Luna Founder Requests Police Protection as Investors Are Visiting His House

https://news.mt.co.kr/mtview.php?no=2022051308574726920

by marban • 4 years ago

140 192 4 years ago

news.mt.co.kr

gregjw• 4 years ago

Poor guy. But also, can't he hire private protection? He's still got a lot of money.

aphroz• 4 years ago

So we need some regulation after all

Cthulhu_• 4 years ago

Regulation for thee but not for mee, or something.

hathym• 4 years ago

translated link: https://news-mt-co-kr.translate.goog/mtview.php?no=202205130...

stefan_• 4 years ago

Wasn't there a twitter thread on their great plan to fix this? Instead UST is now at $0.11 and obviously headed to 0.

raesene94• 4 years ago

There's been several proposals from community members about "solving" this. From reading them they seemed to fall into two camps "save Luna trash UST" and "save UST trash Luna" but both relied on the idea of some external party injecting a large amount of capital to restore confidence, and in a lot of existing participants losing money.

Perhaps a suffienciently large rescue early in the problems could have solved it, but confidence is now gone and I can't see it returning to these projects.

Tenoke5• 4 years ago

I believe the leading current plan is to relaunch it with a different peg mechanism and airdrop the initial tokens to previous holders which does seem like the only way for them to salvage it though obviously trust in the chain will be low.

https://agora.terra.money/t/luna-go-forward-proposal/7136?fb...

Shadonototra2• 4 years ago

from $80 down to 0 overnight

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/terra-luna/

schleck85• 4 years ago

No way, did he pull the rug? How is this even possible

swah• 4 years ago

One guy on twitter said his net worth (or something) went from $2B to $100 in 5 days...

Shadonototra2• 4 years ago

i just bought a shit ton of LUNA since binance resumed trading

let's see if that gamble will work out :p

haasted• 4 years ago

In addition to that, incredible amounts of Luna tokens have been printed as part of the "stabilization" algorithm. The supply went from around 700M tokens to nearly 7 trillion in a few days.

Source: https://terrasco.pe/mainnet/luna/supply

numair2• 4 years ago

It’s important to understand that this is a Stanford educated, pampered brat who would taunt people with “stay poor” whenever anyone asked basic diligence questions. He built his fallen empire on the back of a bogus “governments are bad, people have to be able to stand up to them” BS narrative (that a lot of the HN crowd blindly parrots as well without thinking through the consequences — life isn’t Zero to One).

Given this context, I do not think the police should honor his request. If Do Kwon was American, he would be the sort that would support utter trash like RAGE (Retire All Government Employees). People like him and their mind viruses are destructive to proper civil society.

Then again, the Korean police aren’t stupid. I am guessing they will “protect” him so he can be handed over to the US federal authorities, who haven’t been shy about the fact that they’re looking for him.

Also — if you work in crypto, you want this guy arrested and gone from the scene. These are the sort of selfish bad actors who will shamelessly blow up an industry and blame it on the industry rather than themselves. I can already see Do Kwon becoming the singing voice of why crypto is bad, as a way to save himself.

Joeri• 4 years ago

I don’t think the disposition of this individual has any bearing on whether the police should protect them from criminal acts of aggression. The police should protect all equally.

sneak• 4 years ago

Especially due to the fact that despite any political views they may hold, they are forced to pay taxes for police services like everyone else.

GP is arguing that certain taxpayers should not receive the services they paid for, on political grounds.

nikanj3• 4 years ago

This reminds me of people who argue that fire departments should be an opt-in service, yet still get angry when their house burns down.

Crypto bros spend all their energy slamming the government. Why should they get to enjoy the protections of the government they hate so much?

IanCal2• 4 years ago

It's entirely reasonable to think both "They should be arrested" and "the police should stop others from attacking them". I'd argue it's much more reasonable to hold both views than only one - everyone for themselves or the rule of law rather than "the rule of law for people I don't like".

People like him and their mind viruses are destructive to proper civil society.

I don't think the "proper civil society" response is that they should be subject to criminal attacks.

mycroftiv2• 4 years ago

Triangulating between these responses which each have some sensible points, we (?) might choose to aim for meaningful and serious consequences (because life is srs bzns) yet still temper our justice with mercy, meaning, and occasionally a touch of humor.

newsclues• 4 years ago

Flip side: our proper civil society allows to many people to disregard the law when they see fit and a strong and powerful position against illegal and unethical actions should be taken to return to a civil society.

raverbashing• 4 years ago

Protecting from someone attacking him yes, preventing him from getting a mouthful from people protesting outside his house, heck no!

numair2• 4 years ago

Sorry, I think my comment lacked a bit of context. We are in agreement.

“Police protection” tends to imply that you get treated as a special person, someone super important — like a head of state or a political dissident. It’s a bit like having Mark Zuckerberg’s security detail, but through the use of taxpayer funds. In a country where most people don’t have guns and don’t resolve problems through violence, the need for this sort of thing is extremely rare.

As someone who is clearly “not poor,” as he says repeatedly, he should be asked to source his own protection rather than being an undue burden on the South Korean taxpayer. The funds and resources earmarked for police protection would be better spent protecting women fighting for equal representation, against corruption, etc.

Of course, if the guy is actually poor, well, that’s another thing. I don’t think that is what we are dealing with here, however. Keep in mind that he dissolved the South Korean entity for Terra on April 30th…

nmfisher• 4 years ago

The sad (?) thing is that despite these scummy crypto projects collapsing, people like Do probably still made out like bandits. It's only the "regular" greedy folk who lose everything.

I know the world isn't just, but it would be nice to see these shysters getting some form of comeuppance. At least Madoff and Skilling ended up in jail.

HL33tibCe74• 4 years ago

I’m sorry but this is an insane comment. We live in a civil society, in which we deal with criminals through the courts and not through lynch mobs.

encryptluks25• 4 years ago

And we've watched as the little guy goes to jail over the littlest offense and as the big guy gets off committing murder because of money time and time again.

headsoup• 4 years ago

You say that last part like crypto is mostly good and this is one bad apple. I suggest you don't research too far into the owners of Tether and how much is has propped up the entire crypto market single-handedly.

An individual is not destructive to civil society if civil society is healthy.

actually_a_dog• 4 years ago

The last 5 years have either proved you wrong or demonstrated that civil society is unhealthy. In either case, something needs to be done.

oceliker• 4 years ago

It’s his wife who requested protection, according to the article’s sub-headline.

sillysaurusx• 4 years ago

Good lord, this thread. Thank you for doing what you can to quietly correct things.

Readers: please upvote this. I don’t normally ask, and it’s a breach of etiquette to talk about votes. But there’s a line, and I think calling someone a pampered brat while his wife is requesting police protection is the one.

Tenoke5• 4 years ago

Given this context, I do not think the police should honor his request.

Police deciding whether to protect you based on whether you said “governments are bad, people have to be able to stand up to them” or “stay poor” is absurd. It's sad how much hating crypto clouds people's opinions here and elsewhere. You can dislike crypto without basing every tangentially related opinion on what would be disliked most by a crypto investor without other considerations.

monkey_monkey4• 4 years ago

If the police have to provide protection to anyone whose doorbell has been rung, then they're going to be very, very, very busy.

nathias4• 4 years ago

Why would the US federal authorities have anything to do with a Korean businessman that doesn't have to do anything with the US?

indymike2• 4 years ago

Basic human decency, equal protection, rule of law, etc.

gmflkgfds3• 4 years ago

You advocate for mob violence against American citizens who don't support your political views? I have no words.

Dylan168079• 4 years ago

They advocate for a lack of government bodyguarding for anyone that wants there to be no government bodyguards in the first place. At least that's the only mention of politics I see.

Doesn't seem like a ridiculous position to me.

AnonymousPlanet2• 4 years ago

Given this context, I do not think the police should honor his request [to protect him]

I vehemently disagree on this. Regardless of what you think of a person, no one should be subject to the violence of a vigilantist mob. Anything else is a huge step back into the middle ages.

It saddens me to no end that the kind of inhuman sentiment that is displayed in comments like the above is becoming more and more en vogue in modern civilization.

Dylan168079• 4 years ago

Jesus, denying a proactive police guard isn't "inhuman". Try not to exaggerate things for the purpose of feeling righteous.

unmole6• 4 years ago

Given this context, I do not think the police should honor his request.

Why? States have a monopoly on violence for good reason. If a disgruntled speculator decides to do something stupid for revenge, it's much better for the police to deal with rather than a private guard.

nabla9• 4 years ago

Given this context, I do not think the police should honor his request.

If I read your argument correctly. It's OK for the police to remove protection from people based on the court of public opinion without due process if they are "bad hombres."

If that's true, you are casually suggesting is disregarding the core principles of rule of law and human rights in the society.

I find this attitude very disturbing and discussing. Maybe it's lack of understanding or genuine want to abandon principles of liberal democracies, I don't know.

csomar• 4 years ago

If I read your argument correctly. It's OK for the police to remove protection from people based on the court of public opinion without due process if they are "bad hombres."

Based on numair HN comment. It's funny the dude is angry at another dude because of lawlessness and suggests applying lawlessness to the other dude to teach about lawlessness.

TacticalCoder2• 4 years ago

If Do Kwon was American, he would be the sort that would support utter trash like RAGE (Retire All Government Employees). People like him and their mind viruses are destructive to proper civil society.

Wait... So if he had pulled the exact same scam while longing for more government employees and a bigger part of the public sector in countries' GDP, then he'd be worthy of police protection?

So basically the government should protect people depending whether or not they're pro-government?

I want to see that scammer rot in jail but there's no reason, if he go death threat, that public mob lynching is suddenly okay because he's not a leftist.

29083011397778• 4 years ago

Calling for government help when things get real, while loudly and publicly stating the government is useless and should be disbanded / retired when times are good is a bad look.

Asking someone to stick to their principles or accept they were wrong earlier may not be very kind in this case, but expecting someone to die by the sword they lived by hardly sounds wrong.

I'll agree this shouldn't happen in a civil society, but I also wish people were smart enough to recognize that government and rule of law are a prerequisite for civil society.

soco• 4 years ago

What everybody says, and repeatedly gets ignored, is the irony that his plea for protection is directed exactly at those he dislikes. It's about him acting in contradiction to his own principles, not about him getting or not protection. It's about his character. That's all. Even asshats deserve police protection, agreed, but that doesn't make them any more likeable and likeability was the topic here.

mytailorisrich• 4 years ago

At the moment are there suggestions that he did anything illegal?

square_usual• 4 years ago

What? So if you criticize society, you're fair game for assassination?

themitigating• 4 years ago

If someone needs protection from a genuine threat does it matter what they may have done?

The request should be evaluated without bias

throw0101a2• 4 years ago

RAGE (Retire All Government Employees)

New one for me:

As early as 2012, he proposed the acronym RAGE—Retire All Government Employees—as a shorthand for a first step in the overthrow of the American “regime.” What we needed, Yarvin thought, was a “national CEO, [or] what’s called a dictator.” Yarvin now shies away from the word dictator and seems to be trying to promote a friendlier face of authoritarianism as the solution to our political warfare: “If you’re going to have a monarchy, it has to be a monarchy of everyone,” he said.

* https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-new-right...

Under his Moldbug pseudonym, Yarvin gave a talk about "rebooting" the American government at the 2012 BIL Conference. He used it to advocate the acronym "RAGE", which he defined as "Retire All Government Employees". Acting as a provocateur, he described what he felt were flaws in the accepted "World War II mythology" alluding to the idea that Hitler's invasions were acts of self-defense. He argued these discrepancies were pushed by America's "ruling communists", who invented political correctness as an "extremely elaborate mechanism for persecuting racists and fascists". "If Americans want to change their government," he said, "they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia."[36]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Dark_Enlightenme...

WindyLakeReturn• 4 years ago

How much anti-government rhetoric is a second order effect of the existence of compromises?

When people push for something, they rarely get what they want. Even when there is a lot of support, the end result is a compromise with the previous status quo. If you push for minimum wage to be $10 and it is currently $5, with enough support you will see an increase but it won't be up to $10.

In turn, people will ask for more than what they actually want. If someone wants a minimum wage of $10, they might ask for $15. So when there is a compromise they are more likely to get what they actually wanted to start with, and maybe even hope for a little more than the minimum of what they wanted.

This of course has limits. If you instead were to push for a minimum wage of $100, you won't get enough support to have any impact at all. But exactly where this threshold is located is something only well known in hindsight, if even then.

So people who push for completely removal of government positions are likely much more interested in a compromise that still has a great deal of government power left, but are using rhetoric that will hopefully shift the window of compromise to be more in their favor. This is why things like 'defund the police' become supported even by people who can easily predict what would happen if the police really were defunded.

Lastly, I am speaking of people who would take positions similar to Do Kwon in general, and not about Do Kwon in specific. I realize that's slightly off topic, but I think it is worth clarifying that not everyone with positions similar to Do Kwon hold such positions for the same reason that Do Kwon does and many of them would be open to reasonable discussions and compromises.

jzellis• 4 years ago

I guess that invisible hand of the free market can't install a security system. :-D

pearjuice2• 4 years ago

Bernie Madoff's scheme had an estimated $18B of actual losses. At it's peak, TerraUSD and LUNA had a combined market cap of roughly $80B. Though market cap says nothing about actual value invested, there could be a few billion dollars in actual losses. A popular Youtuber (40M+ followers) casually tweets about turning $3M into $1000 (latest value: ~$0) buying "the dip"[0] and his followers applaud him. Probably a few of his followers followed him in his footsteps not realizing you shouldn't take financial advice from an entertainer. Searching Twitter[1] with some specific keywords reveals retail investors completely losing it and demanding refunds. On Twitter/Reddit there are claims people contemplated or performed suicide because they lost their life savings[2].

Wouldn't surprise me if some people can't control their emotions and attempt to lash it all out on the person who in their eyes caused all of this. I have no sympathy with him creating this "guaranteed 20% APY" ponzi scheme but for his own safety it would be wise to go into hiding for the mob which is coming for him.

[0] https://twitter.com/ksicrypto/status/1524760834400006145 [1] https://twitter.com/search?q=%22please%22%20%22life%20saving... [2] https://twitter.com/Mete01524584/status/1524876715692015616

jsmith99• 4 years ago

At least Madoff's victims got 90% of their money back.

charcircuit5• 4 years ago

[0][1][2]

It seems like these people do not understand what LUNA even is.

[1][2]

These people should not have gone "all in" on a risky investment. Even without the hindsight we have currently algorithmic stablecoins are very risky. LUNA grows in value when demand for UST increases, but if people want to exit the ecosystem that is going to mean that the value for it is going to go down. If a lot of people want to exit at once it will be even worse.

guaranteed 20% APY

Anchor is just one dapp in the terra ecosystem and at it doesn't offer a guaranteed 20% APY. Also if you are looking for high APY in defi with stablecoins, Anchor isn't the only place to find it. I can easily find ~30% APY in an different algostable right now. Algostables are risky to hold so they incentivize you to provide liquidity with good rates. I also see 50% APY for supplying liquidity between a BUSD and USDT trading pair which is fairly safe, but the rates for this one will drop soon once more people take advantage of this.

pearjuice2• 4 years ago

These people should not have gone "all in" on a risky investment

People shouldn't go to a casino either thinking it's a money maker. They see a high risk/high reward investment option and are not properly educated about the risk or significantly misinformed with statements like it being "fairly safe". You encouraging people to look for similar ponzi schemes to invest in even though you seem to know a fair bit about how it works, just proves that point.

chinathrow• 4 years ago

https://twitter.com/terra_money/status/1524935730308456448

Wow, these replies right there. Some people lost a lot of money.

raesene94• 4 years ago

What's even wilder is the number of people in the replies still trying to buy Luna!

nikanj3• 4 years ago

They're trying to buy hope. Life is hopeless for a very large part of the population - if you play your cards just right, work hard and sacrifice lots, you can barely survive and make rent.

Putting your last $50 into stupidcoin might help you break out of the Groundhog Day-esque horror that is working class USA.

dredmorbius• 4 years ago

https://nitter.kavin.rocks/terra_money/status/15249357303084...

FinnKuhn• 4 years ago

the pinned post on the subreddit is literally a suicide prevention post...

schleck85• 4 years ago

This is getting worse by the minute, i can't believe it. Hope the people who promoted the shitcoin sink to the ground in shame. I doubt it though

boeingUH602• 4 years ago

He should hire private protection. Funny how an anti-government person runs to the government in times of trouble.

My unpopular opinion is that this guy should be mugged in the streets for running a shitcoin ponzi...but that's just an opinion. In reality, he should be handed to US authorities and serve a long prison term.

schleck85• 4 years ago

I don't participate in the crypto market but saw him yesterday on twitter for the first time, and guess what, he was telling people that they are poor for questioning his business practices.

papito2• 4 years ago

The crypto bros were telling everyone on Twitter to "enjoy being poor", when they were loaded up on Luna. How am I supposed to feel about that kind of attitude?

cypress663• 4 years ago

Most countries don't allow private police, especially for individuals. This is probably the case in South Korea. So even if he wanted, he couldn't.

I don't know anything about him, but if he is an anti government guy it's very likely that he is indeed in favor of private defense agencies.

ivanche• 4 years ago

Private _protection_ is very different from private _police_. How do you think movie stars, mega popular singers etc. hire their… well, private protection?

bayindirh2• 4 years ago

He should give a call to Erik Prince [0]. They'd go together well.

[0] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/11/blackwater-founder-erik-...

papito2• 4 years ago

An anti-government guy shows why humanity settled on a regulated, stabilized financial system.

golergka4• 4 years ago

He should hire private protection. Funny how an anti-government person runs to the government in times of trouble.

Why is it funny? Regardless of how anti-government you are, you're already have a contract with government: they take your money and give you protection. You wish to change this contract, may be even spend time and effort in political activity to get it changed, but it's still there.

The fact that you express your desire to change your contract with somebody does not give them any (moral or legal) right to not follow the contract if it is not yet changed. And especially if, despite your wish to change it, you still follow your side of the contract (pay taxes).

belltaco2• 4 years ago

It's funny because their argument for pushing crypto is that govt is bad, taxation is theft, so govt needs to be circumvented financially in favor of a libertarian utopia with zero taxes so that govt can be crippled. Why would you want to take help from something you think is a terrible influence on the world? It comes off as selfish, capitalism and tax avoidance and even evasion when it suits you and socialism when you need help.

ankaAr• 4 years ago

Paid with crypto

mrtksn• 4 years ago

I don't know why a Korean should be handed to US authorities but in a world that many cryptobros envision, we will live in warlords with private armies up until they each fight off each other.

Everybody is gangsta until an actual gangster knocks on your door.

SilasX2• 4 years ago

“Uh, sorry, he’s actually the one who knocks. And everyone saw through your act.”

dereg2• 4 years ago

I know it’s stylish to be crass, but his wife is the one that asked for protection.

almostkorean3• 4 years ago

They have a one month old baby too

bradlys• 4 years ago

Given this context https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31365212 don’t you think that his wife is likely just as terrible of a person as he is?

usrn• 4 years ago

I don't know why you would do this and not stay anonymous on the internet. This guy sounds like a true "lolbertarian."

mycroftiv2• 4 years ago

Follow the money and the mana of the land and the spirit in which people act and watch the eyes and the skies and Bad Actors are kinda easy to spot after awhile.

nojs• 4 years ago

Does this mean USDT is next?

Tenoke5• 4 years ago

No, this has close to nothing to do with USDT. The current bad market conditions might also be bad for USDT and could potentially cause it to fall (though I wouldnt bet on it personally) but there is no connection beyond that.

Shaanie• 4 years ago

Tether did lose its peg for a few hours, although like you said it's an unrelated and different mechanism.

phh• 4 years ago

UST/Terra was pegged to the dollar by diluting Luna to the infinity, assuming Luna would keep a non-zero value. I still don't understand how can anyone think this can be a good idea, so my understanding could be wrong.

Anyway, USDT has no such requirement it's pegged to the dollar by Tether company actually exchanging USDT at 1$.

That's not saying USDT won't crash, (there are reasonable fear of wrongdoings) but those two are really not alike

prepend• 4 years ago

Doesn’t it highlight the insolvency of USDT because they don’t actually have the assets to exchange all their coins for $1 and won’t conduct a proper audit to confirm or deny?

It should be fairly easy to do a run on USDT, but not sure if anyone would make money from this.

mijoharas2• 4 years ago

Can someone explain what happened with Luna? I'm not aware of it. People here are calling it a ponzi scheme, but I can't find any explanation of what the deal was. (there is this forbes article that only talks about it tanking[0])

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenehrlich/2022/05/11/luna-n...

once_inc• 4 years ago

Start here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-11/terra-...

isolli• 4 years ago

And while you're at it, sign up for Matt's email newsletter. It's one of the most insightful reads in finance.

mijoharas2• 4 years ago

Thanks, I should really read matt levine more regularly!

Tenoke5• 4 years ago

It wasn't a ponzi in the traditional sense but the algorithm propping their stablecoin while likely well-meaning had a serious death spiral-based fault in the case of a coordinated attack or very bad market conditions. For what is worth, they did have a healthy (for smartchains) ecosystem beyond that stablecoin and were clearly attempting to do more than temporarily prop their token and then run away.

raesene94• 4 years ago

I don't think that Luna or UST were ponzi's but some of the things built on top of them had ponzi-like characteristics.

Specifically Anchor which was promising 20% returns whilst charging borrowers less than that on the same funds, seemed doomed to failure.

Bombthecat• 4 years ago

It's not really a ponzi scheme.

More like an algorithm gone wrong.

On basic: if ust coin(pegged to one dollar, so the target was to keep it at one dollar) lost value(under one dollar) new luna coins were created to buy ust coins.

So.. As long ust coin was under one dollar, it created more and more luna coins to buy ust coins.

I think luna started with like a few million coins and ended with something like 7 or 8 trillion coins, now the network is officially shutdown.

It was a horrible idea.

No matter how good your algorithm is, people will manipulate the open! Book of upcoming trades to make profits, and destroying the coin with it.

Its like knowing what vanguard bak will do, before they even start trading on top of that you can force them to trade im certain ways, because you know how they will react, with hundred percent accuracy!

It was doomed from the beginning.

unmole6• 4 years ago

It's not really a ponzi scheme.

They were paying existing holders a ridiculously high rate for staking. Where was this coming from if not from new buyers?

netheril962• 4 years ago

No matter how good your algorithm is, people will manipulate the open!

The algorithm isn't good at all. Such catastrophic failure was predicted a few months ago by a lot of people independently. But it is difficult to predict the timing so only few people shorted it at the right time.

throw0101a2• 4 years ago

It's not really a ponzi scheme.

Yeah:

Sick of people calling everything in crypto a Ponzi scheme. Some crypto projects are pump and dump schemes, while others are pyramid schemes. Others are just standard issue fraud. Others are just middlemen skimming of the top. Stop glossing over the diversity in the industry.

* https://twitter.com/patdennis/status/1518637225789042688

nathias4• 4 years ago

https://twitter.com/OnChainWizard/status/1524123935570382851

probably an attack exploiting bad algorithms, I wouldn't be surprised if the US regulatory captures stablecoins now and it somehow becomes necessary to police the whole world for 'financial terrorism' or something of that nature ...

throw1230• 4 years ago

Financial terrorism? It's an open, unregulated market. You reap what you sow.

Mizza2• 4 years ago

If this is an attack like Soros vs the Bank of England, how is the profit exfiltrated if both currencies are worthless when the music stops? Is there a put option somewhere else?

netheril962• 4 years ago

how is the profit exfiltrated if both currencies are worthless when the music stops?

They sold for real USD. Or sold for another stablecoin (and then into real USD).

0x532• 4 years ago

Certain application in the decentralized finance space will allow you to borrow a cryptocurrency based on collateral in another currency. So in this case you deposit bitcoin and get Luna out. Then you sell the Luna. Then after the price crashes you buy Luna to repay your debt. Basically shorting Luna

gigatexal• 4 years ago

Ahh man ... something, something the "revolution will be televised."

grnmamba• 4 years ago

Should be the final nail in the coffin for algorithmic stablecoins (which are only stable until too many people stop believing that collective fiction).

I do hope he goes to jail - for his own sake. People have been killed for much less money. There are some posts in this thread accepting the violence against him. I disagree, if he broke the law he should be judged and punished fairly, not by mob justice.

TacticalCoder2• 4 years ago

Can anyone explain how comes Luna/UST failed at being an algorithmic stablecoin while DAI exists since 2017 and managed to hold its peg through crazy turmoil (like the price of ETH crashing from 1400 to 80 and then skyrocket to 4000)?

Why isn't the same "attack" happening on DAI, which is a big target ($6 bn of DAI worth $1 each, with $10 bn collateralized)?

kragen2• 4 years ago

Maybe because Dai is collateralized with Ether, which is a much thicker market than Luna/Terra/UST, because you can use Ether for things that aren't Dai?

roywiggins2• 4 years ago

Well, that and Luna is only worth money if Terra is stable, and Terra is stable if Luna is worth money. I don't think Dai is susceptible to the same sort of death spiral.

roywiggins2• 4 years ago

There were like $18bn Terra. It was "backed" by maybe $3.5bn of BTC, and by minting Luna from scratch and hoping people would assign a nonzero value to the Luna token.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/05/luna-foundation-guard-bolste...

skc• 4 years ago

Is there _anyone_ working in crypto (other than Vitalik) that is actually likable? All these guys seem so self important and smug that I have a hard time sympathizing with them.

darthrupert• 4 years ago

That's a long known problem of the nouveau riche. Too much money too fast is tough to handle in a classy way.

pikelet• 4 years ago

Silvio Micali?

schleck85• 4 years ago

You are clearly just poor and jealous and not smart enough to understand crypto, the second coming /s

Rastonbury• 4 years ago

Part of the shtick and cult idea of alienation to create a common enemy or 'the other'.

"Those guys are dumb, they can't see it, but you can, cuz you smart!" (Twitter is geared to show you these hot takes, they also bait reasonable people to 'engage')

S6eUL• 4 years ago

Not sure about "likable", but most of the high-profile people in crypto behave professionally. For my taste they are actually far too timid when it comes to talking about projects other than their own. Everyone is always super positive and hyped and agreeable and sure, there are "tons of scams out there" and "99 % of projects will die" but you rarely hear names.

almostkorean3• 4 years ago

Yep, I avoid mentioning specific names as much as possible so I don't come off as a maxi or a shill. Also very uncomfortable mentioning anything specific to friends because I don't want them to interpret it as financial advice or get FOMO when I have no idea what a token's price will do

Comevius• 4 years ago

Crypto attracts people with dark tetrad (machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism) personalities.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01918...

nfin• 4 years ago

It is sometimes hard to see through the noise, but for those actually interested, here a VERY incomplete list, just to have an idea where to start:

- Pieter Wuille

- Matt Corallo

- Rusty Russell

- Olaoluwa Osuntokun

- Andrew Poelstra

- Wladimir van der Laan

- Surae and Sarang Noether

- Matthew Green

- Eli Ben-Sasson

- David Burkett

- ... ... (and many many (!) dozens more!)

It is because of so much noise [1], that some other involved sometimes find it hard to stay friendly for an extended period of time (friendliness in this area lead very fast to dubious marketers to abuse (!) that friendliness to market they ponzis. Open source without economic tokens attract less of these people. Some people think it makes open-source + economic tokens a bad idea. Some other disagree and just either avoid the front pages and noise and just code ("cypherpunks write code") and some other struggle to find a balance and communicate more but sometimes a bit rough because of so many scams out there).

In every big community (or country or any other group) you will find nice people and less nice/friendly people. People just see the latter one on twitter (because of how the algo works), and sadly think at all are like that. Sad :( But happily people like skc ask the important questions loudly :)

[1]: new discoveries (like decentralize digiatal bearer assets) that involve money are bound to such frenzies and therefore noise

edit: just for formatting (the bulletpoints of the list)

mlazos• 4 years ago

After reading about stable coins they seem completely idiotic. I get the idea that pegging it to the dollar via arbitrage is great and all, but arbitrage only seems to work (like in ETFs for instance) when the underlying assets have value and high trade volume. Once trade volume goes down price stability goes out the window and you end up with this shitshow. Once that happens everyone leaves and the “value” is gone. It’s a death spiral waiting to happen.

usrusr• 4 years ago

Funny how I had never heard of luna before but had no trouble inferring from the headline that this was something about crypto.

(headline was "Luna Founder Requests Police Protection as Investors Are Visiting His House" at the time, in case it was changed)

kgc• 4 years ago

Putting him in jail might be the best thing they could do to protect him.

jmyeet• 4 years ago

I'm disappointing that so many who are openly promoting vigilante justice.

Remember this is pretty much just doxxing.

I understand ther's a certain amount of schadenfreude here, particularly given Do Kwon's open disdain for nocoiners. I also understand some people have lost their houses (seriously, go look at the TerraLuna subreddit; it's dark). I also realize the irony of an Ancap requesting state protection.

But it's sad to see how many people who somehow feel comfortable with sending other people death threats, directly threaten violence or try and get people injured or killed by the state (ie swatting). It's a form of mental illness and it shouldn't be encouraged.

schleck85• 4 years ago

Look at this and tell me it's not an actual cult. After reaching almost 0 $ in value

Let's hodl and believe that Luna rises again!!!!
Hold on, brothers, summer is coming, the sun and a sea of positivity. There will be a time of growth and huge victories. LUNA ahead!!!

LittlePeter• 4 years ago

I am reading that the Terra/Luna blockchain was halted at least twice in last couple days.

How is this possible? Is Terra/Luna blockchain centralized?

charcircuit5• 4 years ago

There are 130 bonded validators based off the validators who are staking the most. If >=33% of the staked Luna becomes inaccessible the blockchain can no longer make progress.

jpeter• 4 years ago

He deserves the same protection his investors had. Absolutely none

pru5674• 4 years ago

Since hn is so negative on crypto, it likely missed the interesting details of the technical attack. Terra was doing a migration from a 3-token curve liquidity pool to a 4-token curve liquidity pool. During this migration their reserves are vulnerable, at at this point a well-capitalized attacker borrowed 100k BTC, converted it into UST and started attacking the peg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqW4-FGA9j4

Its related to the curve wars which itself is an interesting walk through game theory. https://every.to/almanack/curve-wars

omnimus• 4 years ago

Sidenote (and i am going to be negative on crypto) but the first 10 minutes of this video are pretty wild to me?

They keep saying how this is normal, happens, you will recover, it happened to all of us. Really? 50bilion dollars get hacked and response is "invest more money you will recover".

Then there are multiple crypto ads about protecting your "hard earned money" (wtf whats less hard earned than investing) and about wierd investment tools that will automatically invest into some esoteric assets the host gets stuck reading because even he doesn't know them.

Finally they explain some really complicated mechanism this tech was using. That left me wondering what is this even for?

From outside it all seems quite crazy.

pru5674• 4 years ago

While looking into this, I also ran into the "DegenBox UST MiM strategy" which allegedly gave 100% returns (until it didn't), but atm I don't understand the mechanism; I think it will make an interesting addendum to the story for the intrepid reader/rabbit hole explorer.

scoofy• 4 years ago

The entire point of defi is to circumvent the establishment/regulation. It makes little to no sense to say "but it was attacked"... Yea, that's the fucking point. That's why we have regulations, FDIC insurance, and reserve limits.

pru5674• 4 years ago

George soros attacked the pound in a similar manner, so you points dont exclude traditional finance. Of course, pound wasnt susceptible to a death spiral

fmajid3• 4 years ago

i think he should get his protection from corrections officers, like any fraudster.

Luna Founder Requests Police Protection as Investors Are Visiting His House

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