> weird world where blowing up money containers…will only net you a meager $2mio…while getting people to click on your scam crypto IPO link can easily net you $20mio

Why is that weird? Local versus global distribution; plentiful versus scarce skill requirements; and experienced versus naïve adversaries.

"plentiful versus scarce skill requirements"

You think promoting a shitcoin requires more skills than blowing things up without blowing yourself up?

Yes. You are making the same wrong assumption that many people do. Just because it's a website and some code doesn't mean it's easy.

> You think promoting a shitcoin requires more skills than blowing things up without blowing yourself up?

More or less skill is irrelevant.

There are more people who can blow up an ATM (or be trivially trained to) and collect the cash from it than there are who could do similarly for a cryptocurrency scam. (Few, if anyone, make $20mm simply tweeting promotions for other peoples’ coins.)

If it’s so easy why aren’t you making $20 million an hour then?

Who said it was easy? FFS read what is being written instead of going for the epic cheap shot

Most HN users could figure out how to safely blow up ATMs, few could figure out the other thing.

I doubt it.

I think most HN users would be above-average successful at white-collar crimes, especially if those involve technology.

I see no reason for any correlation between HN readership and aptitude for blue-collar crimes.

Anyone capable of stopping to think for 5 minutes will be above average aptitude for blue-collar crimes.

I think if all of HN tried it, a third would be in jail, and a third would need to be scraped off the pavement with a mop.

Maybe sucess chance is higher than with crypto, but the faiure is much worse

I would bet that the amount of people that need to be scraped off the pavement would be much less than a third.

The kind of explosives you would normally use for this are not difficult to handle or deploy, anyone with access to google can figure it out.

I think HN users in general would be much more inclined to do at least a little bit of research, unlike most blue collar criminals.

"if it's so easy to get away with rape, how come you haven't done it yet"? Wtf?

The ATM robber will also face jail if caught, while the crypto guy is will remain free and may even attain popularity.

Depending on your nationality and location of commiting the crime though. If you're in a country that feels cyber crimes are actual crimes, you'd be screwed. If you're in a country that says as long as you don't commit these acts acts your country or fellow countrymen, you're good to go.

I was suggesting that useless ICOs or similar vaporware crypto projects are rarely considered crimes in most countries.

The ICO typically gives you a shitcoin in exchange. You technically get what you were promised. It's just that the utility for said shitcoin never appears, but that wouldn't count as a crime.

Making a blockchain-powered cat food company and raising tons of money from investors without delivering anything is not a crime either, that's the expected outcome for 90% of startups.

Seems like a difference in medium: physical vs. digital. One is more constrained than the other.