I'm more than a little concerned that the recent election is going to pull a lot more people into investing in cryptocurrency -- most of whom probably are nowhere near as savvy as they need to be to avoid getting fleeced by scammers. I hear constantly from people who poured their savings or kids' college fund into crypto, only to see it all stolen when they clicked the wrong button or link.
You know what the typical answer is from the feds? We're drowning here. Just too many cases. These thefts are often $500K or more, and the frequency of them is rapidly increasing the monetary loss thresholds that would normally get law enforcement's attention.
Also, tons of people are now pouring money into the market, which is already vastly overpriced by almost any measure. Here are some sage words from a WSJ story today about how "investors are betting on a market melt-up:"
"One measure closely tracked by investors, the equity risk premium—or the gap between the S&P 500’s earnings yield and that of 10-year Treasurys—shrank close to zero, the lowest level since 2002, according to Dow Jones Market Data. That means the reward for owning stocks over bonds is dwindling."
“The market is awfully expensive to have a melt-up,” said Rob Arnott, the founder and chairman of Research Affiliates."
wsj.com/finance/investing/inve…
https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/113499122481388186
https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/investors-are-betting-on-a-market-melt-up-3a007dd4
@briankrebs
You forgot the part about said people then wailing about being fleeced and opening a "gofundme" page because they were "unlucky".
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@briankrebs Back around 2010 I was thinking about buying bitcoin and then it hit me that the state of computer security was not going to improve any time soon. I said nay.
I thought the […]
@briankrebs I don’t talk a lot about money because I’m just a poor idiot, but this long post pretty much mirrors my thoughts.
1. Crypto number might go up, but every single person is trying […]
@briankrebs I'm trying to find a way to bet against these scams. Do you know if there's a "market basket" (in this case filled with rotten products) approach to buying puts?
@briankrebs There's not much you can do other than keep pointing out that crypto has no underlying value or utility. Bitcoins are just proof of wasted energy.
@briankrebs Really, I think that getting scammed is going to be the least of peoples problems for a while.
@briankrebs if they are dumb enough to put money in crypto, they are dumb enough to learn a hard lesson
@briankrebs I agree. Now that the lack of oversight is a feature, it's more important than ever* to try to talk to the folks you'd be responsible for before they get sucked in to it.
Talking […]
@briankrebs dang, i shoulda got into the scamming business
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