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Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by dwaltrip on Thursday September 24, 2020 @06:41PM (#24584522)
Me think you are in a bit too deep and may be underestimating how things can go wrong.

Another possibility is that you have a high risk tolerance as well as an uncommon knack for this sort of thing that most people don’t have.

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by nootropicat on Thursday September 24, 2020 @08:13PM (#24585158)
I have low risk tolerance, but these contracts are usually very simple. I described the basic process of analysis on reddit some time ago (second half): https://reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/ihpj6f/yield_farming...

In total, I did this with about 40 different farms. There was a time when there were several new ones every day. For a while it was pretty much a 24/7 job as maximizing apy required constantly jumping to some new hype. I was constantly afraid of depositing into a contract that would allow the owner to steal everything, but the worst I noticed were locking bugs + two contracts that allowed the owner to mint infinite tokens (of these two, only one used it to clean the liquidity pool).

The list of farms in that reddit post is obsolete (I think only sushiswap is still running, but with low roi), in general this particular way of making money has run its course.

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by rsync on Thursday September 24, 2020 @09:26PM (#24585644)
"In total, I did this with about 40 different farms. There was a time when there were several new ones every day. For a while it was pretty much a 24/7 job as maximizing apy required constantly jumping to some new hype."

There is a line from a movie ...

"Short everything that guy has touched"

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by seibelj on Thursday September 24, 2020 @10:00PM (#24585846)
My friend made over $500k from the Uniswap airdrop, he woke up on Thursday and realized he had another half million dollars. He sold it all immediately for stablecoins, and actually missed out on another $750k if he had waited a few hours and sold at the UNI peak.

So yes, it is crazy and complex and difficult, but the rewards are vast for those that dare enter the world.

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by ISL on Thursday September 24, 2020 @11:53PM (#24586412)
Every transaction is two-sided. I don't follow the crypto markets in detail any more, but if there was a "UNI peak", then someone who dared to enter the world exchanged stablecoins for Uniswap at about the time UNI peaked. That daring transactor might not agree that the rewards are vast.

Timing markets at the hour level is fraught with risk and cannot generally be done without information not known to the broader market.

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by strogonoff on Thursday September 24, 2020 @11:22PM (#24586273)
Advertising profits without details on how much was invested in what assets and when?

A major disservice, doubly so in a risky space like cryptocurrency and on a public forum. This really just makes the space seem even less trustworthy.

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by seibelj on Thursday September 24, 2020 @11:54PM (#24586417)
I gave you everything you needed to know! Uniswap airdrop! $500k profits! The rules of the airdrop are published! If none of this makes sense to you then you aren’t even remotely in the crypto space. Uniswap is the biggest dex in the world! Do 20 minutes of googling
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by strogonoff on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:17AM (#24586532)
I believe I already know everything I need to know here. I am concerned not about myself but those susceptible to being persuaded by statements a la “my friend made 6 figures” with no further substantiation, especially in these troubled times.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by vvpan on Friday September 25, 2020 @02:54AM (#24587234)
His friend didn't "make" the money. The token was airdropped to every account that ever used the exchange or has provided liquidity. I had two accounts with a couple of transactions each - bam a nice surprise of a few thousand USD worth of value. It's very odd and unexpected. I never make money off of crypto but perhaps it just pays to be in something new. Right time and right place as they say.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by gambiting on Friday September 25, 2020 @03:06AM (#24587302)
I just don't understand - where is that money coming from? You said you suddenly and unexpectedly got a few thousand USD - that sounds to me like someone on the other end, somewhere, just got scammed out of few thousand USD? It can't be just investor money being randomly deposited into accounts "for the lulz"?
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by strogonoff on Friday September 25, 2020 @03:46AM (#24587552)
The USD figure is more akin to valuation of a company than that amount of USD in hard currency. Probably not inclusive of expenses and risks associated with converting it into cash.

How that value is earned and calculated are interesting questions.

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by vvpan on Friday September 25, 2020 @03:57AM (#24587620)
Nobody got scammed. It's pretty much like an IPO. The project distributed tokens, not dollars. Coinbase and a few other exchanges listed them and trading started with the tokens fetching a certain price. I sold some on Coinbase, got money - that's it. The token is a "governance token" and I, personally, don't see much value in it but I do not follow this too closely. In theory the token gives the holder a future say in the direction of the projects and maybe a cut of the profits.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by strogonoff on Friday September 25, 2020 @11:59PM (#24596306)
> Nobody got scammed.

Not directly, but to a hypothetical criminal with millions of USD in illegally obtained currency investing into tokens, hyping said tokens (including, of course, giveaways) and then selling tokens on a peak could look quite compelling. I presume typically laundering loses money, but in this case it could even be possible to make a profit.

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by strogonoff on Friday September 25, 2020 @03:52AM (#24587588)
Handout instead of profit, few thousand instead of half a million USD value—we are moving into a more realistic territory.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by vvpan on Friday September 25, 2020 @04:04AM (#24587665)
I have no reason to believe that the commenter misrepresented anything. It is entirely plausible. If their friend was a liquidity provider then the value of friend's airdropped tokens would have been much greater than mine.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by strogonoff on Friday September 25, 2020 @07:11PM (#24595006)
Being a liquidity provider is not free so we’re back to some guy claiming “my friend made half a million! rewards are vast for the brave!” and the question “but on what investment?”

I believe it’s more than fair to request specifics since we can’t know whether poster’s solvency depends on a token appreciating in value—after all, if it does, what’s a better way to maintain token value than promise millions on a public forum?

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by phyalow on Friday September 25, 2020 @05:51AM (#24588241)
I had 3 accounts and made about 5k USD of the airdrop. No reason 500k couldn't have happened if someone was providing liquidity to the protocol.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by seibelj on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:29AM (#24586600)
Yes - you are yet another person speaking authoritatively on a subject while knowing basically zero. As an added bonus you freely admit you have no intention of learning anything, either! I have my public name here and my reputation in the industry carries my statements.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by rsync on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:54AM (#24586693)
Short everything this guy has ever touched.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by seibelj on Friday September 25, 2020 @01:02AM (#24586725)
You paste the same comment everywhere. If you don’t want to trade crypto, don’t! This is the riskiest asset class around. Another benefit of our voluntary society - the freedom to use index funds.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by remcob on Thursday September 24, 2020 @10:39PM (#24586057)
For every lucky person making $500k there are 100 people loosing $5k.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by seibelj on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:01AM (#24586451)
Wrong! UNI was airdropped for free to all previous users of uniswap! No one lost anything. And in any trade, both sides have a coincidence of wants, so no one “loses”.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by pavlov on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:42AM (#24586646)
That’s probably the argument that the Wolf of Wall Street used to defend his boiler room schemes. “The penny stock company issued 100M new shares for free, no one lost anything, we sold them to people who had a coincidence of wants.”
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by seibelj on Friday September 25, 2020 @01:03AM (#24586732)
All markets have losers - another trope from the uninformed left. Markets allow people to satisfy their needs in a voluntary way.
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by ben_w on Saturday September 26, 2020 @01:00PM (#24600296)
Only with perfect information, and even then markets are NP-complete.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1002.2284.pdf

Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by smnplk on Saturday September 26, 2020 @01:58AM (#24596747)
What is so complex about being lucky and receiving an airdrop on multiple addresses ? Some guys are just born lucky...
Re:Escaping the Dark Forest by psswrd12345 on Thursday September 24, 2020 @06:53PM (#24584625)
>Another possibility is that you have a high risk tolerance as well as an uncommon knack for this sort of thing that most people don’t have.

Ding ding. Which is why returns won't last as the information asymmetry curve is flattened.