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Maltnothops's avatar

I’m no Warren Buffett but I did spend a career in finance and, just like WB, I never understood what crypto was all about. Other than a way to facilitate illegal activities.

It’s a solution in search of a problem. To the extent that people have made money owning and selling it, I suspect it is almost entirely a matter of the Greater Fool strategy.

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

It’s all about obfuscating the transfer of funds and facilitating the introduction of dark money into our politics. It has worked spectacularly well for Shitler, his family, Putin and every stinking Republicon that marches in lockstep with him.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

What? Dishonest Christians scamming congregants out of their money??? Hmph. Another day that ends in "Y."

Let's be real here: bible-thumpers have been separating marks from their money practically since religion was invented. Crypto is just the latest BS scheme pressed into service. The Regalados just followed the playbook.

And got caught. 😝

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

They will be pardoned, or paroled, or put on probation. One thing we can be completely sure of, though, is they will be welcomed back to the church!

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Grant Jackson's avatar

THIS GUY COULD BE PREZIDUNT!

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

More like presi-DON'T!

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Boreal's avatar

Both cryptocurrency and religion were invented to part rubes from their money.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Can we hope that the same thing will happen to Trump? As I understand it, he's got a considerable amount of his fortune tied up in cryptocurrency.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Ah, Trump’s crypto isn’t an investment in currency though. It is a thinly veiled bribe. The “investors” are not expecting to use the currency or get their money back, they’re expecting legislation that benefits them, or favors, or pardons from the most powerful man on the planet.

No one is going to expect Trump to actually give them money, so there will be no legal complaints by the investors.

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

🎯

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Nevoustrumpezpas's avatar

Although his MAGA movement is essentially a cult, he does not (usually) pretend to be a man of God. His followers largely come from an evangelical Christian background, but he does not promise them an easy trip to Heaven. Instead they will be better off economically, he claims, and they'll avenge themselves for oppression by the liberal society.

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Boreal's avatar

I hope hackers take it all. Given in the incompetence of trump and his minions, I'm surprised it hasn't already happened.

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Len Koz's avatar

Maybe it has and they haven't realized yet.

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Stephen Brady's avatar

how do you know it hasn't?

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Boreal's avatar

I don’t

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Stephen Brady's avatar

I think it is safe to say he is converting his crypto into gold as fast as possible.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

You beat me to this thought.

I am not having a good morning,

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Maltnothops's avatar

In my humble opinion, I don’t think religion was invented to part rubes from their money. But I suspect the realization that it was useful for that purpose wasn’t too far behind the invention.

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oraxx's avatar

Fools and their money. It's an age-old story. I have a hard time feeling sorry for people foolish enough to invest with a preacher, especially in crypto-currency. Warren Buffett became one of the wealthiest people on the planet by being able to identify value, and invest in it for the long term. Buffett said he simply could not see where the value was in crypto-currency. Especially since no government backs any of them. Listen to Warren. Ignore preachers.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

First time DM and me heard about cryptocurrency, we were "What does any of that mean ?" and we decided to not trust it.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

You would think that Christians would know about the parable of the house built on the rock, versus the one built on the sand.

Then again, maybe not.

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Joe King's avatar

Do you really expect them to read the words of that woke leftist, Jesus?

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Len Koz's avatar

God damn hippy, helping the poor and the sick and not charging them...

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oraxx's avatar

Good decision.

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

Warren Buffet has my respect. Unlike the great majority of billionaires, he didn’t find it necessary to rip people off to obtain his wealth. So, it is possible…

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oraxx's avatar

His companies have huge investments here in the burbs of North Dallas.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Les regalado, c'est pas des cadeaux.

I hope whichever judge will sentence them for a potential jail time will not take their religion into account to give them a free pass.

Edit : I nearly posted before Oraxx, damn it ! One day, I will manage it 🤣

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oraxx's avatar

I'm elderly, I get up early because I can't sleep, and I don't have much to do. ;)

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

It's between early and the middle of the afternoon for me when Hemant post 🤣

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Maltnothops's avatar

A month into retirement I find I’m sleeping in a bit. I like it.

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

Practice practice practice! Retirement gets better and better, with practice.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

I sleep great. It’s getting up that vexes this old guy.

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Stephen Brady's avatar

I hear you. I have been up for 4+ hours when he posts.

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larry parker's avatar

"and for every legitimate cryptocurrency project out there"

The "legitimate" ones are still scams.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Since I first heard of it, I can't help but think of cryptocurrency as being anything other than a baseless scam. How it's managed to fool so many people, I haven't the slightest.

Though it seems as though the whole get rich quick scheme just never runs out of gas, does it?

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ericc's avatar

It never will. Not just because 'sucker born every minute', but because there's a con artist born every minute too.

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Richard S. Russell's avatar

Stop and think for a moment about the INTRINSIC value of those pieces of paper you have in your wallet, or those little engraved pieces of metal in your coin purse. If they weren't backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, they'd barely be useful as fire starters or window shims. The Latin word for faith is "fiat", and what we've got in the US (even before electrons on wires and magnetism on little pieces of plastic) is justifiably called "fiat money".

Of course, the reason it's still going strong after all these centuries is because it's so incredibly USEFUL. We don't have to spend a whole lot of time figuring out that our 2 bushels of corn is worth only half of your pig, so who's going to get the other half and how long are they willing to wait for it?

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Kiwiwriter47's avatar

Hmmm....the moneychanger was kicked out of the temple. And not by Jesus. Good.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

This is what I get for being 20 minutes late to read this article. Yours was the very first thing I thought.

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Kiwiwriter47's avatar

Sorry I beat you to it, but great minds think alike!

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Mea culpa. All my fault. :)

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Walt Svirsky's avatar

Well, you did beat me to it.

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cag's avatar

OT. I come before you, not for forgiveness but for confession. I have done the most vile, disgusting and abhorrent act ever done by a human. I can not forgive myself, so I can’t expect it of you.

My respect for Trump has actually doubled during the latest events. It used to be that I had 0 (zero) respect for Trump. Now my respect has grown so great that it is 00 (double zero). Is there anyone out there who can offer me a modicum of pity. Please.

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Cleora's avatar

Actually, cag, you are not off-topic at all. Trump and his boys are doing the same thing with crypto that these xtians did and his cultists line up every day to be victims!

I don't really care about those idiots, but as part of his scam, Trump is trying to replace the dollar with his crypto as the coin of the realm!! His destruction of the US/world economy will soon be complete!!

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cag's avatar

Crypto is such a scam. Let's assume someone has 1000 bitcoins. They bid $3000 over market so that becomes the market. What they've done is spend $3000 to get $2,997,000.

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Stephen Brady's avatar

You must go forth and say 50 Heil tRumps.

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XJC's avatar

God could not be reached for comment about this Christian scam.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Pretty hard to reach something that doesn't exist!

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XJC's avatar

Don't tell that to The Media.

You could offend someone and hurt "their" feelings.

And that would be unconscionable.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

Kindly tell "The Media" that they can suck a root! 😝

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Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

I wonder if he will testify at their sentencing.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

This only convinces me more that religion is nothing other than the original multi level marketing scam. It’s not about the product, it is about the people (specifically their money) you can pull in to perpetuate the scam. You buy the product, you buy into the product, then you convince friends to buy into the product, then they invite friends to buy in and eventually everyone has bought in and the first folks have all kinds of cash while the newest have debt. Crypto is the same thing. Even with what little regulation there is on it, no one buying into it has ever gained wealth, only the folks who start it up win. And it fits so well with the religion culture.

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Richard S. Russell's avatar

You would certainly appreciate the book "Hoodwinked: How Marketers Use the Same Tactics as Cults", by investigative reporter Mara Einstein. It contains chapter-and-verse documentation in support of your hypothesis.

She makes the point that people who fall for MLMs aren't buying products, they're buying philosophies, attitudes, lifestyles, and images. And there's a heavy, heavy dose of the same kind of "us good, them bad" mentality which is a hallmark of overtly religious cults.

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NOGODZ20's avatar

Come to think of it, crypto and biblical deities are two of a kind. Both are imaginary and ordinary schmucks who invest in either wind up in ruins for their efforts.

EDIT to fix my dumbass typos

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Stephen Brady's avatar

There is a sucker born every minute... Christians have been known to be easy marks just about from the get go. 'Too good to be true' should be the motto of christianity. But when your targets are people who can be sold on believing in an undetectable and unprovable god... it is just too much temptation for these scoundrels to pass up. I'm just not sure why their all-everything god doesn't just stop these shenanigans.

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Vanity Unfair's avatar

P T Barnum?

"Showman and former Connecticut State Representative"

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Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

Yes.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

They've been taught to believe in miracles. Getting them to buy into a bogus get-rich-quick scheme should be child's play.

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Joe King's avatar

𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑛 𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 “𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡” 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑔𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑗𝑜𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝, 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠.

And this will be the foundation of their "persecution!" cries.

Claiming that the bait and switch promises of wealth inherent to crypto schemes amounts to just a proselytizing tool goes beyond what the mega rich televangelists do.

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oraxx's avatar

Playing the poor, persecuted victims of the godless left is their standard fall-back position.

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Charles Newman's avatar

"Religion, biggest scam ever " George Carlin was right! 😆

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phelpsmediation's avatar

This demonstrates how people that buy into religious thinking, using mythology as an epistemology, discounting evidence and logic for faith, will open people up to faith based scams and never use their cognitive abilities for good decisions.

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Bill Wilson's avatar

So when the Regalados are in prison the judge should order that their prison commissary accounts can only be funded by INDXcoin.

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