re: Took a dive into Hex crypto

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really? I'd argue the stock market is just as much a ponzi as crypto is.

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Laziest analogy ever, you miss the part where stocks have underlying value, cash flow, earnings etc.

This guy's show?


Where he promoted the dumbest pump and dump to date?

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Here’s the interview from today: LINK

He killed it if you have a basic understanding of crypto. For people who don’t have that basic understanding though I’m sure they had little idea what he was saying.

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He barely said anything and came across terribly.

When it’s a three minute interview and the guy is rapid firing questions that are 50% stupid there’s only so much you can do.

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He came across flippant and annoyed with any question - as if no one should be questioning him or his platform

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If only you knew. That old stupid article and spam king are early day fud and has been dispelled for 2 years. It's the same ole bullcrap from people who don't research. He answered the questions well. OA has never sold a coin. Spam king section is straight bs over a $500 small claims across the country. Vitalik, ETH foundation, Charles H, all dump on their users heads. Richard Heart is a billionaire and doesn't need to ever sell a single Hex. He probably won't ever sell one either.

I agree. I believe that he should rethink that statement.

I thought you were joining the crypto Discord group?

Well that interview was enlightening. I’ve always thought that a lot of crypto/web3 projects and the culture around reminded me of MLMs they just cater more to “bros” and MLMs cater more to “huns.” Both often have nonsensical “business” models that intentionally blur the lines between “consumers” and “investors/owners,” lacking the transparency of other investments, but instead lures people into being part of some community which minimizes/eliminates any accountability.

But worse, it creates an echo chamber & group-think mentality that incentivizes unconditional support, to a cult-like, militant level, that even valid and well-intentioned criticisms and attempts at accountability are either ignored and fought tooth and nail by the supporters to a point the critics are shunned and banished from the community altogether.

But those similarities were already obvious, but the new similarity that I hadn’t seen before is his response to people calling it a “ponzi” scheme. Just like how people call MLMs “pyramid” schemes.

The MLMs respond to those accusations and explain that unlike pyramid schemes they’re not illegal and point out some of the technical/pedantic differences while ignoring the criticism is that they’re functionally similar and still a scam even if they’re a legal scam. But they will even proactively explain the differences without an accusation and even train their “business owners” on the differences, or at least give them a boiler plate example to use.

So not only did Richard do something similar here with his response to the ponzi accusation, the website has a whole section dedicated to “proactively” explaining why it’s not a Ponzi scheme. Like MLMs, having to proactively explain why it doesn’t meet the technical/legal definition of an illegal scam, doesn’t mean it’s not functionally similar or any less of a scam. And it doesn’t bode well for ant business when you have to focus on why it’s not illegal.

Now I don’t think most projects, products, and/or businesses, are meant to be scams. And this is not an exception. I don’t think Theranos, Nikolai, etc. were meant to be either. I even think some actual illegal Ponzi schemes were meant to be either. Charles Ponzi’s scheme started out as a legitimate endeavor before it turned into the scheme. I’m sure most probably would have preferred to get the returns they promised legitimately, just like Elizabeth Holmes wanted her blood test to work.

So I think people have this mixed up notion that about scams/scammers. They think the original plan and sole intention was to scam people, when in reality, it’s often just a response to failing to do what was promised.

But I think there are a couple of conditions that make them more likely, and I think one of crypto’s biggest problems is that the incentives, models/structures, and cultures helps create the conditions (lack of accountability, tcult-like following, and the cult of personality with many of the founders, and big promises that are made, especially financial promises).

I think this is especially true for the products themselves that are specifically financial instruments, not just a product meant to have some non-financial function that is valuable, and it’s financial value is a result of that, but still valuable Independent of the financial value.

Looking into Hex and Richard, I feel like this is, more so than almost any other product/project I’ve seen, creating those conditions for it to turn into a scam. And his comments only reinforce that.

Specifically his earlier comment, that there doesn’t need to be actual utility or independent for something to make money is troubling. And it’s troubling because he’s actually correct, BUT instead of pointing out that it’s a serious problem that needs correct and he wants to create something corrects it, he seems to be using that as some sort of justification of his product instead, as if it’s ok if it doesn’t have any utility to justify its value because other products/projects didn’t either. That’s literally the last thing any legitimate, competent, and credible person would say.

I mean it’s why crypto so similar to the dot-com bubble with companies going public without even a product or even a plan to make money. So it’s like leading up to the dot-com crash saying “you don’t need to have anything of value or utility to make money, like all these other companies, so why not invest in my company even though I’m not trying to address that problem.” That would (and probably did) work, until it didn’t. Yet, google, Amazon, etc., who were actually creating products and services of value ended up surviving.

But like someone pointed out earlier that red an older comment, so it would have been forgivable if now that he had a project, that he had changed his tune. But that Payne interview only reinforced his earlier comment, as he just pointed out that money was created out of thin air for Bitcoin and other cryptos without any utility or fundamentals. But again that seemed like justification, and he neither pointed out that it’s a major problem not that his project attempts to solve that. He just points out that Bitcoin went from a penny to $69k, as if that is a selling point for his project, even though he was criticizing the others.

Worse yet, his economical explanation was nonsense. Because while Bitcoin’s price is based purely on sentiment and the value others are willing to pay for it, not its utility, that’s at least a legitimate justification since it’s purely a market pricing with no promises about returns, yields, or rewards, most importantly none from Bitcoin itself. But his project is making promises of rewards, yields, etc., So money created out of thin air is one thing, but promising money to give people money out of thin air from the money out of thin air, is just nonsense.

And finally, this may seem minor and unimportant, but since his only track record is the whole spam thing and since it’s odd that he’s created pseudonym since he’s unlike say Satoshi, he’s being the exact opposite of anonymous or not drawing attention to himself, I find his little bio in Richard Heart website to be the exact opposite of what I would expect from a credible, non-scammer:

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He owns the world's largest cut diamond, $5,000,000 in watches, and raised $27,000,000 for medical research. He owns a couple of Ferraris, one of which is the quickest model ever made with 1000HP.

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I mean raising money for medical research is cool, but it’s not something people normally highlight immediately. But that’s one thing, but this is literally the first thing on his website, and focusing on owning the largest diamond, the millions of dollars of earaches he owns (I see lots of complaints about him on the Rolex subreddit) and owning a couple Ferraris, comes off as a person who cares vanity and an appearance of being rich above all else. That’s not something I would expect to see in Warren’s, Elon’s, Bezos’s, etc. bio at all, let alone in the introduction of it. I wouldn’t even expect that from Trump (I would expect him to talk about his business accomplishments first, not that he has a private jet), and Trump takes vanity to the extreme.

So all in all, I doubt Richard is planning a scam, and maybe he’ll get lucky and, unlike many scammers, never be put into a position where that’s even necessary. But I’m pretty confident that if things go bad and desperation kicks in, he has all of the red flags of someone who would resort to a scam. And unfortunately given many of the replies in this thread, like the MLMers, it’s clear that those who could hold him accountable to prevent that probably won’t until it’s too late and they too have gotten scammed, even if the signs became quite obvious.

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I thought you were joining the crypto Discord group?

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I will, I just happen to be one of the world’s greatest procrastinators.