Market fraud

Due to its decentralized and fragmented character, the crypto market has integrity difficulties.

Cryptocurrencies are an immature sector, therefore market manipulation becomes a bigger issue. Many research have attempted to uncover these abuses. CryptoCompare's newest one highlights some of the industry's most typical scams.

Why are these concerns so common in the crypto market? First, even the largest centralized exchanges remain unregulated due to industry immaturity. A low-liquidity market segment makes an attack more harmful. Finally, market surveillance solutions not implemented reduce transparency.

In CryptoCompare's latest exchange benchmark, 62.4% of assessed exchanges had a market surveillance system, although only 18.1% utilised an external solution. To address market integrity, this measure must improve dramatically. Before discussing the report's malpractices, note that this is not a full list of attacks and hacks.

Clean Trading

An investor buys and sells concurrently to increase the asset's price. Centralized and decentralized exchanges show this misconduct. 23 exchanges have a volume-volatility correlation < 0.1 during the previous 100 days, according to CryptoCompares. In August 2022, Exchange A reported $2.5 trillion in artificial and/or erroneous volume, up from $33.8 billion the month before.

Spoofing

Criminals create and cancel fake orders before they can be filled. Since manipulators can hide in larger trading volumes, larger exchanges have more spoofing. A trader placed a 20.8 BTC ask order at $19,036 when BTC was trading at $19,043. BTC declined 0.13% to $19,018 in a minute. At 18:48, the trader canceled the ask order without filling it.

Front-Running

Most cryptocurrency front-running involves inside trading. Traditional stock markets forbid this. Since most digital asset information is public, this is harder. Retailers could utilize bots to front-run.

CryptoCompare found digital wallets of people who traded like insiders on exchange listings. The figure below shows excess cumulative anomalous returns (CAR) before a coin listing on an exchange.

Finally, LAYERING is a sequence of spoofs in which successive orders are put along a ladder of greater (layering offers) or lower (layering bids) values. The paper concludes with recommendations to mitigate market manipulation. Exchange data transparency, market surveillance, and regulatory oversight could reduce manipulative tactics.

It’s simply not conceivable, or at least not credible.

One of the most touted selling points of Crypto has always been this grandiose idea of decentralization. Bitcoin first arose in 2009 after the housing crisis and subsequent crash that came with it. It aimed to solve this supposed issue of centralization. Nobody “owns” Bitcoin in theory, so the idea then goes that it won’t be subject to the same downfalls that led to the 2008 crash or similarly speculative events that led to the 2008 disaster. The issue is the banks, not the human nature associated with the greedy individuals running them.

Subsequent blockchains have attempted to fix many of the issues of Bitcoin by increasing capacity, decreasing the costs and processing times associated with Bitcoin, and expanding what can be done with their blockchains. Since nobody owns Bitcoin, it hasn’t really been able to be expanded on. You have people like Vitalk Buterin, however, that actively work on Ethereum though.

The leap from Bitcoin to Ethereum was a massive leap toward centralization, and the trend has only gotten worse. In fact, crypto has since become almost exclusively centralized in recent years.

Decentralization is only good in theory

It’s a good idea. In fact, it’s a wonderful idea. However, like other utopian societies, individuals misjudge human nature and greed. In a perfect world, decentralization would certainly be a wonderful idea because sure, people may function as their own banks, move payments immediately, remain anonymous, and so on. However, underneath this are a couple issues:

• You can already send money instantaneously today.

• They are not decentralized.

• Decentralization is a bad idea.

• Being your own bank is a stupid move.

Let’s break these down. Some are quite simple, but lets have a look.

Sending money right away

One thing with crypto is the idea that you can send payments instantly. This has pretty much been entirely solved in current times. You can transmit significant sums of money instantly for a nominal cost and it’s instantaneously cleared. Venmo was launched in 2009 and has since increased to prominence, and currently is on most people's phones. I can directly send ANY amount of money quickly from my bank to another person's Venmo account.

Comparing that with ETH and Bitcoin, Venmo wins all around. I can send money to someone for free instantly in dollars and the only fee paid is optional depending on when you want it.

Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are subject to demand. If the blockchains have a lot of people trying to process transactions fee’s go up, and the time that it takes to receive your crypto takes longer. When Ethereum gets bad, people have reported spending several thousand of dollars on just 1 transaction.

These transactions take place via “miners” bundling and confirming transactions, then recording them on the blockchain to confirm that the transaction did indeed happen. They charge fees to do this and are also paid in Bitcoin/ETH. When a transaction is confirmed, it's then sent to the other users wallet. This within itself is subject to lots of controversy because each transaction needs to be confirmed 6 times, this takes massive amounts of power, and most of the power is wasted because this is an adversarial system in which the person that mines the transaction gets paid, and everyone else is out of luck. Also, these could theoretically be subject to a “51% attack” in which anyone with over 51% of the mining hash rate could effectively control all of the transactions, and reverse transactions while keeping the BTC resulting in “double spending”.

There are tons of other issues with this, but essentially it means: They rely on these third parties to confirm the transactions. Without people confirming these transactions, Bitcoin stalls completely, and if anyone becomes too dominant they can effectively control bitcoin.

Not to mention, these transactions are in Bitcoin and ETH, not dollars. So, you need to convert them to dollars still, and that's several more transactions, and likely to take several days anyway as the centralized exchange needs to send you the money by traditional methods.

They are not distributed

That takes me to the following point. This isn’t decentralized, at all. Bitcoin is the closest it gets because Satoshi basically closed it to new upgrades, although its still subject to:

• Whales

• Miners

It’s vital to realize that these are often the same folks. While whales aren’t centralized entities typically, they can considerably effect the price and outcome of Bitcoin. If the largest wallets holding as much as 1 million BTC were to sell, it’d effectively collapse the price perhaps beyond repair. However, Bitcoin can and is pretty much controlled by the miners. Further, Bitcoin is more like an oligarchy than decentralized. It’s been effectively used to make the rich richer, and both the mining and price is impacted by the rich. The overwhelming minority of those actually using it are retail investors. The retail investors are basically never the ones generating money from it either.

As far as ETH and other cryptos go, there is realistically 0 case for them being decentralized. Vitalik could not only kill it but even walking away from it would likely lead to a significant decline. It has tons of issues right now that Vitalik has promised to fix with the eventual Ethereum 2.0., and stepping away from it wouldn’t help.

Most tokens as well are generally tied to some promise of future developments and creators. The same is true for most NFT projects. The reason 99% of crypto and NFT projects fail is because they failed to deliver on various promises or bad dev teams, or poor innovation, or the founders just straight up stole from everyone. I could go more in-depth than this but go find any project and if there is a dev team, company, or person tied to it then it's likely, not decentralized. The success of that project is directly tied to the dev team, and if they wanted to, most hold large wallets and could sell it all off effectively killing the project. Not to mention, any crypto project that doesn’t have a locked contract can 100% be completely rugged and they can run off with all of the money.

Decentralization is undesirable

Even if they were decentralized then it would not be a good thing. The graphic above indicates this is effectively a rich person’s unregulated playground… so it’s exactly like… the very issue it tried to solve?

Not to mention, it’s supposedly meant to prevent things like 2008, but is regularly subjected to 50–90% drawdowns in value? Back when Bitcoin was only known in niche parts of the dark web and illegal markets, it would regularly drop as much as 90% and has a long history of massive drawdowns.

The majority of crypto is blatant scams, and ALL of crypto is a “zero” or “negative” sum game in that it relies on the next person buying for people to make money. This is not a good thing. This has yet to solve any issues around what caused the 2008 crisis. Rather, it seemingly amplified all of the bad parts of it actually. Crypto is the ultimate speculative asset and realistically has no valuation metric. People invest in Apple because it has revenue and cash on hand. People invest in crypto purely for speculation. The lack of regulation or accountability means this is amplified to the most extreme degree where anything goes: Fraud, deception, pump and dumps, scams, etc. This results in a pure speculative madhouse where, unsurprisingly, only the rich win. Not only that but the deck is massively stacked in against the everyday investor because you can’t do a pump and dump without money.

At the heart of all of this is still the same issues: greed and human nature. However, in setting out to solve the issues that allowed 2008 to happen, they made something that literally took all of the bad parts of 2008 and then amplified it. 2008, similarly, was due to greed and human nature but was allowed to happen due to lack of oversite, rich people's excessive leverage over the poor, and excessive speculation. Crypto trades SOLELY on human emotion, has 0 oversite, is pure speculation, and the power dynamic is just as bad or worse.

Why should each individual be their own bank?

This is the last one, and it's short and basic. Why do we want people functioning as their own bank? Everything we do relies on another person. Without the internet, and internet providers there is no crypto. We don’t have people functioning as their own home and car manufacturers or internet service providers. Sure, you might specialize in some of these things, but masquerading as your own bank is a horrible idea.

I am not in the banking industry so I don’t know all the issues with banking. Most people aren’t in banking or crypto, so they don’t know the ENDLESS scams associated with it, and they are bound to lose their money eventually.

If you appreciate this article and want to read more from me and authors like me, without any limits, consider buying me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/calebnaysmith

OpenAI's ChatGPT is an amazing AI-powered chatbot. It can write poetry, fiction, and marketing ideas. I was impressed how well ChatGPT followed the interview, albeit there were a few classics “I’m afraid I can’t do that”.

Full interview below.

Me: I'm your interviewer. We'll discuss crypto. Thanks for being interviewed. What do you think about cryptocurrency?

CGPT: Cryptocurrency is an innovative technology that could transform money and financial activities. It might boost the efficiency and security of financial institutions and let consumers deal directly without banks. Cryptocurrency is still a new and untested technology with many unknowns and hurdles before it can be broadly accepted.

Me: Over 22,000 cryptocurrencies exist, and many have little use. We need how much cryptocurrencies?

CGPT: The appropriate quantity will rely on a multitude of factors, including each cryptocurrency's use cases, adoption rate, and market rivalry. Only a few cryptocurrencies will likely receive widespread adoption and be successful. Many existing cryptocurrencies may not survive since they can't deliver new or valued solutions or compete with more established cryptocurrencies.

Me: Will cryptocurrencies grow? What's next for worldwide adoption?

CGPT: It's hard to forecast the future of cryptocurrencies because the acceptance of new technologies is unpredictable. I believe cryptocurrencies will expand and acquire popularity in the future years. Regulatory ambiguity, security concerns, and scalability issues must be overcome for this to happen. Cryptocurrency companies and organizations must engage together with governments and authorities to address these obstacles and establish a growth-friendly climate. Continued innovation and improvement of the technology, including public education and awareness, will drive acceptance.

Me: Do bear markets affect bitcoin adoption?

CGPT: On the one hand, a bear market might induce uncertainty and hesitation among potential consumers. Bear markets can present opportunities for long-term investors who can acquire cryptocurrencies at cheaper prices and are more likely to hang onto their assets. A bear market can also test the tenacity and power of the underlying technology and community, which can boost long-term confidence and adoption. A bear market might have profound and nuanced effects on bitcoin adoption.

Me: What are some likely outcomes if Bitcoin reaches $100,000 by next year?

CGPT: If Bitcoin saw rapid growth, it would undoubtedly have repercussions for the cryptocurrency market and economy. Possible scenarios include increased public interest and awareness of cryptocurrency, a surge in demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and a growth in the cryptocurrency industry's market value. By shifting their focus and cash to the cryptocurrency market, investors and traders may also affect other asset classes, such as traditional equities and commodities. Governments and financial organizations may focus more on the cryptocurrency sector as they try to grasp Bitcoin's rapid rise.

Me: Will other countries accept crypto as currency?

CGPT: It's hard to say if additional governments will adopt cryptocurrencies as legal tender. Some countries have recognized the promise of bitcoin and are exploring its use, while others are cautious. Adoption of bitcoin as legal cash may vary by country, based on financial infrastructure, rules, and political atmosphere. As cryptocurrency technology evolves and becomes more accepted, more governments may embrace it as legal tender.

Me: Final question: will the recent cryptocurrency hacks affect long term adoption?

CGPT: Hacks might tarnish cryptocurrency's reputation and public faith in its security, the technology underpinning it is continually improving. Many cryptocurrency projects have developed strong security mechanisms to prevent hacks and other dangers, and these safeguards will undoubtedly improve over time. The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency makes it more resistant to attacks. Hacks and other security breaches are a concern, but they may not affect cryptocurrency adoption.

I've summarized each.

Anne Lamott said books are important. Books help us understand ourselves and our behavior. They teach us about community, friendship, and death.

I read. One of my few life-changing habits. 100+ books a year improve my life. I'll list life-changing books you can read in a day. I hope you like them too.

Let's get started!

1) Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

One of my favorite philosophy books. Ryan Holiday, Naval Ravikant, and other prolific readers recommend it.

Seneca wrote 124 letters at the end of his life after working for Nero. Death, friendship, and virtue are discussed.

It's worth rereading. When I'm in trouble, I consult Seneca.

It's brief. The book could be read in one day. However, use it for guidance during difficult times.

My favorite book quotes:

• Many men find that becoming wealthy only alters their problems rather than solving them.

• You will never be poor if you live in harmony with nature; you will never be wealthy if you live according to what other people think.

• We suffer more frequently in our imagination than in reality; there are more things that are likely to frighten us than to crush us.

2) Steven Pressfield's book The War of Art

I’ve read this book twice. I'll likely reread it before 2022 is over.

The War Of Art is the best productivity book. Steven offers procrastination-fighting tips.

Writers, musicians, and creative types will love The War of Art. Workplace procrastinators should also read this book.

My favorite book quotes:

• The act of creation is what matters most in art. Other than sitting down and making an effort every day, nothing else matters.

• Working creatively is not a selfish endeavor or an attempt by the actor to gain attention. It serves as a gift for all living things in the world. Don't steal your contribution from us. Give us everything you have.

• Fear is healthy. Fear is a signal, just like self-doubt. Fear instructs us on what to do. The more terrified we are of a task or calling, the more certain we can be that we must complete it.

3) Darren Hardy's The Compound Effect

The Compound Effect offers practical tips to boost productivity by 10x.

The author believes each choice shapes your future. Pizza may seem harmless. However, daily use increases heart disease risk.

Positive outcomes too. Daily gym visits improve fitness. Reading an hour each night can help you learn. Writing 1,000 words per day would allow you to write a novel in under a year.

Your daily choices affect compound interest and your future. Thus, better habits can improve your life.

My favorite book quotes:

• Until you alter a daily habit, you cannot change your life. The key to your success can be found in the actions you take each day.

• The hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things are what distinguish the ordinary from the extraordinary; it is not the big things that add up in the end.

• Don't worry about willpower. Time to use why-power. Only when you relate your decisions to your aspirations and dreams will they have any real meaning. The decisions that are in line with what you define as your purpose, your core self, and your highest values are the wisest and most inspiring ones. To avoid giving up too easily, you must want something and understand why you want it.

Wasn't that a get-rich-quick scheme?

OpenSea processed $2.7 billion in NFT transactions in May 2021.

Fueled by a crypto bull run, rumors of unfathomable riches, and FOMO, Bored Apes, Crypto Punks, and other JPEG-format trash projects flew off the virtual shelves, snatched up by retail investors and celebrities alike.

Over a year later, those shelves are overflowing and warehouses are backlogged. Since March, I've been writing less. In May and June, the bubble was close to bursting.

Apparently, the boom has finally peaked.

This bubble has punctured, and deflation has begun. On Aug. 28, OpenSea processed $9.34 million.

From that euphoric high of $2.7 billion, $9.34 million represents a spectacular decline of 99%.

OpenSea contradicts the data. A trading platform spokeswoman stated the comparison is unfair because it compares the site's highest and lowest trading days. They're the perfect two data points to assess the drop. OpenSea chooses to use ETH volume measures, which ignore crypto's shifting price. Since January 2022, monthly ETH volume has dropped 140%, according to Dune.

Unconvincing counterargument.

Further OpenSea indicators point to declining NFT demand:

• Since January 2022, daily user visits have decreased by 50%.

• Daily transactions have decreased by 50% since the beginning of the year in the same manner.

Off-platform, the floor price of Bored Apes has dropped from 145 ETH to 77 ETH. (At $4,800, a reduction from $700,000 to $370,000). Google search data shows waning popular interest.

It is a trend that will soon vanish, just like laser eyes.

NFTs haven't moved since the new year. Eminem and Snoop Dogg can utilize their apes in music videos or as 3D visuals to perform at the VMAs, but the reality is that NFTs have lost their public appeal and the market is trying to regain its footing.

They've lost popularity because?

Breaking records. The technology still lacks genuine use cases a year and a half after being popular.

They're pricey prestige symbols that have made a few people rich through cunning timing or less-than-savory scams or rug pulling. Over $10.5 billion has been taken through frauds, most of which are NFT enterprises promising to be the next Bored Apes, according to Web3 is going wonderfully. As the market falls, many ordinary investors realize they purchased into a self-fulfilling ecosystem that's halted. Many NFTs are sold between owner-held accounts to boost their price, data suggests. Most projects rely on social media excitement to debut with a high price before the first owners sell and chuckle to the bank. When they don't, the initiative fails, leaving investors high and dry.

NFTs are fading like laser eyes. Most people pushing the technology don't believe in it or the future it may bring. No, they just need a Kool-Aid-drunk buyer.

Everybody wins. When your JPEGs are worth 99% less than when you bought them, you've lost.

When demand reaches zero, many will lose.

This is for young entrepreneurs, especially in tech.

People give useless success advice on TikTok and Reddit. Early risers, bookworms, etc. Entrepreneurship courses. Work hard and hustle.

False. These aren't successful traits.

I mean, organization is good. As someone who founded several businesses and now works at a VC firm, I find these tips to be clichés.

Based on founding four successful businesses and working with other successful firms, here's my best actionable advice:

1. Choose a sector or a niche and become an expert in it.

This is more generic than my next tip, but it's a must-do that's often overlooked. Become an expert in the industry or niche you want to enter. Discover everything.

Buy (future) competitors' products. Understand consumers' pain points. Market-test. Target keyword combos. Learn technical details.

The most successful businesses I've worked with were all formed by 9-5 employees. They knew the industry's pain points. They started a business targeting these pain points.

2. Choose a niche or industry crossroads to target.

How do you choose an industry or niche? What if your industry is too competitive?

List your skills and hobbies. Randomness is fine. Find an intersection between two interests or skills.

Say you build websites well. You like cars.

Web design is a *very* competitive industry. Cars and web design?

Instead of web design, target car dealers and mechanics. Build a few fake demo auto mechanic websites, then cold call shops with poor websites. Verticalize.

I've noticed a pattern:

• Person works in a particular industry for a corporation.

• Person gains expertise in the relevant industry.

• Person quits their job and launches a small business to address a problem that their former employer was unwilling to address.

I originally posted this on Reddit and it seemed to have taken off so I decided to share it with you all.

Focus on the product. When someone buys from you, you convince them the product's value exceeds the price. It's not fair and favors the buyer.

Creating a superior product or service will win. Narrowing this helps you outcompete others.

You may be their only (lucky) option.