“You can’t cheat an honest man” as the expression goes.

Not literally true - completely innocent people do get victimized - but there’s certainly a reason for the expression.

This response is not helpful and I know of honest people who have been cheated. Basically, the response boils down to “if you got cheated, you are dishonest and deserved it”. Bullshit.

In this case, it’s somewhat more fair: everyone involved was trying to find much higher returns than they could get in regulated financial markets so while it’s sad that they were defrauded it’s also part of the risk they voluntarily took on by using cryptocurrency.

A lot of folks keep making that argument. What it sounds like you're saying is that Average Joe should really understand that crypto implicitly carries a risk of fraud and you are likely to lose your money. We should shout that from the rooftops. If you deposit BTC/whatever with someone, they are probably going to steal it. When they do, we will remind you that this was a foreseeable outcome.

I'm starting to think that these organizations need to be regulated as banks, stat.

Any institution where you invest or deposit money carries a risk of fraud.

Banks have steadily become less and less fraudulent over the last century.

Crypto exchanges have also steadily become less fraudulent, but still carry a much larger risk than the financial institutions to which people have become accustomed.

> What it sounds like you're saying is that Average Joe should really understand that crypto implicitly carries a risk of fraud and you are likely to lose your money

That is what a lot of people have been saying for a very long time now!

I don't mean this in a way to blame the victims of the crypto fraudsters, merely to explain the somewhat exasperated responses by people who feel like they've been trying to warn people who have been ignoring them.

> I'm starting to think that these organizations need to be regulated as banks, stat.

I mean, why do you think they don't want to be regulated and brag that they aren't? To make you more money?

"Can't con an honest John" for the rhyming edition.

I deposited some money with FTX and expected them not to steal it in the same way you expect a bank not to steal your deposits. I didn't gift to them or expect anything too good to be true. If a bank manager steals customer deposits to pay his gambling debts I put the blame 100% on the manager 0% on the customers.

Bank deposits are usually insured, aren't they?

Why on earth would you "expect them not to steal it in the same way you expect a bank not to steal your deposits" when a cryptocurrency exchange / hedge fund is not subject to even a fraction of the regulations banks are?

Especially when prior to FTX's collapse, numerous other crypto exchanges were turning out to be scams or going under, and even back then there was plenty of evidence that crypto was being used and manipulated by nation-states and criminal organizations? And it was practically a meme that crypto was full of shysters and scams?

Comparing putting your money into a too-good-to-be-true crypto hedge fund is nothing like "a bank manager stealing money to pay off his gambling debts." I won't name a culpability breakdown but there is no way you have 0% responsibility here.

> a cryptocurrency exchange / hedge fund is not subject to even a fraction of the regulations banks are?

US ones are. Shady ass casinos in the Bahamas like what SBF was running aren't though. Exchanges like Coinbase have been operating in the US under heavy US regulations for over a decade, and have never had anything close to a solvency issue. It's absolutely ridiculous that SBF was getting invited to basically write US policy despite FTX not even being a US based exchange.

FTX.US was very much a thing, and despite SBF's promises to regulators and others that it was completely separate, it imploded along with the rest.

FTX wasn't a "too-good-to-be-true crypto hedge fund".

It quite literally was, hence you losing your money and SBF serving time in prison.

That’s strange. If I invest my money into any form of securities it’s pretty clear to me that the value of that capital might go to zero overnight.

If I invested it in crypto? I would value it at zero for the rest of eternity.

> That’s strange. If I invest my money into any form of securities it’s pretty clear to me that the value of that capital might go to zero overnight.

What is strange about it? Losing money through investment risk is part of the deal when you invest, losing money because the fund manager decides to steal it is not part of the deal.

Crypto is more like handing money out to joe random on the street corner because he promises he’ll be there again next Friday with a 10% interest rate.

I mean yes, of course it is.

But there is still a difference between risk and fraud.

Risk would be if joe random tells you he'll "invest" your money in lottery tickets and then give you a 10% return if he wins or nothing if the "investment" goes bad.

Fraud is when he tells you that, but takes your money and buys himself some stuff.

Either way you lost all your money but in the second case you can sue the guy for fraud. In the first case he did as promised and lost the money but you only have yourself to blame for doing a dumb investment.

I still clearly expect the broker not to steal my stock positions and gamble with them...

> As someone who lost a little bit through this whole debacle I think it is because we willingly gave our money to FTX.

That's not the whole picture though. If I invest in some risky stock (or even what I thought was not a risky one) and it tanks, sure I feel bad but it's part of the deal so it's ok.

But if I invest in something risky and I lose the money not through investment risk but simply because the fund manager outright stole my money, I'd be very angry.