A Quick Response To The John Oliver clip About Crypto
A few days ago the John Oliver show featured cryptocurrencies. The host, douche John Oliver, filtered the entire show under his usual politically correct, liberal propaganda. Although he made some excellent points, almost all of them had ridiculous fallacies. Much like most TV Shows, he degenerated the entire presentation so that he can get his ideological point across.
It is true that Blockchain technologies have yet to be matured and that in the near future they might even not appear like we know them today. All this 'Bitcoin revolution' can vanish and get replaced by a few projects like Hashgraph or Neno that use entirely different technologies — even though they are based on the same principle. Nonetheless, this is not beanie babies type of bubble and this is what he gets wrong right off the bat to kick off the sentiment of the show.
The entire space is full of scams. More than 99% I would say. The reason is quite simple. Most Venture Capitalists loaded way before 2016 when we saw the boom. Companies like XAPO or Coinbase pumped the space with the early adopters. These investors then continued doing their own ICOs attracting more capital. The result of this chain reaction was the creation of less and less credible projects to the point of creating tokens like Fuck, Titscoin and etc. Much like a pyramid scheme at the end we get the entire shit served.
What we are seeing in the space up is 'loading and unloading'. What we mean by that is that Companies issue fake tokens such ERC-20 and unload on more legit ones like Bitcoin or Ethereum and then of course Fiat currencies. None of them has a working product yet they are stacking up millions, sometimes billions. It is ridiculous to say the least.
The Brock Pierce reference was spot on. For the first time in the space we have dildos like him, John Mcfee, Ian Balina, Charlie Shrem, Jeff Berwick and the like that got rich by accident — and now they are waving their dick around. From the first time I saw Brock, I realised it was just an insecure douche that was loaded up with drugs and accessories in order to appear "larger" both in figure and in spirit. His presentations are laughable and remind me those of Christian cult conversions. People like him fall as fast as they rise. Even his billion plan for cash out in Puerto Rico by using "humanitarian flags" is rather ridiculous but still believable from most crypto cultists. One can sense the exuberance flowing through him — the one of 'getting rich too fast' and not knowing what to do with it.
John Oliver also makes a great point about the gambling in the crypto space because in reality it is just a huge casino arena where the weakest hands get REKT. Surely as the market goes up, everyone is benefited but it is mostly gambling. Bitcoin is not a better investment than the dollar if it drops to zero.
Everything is a good investment if you cash out on time. The parabolic trends are not going to last forever, surely not with the future in place. The crazy volatility that allows making bank on plebs is going to shrink. The game is just going to get as boring as with NASDAQ and traditional exchanges. Don't be surprised even if CoinMarketCap does not exist. Companies can still create blockchains or tokenized securities without dodgy ERC-20 or pointless forks. Is not that hard.
Most people think that coinmarketcap will replace traditional exchanges. This will never happen. In all likelihood, traditional exchanges and VC's are going to take all that pleb-earned money and pour it into the the traditional economy — much like what Ethereum is doing and much like Neo is doing. Every major player's 'revolution' has officially joined the big boys and trying to get 'legit'. Including Bitcoin. What, you thought the crypto clowns are going to run the world?
So to sum it up, no John Oliver, crypto is not a bubble that will become obsolete soon like beanie babies. It is not a complete scam. Some projects are going to survive and at some point on or two products will gain public momentum. Until then though his narrative is much more convincing than any white papers I have read so far.
I thought it was a funny spot, if somewhat painful for those of us involved in crypto. It's hard to argue about the number of douches involved so far. A new frontier of opportunity brings them out in force. Plenty of good projects and people also, though.
It's quite standard in other fields (not merely crypto) for angel, early VC, and crowdfunding investments to be made with the promise of a future product/service (and nothing tangible yet), so I thought that line of joking was rather lame. By the end, if I hadn't known anything about crypto, I would not have been turned off to it and I would have wanted to investigate more, so by that standard, the spot was not purely negative.
Thing is, most millennials, the heart and soul of the crypto boom are becoming increasingly skeptical of pretty much anything. Too much noise results in indecision. It also really hard to make up the good projects due to the immense clutter. I believe the best approach is 'spray and pray' with perhaps 1% of monthly income for newcomers. Perhaps an index would be much safer for most.
This is my theory exactly, almost all icos that have recently been released have traded well below ico price upon dropping on exchanges. Naturally as the price of Bitcoin and Eth have dropped and Eth being the usual coin of choice to buy into icos it is inevitable that they also would crash upon release. Coupled with the associated risk factor, I fear that interest in icos will decline as profits are much less guaranteed. Many investors will have funds tied up in under performing icos as well.
To reverse this trend the seedy icos need to be pushed out of the market with perhaps the help of some kind of decentralised regulatory apparatus so the community involved can decide, also the whole market needs see some green again or it makes much more sense to just hold already established coins
Overall it was a pretty good show, although like what you said not a complete picture, including the scamminess that fiat can be as well. The puerto rico paradise plan is like the beginning of a bad hollywood movie.
He will realize that is crap once he stops sniffing snow
This line is classic!
"We have dildos like Brock, John Mcfee, Ian Balina, Charlie Shrem, Jeff Berwick and the like that got rich by accident — and now they are waving their dicks around."
How do you cope with half of Steemit literally going to Mexico to worship!
Gullible idiots? They are always in the surplus.
Jeff Berwick was one of the main personalities- that finally lit a fire under my ass- to stop sitting on the side-lines & finally go buy some Bitcoin back in 2016. His podcasts- actually present a relatively informative picture to get NOOBS into cyrpto In GENERAL. The problems come- when a person listening to the people- starts to follow their every word & advice like a FINANCIAL GURU.
And come on- McAfee provides MUCH ENTERTAINMENT.
This guy is completed Libtarded, but such is England...
Wow an article that attracts my friend.@kyriacos
That sycophant Oliver, I really dislike his face.
At least he equates crypto bubble with beanie babies and not tulip mania.
good news buddy, I like to post friends
"Bitcoin is the future...dude!" No matter what altered perception John Oliver might have of cryptocurrencies, THEY are the future. The entire scale and volatility of every other coin/token is dependent upon BTC in the current market, and the value in its potential use in the future. Everything from groceries to transportation will have its own form of digital currency. Sure enough, if you can earn $ for taking a crap and logging it, no pun intended, there would be a PooCoin...
You lost me at "liberal propaganda".