this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 month ago (2 children)

This doesn't even sound like a scam though.

He bought some tokens at low price, waited for the price to go up, sold them and that made the price drop. Oh well. Sounds like a normal goal, buy low, sell high.

As part of their revenge campaign, crypto traders continued to buy into Gen Z Quant, driving the coin’s price far higher than the level at which Biesk’s son had cashed out. At its peak, around 3 am PT the following morning, the coin had a theoretical total value of $72 million; the tokens the teenager had initially held were worth more than $3 million. Even now, the trading frenzy has died down, and they continue to be valued at twice the amount he received.

So... basically just some people got mad because they were acting too quickly with no thinking involved, and others were still able to earn on it after that.

If I understand that right, this whole thing is just "I stupidly put my money into your son's untrustworthy currency and lost money. It's all his fault!"

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

From how it's (badly phrased) it sounds like he made the coins and then "bought" 5% of all of them (from himself) to make it look like there were people buying it, then marketed it out for others to also buy.

Similar idea behind the whole GameStop stocks pump and dump happened. Put in some money to give the illusion that it's hot and in demand, and then cash out when enough have joined.

[–] SpaghettiYeti 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But if you believe in the coin you made, is there a legal issue buying the coin low and selling high? Wouldn't you want your thing to be successful, whatever it is?

I genuinely do not know.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The issue isn't that he bought low and sold high, but that he bought his own property from himself to give the illusion that it had value and demand that didn't really exist. And if he hid the fact that he was the purchaser of his own coins, this would make it even more shady. He didn't want it to be successful, just to artificially inflate its value long enough to make a good sum of money and then run.

Think like buying a junker car and pouring sawdust in the engine to hide the clanking noise so you can sell it for more than it's worth. You have artificially made it more valuable in the short term to make money and left the fall to the next guy.

Is it illegal? As this is crypto, not technically due to lack of regulation.

[–] SpaghettiYeti 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

So is there no way to buy your own crypto without this issue? Who is to say he did it to artificially inflate vs he wanted a piece of the pie?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why would you need to buy your own crypto? The only purpose of these trades is to mislead others.

[–] SpaghettiYeti 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Why wouldn't you buy your own crypto for the same reason others would buy a coin?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

You already own your own crypto though, without buying it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

when you buy from yourself instead of from a different market participant that is considered wash trading and it is fraud

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

At the point where the tokens were supposedly worth $3,000,000, the liquidity could probably only support actual sales of like $3.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

paper profits

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm on the side of the scammers at this point.

There's been so many meme coin pump and dumps that there's no excuse for not knowing what to expect.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They should be teaching kids how to do this in grade school so they don't fall for it in high school. Too bad they gotta pay for computer science classes...

[–] iconic_admin 34 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Earns? A strange turn of phrase for a con.

[–] dinckelman 18 points 1 month ago

Welcome to 2024. Either you play, or get played. Being genuine and honest is becoming harder by the day

[–] nandeEbisu 12 points 1 month ago

He did more labor for that 50k than someone like Musk did for their next 50k

[–] surewhynotlem 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Where's the con part? Did he guarantee they'd go up or something?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

when you buy from yourself instead of from a different market participant that is considered wash trading and it is fraud

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A fool and his money… you know. Anybody who is buying fake money with real money deserves what they get.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What's the difference between "real" and fake money? State control?