Reports of crypto's death have been slightly exaggerated
It's way down in 2022, but not as much as you'd think.
So, what’s been happening on the cryptocurrency front lately?
Well, then. When you have to deny being part of a group chat called “wirefraud,” that’s a bad sign.
On Monday night, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried denied being part of a group chat called “Wirefraud” with other leaders of the bankrupt crypto exchange. Less than a day later, Bahamian police arrested Bankman-Fried after U.S. federal prosecutors indicted him on a bevy of charges—including wire fraud.
Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York announced eight counts on several charges Tuesday: wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud (against both customers and lenders), conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate campaign finance law.
Other crypto lenders are coming under scrutiny in the wake of FTX’s spectacular collapse. CNBC reports on the shady past of crypto dot com founder Kris Marszalek, and there are also rumblings about Binance being in trouble, though I’m sure these are completely overblown and unfou- [record scratch]
Yeah, if I had anything tied up in Binance, this would be my cue to head for the exits.
Elsewhere in the wild world of Web 3.0:
Is it wrong that I kind of want one of these? Oh, wait… (right-clicks photo, clicks “save image as,” opens file in Windows photo viewer, crops out the sales pitch) now I do.
With all of this going on, you’d think Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would be worth about as much as Marianne Williamson 2020 campaign merchandise.
Scratch that: the market for Williamson merchandise is much hotter than I thought, if eBay is any indication.
But even after a truly horrendous year for Bitcoin, it’s still kind of…hanging in there. I still remember when it was worth $10,000.00 and assumed the bubble was just about to pop. The price has actually gone up since FTX filed for bankruptcy:
It seems like everyone who wanted to bail out has already done so, leaving the wild-eyed true believers, and people whose crypto holdings are so small that they can afford to lose it all, but have decided they might as well try riding it out and see if it recovers and booms again.
Maybe once this World Cup year is over.
the plane today wouldn’t be full of cigarette smoke.
the 2022 plane would be several orders of magnitude more fuel-efficient and emit far less carbon emissions.
a plane ticket today is actually kind of affordable compared to the early seventies, to the point where some of the passengers might not be (gasp!) part of the same socio-economic class as historian-turned-tweeter Michael Beschloss.
the flight attendants weren’t hired based almost entirely on their physical appearance.
there might actually be more than one non-white person on the plane in 2022. (Sorry, Michael, but this is the kind of thing your team usually calls out.)
Re Trump's digital trading cards, several Freepers commented that the leg lamp would be more useful.