Amy Castor

The best theory I’ve seen is that it was more of an attempt to generally juice the market: https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye…

My complaint with them is the whole thing with mobilecoin. They hid that integration for a year, by not pushing server updates and when the news hit, they promised to do an AMA explaining it all. Its been months since that has happened and the AMA never happened. Moxies involvement is very muddy and never clarified, it was a pump n dump at best.https://amycastor.com/2021/04/07/signal-adopts-mobilecoin-a-crypto-pro… That incident, they lost a lot of respect for me.

for those wondering who that is, everyone should read Amy Castor's blog: https://amycastor.com/ she's been in crypto journalism for years, and knows her stuff thoroughly, and where the bodies are buried.

Some of us have maintained a strong anti-Bitcoin position at all times. [edit] David Gerard comes to mind - author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and Libra Shrugged - and HN user (dgerard I think) (https://davidgerard.co.uk/) More recently Amy Castor, also an HN user (amycastor) (https://amycastor.com/) And of course Bitfinex’d is back and public again on Twitter. (https://twitter.com/Bitfinexed)

"Withdrawals" could also mean "swaps", e.g., From the article: "Like other stablecoins, its value depends on a simple notion: Investors expect that Tether the company will swap $1 for one tether, or one tether for $1. Central to that is the assertion that Tether has enough reserves to redeem all the roughly 68 billion tethers in existence." Or "withdrawal" could mean "exchanage", e.g., "3. Putting your savings in Tether Tether is usually worth $1, and you can earn far more interest lending it than you would with the best high-yield savings accounts. Based on that, doesn't it make sense to put your savings in Tether instead of the bank? Not quite. While they may seem safe, Tether and other stablecoins are a much riskier place for your money than a bank account. Tether makes no legal guarantee that 1 Tether can be exchanged for $1. Most banks offer FDIC insurance that protects up to $250,000 per account in the event of a bank failure. Tether isn't FDIC-insured, so if the company behind it fails, you'd have no protection. There have also been controversies with Tether and its reserves in the past. Tether Limited used to claim that every Tether was backed by a U.S. dollar, but that turned out to be false. In a recent reserves breakdown, Tether Limited revealed that 2.9% of Tether was backed by cash. https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/cryptocurrency/articles/the-5-biggest-… Also "withdrawals" could mean withdrawals by the Tether…

Since this article was written, the story of Tether has gotten way crazier — to the tune of over 50 Billion “USDT” tokens (unredeemable digital IOUs) created during the past few months. To put this in perspective, the total Tether market cap at the end of 2019 was $4B. [0]. That’s more than 50 Billion dollars that have flooded the crypto ecosystem since the writing of this article, with no transparency about their backing or the claimed origin of the money. And all of this cash is supposedly stored in a small bank in the Bahamas (Deltec) and backed by other “corporate paper,” with absolutely no accounting transparency nor audits. Insane!!! I highly recommend Amy Castor’s investigative journalism on Tether [1]. Hardcore Bitcoiners love to complain about the Fed printing money, and I do too. But Tether is a few hundred orders of magnitude worse. [0]: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tether/ (select “Market Cap” to see the recent parabolic curve). [1]: https://amycastor.com/tag/tether/

> He's definitely the most prolific 3D artist, ever. That is either false, or it's true in a way that is meaningless. There are artists who have spent every day creating art. Daily art exercises and sketchbooks are commonplace. Some work in 3D, some have been working far longer than Beeple has. If you mean "Beeple has been publishing a discrete piece of art, publicly, every day for longer than others", then I dunno, maybe? I'm not sure why that's anything to be proud of, or why anyone would aim to do that, but it might be true. If you mean "he's created more pieces of 3D art than anyone else", then no, he's outstripped by literally thousands if not tens of thousands of people. The "winner" is probably some unknown previz animator working in an outsourced animation studio in India or China somewhere. :) ...of course, you might say "that doesn't count, I don't CARE about the stuff those guys do. Well, maybe I don't care about the stuff Beeple does. > It's not a coincidence that he, of all people, managed to sell 69 million dollars worth of cookie-cutter crap. It very likely isn't a coincidence. https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye… > most of them are busy creating escapist stuff that will never get the attention of the art scene. To that end, skill just doesn't matter. And I don't think the art scene thinks very much of Beeple, so I'm not sure what that proves.

Anyone who's been paying attention knows that Tether is an opaque money-laundering scam, and it's only a matter of time before it totally unravels. The only reason Tether is making noises about cooperating with the US government is because they're being told in no uncertain terms that their continued near-term existence depends on it. Check back in a year. [1] https://amycastor.com/2023/12/28/crypto-collapse-mt-gox-payouts-tether… [2] https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2023/12/06/bitcoin-goes-up-can-5-…

It's the byline for this article https://amycastor.com/2023/09/12/pivot-to-ai-pay-no-attention-to-the-m…

Beeple’s NFT was bought by the founder of a coin he had a major investment in, and he had been granted 2% of all B.20 tokens for free. Very sketchy. https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye…

Yes, they are, really. Do you work for Tether by any chance? Only a person living in the cave for the past five years wouldn't know the history of Tether at least in part. Relevant links: - https://amycastor.com/2019/01/17/the-curious-case-of-tether-a-complete… - https://bitfinexed.medium.com/tether-is-setting-a-new-standard-for-tra… To quote NY Attorney General, "Tether’s claims that its virtual currency was fully backed by U.S. dollars at all times was a lie"

Not necessarily. It's true if the person making the decision is getting paid directly from the mining. But perverse incentives abound in the cryptocurrency space. For example, consider Celsius: https://amycastor.com/2022/09/11/crypto-collapse-celsius-voyager-skybr… https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2022/08/11/crypto-collapse-coinba… As they thrash around in bankruptcy, they have proposed that they will mine their way out of the hole. Will this work? I doubt it. But will it let the CEO stay in charge for a while longer, taking in more investor money and continuing to get paid? Possibly! So actual economic efficiency may not matter.

> I would find it hard to imagine an argument that Beeple's huge sale was somehow not legitimate. An argument that Beeple's huge sale was somehow not legitimate: https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye…

Hopefully they're investigating Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) pump and dump business model. https://amycastor.com/2022/05/19/a16zs-state-of-crypto-report-a-rehash…

This article (https://amycastor.com/2022/07/02/who-had-voyager-digital-next-in-the-d… says they'd convert any USD you sent them to USDC which are not insured.

I wonder if he told that he was also part of a cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scam as well? [0] After learning this I just lost respect for him. [0] https://amycastor.com/2021/04/07/signal-adopts-mobilecoin-a-crypto-pro…

Found this article and ran down the rabbit hole. What a wild ride. https://amycastor.com/2019/02/12/how-the-hell-did-we-get-here-a-timeli…

Haven't you watched "Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs" yet? It's about a whole lot more than just NFTs. Your question is thoroughly addressed and truthfully answered in that video. Also see his references and citations in "Sources and Further Reading" for more proof. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g Sources and Further…

I don't know whether it was an oversight on their part, but Vice fails to mention that "Michael Patryn" also isn't his original name: it's Omar Dhanani[1]. His federal criminal record runs back to 2004. [1]: https://amycastor.com/tag/michael-patryn/

I just stopped my signal donation today, which I've been doing monthly last year due to this: https://amycastor.com/2021/04/07/signal-adopts-mobilecoin-a-crypto-pro… Was it an overreaction? I don't think so. I feel dumb stuff like this, massive conflicts of interest, happens too often these days, and I'm voting with my wallet.

Crypto critics: https://amycastor.com/blog/ https://davidgerard.co.uk https://schiffradio.com/ Warren Buffet They are not necessarily predicting the collapse of bitcoin but they are against crypto for many reasons. Something to think about - bitcoin only wins if it becomes a reserve currency. Until then it’s a negative sum game measured in dollars. Because it’s people swapping in and out dollars but with the expense of mining thrown in which has to be paid in dollars. —- People that are critical of bitcoin but pro crypto? … not sure that would be interesting.

The beeple NFT shouldn't be used as a basis for comparison to future expected values given that it was artificially inflated by self-dealing, you can read more here about it: https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye…

T-bills are OK, but it's entirely unclear what the "commercial paper" consists of. Amy Castor notes that if Tether gives USDT for free to large customers like Binance etc, that loan would be a form of commercial paper. https://amycastor.com/2021/05/13/tethers-first-breakdown-of-reserves-c… And quite a few exchanges are offering crazy interest rates (up to 10%) for USDT deposits, which strongly implies they're getting some for free: https://cryptoprijzen.com/en/crypto-interest/compare-tether-interest-r…

I'm afraid I don't trust their unspecified 'cash equivalents' which are mostly not cash or anything close. So I think the title is justified and not in any way a distortion of their position. Here is some more detail on the breakdown and this unspecified 'commercial paper': https://amycastor.com/2021/05/13/tethers-first-breakdown-of-reserves-c… Personally if they don't break down what those assets are, I wouldn't trust it's not just 'cryptocurrency assets' rebranded as cash.

Metakovan, the mystery Beeple art buyer, and his NFT/DeFi scheme by Amy Castor - https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye…

https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye… Particularly the "Number Go Up" section, which shows that the buyer also runs (and owns a majority of) a crypto token called "B20", which curiously enough, Beeple also has a 2% stake in.

The buyer of the $69M NFT was Vignesh Sundaresan, a "crypto entrepreneur": https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye…

I think most of the news articles are based on this original reporting: https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye…

I also read that Beeple has shares of the company which bought his art. And artistic works are valued based on their affect to culture. Beeple has none other than this elaborate NTF marketing scheme. You might want to read this -> https://amycastor.com/2021/03/14/metakovan-the-mystery-beeple-art-buye… and this -> https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2021/03/11/nfts-crypto-grifters-t…