39 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by Dr. Twist at 8:39 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
Crypto scandals are always so delightfully sordid.
And there are so many to choose from!
posted by tommasz at 8:42 AM on December 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
And there are so many to choose from!
posted by tommasz at 8:42 AM on December 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
The ligne claire art in the Vanity Fair article evokes an imaginary Tintin and The Adventure of the Missing Bitcoin.
posted by zamboni at 8:46 AM on December 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by zamboni at 8:46 AM on December 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
Crypto scandals are always so delightfully sordid.
I think that's mostly because the people who get caught up in them are all so spectacularly loathsome. Like, I'm sure there are some perfectly lovely folks who made some money on the side by speculating on Dunning-Krugerrands, but the ones who make it into the news all seem like obvious scammers, nouveau-riche nerds who use their newfound lucre to ruin everything, or three-toddlers-stacked-under-a-trenchcoat.
posted by Mayor West at 8:49 AM on December 18, 2019 [19 favorites]
I think that's mostly because the people who get caught up in them are all so spectacularly loathsome. Like, I'm sure there are some perfectly lovely folks who made some money on the side by speculating on Dunning-Krugerrands, but the ones who make it into the news all seem like obvious scammers, nouveau-riche nerds who use their newfound lucre to ruin everything, or three-toddlers-stacked-under-a-trenchcoat.
posted by Mayor West at 8:49 AM on December 18, 2019 [19 favorites]
I love internet sleuths. Something about the idea of a forum full of nerds trawling through forums, linking usernames together based on signature blocks and typing styles.. it makes me so happy. From the days when I worked with someone who would stay up late helping reddit identify animal abusers in Ukraine from grainy headshots, to this kind of work. God bless you internet legion.
posted by some chick at 8:50 AM on December 18, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by some chick at 8:50 AM on December 18, 2019 [8 favorites]
I'm absolutely convinced that nobody has actually made any meaningful money from cryptocurrency and those who claim they have are actually making their money from selling drugs or worse on the dark web
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty that found the greater fool, at least for some of their money.
posted by tavella at 9:01 AM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
Oh, I'm sure there are plenty that found the greater fool, at least for some of their money.
posted by tavella at 9:01 AM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
a few years back, I almost got hired by an IT guy I'd previously worked for to do some blockchain related stuff (the selling end). The guy (call him Jerry) gave me links to a bunch of stuff to read through. "Become and expert," as he put it. And then we'd meet after the weekend.
Upon meeting, Jerry asked me a few basic questions to which I sort of knew the answers and he smiled. "Cool, you're an expert. You now know more about all of this stuff than the vast majority of the people investing in it."
"Near as I can tell," I said, "It seems to be mostly about artificially reintroducing scarcity into how we do certain aspects of the economy in the wake of ubiquitous filesharing kind of undoing a lot of it."
"More or less," he said. "It's also probably going to fail massively in its current iteration, because it's stupid the kind money people are throwing at me To Do Something. Hasn't been like this since the dot.com bubble of 1999-2000. And I'm never going to say no to a gravy train. The last one bought my house."
Anyway, nothing happened. Some bad news stories started hitting pretty much that week and Jerry quickly became hard to track down. He didn't fake his death or anything, but he has been scarce ever since. I did hear that he had to sell that house.
posted by philip-random at 9:02 AM on December 18, 2019 [18 favorites]
Upon meeting, Jerry asked me a few basic questions to which I sort of knew the answers and he smiled. "Cool, you're an expert. You now know more about all of this stuff than the vast majority of the people investing in it."
"Near as I can tell," I said, "It seems to be mostly about artificially reintroducing scarcity into how we do certain aspects of the economy in the wake of ubiquitous filesharing kind of undoing a lot of it."
"More or less," he said. "It's also probably going to fail massively in its current iteration, because it's stupid the kind money people are throwing at me To Do Something. Hasn't been like this since the dot.com bubble of 1999-2000. And I'm never going to say no to a gravy train. The last one bought my house."
Anyway, nothing happened. Some bad news stories started hitting pretty much that week and Jerry quickly became hard to track down. He didn't fake his death or anything, but he has been scarce ever since. I did hear that he had to sell that house.
posted by philip-random at 9:02 AM on December 18, 2019 [18 favorites]
It's not even clear what the state of his body is. Reports say his body was embalmed in India, then flown to Canada where there was a closed casket funeral followed by a cremation. But there's some question on all this, particularly whether he was really cremated. Obviously a court investigation would quickly determine the truth of that. But saying cremains were buried, is there any sort of meaningful autopsy you could do? Apparently maybe.
The most damning thing is this part from the Vanity Fair article
posted by Nelson at 9:19 AM on December 18, 2019 [8 favorites]
The most damning thing is this part from the Vanity Fair article
Despite all this, Quadriga should have had about C$200 million of its customers’ funds in its cold wallets—the external hard drives, disconnected from the internet, that functioned like bank vaults. But within a month after Cotten’s reported death, blockchain investigators proved that nearly all of the inaccessible wallets were empty. Cotten, it turned out, had transferred the funds into personal accounts on competitor exchanges. ... The operator of an exchange on which Cotten opened accounts told Ernst & Young that Cotten had squandered most of his holdings on reckless trades.There's still competing plausible theories; either he outright stole the money, or he was desperately trying to cover up for other losses. Either way, it's way way beyond the idea of any sort of legitimate banking activity.
posted by Nelson at 9:19 AM on December 18, 2019 [8 favorites]
Because Canadian banks refused to accept cryptocurrency businesses as clients, Quadriga had to rely on third-party processors, which levied outrageous fees and in some cases stole funds outright ... [co-founder] Patryn, [wife] Jennifer Robertson, and at least a couple of other Quadriga contractors each operated their own payment processing firms
It’s an omniscambles.
posted by sixswitch at 9:21 AM on December 18, 2019 [13 favorites]
It’s an omniscambles.
posted by sixswitch at 9:21 AM on December 18, 2019 [13 favorites]
But how is Dentacoin doing? That's what I want to know. How can you go wrong with a blockchain for dentists?
posted by clawsoon at 9:27 AM on December 18, 2019
posted by clawsoon at 9:27 AM on December 18, 2019
But how is Dentacoin doing? That's what I want to know. How can you go wrong with a blockchain for dentists?
JimCoin® has never lost value.
posted by Mayor West at 9:43 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
JimCoin® has never lost value.
posted by Mayor West at 9:43 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
> I'm absolutely convinced that nobody has actually made any meaningful money from cryptocurrency...
It's been very good for the computer hardware and video hardware manufacturers.
posted by at by at 9:49 AM on December 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
It's been very good for the computer hardware and video hardware manufacturers.
posted by at by at 9:49 AM on December 18, 2019 [9 favorites]
And very good for global warming. Which is nice if you like your globes warmed.
posted by pracowity at 10:11 AM on December 18, 2019 [20 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 10:11 AM on December 18, 2019 [20 favorites]
while on a trip to India “where he was opening an orphanage to provide a home and safe refuge for children in need.”
And he was the only one who knew the combination to open the orphanage doors, and a peek through a skylight revealed nothing but empty rooms...
It sure smells like he chose a place far away from home (and people who could easily ID his corpse?) to "die" and chose a bargain-rate "oh, isn't that nice" cover for the trip rather than supposedly falling over the railing of his yacht in the middle of the ocean.
But what if it turns out he knew he was dying, so he ran this ponzi scheme just to turn greedy people's extra money into lots of orphanages? Who is going to sue to get their money back from orphanages and kick the orphans out on the streets?
posted by pracowity at 10:18 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
And he was the only one who knew the combination to open the orphanage doors, and a peek through a skylight revealed nothing but empty rooms...
It sure smells like he chose a place far away from home (and people who could easily ID his corpse?) to "die" and chose a bargain-rate "oh, isn't that nice" cover for the trip rather than supposedly falling over the railing of his yacht in the middle of the ocean.
But what if it turns out he knew he was dying, so he ran this ponzi scheme just to turn greedy people's extra money into lots of orphanages? Who is going to sue to get their money back from orphanages and kick the orphans out on the streets?
posted by pracowity at 10:18 AM on December 18, 2019 [6 favorites]
pracowity: And he was the only one who knew the combination to open the orphanage doors, and a peek through a skylight revealed nothing but empty rooms...
"He died helping children in Africa from the tiger. Jin Yang killed the tiger, and the tiger killed him same time."
posted by clawsoon at 10:24 AM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
"He died helping children in Africa from the tiger. Jin Yang killed the tiger, and the tiger killed him same time."
posted by clawsoon at 10:24 AM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
Who is going to sue to get their money back from orphanages and kick the orphans out on the streets?
The better question to ask is What plucky multiracial dance troupe will save the orphanage?
posted by Etrigan at 10:25 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
The better question to ask is What plucky multiracial dance troupe will save the orphanage?
posted by Etrigan at 10:25 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
It's been very good for the computer hardware and video hardware manufacturers.
How fitting that this is mostly unraveling in San Francisco, a city built by people selling shovels to gold-miners.
posted by Mayor West at 10:25 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
How fitting that this is mostly unraveling in San Francisco, a city built by people selling shovels to gold-miners.
posted by Mayor West at 10:25 AM on December 18, 2019 [7 favorites]
WhatFTFYplucky multiracial dance troupespeedy porcupine will save the orphanage?
posted by Mayor West at 10:28 AM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
I believe it was Arthur C. Clarke who said "Any sufficiently advanced cryto-currency is indistinguishable from a Ponzi scheme."
posted by Anoplura at 10:44 AM on December 18, 2019 [21 favorites]
posted by Anoplura at 10:44 AM on December 18, 2019 [21 favorites]
I would be shocked if Bitfinex hasn't managed to make money buying bitcoin with Tether. Whether this counts as making money on crypto is in the eye of the beholder, especially if you believe they actually got robbed and didn't just decide to stick their hand in the till.
Crypto is a distributed stochastic ponzi by design.
posted by PMdixon at 11:18 AM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Crypto is a distributed stochastic ponzi by design.
posted by PMdixon at 11:18 AM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
> I'm absolutely convinced that nobody has actually made any meaningful money from cryptocurrency...
Unfortunately it's the worst kind of people, who acquired bitcoin to purchase illegal stuff, who ended up getting passively rich due to all the speculation that happened along side.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:20 AM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Unfortunately it's the worst kind of people, who acquired bitcoin to purchase illegal stuff, who ended up getting passively rich due to all the speculation that happened along side.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:20 AM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
PMdixon: I would be shocked if Bitfinex hasn't managed to make money buying bitcoin with Tether.
If nothing else, surely they made money via the unsecured loans they made to themselves.
posted by clawsoon at 11:29 AM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
If nothing else, surely they made money via the unsecured loans they made to themselves.
posted by clawsoon at 11:29 AM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty sure nobody has ever actually made money directly from cryptocurrenty. I'm also sure that some people have personally collected vast sums of cash from the dupes.
posted by AndrewStephens at 11:33 AM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by AndrewStephens at 11:33 AM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
Perhaps the phrasing could be: You can make money without creating wealth.
posted by clawsoon at 11:38 AM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by clawsoon at 11:38 AM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
I went by my local mall today and there was a guy outside with a sign denouncing Bittrex, yet another Bitcoin exchange, for somehow losing or stealing 100 of his Bitcoins which, at current valuations, is no small amount. Since I don't go to the mall that often, I don't know if he's always there or if his presence today is unusual.
posted by mhum at 12:55 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by mhum at 12:55 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Hey Kids, Raise Chinchillas In Your Basement, Make Big $$$!!
posted by Chitownfats at 1:19 PM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Chitownfats at 1:19 PM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
There is a good radio documentary/podcast from the BBC about a similar missing cryptocurrency guru. Lots of parallels to this case, if you are interested in something similar. I like that it that focuses on the victims as well as the scammers. Unfortunately, as with many scams, it is the poor and desperate who end up losing most. (Although there are some bizarre examples in the documentary of very rich people, who made their money through MLMs and ought to know better, also being taken in...)
posted by EllaEm at 2:05 PM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by EllaEm at 2:05 PM on December 18, 2019 [3 favorites]
Chitownfats: Hey Kids, Raise Chinchillas In Your Basement, Make Big $$$!!
Keep Them Warm With The Heat From Your Bitcoin Mining Rig!!!
posted by clawsoon at 3:24 PM on December 18, 2019
Keep Them Warm With The Heat From Your Bitcoin Mining Rig!!!
posted by clawsoon at 3:24 PM on December 18, 2019
Bitcoin is the "best" investment of the decade.
I hear the market is pretty bullish on hindsight too.
posted by klanawa at 3:28 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
I hear the market is pretty bullish on hindsight too.
posted by klanawa at 3:28 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
i am absolutely certain they did a systematic search of asset classes with a principled notion of "investment" and considered trading patterns besides buy and hold
posted by PMdixon at 3:33 PM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 3:33 PM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
My favorite Bitcoin adjacent story is the guy who worked with me at a B2B who claimed his ex wife was having his paycheck garnished at 90% and that was why he took what money he had and went to CVS to buy giftcards with bitcoin.
One day he comes back angry and excited. 'They ask for ID now!'. A few weeks alter he went to HR asking to go from W-2 to 1099 so he could hide his income from his ex. They declined.
A few days later he quit to go work in NY where he claimed 1099 work was easier to find
So yeah I've not met a honest person dealing in Bitcoin.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 4:18 PM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
One day he comes back angry and excited. 'They ask for ID now!'. A few weeks alter he went to HR asking to go from W-2 to 1099 so he could hide his income from his ex. They declined.
A few days later he quit to go work in NY where he claimed 1099 work was easier to find
So yeah I've not met a honest person dealing in Bitcoin.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 4:18 PM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
JimCoin® has never lost value.
Is this the one backed by the intrinsic value of bondcliff himself? Because it occurs to me we can inflate this currency by feeding him high-calorie Christmas treats.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:43 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Is this the one backed by the intrinsic value of bondcliff himself? Because it occurs to me we can inflate this currency by feeding him high-calorie Christmas treats.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:43 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
Godammit I got into crypto so I could sell heroin and now all these fucking lowlifes are going to ruin it.
posted by um at 6:07 PM on December 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by um at 6:07 PM on December 18, 2019 [5 favorites]
My fave is still the guy who was 3d printing automatic rifle receivers in exchange for bitcoin and got slapped with IIRC a patent infringement suit. That story had everything but the exhumed corpse.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:56 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by aspersioncast at 8:56 PM on December 18, 2019 [1 favorite]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadaver_Synod
The Cadaver Synod (also called the Cadaver Trial; Latin: Synodus Horrenda) is the name commonly given to the posthumous ecclesiastical trial of Pope Formosus, held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January 897.[1] The trial was conducted by Pope Stephen VI, the successor to Formosus' successor, Pope Boniface VI. Stephen had Formosus' corpse exhumed and brought to the papal court for judgment. He accused Formosus of perjury and of having acceded to the papacy illegally. At the end of the trial, Formosus was pronounced guilty and his papacy retroactively declared null.posted by sebastienbailard at 10:26 PM on December 18, 2019 [2 favorites]
Dunning-Krugerrands
this needs more love
posted by away for regrooving at 11:29 PM on December 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
this needs more love
posted by away for regrooving at 11:29 PM on December 18, 2019 [4 favorites]
My favourite Bitcoin story is about the Bitcoin meetup that used to meet at a coworking space here in Zürich. The coworking space had a fridge with beer and soft drinks in it, and a fishbowl to pay for them on the honour system, two francs per bottle.
On the night after Mt.Gox went down, there was a Bitcoin meetup there. And the next morning... nobody could find the fishbowl.
posted by daisyk at 4:34 AM on December 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
On the night after Mt.Gox went down, there was a Bitcoin meetup there. And the next morning... nobody could find the fishbowl.
posted by daisyk at 4:34 AM on December 19, 2019 [7 favorites]
Having now finished reading the Vanity Fair article: it's impressively thorough, detailed and well researched. One tiny thing rubbed me the wrong way about it, though. In the final paragraph, Nathaniel Rich says Cotten "may even be eating cheeseburgers and drinking beer," if he's alive, having previously established that Cotten ate hummus and drank cider because of his Crohn's disease... is Rich suggesting that the Crohn's might have been faked?
I haven't seen any reason elsewhere to doubt that Cotten had Crohn's, only that it's far from clear that the septic shock that (allegedly) killed him was a complication of the disease. Throwing doubt on that overlaps enough with the societal disbelief people with chronic illnesses get that it makes me uncomfortable, even as a throwaway line.
posted by daisyk at 6:34 AM on December 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
I haven't seen any reason elsewhere to doubt that Cotten had Crohn's, only that it's far from clear that the septic shock that (allegedly) killed him was a complication of the disease. Throwing doubt on that overlaps enough with the societal disbelief people with chronic illnesses get that it makes me uncomfortable, even as a throwaway line.
posted by daisyk at 6:34 AM on December 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
well, if he's alive, he's nothing if not a world class liar. Which means we shouldn't believe anything he's ever said. To my mind, that makes it a strong closing line, definitely not a throwaway.
and I've got my own invisible chronic concerns, I see what you're getting at, I've definitely felt the frustration. But if I discovered some other body had been faking what I'm going through for some kind of personal gain (and why else would they fake it?), well it wouldn't be nice ...
posted by philip-random at 8:49 AM on December 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
and I've got my own invisible chronic concerns, I see what you're getting at, I've definitely felt the frustration. But if I discovered some other body had been faking what I'm going through for some kind of personal gain (and why else would they fake it?), well it wouldn't be nice ...
posted by philip-random at 8:49 AM on December 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
Hello, I am one of those, the very worst sort of person as noted upthread, who has made actual money from bitcoin.
net profit from mining bitcoins during the video card mining era (just at the end) for me personally was around $1500. This is after accounting for utilities and hardware investment, minus the money recouped from selling the hardware at then end of the experiment.
I bought some computer parts using bitcoin online from a web shop and then cashed out the rest into my local bank account and then spent the money normally.
also I love cats.
posted by some loser at 9:27 AM on December 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
net profit from mining bitcoins during the video card mining era (just at the end) for me personally was around $1500. This is after accounting for utilities and hardware investment, minus the money recouped from selling the hardware at then end of the experiment.
I bought some computer parts using bitcoin online from a web shop and then cashed out the rest into my local bank account and then spent the money normally.
also I love cats.
posted by some loser at 9:27 AM on December 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
net profit from mining bitcoins during the video card mining era (just at the end) for me personally was around $1500
Out of curiosity, did the price of BTC change while you were mining? Would you have made money if it had stayed constant or declined?
posted by klanawa at 2:06 PM on December 19, 2019
Out of curiosity, did the price of BTC change while you were mining? Would you have made money if it had stayed constant or declined?
posted by klanawa at 2:06 PM on December 19, 2019
I don't think it was at all obvious from the beginning that bitcoin was anything other than a curiosity; I knew a couple of perfectly reasonable people who threw a little bit of GPU at it up until around late 2013 or so, when the big farms and exchanges started getting obviously toxic and the full on tech-libertarian VC bros jumped in with both feet.
I was a little critical from the beginning just because I have . . . opinions about fiat currency and the power of the state, and as "crypto" became a buzzword and the miner farms got rolling it became clear how horridly the whole thing was going to play out, but I'd push back on the idea that bitcoin was some sort of blatant pyramid scheme from its inception.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:39 PM on December 19, 2019
I was a little critical from the beginning just because I have . . . opinions about fiat currency and the power of the state, and as "crypto" became a buzzword and the miner farms got rolling it became clear how horridly the whole thing was going to play out, but I'd push back on the idea that bitcoin was some sort of blatant pyramid scheme from its inception.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:39 PM on December 19, 2019
It's super unclear what Bitcoin was "at its inception", because we don't know who invented it. (My money is on a US government agency, which adds a lot of interesting speculative layers.) Many of the early users were cryptopunk-style libertarians and it quickly became an underground / government free / untraceable currency. Also it filled the void left by the collapse of eGold and Liberty Dollars and other black market currencies. It became the way to buy contraband online and still is. The frauds and Ponzi schemes were there pretty much from the earliest days too. Mt. Gox collapsed under the weight of its fraud and incompetence in February 2014.
There used to be a Bitcoin faucet that gave away 5 Bitcoins to every visitor, or $35,000 in today's prices. By the time I got there it was still dripping, albeit 0.02BTC. I got some from it. I mined another 0.02BTC or so from a pool. Then I gave it away because I was done with the toy.
posted by Nelson at 5:00 PM on December 19, 2019
There used to be a Bitcoin faucet that gave away 5 Bitcoins to every visitor, or $35,000 in today's prices. By the time I got there it was still dripping, albeit 0.02BTC. I got some from it. I mined another 0.02BTC or so from a pool. Then I gave it away because I was done with the toy.
posted by Nelson at 5:00 PM on December 19, 2019
maxsparber: I sold 55 bitcoin (that I had mined! on a dopey little iMac in the early days) at roughly $75/ea. That funded frequent air travel to San Francisco, flower delivery to same, presents and meals out with the woman whom I now refer to as my charming bride.
Paid out for me!
posted by drfu at 9:38 PM on December 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Paid out for me!
posted by drfu at 9:38 PM on December 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I'd push back on the idea that bitcoin was some sort of blatant pyramid scheme from its inception.
Indeed, I think there was a small window of opportunity where it was uncertain whether or not Bitcoin could actually become a commonly-used currency. At least, it wasn't yet completely out of the question. But after a year or two, it started to become clear that, no, you pretty much weren't going to be buying your groceries at Safeway with Bitcoin.
posted by mhum at 1:09 PM on December 20, 2019
Indeed, I think there was a small window of opportunity where it was uncertain whether or not Bitcoin could actually become a commonly-used currency. At least, it wasn't yet completely out of the question. But after a year or two, it started to become clear that, no, you pretty much weren't going to be buying your groceries at Safeway with Bitcoin.
posted by mhum at 1:09 PM on December 20, 2019
I think there was a small window of opportunity where it was uncertain whether or not Madoff could actually produce guaranteed 10% returns forever.
posted by PMdixon at 3:24 PM on December 20, 2019
posted by PMdixon at 3:24 PM on December 20, 2019
Cryptocurrency stories always sound like unused Captain Planet scripts. Somewhere Doctor Blight and MAL are cackling maniacally. (And no one can save us by turning them into trees.)
posted by tyro urge at 9:05 AM on December 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by tyro urge at 9:05 AM on December 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
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