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semimodestmouse t1_je9ncax wrote

Fraud, in the finance industry? Shocking.

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Test19s t1_jea6zh1 wrote

We could easily go back to mid-2000s housing bubble levels where it’s impossible to tell how much of the economy is actually legit vs fraudulent.

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ethervillage t1_jea8p6e wrote

Regrettably, it’s pretty clear we’re already there

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Test19s t1_jea9xfs wrote

1920s, 2000s, 2020s

Each saw a massive property boom centered in Florida that spiraled into a massive global downturn

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almisami t1_jebx4ic wrote

This time will be different! ...It won't just be centered in Florida!

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makashiII_93 t1_jeezyt3 wrote

I realized this around 2015, my Junior year of college.

Kinda killed grad school ideas. And look what’s happened:

Exactly what I was afraid of.

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400921FB54442D18 t1_jeabowb wrote

I mean, it depends on your definition of "fraudulent." If you mean "gonna get you convicted of fraud in court" then barely anything counts as fraudulent because our courts are cowards. If you mean "based on getting people to believe things that are plainly untrue" then nearly every part of the economy is fraudulent. Macroeconomics is based on the untrue claim that the economy can keep doubling every n years without limit. Microeconomics is based on the untrue claim that people always act in their own rational self-interest. And regular everyday economics, in the sense of just selling things to customers, is based on all of the untrue claims in all of the advertising we're exposed to. There really is no such thing as an honest capitalist.

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Dwarfdeaths t1_jeamnyu wrote

Land rent is fraudulent, in the sense that land is not something that can be created yet we let people own it and sell it to us.

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dratseb t1_jeappi8 wrote

You mean the land that was stolen from it’s original owners? Yeah, we shouldn’t pay rent for that lol

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Dwarfdeaths t1_jeaqnvx wrote

Who are "original owners"? Ultimately someone just found some land and put a flag on it. Even natives who have been living in a place for thousands of years are still just using land they didn't make. We either have to agree that all humans have equal claim to the earth by virtue of existing, or accept the arbitrary acquisition of land by whomever can hold it for a sufficient period.

The "equal sharing" solution is known as the land value tax.

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smurficus103 t1_jebkjmg wrote

This subject is super interesting and concerns our entire social structure.

Instead of land, as important as it is, my thoughts consider water. You can draw an example: someone built a fence around the last freshwater lake and river and defends it with force. You and your family are dying of thirst. What do you do? Sit outside of the fence, allowing you and your family to die of thirst, out of respect for ownership?

Pretty fucked up, but, extrapolate that scene outwards to every resource.

Whatever I happen to own, I feel like i worked hard to own it, I even feel like I earned more than I own (why am i paid so little?). I can only assume people with excessive lives, that can afford to go on vacations and retire, also feel like they deserve that...

So we're at this bizarre impass of ownership of everything that has value vs being born into a world where there's no freshwater source, no land, no fishes that aren't claimed by somebody & they enforce ownership with violence

It seems obvious: if you want this type of structure to sustain, everyone must have at least the opportunity to own something. Forcing people to work 3 jobs and live in shared housing is just asking for violence, and, the general narrative pushed is "work hard and you can do anything" rather than "get extremely lucky and you might have a successful buisness after a few failed attempts ". This isn't a guaranteed path for everyone to obtain land and water rights. It's more of a lottory & people rightfully point out that the deck is stacked. I can't to take out a billion dollar loan from the federal reserve to implement my will onto other people.

All that said, i don't want to hand over everyone's possessions to the federal government, that would just concentrate all power and fuck everyone hard. I suppose all consistent philosophies converge on anarchy.

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Dwarfdeaths t1_jebnd6h wrote

> Instead of land, as important as it is, my thoughts consider water.

Henry George, the pioneer of this field of thought and the land value tax policy, had a fairly broad definition of "land" which would include not only water but "all natural forces and opportunities." This would include things like sunlight, radio bands, low earth orbits, mineral deposits, and so on.

Personally, I might go even further and include "sufficiently old capital" under land. In this context "capital" means "wealth employed for the increased productivity of future labor." Someone who saves their money to build a tractor instead of buying ice-cream should enjoy return to their capital, aka interest or dividends. On the other hand, if someone built a tractor thousands of years ago (that somehow still works) we might consider it "land" since no one alive today made it. Use of that tractor excludes everyone else from using it and the user should have to pay the "rent" for it if they want to use it. In a world of increasing automation, taxing ownership of robots/software that you didn't personally build would be a critical step in approaching the UBI paradise that we all hope for.

> All that said, i don't want to hand over everyone's possessions to the federal government

The land value tax doesn't take away land, it just charges people the "ground rent" to keep private ownership of it. You can own a square mile of Manhattan and do whatever you want with it, you just have to pay others for your exclusive use of that valuable land. And if you don't want to use it, let someone else use it (either renting it out or "selling" it). Ideally under a properly assessed LVT, the price of land should tend towards zero, because there is no economic advantage in just having it.

> The general narrative pushed is "work hard and you can do anything" rather than "get extremely lucky and you might have a successful buisness after a few failed attempts "

Indeed rent will soak up any increased productivity and hand it to land owners, whether it's residential land or the industrial land. To "get ahead" and perhaps own some land, you basically have to exceed the average productivity expected from a location. (Assuming they haven't over-estimated rent, which is what leads to economic depressions btw). You can do this either by working way harder than the average person, inventing a way to increase your productivity beyond expectations. Either way, this is not accessible for the average person almost by definition.

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smurficus103 t1_jebt3h9 wrote

Wow, yeah, that does seem to solve the "old money" conundrum without bloodshed, if you expand the definition of land into all sufficently old property and charge a property tax on even, say, automation systems. A productivity tax? Sounds bizarre, but, also the opposite of a regressive tax.

/s, If only there were a way to itemize taxes,

Production taxes could go toward developing small buisness, little guys and gals getting out of h.s., for example

I had a similar thought that nobody cared for: as companies "write off" old equipment, they could choose to donate it for an additional write off & it gets lottoried to the public. Hopefully, this could encourage competitors to emerge from their backyard, or something. "Honey, i won a silicon furnace!"

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Dwarfdeaths t1_jebwqhd wrote

For corporations, at least, I think a stock-based solution might be a good approach to the transition of capital to land.

The work you do for a company can be divided into two broad categories: (1) directly trading time for product, and (2) creating stuff that increases productivity of future labor. Manually stamping every part on a factory line or waiting tables would be type 1, and writing code or building robots would be type 2.

So, it seems logical that you could define two classes of stock: "labor stock" and "productivity stock." Labor stock is issued when you join and dissolved when you leave, which basically pays wages for type 1 work (companies must now issue regular dividends as their wage process).

Productivity stock is issued as you work and stays with you when you leave, until it expires (end of life or some fixed time). When productivity stock expires, it is transferred to the public.

Depending on the scope of work, a worker may be paid in some mixture of the two classes.

As time moves forward, ownership of a company (and its assets) will gradually move from the original workers to the public, while still incentivizing the production of new capital at the company. In this system you could no longer issue stock to raise money; instead, money would have to be raised through "loans" with fixed payback terms, rather than indefinite future ownership of the company.

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lzwzli t1_jecpr2s wrote

I don't get it. We already have property tax. If you fail to pay property tax, the government can reposes the land and sell it to someone else who can pay. How is what you're proposing different?

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Dwarfdeaths t1_jecsnrs wrote

(1) Property tax considers both land and land improvements, e.g. a house or factory. Taxing the house disincentivizes construction and investment on land, which is exactly the opposite of what we want. The land value tax only attempts to capture rent, which is an intrinsic value associated with the productivity of the location compared to alternatives. Actual studies of this policy have been done and LVT encourages construction when used to displace property taxes.

(2) A tax on the market value of the land (or property) can never capture the full ground rent. This is because the market value of land derives from the rent you could collect from it (or the work you could do on it yourself). The market value of the land will decrease, adjusting for the lost tax revenue, and that in turn changes the amount of tax that will be collected...

Let's call "Rev" the annual tax revenue, "Rate" the annual tax rate on land value, "Rent" the true ground rent, and "t" the number of years someone considers in their assessment of market value of real estate.

Rev = (market_value)*Rate
Rev = (Rent*t - Rev*t)*Rate
Rev = Rent * t*Rate/(1 + t*Rate)

No matter what combination of t and Rate you choose, the tax revenue will always be smaller than ground rent. Moreover, the higher you try to set the tax rate, the more unstable the assessment will get, because you're trying to charge large multiples of tiny appraisal values. Instead you have to assess the ground rent directly.

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dratseb t1_jear860 wrote

False equivalency, but I don’t feel like getting into it right now. Have a good day!

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400921FB54442D18 t1_jearyb7 wrote

That's just it; there's no such thing as the "original owners" of any piece of land. Anyone who shows up to any unclaimed land and says "well, this is mine now," is at best stealing from everyone, and at worst simply lying. And anyone who then buys that land from that person is complicit in the theft or lie -- they're purchasing stolen goods.

If you mean land that was stolen from the native peoples who lived on it, then (generally) those native peoples understood the concept that the land belongs to everyone, because it is necessary to support everyone. They wouldn't claim to "own" that land because they rightly recognize that land can't validly be owned by a single entity.

(Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in the nuances of historic land policies among Native American tribes and communities, and I'm even less of an expert in how that played out in other parts of the world. I live in the American West, where you pick up a lot of this stuff by osmosis, but if someone with a formal education in this area wants to clarify what I'm saying, corrections are welcome.)

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lanahci t1_jebjuwu wrote

Didn’t the tribes raid each other for better hunting grounds? Their belief that land can’t be owned seems to just be a severe lag in civilization development.

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SomeSwordsCutDeep t1_jebxno3 wrote

The Navajo people, whom live in the Southwest on the borders of Arizona and New Mexico and have by land area the largest reservation in the US are Athabascan -- aka, Pacific Northwestern. They showed up in that area as conquerors not long before the Spanish showed up. Some of the other tribes and native people still harbor resentment that the borders got drawn when they did, because they were working on repelling them. To the point that as a kid, when we'd have field trips to various natives monuments or communities, different native kids from different tribes would not go to depending upon which tribe / monument we were visiting.

And they very much did believe in the thought of owning land; they just didn't have property deeds written out, and have communal thoughts on more things, but still had the concept of private residences and private belongings, and private separate spaces to exist in. There's still a bit of the noble savage myth going on and circulating around a lot of this (the various tribes and people that compromise the native americans were really fairly typical stone age societies).

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ganja_and_code t1_jeak85r wrote

> We could easily go back

Look around homie, we're already there.

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stormdelta t1_jebegik wrote

There is almost zero legitimate reason for the entire "fintech" space to exist at all.

First and second order financial service derivatives are acceptable, and add real utility/value to the economy - things like basic banking and lending services, properly regulated stocks/bonds, even options/futures trading to a lesser extent.

Past that, it's pretty much just corporations leeching money from the real economy, producing nothing of value and creating mass systemic risks. It's the same kind of shit that gave us the 2008 crisis.

The worst part is that the same kinds of people who push fintech have successfully convinced a ton of people to get mad at the wrong targets, and to support the worst form of fintech yet (cryptocurrencies).

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College_Prestige t1_jece17d wrote

I mean, Fintech is a lot of things. Until like last week MasterCard and Visa were technically Fintech companies because they were classified as technology companies

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libginger73 t1_jeahseg wrote

Who knew creating money out literal thin air was bad?

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chris84126 t1_jeckxzq wrote

Yes, they could take a lesson from the insurance industry. No fraud there either /s

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rickymourke82 t1_jea713t wrote

This is pretty rich coming from a company founded and ran by a man permanently banned by the SEC for money crimes.

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TomUngerfeld t1_jeant91 wrote

Who do you mean, Hindenberg or Block?

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SlowMotionPanic t1_jeao7ed wrote

Not OP, but it’s Henry Blodget.

I was amazed to learn this as well.

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TomUngerfeld t1_jearm6b wrote

Oh, I see. Thanks. For those that don't know, Blodget is the CEO and editor-in-chief of Business Insider.

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marketrent OP t1_je9n2h8 wrote

Excerpt from the linked content^1 by Bianca Chan and Paige Hagy:

>When Mary Ann Miller saw the Hindenburg report estimate that roughly 40% to 75% of Cash App accounts reviewed by former employees [of Block, formerly known as Square] were fake or involved fraud, she told Insider she wasn't shocked at all.

>Miller is a 30-year fraud expert who has worked at and with banks, fintechs, and neobanks.

>Miller said that fintechs, by and large, have conflicting objectives when it comes to balancing growth and risk management.

>"One is to grow, grow, grow," Miller said of fintechs' competing priorities. "And then you have the risk teams that probably don't have the voice that they need at the table."

>Signing up and getting approved for a fintech is oftentimes quicker and easier than getting an account at a traditional bank.

>A speedy sign-up process can also help expedite growth, which is always a key consideration for a startup early on.

> 

>For many consumer-facing fintechs, the number of users has often translated into the company's growth, and therefore its value, several sources told Insider.

>But it's a double-edged sword, since fraudsters and other bad actors can also onboard with ease, according to several analysts, venture capitalists, founders, and fraud experts who spoke with Insider.

>"I don't think there's an investor on the street who was not aware that Cash App is relatively widely used for illicit activities," [a fintech] analyst told Insider. "At the end of the day, I don't think anyone is shocked by any of that."

>The fact that Cash App offers peer-to-peer payments exacerbates the fraud issue, according to McKenna, the chief fraud strategist at Point Predictive, an anti-fraud software company.

>"It makes the money movement that much faster," he said.

>Fintechs were also singled out for facilitating fraud in the Paycheck Protection Program, when an 18-month-long investigation by the House Subcommittee called out fintechs for having little to no fraud prevention efforts in place to stop obvious and preventable fraud.

^1 Bianca Chan and Paige Hagy for Insider/Axel Springer, 29 Mar. 2023, https://www.businessinsider.com/fintech-fraud-problems-payments-cash-app-venmo-zelle-2023-3

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JayCroghan t1_jeaqzbq wrote

I’m not sure Fintech has a fraud issue, Cash App has a fraud issue. Head over to the Revolut sub and see the countless people posting about their accounts frozen. I bet Cash App doesn’t have that issue. I work in FinTech and it’s amazing how much KYC and AML goes on. Cash App seems to not bother with that which is why it isn’t in Europe because it’d be ran out again.

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Veritas_Victoriam t1_jebkg0n wrote

I used to work at a fintech and now work at a bank that has a sponsorship program. Sure, some fintechs take BSA/AML seriously but many are pretty weak or inexperienced in that area and are primarily concerned with market growth as quick as possible. Fintechs are kind of a Wild West in the US and until there’s uniform regulation stands on them they’ll continue to run the gambit on being solid to bad at fraud/risk management

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TheTrollCoach t1_jeblm0v wrote

I didn't have to answer any KYC questions or give my SSN when I set up my Venmo account. Haven't used Revolut so they might require that. Coming from a traditional bank FINCENs seem like the wild west.

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JayCroghan t1_jebnscs wrote

For European fintechs like Revolut you need to prove who you are with your passport and a photo of a bill or bank statement to prove you’re a resident. Then they ask people who they need more info for proof of the source of the funds like bank statements or proof of receiving salary. I won’t use them because they freeze accounts so much I don’t want to have to deal with a months long argument to access my money.

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marketrent OP t1_jec9h38 wrote

FCA’s Matthew Long wrote last month that the U.K. regulator “continue to see poor financial crime controls in some payments and e-money firms.”

That same regulator just put Revolut on notice that the company may be in breach of rules that state: “All adverts and promotions for financial services must be fair, clear and not misleading.”

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JayCroghan t1_jedplzd wrote

So they’re in trouble for misleadingly advertising their products, not mass fraud. Got it. I hate Revolut but I know they do a fuck ton of KYC and AML.

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DreadCoder t1_jea6rth wrote

In Germany there is a saying: Where there is a trough, there are pigs

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ObscureLogic t1_jeae9pr wrote

Okay say it in German please

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elementsking t1_jeafehh wrote

Wo es einen Trog gibt, gibt es Schweine (?)

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Fenix42 t1_jeas7kd wrote

Aww. I was hoping for o e of those long German words that is basically a whole sentance :(.

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Redqueenhypo t1_jeau64p wrote

Here, one of the two names for “raccoon dog” is waschbarhund, meaning wash bear dog bc a raccoon is called a wash bear.

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dungone t1_jebvudp wrote

The scientific name for raccoon is trash panda.

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DorothyMatrix t1_jee5to5 wrote

Raccoon is derived from the Native American (Algonquin) word meaning “rubs/scratches with hands”

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Paper_Hero t1_jea1g8z wrote

No shit Sherlock

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bake_disaster t1_jeam6xb wrote

Yeah, anyone who's paid even a little bit of attention could tell you that "fintech" has just been speed-running the past 150 years of why financial regulations exist

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red286 t1_jebr31i wrote

Of course, everyone in FinTech will tell you that the reason those regulations exist is because the government doesn't want you to be successful.

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Horat1us_UA t1_jea2tjs wrote

I wonder if the billions regularly needed by classic banks to solve their own problems is not a fraud problem.

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Miserable_Unusual_98 t1_jeab51s wrote

Losing customer's money is not a problem when the state replenishes using tax payer money

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happyscrappy t1_jedmvom wrote

The banks didn't commit any fraud (generally). They just were idiots with their money. So we could have more regulation to prevent this.

I'm all for it. Put Glass-Steagall back for starters. And we'll build from there.

Make commercial banking boring again.

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Horat1us_UA t1_jeevpwy wrote

They “didn’t commit fraud” just because government do not consider their fraud as fraud. Look on Iceland

0

red286 t1_jebrkm7 wrote

Most banks that get bailed out didn't break any laws. The problem isn't the banks, the problem is the lack of laws stopping banks from gambling with their clients' money. So long as it's not illegal, banks are going to keep doing it, and every time they do, the government in power makes it illegal to do it again, and then the government that follows undoes those regulations, meaning that every ~10 years there's a financial crisis that could have been averted if the regulations that had been put in place last time hadn't been repealed.

0

Test19s t1_jea6paq wrote

I just hope we don’t encounter another 2008 situation where there is so much systemic fraud that it becomes impossible to tell how much of the global economy is legit.

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NW-M-1945 t1_jebxtk0 wrote

That’s why we should always vote for more legislation and always scream foul play if someone is giving us something for no security. It benefits us for 5 minutes while the richest out there are taking 1000% advantage of the same lack of controls that we’re offered to you, the difference is that they get away with it but you can’t afford to!

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m4c_4ddr3ss t1_je9vu4c wrote

It was obvious crypto was a scam from the start

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danielravennest t1_jea4emy wrote

It wasn't at the start. I was an early bitcoin miner (2011), and people were exploring the uses of digital currency. But it rapidly attracted scams and fraud once serious money was involved, due to transactions being hard to trace and irreversible. So it ended up like this

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400921FB54442D18 t1_jeac8t5 wrote

Sure, but at the start, people were asking "what are the use cases for this that don't include serious money getting involved?" and the answer that early bitcoin miners gave was basically "uh, I dunno, something something revolution?" So it was obvious that serious money was going to need to get involved, and from that, it was obvious that it would rapidly attract scams and fraud.

Just because early bitcoin miners couldn't read the writing on the wall doesn't mean it wasn't there for others to see.

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voice-of-reason_ t1_jeaj259 wrote

How exactly is Bitcoin a scam then? What aspect of its structure makes it a scam?

If you called the crypto market in general a scam I could understand but Bitcoin has been around for the best part of 15 years, has no CEO or leader and is literally just a payment network. Also it’s code is open source so anyone can see and read it.

I’ve never seen another scam that lasted as long and has those same features.

Bitcoin is a hedge against regular money, if you don’t see an issue with regular money then you won’t see the use for Bitcoin. I personally think regular money is one of the biggest issues the modern world faces.

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gansmaltz t1_jeam0et wrote

True, bitcoins are resilient for crypto, but why is it that, proportionally, so many of its users are scammers? I can't think of many situations where digital dollars would fail where Bitcoin is even accessible much less a useful medium of exchange where cash wouldnt be more useful.

Bitcoin wants to be the dollar bill of the internet but it can't even remain anonymous. By design every transaction becomes part of the blockchain for everyone, right?

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SlowMotionPanic t1_jeaqps5 wrote

> True, bitcoins are resilient for crypto, but why is it that, proportionally, so many of its users are scammers?

How do you know so many use it for illegal purposes—specifically scams? Over 1 million people own at least some Bitcoin. Most of its use is for investment, which is why wallet activity is chronically low. People buy and hold it like gold or any other asset they think will appreciate.

>I can’t think of many situations where digital dollars would fail where Bitcoin is even accessible much less a useful medium of exchange where cash wouldnt be more useful. >

  1. That doesn’t have anything to do with the claims that a disproportionate number of Bitcoin users are scammers.
  2. People don’t necessarily get into Bitcoin because they think a fiat currency is going to fail. They hold it like an investment because it tends to appreciate over time.
  3. Bitcoin’s strength has never had to shine thankfully. That is, governments you and I live under haven’t failed and experienced currency collapse. But, for an example here, it is cheaper and much faster for me to convert cash into Bitcoin and hold in my wallet and travel internationally than engage an international wire transfer. There’s risk involved, of course. But one thing I don’t risk is having any cash I’m traveling with summarily seized without any recourse. I don’t have to worry about my government turning fascist and freezing my accounts to prevent me from leaving. It’s a hedge, like any decent investment.

> > Bitcoin wants to be the dollar bill of the internet but it can’t even remain anonymous.

What an odd pivot. The USD isn’t even anonymous unless you pay in cash. Bitcoin was never founded to be anonymous. It was founded to be a trustless system with a fixed amount of currency. It cracks me up that so many people in this thread are asserting that Bitcoin is private which is why criminals use it, when it is ridiculously easy to track transactions. People even put watches on wallets for fun to write articles about dormant wallets becoming active again, and the world governments have caught criminals when they try to use or move funds after a crime, even years later, because it is all part of the public ledger.

And our bank accounts are equally not private. Bitcoin is at best pseudo anonymous because of how it spawns various wallets by default and doesn’t have a central database of users to lookup real world info about.

>By design every transaction becomes part of the blockchain for everyone, right?

Yes, that’s how it remains trustless and secure. Do you know my bank account number? No? Do you know my Bitcoin wallet address? I could send a payment right now and use a one-time wallet. This isn’t as big of an argument as you think. If anything, it disproves that Bitcoin is an attractive target for criminals because it isn’t truly anonymous. You have workarounds at best.

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400921FB54442D18 t1_jeatgdr wrote

I don't know or care enough about Bitcoin to address any of your technical points -- I'm sure /u/gansmaltz will take that on -- but there are at least two obvious flaws in your claims here:

> People buy and hold it like gold or any other asset they think will appreciate.

I'm old enough to remember when my grandparents were certain that buying a bunch of silver and hiding it in their garage would pay for my college education. When they died, we cleaned it out and sold it for about $20.

... I don't think I need to spell out where I'm going with this. Those who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

> People don’t necessarily get into Bitcoin because they think a fiat currency is going to fail.

In the early days of Bitcoin, this was the major argument that enthusiasts were using to try to encourage people to get into crypto -- being isolated from the risks of a state-backed fiat currency. So, to hear the crypto community now say that that isn't and wasn't the point, means that some substantial fraction of that community must be lying. Either they're lying now when they say that isn't the purpose, or they were lying 10-15 years ago when they said that that was the purpose, but either way, this doesn't say anything good about whether we should trust the crypto community with our money.

0

voice-of-reason_ t1_jebw3a0 wrote

Have you read the Bitcoin white paper? It states it’s purpose in their.

You can’t judge a technology based on what some people on a subreddit say, you base it off of what the creator says.

Bitcoin is a decentralised peer to peer payment network - as described by the creator - that has been operating with no significant downtime (I.e. 0.000x%) 24/7 365 since 2009. If you don’t see how that is a good investment I don’t know what to tell you.

In you’re example you talk about silver being essentially worthless even though lots of people thought it had value. The reality is that this is the situation of the USD, GBP ETC. These currencies are seen by essentially everyone as safe but they have been collapsing slowly for the last 50 or so years, I’m sure as an older person you remember and have actively experienced this with the cost of everything increasing over your lifespan.

To me, in 2023 Bitcoin is the cash of your example and cash is the silver. It’s fine to disagree with that but every year and every recession more and more people realise the value of a neutral asset like Bitcoin.

Inflation over the past year has been bad, but hyperinflation (which is inevitable for all regular currencies) will kill your nations economy, Bitcoin doesn’t suffer that issue.

0

gansmaltz t1_jeasn4n wrote

Nfts are good for artists too, right?

Edit: buy the dip! To the moon!

−2

danielravennest t1_jefl59e wrote

> "what are the use cases for this that don't include serious money getting involved?"

What people were trying to do back then was get it accepted as an alternate currency. It would be used for things like international money transfer, where the fees are very high, or online purchases, which wasn't near as developed as it is today. I used it as fundraising for my project, like GoFundMe but without fees.

Another proposed use was microtransactions, since bitcoins are divisible to 8 decimal places (0.01 microbitcoins). That would be for things like reading one article, without subscribing to an entire newspaper or magazine.

It was also assumed back then that the original Bitcoin was in no way "production software". It was supposed to be a rough proof-of-concept of a distributed time-stamp and record-keeping ledger (the blockchain). As it turned out, it became the dominant cryptocoin and the code never evolved much. All the evolution since then came from " altcoins" (other cryptocoins).

> "uh, I dunno, something something revolution?"

You either have never seen or are making fun of the forums where all of this was discussed, including several subreddits on this site.

1

TrexPushupBra t1_jeaf4lw wrote

The fundamental problem with bitcoin and crypto currencies is that the people making them want them to be inherently deflationary.

So it is useless as a currency because it incentivizes not spending it on anything so an economy based on it will collapse.

https://n26.com/en-eu/blog/deflation

6

danielravennest t1_jefp5ey wrote

The original bitcoin was intended to be a proof-of-concept experiment. It deliberately had a finite circulation to prevent inflation, and a declining block reward (which is where new bitcoins come from) to encourage early miners to participate and secure the blockchain.

New and improved versions were supposed to remedy whatever problems were exposed by the original. For example, a 1 MB block size turned out to be too restrictive once many people started using it.

New cryptocoins do exist, but way too many of them. 80% of the crypto market is represented by 6 coins, and the other 23,000 account for 20%. Most of them don't do anything new and improved, so we called them "shitcoins" because they "don't do shit" for users.

The so-called "stablecoins", whose value is closely tied to the US dollar, now account for 84% of total crypto trading volume. They are now the currency that people are using day-to-day. The original bitcoin and a few of the others are the "store of value" coins, like gold or real estate for everyone else. Not something you spend now, but hold for later. In fact, I never spent any of the bitcoins I mined. I held them for about 7 years and then sold them at a profit, not unlike I did with various homes and other property during my life.

NOTE: Despite my good experiences with Bitcoin, I now warn people away from crypto as a whole because it has too many scams and losses from hacks.

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voice-of-reason_ t1_jea97op wrote

I can’t read it coz paywall but this article is talking about cash app not crypto…?

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fractalfrenzy t1_jebx4t8 wrote

This article doesn't even mention crypto. You didn't even read it, you just want to shoehorn in your anti-crypto agenda.

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Boggin_ t1_jea9n7a wrote

Genuinely half of the time I see posts on here I think "oh, you don't say?"

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heightsdrinker t1_jea8q84 wrote

Known name Id theft victim here due to thrives knowing just enough to bypass security measures. The crimes were done at Walmart FinTech centers. I didn’t know about anything until debit cards in my name started showing up at my home address. The Fintechs have over 1000 accounts using various bits of my information. Definitely a laundering scheme being committed. One fintech is suing me for fees and negative account balances. The ID used to open the account was a Superbad movie Hawaii ID with no link to name or address. I never lived in Hawaii.

And yes, it’s all been reported to cops, credit bureaus, FBI, FTC, etc but nothing is done unless I sue the fintechs for info.

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mizmoxiev t1_je9za8p wrote

So just like money in general then? I'm pretty sure crimes happened well before Fintech was invented. If Fintech were to leave today people would so the same shit they always do. And if no one inside the company cares or is surprised, then how is there full blown Incentives to change?

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Test19s t1_jea7fgv wrote

In 2008 we learned that huge chunks of the American economy were fraudulent (mortgages). I don’t think that fintech has the potential to be nearly as damaging, but we on Earth also have less access to natural resources, fewer young skilled Westerners in the labor pool, and a lot more debt than we did in ‘08.

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mizmoxiev t1_jeae0u2 wrote

Yeah it's all pretty much a ruse that's what I mean lol

The market goes up and down daily and weekly and monthly in amounts that crashed the 2008 Market. Not just mortgages but we have also seen "bank created wealth" and "the value of art" etc be just as much of a fraud for 1%ers to wash money as it ever has been

I think fintech has the potential to be even more damaging because some of those old safeguards made it so that very small groups of people were committing money with large amounts of wealth. I'm sure they have mitigations and stop gaps in place if things get too hairy, or I would like to believe that 😹

We have a lot more to lose this go around

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Fenix42 t1_jease7d wrote

>fewer young skilled Westerners in the labor pool,

Got any data to back this up?

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Test19s t1_jeat7a9 wrote

Working age populations in developed western countries are historically low when compared to the amount of elders they must sustain, and the ratios may be even worse in developed Asia. Furthermore, lately a lot of developing countries have been struggling with infrastructure and skill issues. Look at population pyramids. Or articles like https://www.reuters.com/markets/davos-2023-talent-shortage-rules-tight-labour-markets-manpowergroup-2023-01-20/

If you have the same number of mouths to feed but fewer prime-age workers relatively speaking, there are going to be issues unless you can convince the elders to retire overseas or in low-cost areas.

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AlphaTangoFoxtrt t1_jeadq4c wrote

>Hey bro, did you hear about this new app that has direct access to your bank accounts?!? It's so convenient and awesome, you should give it direct access to your bank accounts!!!

Nope. I've got exactly 1 app with access to my bank (besides my bank), which is my credit-card so I can pay the bill, and that's enough for me.

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DaDragon88 t1_jeb0wa5 wrote

Wrong. Fraud has a fintech opportunity!

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Lucky210 t1_jea2frp wrote

I can’t believe there’s gambling in this establishment.

Finance has always been run by a corrupt mafia cartel.

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BlastMyLoad t1_jebogja wrote

I find it wack that you can’t electronically transfer money to people in the US without using a 3rd party app.

In Canada our banks have Interac E-Transfer which is safe and secure and very easy to use.

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JC2535 t1_jea3wtm wrote

Money + Internet = Fraud

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ethervillage t1_jea9nh7 wrote

So now that we acknowledge the corruption, what do we do? Hand out a bunch of laughable “cost of business” fines and just keep on doing the same thing with the same criminals left at the helm. Our financial systems have become a disgraceful affront to humanity and all that is good in society. Looking at you Washington, DOJ, SEC, etc

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n3wn4m3p t1_je9ttew wrote

No mention of Beam? CEO 2x fraudster.

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prefuse07 t1_jeafnpt wrote

It's become increasingly clear that fintech is fraud

^fixed the headline

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agm1984 t1_jeahicy wrote

The trick is to unpack fintech to its true symbol: currency transmission siphoning

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americanadiandrew t1_jead31x wrote

Today’s article was sponsored by Chase, Wells Fargo and Citibank.

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745395 t1_jeai87s wrote

It's also becoming increasingly clear that without food and water, you will die. Isn't that insane?

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redditequalizer t1_jea3467 wrote

Paywall. Won't read news that require payment. What is this 2003?

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400921FB54442D18 t1_jeacj67 wrote

Better yet, who wants to bet that their paywall system is based on a fintech product with its own fraud problems?

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My-Left-Plate t1_jeag055 wrote

You don’t say….

Next up the government has a bribery problem and water is increasingly wet.

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redyellowblue5031 t1_jeah39q wrote

For various p2p payment apps this is a huge problem.

On the one hand customers can finally pay whoever they want pretty much instantly by removing the a majority of checks and balances in more conventional slower forms of money transfer.

If the problem with that isn’t clear, it’s no wonder scammers are able to leverage these systems to do their business.

Often times, these systems aren’t insured like a debit or credit card would be either. Essentially, you make a mistake and it’s on you.

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rukioish t1_jeba975 wrote

How are there no laws binding these types of money transfer applications from having liability? I would assume the trade off of convenience is the application accepting the risk, but oftentimes there are no downsides for the provider.

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redyellowblue5031 t1_jebdnwc wrote

There are some laws, but given the relatively young age of the tech, regulations haven’t caught up and it is a hard topic to broach.

If someone tricks you into giving them money, right now there isn’t a way to really do much because you pushed the send button. And should there be? This is part of the question.

One way to reduce this is to make it harder to join these types of P2P payment platforms and put other authentication and authorization “road blocks” in place. How many need to go on to strike a balance between security and keeping the service relevant? That’s yet to be seen.

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Fred2620 t1_jearelv wrote

> by removing the a majority of checks and balances in more conventional slower forms of money transfer.

But then again, there's a reason why these checks and balances exist in the first place.

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redyellowblue5031 t1_jeauimf wrote

For sure. People bemoan the fact they can’t send and access money instantly but also don’t like getting scammed. Somewhere, there’s a trade off like in all other forms of security.

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bkconn t1_jeben6x wrote

It's becoming increasingly clear that the US Government has a corruption problem.

Hmm.. nobody seems to care about that one..

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reddideridoo t1_jebo607 wrote

Can you people pleas stop looking so closely? In the holy name of liquidity, damn.

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downonthesecond t1_jebxbi6 wrote

On the bright side, there is a large findom community.

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zenithfury t1_jecayll wrote

Nooooo really? And I thought we were deregulating financial sectors because they are such paragons of virtue and laws only cramp their style.

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rgfortin t1_jechkvl wrote

BREAKING NEWS : dodgy tech has dodgy users, public shocked

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themonkeyway30 t1_jecjbto wrote

Work in banking-fraud/risk. It’s rampant. And these fintechs allow anyone and everyone to open accounts and they won’t work with victims or their banks on recovery of funds for consumers. They enable scammers.

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danasf t1_jecjjt7 wrote

I have B2B and B2C fintech experience (USA only, nothing international). The consumer side, there are gangs, the ones I knew were 'from' eastern europe and were physically located in specific areas of the USA. Aside from them, it was mostly one off stuff that we could eventually predict via better analysis of credit profile. Surprisingly, welcome calls, with well trained staff, were shockingly effective at stemming fraud, as was having a specially trained group of customer experience folks who specialized in detecting fraud.

On the B2B side (white label financing) there were significant fraud problems that were sometimes not detected until far, far too late. We relied on individual account manager's ability to train, and closely monitor, the partner companies. Interestingly, we would detect the fraud first from either word-of-mouth through the grapevine stuff gathered from our sales & management team via industry chatter or account manager relationships, or from various kinds of data analysis. Impact was maybe 1-3% of gross revenue, depending on industry and scale of operation. Really really depends on the sectors you are working with in B2B fintech, some are shadier than others. like... used car financing? good luck with that

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destraight t1_jedaaf6 wrote

What a shitty news site. You can't even read the whole article

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happyscrappy t1_jedmnhb wrote

Since when? Oh wait, since the start.

When John McAfee was a big cryptocurrency guy it wasn't a tip off?

And can we please bury "fintech". It's just Wall Street trying to put a tech sheen on their companies. Now that tech is on the slide anyway, can we drop this facade?

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freediverx01 t1_jee8oy5 wrote

Capitalism has a fraud problem.

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haveatesttomorrow t1_jeefx9z wrote

The amount of fraudulent PPP loans processed by fintech firms was absolutely astounding.

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Extension_Building19 t1_jeejwqv wrote

My bank wont even recognize this app, it declares it as a fraud app and allows no access to any accounts. I love it.

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hayden_evans t1_jeaey66 wrote

“Only the rich should be allowed to engage in financial crime!”

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tom-8-to t1_jeap8zc wrote

Well, at least the fraud is with real money, money that is moving thru, and flowing, from one end to the other.

But lord help us, if instead of cash it was all crypto.

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[deleted] t1_je9qmtg wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_je9yfn1 wrote

That isn’t the problem here.

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[deleted] t1_jeadw3t wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jeae4af wrote

That’s relevant how exactly?

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[deleted] t1_jeaehn8 wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jeahwa4 wrote

You’re alleging that Business Insider is just making up the quotes and data in this article?

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[deleted] t1_jeaobly wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jearkfy wrote

Ah, I see now. You don’t understand what words mean.

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[deleted] t1_jeas1bt wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jeas7wo wrote

“Estimate” does not mean “just make up a number.” This is something that people typically learn in grade school.

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[deleted] t1_jeashf8 wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jeasukn wrote

LMAO are you serious? You don’t understand any of this at all, do you?

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[deleted] t1_jeat07q wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jeatxmz wrote

You’re misusing the concept of “fact vs opinion“(more words you don’t understand). The concept that you’re actually struggling to communicate is “accurate vs inaccurate.” Estimates, like other data, can be either accurate or inaccurate. What evidence do you have that the estimate quoted in this piece is inaccurate? And why are you completely ignoring the rest of the data in the article?

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the_all_peeping_eye t1_jeaua3g wrote

What, other than the actual article correction saying that the estimate was not factual 🤣

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jeashiv wrote

Why do keep editing your posts after I respond to them?

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[deleted] t1_jeasnyr wrote

[deleted]

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MenWhoStareAtBoats t1_jeaswwi wrote

Yeah, I’m guessing that you don’t know what that word means either.

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