<story><title>Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”</title><url>https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2021-crypto-scam-revenues/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>Scams that will collapse in 2022:&lt;p&gt;* Axie Infinity. That&amp;#x27;s a Ponzi in the collapse phase. Their Smooth Love Potion token is down 90% and in a screaming dive, and their Axie token is down 37% from peak. That one is going to hurt a lot of poor people in the Philippines. Many quit their jobs to play Axie&amp;#x27;s play-to-earn game. All the money comes from later entrants, so it&amp;#x27;s a Ponzi by definition.&lt;p&gt;* OpenSea. The NFT market is in worse shape than it looks. People are minting crap art like crazy, and people are buying it at inflated prices, hoping to flip it to a greater fool. If you look at actual resales on OpenSea, they&amp;#x27;re not happening much. The supply of greater fools is running out. As I&amp;#x27;ve pointed out before, this works just like Beanie Babies on eBay. Asking prices around US$5000, actual sales around $50, most items show zero bids. NFT markets don&amp;#x27;t visibly crash, they just quietly stall. Most NFT markets don&amp;#x27;t show statistics which expose that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>whatshisface</author><text>Sometime around 2018, not having a clue about popular culture shifted from making you seem lame at parties to insulating you from pyramid schemes.</text></comment>
<story><title>Cryptocurrency scams cost owners $7.7B in 2021, driven by DeFi-based “rug pulls”</title><url>https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2021-crypto-scam-revenues/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Animats</author><text>Scams that will collapse in 2022:&lt;p&gt;* Axie Infinity. That&amp;#x27;s a Ponzi in the collapse phase. Their Smooth Love Potion token is down 90% and in a screaming dive, and their Axie token is down 37% from peak. That one is going to hurt a lot of poor people in the Philippines. Many quit their jobs to play Axie&amp;#x27;s play-to-earn game. All the money comes from later entrants, so it&amp;#x27;s a Ponzi by definition.&lt;p&gt;* OpenSea. The NFT market is in worse shape than it looks. People are minting crap art like crazy, and people are buying it at inflated prices, hoping to flip it to a greater fool. If you look at actual resales on OpenSea, they&amp;#x27;re not happening much. The supply of greater fools is running out. As I&amp;#x27;ve pointed out before, this works just like Beanie Babies on eBay. Asking prices around US$5000, actual sales around $50, most items show zero bids. NFT markets don&amp;#x27;t visibly crash, they just quietly stall. Most NFT markets don&amp;#x27;t show statistics which expose that.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dvt</author><text>&amp;gt; All the money comes from later entrants, so it&amp;#x27;s a Ponzi by definition.&lt;p&gt;Axie is not a Ponzi scheme, but is definitely a pyramid scheme (via their scholarships).</text></comment>