No crypto for me. Too dangerous.

[usonian]

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/new-york-city/manhattan-crypto-kidnapping-torture-bitcoin-password/6277345/


Wealthy ‘crypto king' turned NYC townhouse into torture chamber to gain partner's Bitcoin, sources say

The arrest came after the 28-year-old Italian tourist's daring escape Friday morning from the Nolita townhouse.

The 37-year-old Kentucky man charged with the kidnapping and torture of an Italian man allegedly held captive for weeks inside a Manhattan townhouse aimed to get the man's password to Bitcoin, law enforcement sources say.

John Woeltz, also known by some as the "crypto king of Kentucky," was arrested Friday and arraigned on charges of kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment and assault, among other charges.

Law enforcement sources said Woeltz and a business partner spent the last few weeks torturing their third partner, an Italian citizen, who arrived in New York City in early May. Investigators believe the relationship among the three men had been tumultuous in the past, but came to a head when the Italian arrived on May 6.


Woeltz and the other partner are accused of taking the victim's passport and electronic devices, then demanding his Bitcoin password. When the 28-year-old refused, police said Woeltz and the other man ... (REDACTED) ... The victim managed to escaped (sic) on Friday morning, more than two weeks after the torture started.

[PJMcK]

1. Crypto is BS

I prefer cash and hard assets in these uncertain times.

[Phoenix61]

3. IMHO, it's nothing more than an electronic Ponzi scheme. nt

[SheltieLover]

4. Absolutely!

[surfered]

2. Nine for me either. Except for its demand, it's a worthless asset.

And prone to removal by hacking

[pbmus]

5. our problem is not crypto, thats just the greediest bastards in the universe tool ....

to use as they dismantle the integrity of our current financial system, and when that is on its way out, the only currency worth anything is, you guessed it, so welcome back to the 30's , enjoy the fresh sunlight on yur face as you pick those hand grown vegetables and wonder what the fuck just happened.........

[Initech]

8. The problem is the greediest assholes in the universe are worse than ever.

They need to be stopped!

[pbmus]

13. If we survive till midterms and

The court doesn’t shut down democratic institutions, we have a better than average shot at bringing back a sense of sanity however it will take many years and several more elections to wither out the scalding corruption, hypocrisy, and ignorance that currently constitutes our country’s political system

[Initech]

17. The biggest priority should be de-Foxing our government.

Fox has their tentacles literally everywhere, in nearly every facet - from school boards and city councils to state and local offices, to judiciary, to governors, half of Congress and the Senate, SCOTUS, and nearly every single position in Fuckface's cabinet. The real traitors to this country are Fox, Newsmax, Heritage, and Federalist. They all need to be outed as traitors and arrested.

[womanofthehills]

24. Fox has few viewers compared to podcasts

Around one or two million average when top podcasts have 10 to 40 million.Average Fox viewer is 65 while young get all their news on their phones.

[Initech]

25. But the power they wield in the American government is insane.

What do we do about that?

[marble falls]

6. It's too close to Ponzi. There is nothing behind it, it's just a bunch of tulips.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

10. Don't disagree, but the same is true times10 regarding the U.S. dollar with almost NOTHING behind it!!

... just printing presses churning out 100's of millions of $$$ in fresh bills every single day... now THAT'S what's truly scary, especially when you have the Idiot-in-Chief tRump in charge of U.S. financial policy driving up inflation to the stratosphere!

I believe that stupid fuck tRump is heading the entire world straight into a Titanic-sized economic "iceberg" that will cause a financial crash the likes of which will make 1929 look like a minor market correction.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Completely Untrue

The dollar is based upon the government having an interest in maintaining the economic processes of total assets of nearly $360 trillion.
The notion that the dollar is backed by nothing is ludicrous.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

18. Guess we'll see about that when tRump's global financial policies lead to hyper-inflation & financial collapse...

that's the killer no amount of assets, especially if dwindling in value, can stave off forever... then IF the world abandons the U.S. dollar, as tRump is encouraging with his dangerous economic policies, look out below!!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

21. Thank you.

I do get very tired of people claiming the U.S. dollar is worthless, a claim I've seen for at least 50 years.

[DFW]

32. Exactly.

If someone dumps five million Zimbabwe dollars on you, you don’t have enough to make change for a nickel. THAT is “worthless.”

If someone dumps five million US dollars in your bank account, tax free, you can buy a nice house, a nice car, and maintain both without starving for many years. That is NOT worthless. If your society accepts the form of payment you are offering for the things you want (car) and need (food), then the form of payment is by definition something of worth. It is the responsibility of the government to protect its people from a Weimarer Republik type of situation.

[Initech]

7. The people who are getting rich off crypto are people who you wouldn't trust with 15 cents.

Let alone $15 million dollars.

[KentuckyWoman]

9. Crypto preferred by 10/10

Drug kingpins, terrorists and mobsters around the world.

[FalloutShelter]

12. In the words of Paul Krugman:

“Crypto is for crimeing.”

[k_buddy762]

11. I guess I'm the loan voice of dissent

I have a bunch of crypto and am looking to buy more.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Wait A Second

You got in early enough to see a return and you're thinking to buy more without taking the yield on what you already have?
I'm not seeing the logic in that.

[k_buddy762]

19. Well, I see it as a long term thing

The money Biden gave everyone right after covid.... I put it into crypto. It tanked under Biden, was down 200% for the past three or so years. The first two weeks of Trump I was up almost 30% but I held. Now its back down, but only a few hundred down from where I originally bought. I may buy some of the newer meme coins, or possibly more Bitcoin. I see it as a very long-term investment. Its mostly a curiosity, plus I like that it can't be controlled by any nation's currency.

[fujiyamasan]

26. How does something fall 200%?

Bitcoin has mostly proven itself at this point. I agree that it’s likely to survive. Enough large institutions have bought into it too. I’d consider more akin to a digital gold, rather than a currency. There are a few others that have utility like erhereum and xrp.

But let’s be honest so much of crypto is a scam. The entire ecosystem is full of pumpers and rug pulls. Meme coins are the worst for that. Do your due diligence and good luck.

[Cosmocat]

34. PUFF

If you are in the Solana space, look it up.

[fujiyamasan]

31. I think the expectation is that bitcoin's price will continue to rise

Yes, it is volatile and like many of these sorts of assets, most of the gains may already be had, but it’s a speculative asset.

It has no inherent value, produces no profits and distributes no dividends.

But the price continues to rise. Bitcoin is probably big enough where it’s beyond a Ponzi scheme. I don’t think any one person can dump it at this point to cause a collapse or significant long term drop. I just consider it nothing more than digital gold.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

22. Lone, not loan voice.

Although I suppose it's possible you lend out your voice and that's what you intended.

[womanofthehills]

23. I have some crypto- planning on buying more

“Crypto Becomes a Staple for Millennial and Gen Z Investors: WEF Report”

A growing number of Millennials and Gen Z investors are allocating over half of their investment portfolios to cryptocurrency, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Retail Investor Outlook published Wednesday.

Rather than a passing trend, this reflects a clear shift in how younger investors are approaching risk, trust and financial planning.
https://cryptonews.com/news/gen-z-millennials-choose-crypto-core-asset-wef-retail-investor-outlook-2024/

[Cosmocat]

35. If you don't mind me shilling

PUFF on the Solana network. Just launched several weeks ago, I've done well w this developer before.

[k_buddy762]

36. Interesting

I'm not Gen Z, and my crypto holding are 0.007% of my total net worth.

Like I said. Its interesting to me. I put money in it that I didn't need. I wouldn't put more than a hobbyist amount in crypto, but I may dabble and move a little more over to that account and buy more, particularly Bitcoin.

Its no longer a passing fad, but an actual proper investment.

YMMV.

[fujiyamasan]

39. That's smart. Best to never invest what you can't afford to lose

And crypto is pretty broad. There are thousands of coins out there, most are well known to be “shit coins” ($trump anyone?).

But as I said, I don’t see Bitcoin going away anytime soon. Or any of the other major coins.

[hatrack]

16. You just don't understand the technology/miracle of blockchain/modern investing/money/strategic thinking/the future/econ

Crypto-bro cliches in 3 . . .2 . . . 1

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[LearnedHand]

20. Wise!

I'm pretty ignorant about investing and monetary policy, but I don't want anything to do with "currency" that's speculative.

[DFW]

27. I know I SHOULD understand crypto by now

But I don’t and really haven’t made a big effort to grasp it. Bitcoin’s jump from $20,000 to $100,000 in a few years can’t be denied, but I still don’t know how or where I could buy or sell one.

I’m woefully conservative in such matters. It took me decades to accept gold as a reserve of value, and this was many years after part of my job was assisting central banks around the world manage specific parts of their gold reserves. Gold pays no interest, can’t be eaten, lived in, or used to heat yourself in the winter. Its only practical uses that I could see were as jewelry and in electronics, but it couldn’t be denied that many civilizations had valued gold for millenia. Alexander the Great minted gold staters to pay his generals. The Roman emperors minted gold aurei for centuries, and Byzantium minted millions of gold solidi after that. Electronics may not have been a big consumer of gold in those days, but the use for jewelry was, and you didn’t need a computer access code to negotiate it. I don’t need a computer screen for some Central Bank to show me a thousand hundred-year-old twenty dollar gold pieces or British gold sovereigns. The ask me to the vault because I can spot fakes when I hold them in my hand. They are really there.

When people come on here and tell me they are down 200% of an investment, I start to lose confidence in their ability to convince me of their grasp of the subject. If you have an uninsured house, and you lose it in an earthquake, a hurricane or a tornado, you lose up to 100% of it. That’s it. You can’t lose it again.

[fujiyamasan]

29. Maybe they were trading on margin

That’s the only way I can see losing more than your initial investment.

I’m more open to volatility than most on here and hold a very small amount in Bitcoin ETFs, but i prefer investing in companies that actually make and sell products and services.

I’d consider Bitcoin more similar to a “digital gold”. As a currency, I think its utility will be limited. There are a few other coins that have some utility, but much of the crypto ecosystem is full of pump and dumps and rug pulls.

[DFW]

30. A margin call would do it, however...

The way the post was worded, it sounded like what was meant was losing 80% of an investment, with only 20% left.

Gold positions on paper can indeed be traded. And, it is almost universally accepted that there is much more gold being traded than could ever possibly be delivered if all paper positions were called in. That would be one way to see the price of gold triple, although if that happened, street thugs would be cutting off people’s ring fingers to get at their wedding bands. As it is here in Europe, cops aren’t even reacting any more to street thugs ripping gold chains off the necks of women and girls. When it brought $75, they didn’t bother. Now that the same tiny chain brings $750, they bother.

[fujiyamasan]

28. Weird story

You’re still most likely to get mugged for cash in your wallet, rather than a digital wallet.

[no_hypocrisy]

33. I equate cryto-currency with the derivatives that were so popular 20+ years ago.

Sound good on paper.

With inside information, probably could make a profit.

Not a good part of a well-managed portfolio.

[usonian]

37. Posting this past a lot of discussion on crypto, I just wanted to emphasize the danger.

If someone steals your bank password, you have (hopefully) some recourse from the bank, whereas when someone steals your wallet password, you are totally up shit creek.

Laundering the plunder is easier, though not foolproof, thanks to the public chain, but feel comforted by the fact that a great number of crypto “users” are criminals and that the business is backed by the good faith and trust of people like Donald Trump.

Oh, and robberies and scams are policed by the DOJ.

Another trustworthy bunch as they are being purged of people upholding the law by (arguably) people engaged in subverting it.

It’s called “swimming with sharks”

And have a great day!

[hunter]

38. These are magic numbers that are transformed into new magic numbers when you sell them.

( Or when the keys are tortured out of you... )

These magic numbers are only valuable to people who believe in the magic.

Otherwise crypto is fairy gold, too frequently promoted by malevolent fairies.