Crypto: Not Anonymous and NOT a Sure Thing

Let's deal with the "sure thing" part of that statement first. ‘Holy Moly’: Crypto investor loses $40 million after Celsius collapse

How many times have people told you (or me) that "Cryptocurrency is different" than every other get rich quick scheme ever? A lot.

A crypto investor lost more than $40 million following the collapse of the cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, according to a new search tool.

Enough said.

As for cryptocurrency being safe from the "prying eyes of Big Brother," well that isn't true either. Celsius Execs Cashed out at Least $17 Million in Crypto Before Halting Withdrawals for Customers [Updated]

Oh, and there may have been some insider trading going on before the site froze transactions. (I'm shocked!)

Gizmodo has uploaded the latest Celsius court filing, which totals over 14,000 pages, to the Internet Archive for anyone who really wants to get into the nitty gritty of the bankruptcy case. It appears the filing is so large because it seems to have the names and recent transactions of every user on the platform. [My emphasis. Z-Deb]

The numbers are astronomical. A lot of people lost a lot of money, and a few people lost a huge amount of money, and a few executives with the cryptocurrency exchange withdrew MILLIONS of dollars prior to the freeze.

As I type this, the amount of money that people have lost via crypto, according to Web3 Is Going Just Great, is more than $11 billion. But Crypto is different from every other get-rich-quick scheme ever! I read it on the internet.

And it isn't just companies you've never heard of that are suffering crypto setbacks. CNN has basically screwed people out of 1000s of dollars. Of course they lost that money a long way back; they're only realizing it now. CNN accused of rug pull as it abandons its NFT project.

CNN has decided to drop support - or any knowledge - of The Vault. I'm shocked.

You may have already forgotten about it, but Vault by CNN launched in the summer of 2021 as a marketplace for its own NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that would “offer collectors the opportunity to own a piece of history.” Sort of like NBA Top Shot except for media nerds instead of basketball nerds, it minted CNN reports of key events or artistic interpretations inspired by them, creating digital collectibles that owners could show off somehow or trade with others, like baseball cards. This idea apparently seemed more reasonable while cryptocurrency prices were sky-high, and headlines about NFTs didn’t include phrases like “trading volumes collapse 97 percent since January peak.”

I could go on at length, but I'm not really that interested in the insanity of crypto.

When someone tells you that you can't lose money in dot-com stocks, or real-estate, or cryptocurrencies, or NFTs, or whatever, recommend that they read Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, first published in 1841. At least the chapter on the Tulip Mania of the 1630s.