These are not real and are getting more popular recently. It's a "live" video but of an older recording of a public speaking event involving Elon and other big names, in which they briefly discuss cryptocurrency among many other topics. The name of the YT video stream is usually something like "Elon is starting a new coin, announcement live now" or "Elon Bitcoin giveaway limited time only"
They play the video picture-in-picture and outside the video frame is a QR code which takes you to a site with one of a couple clever strategies:
1) A "mint" of Elon's new token and a counter that shows the token mint is almost completed (e.g. 9973/10000)
or
2) A more basic "crypto doubling" philanthropy event including a feed like those seen on DeFi sites, showing wallets depositing ETH/whatever and immediately being sent double whatever the deposit was
I checked the wallets again, and they made about 20k USD so far (it was 2k USD when I posted the thread here earlier this morning). People are actually falling for this :/
Broeksmit traded on a decentralized exchange (DEX) without Know Your Customer procedures, so all the tax office would presumably be able to track was a send transaction from some fiat onramp/CEX to a public address. That's his initial "funding" and from there, they're blind.
Trading on a DEX and taking the shitcoin valuations there seriously is like giving yourself a billion dollars by typing it into Excel. You can write whatever number you want, the IRS has no interest in your excel sheet because there aren't real dollars there.
Getting an enormous tax bill from the IRS was part of Broeksmit's ideal situation, I imagine. That would mean getting a supported cryptocurrency like BTC back into his CEX through a DEX with a liquid DEXSHITCOIN/BTC pair after making hella savvy trades between DEXSHITCOIN/DEXPOOPCOIN pairs.
Sounds like it started as a half joke and "middle finger to crypto" but he dumped too much cash into the joke, and from there it consumed him. Super sad, and I see the same thing happening with NFTs now. Crypto and NFT trading and investing can be done responsibly, successfully and in full view of the tax man but ironically, only with the most centralized platforms... and probably, only for now.
I like how the nearly the same top comment, almost word-for-word, was posted in the recent thread called '50% of CEOs considering layoffs'... too many posts with numberspin lately.
The OP compares digital reality to physical reality, but digital reality exists at the behest of physical institutions that can and do limit it. There's no comparing the existence of matter and chemistry and the laws of physics with bits or bytes on our global internet infrastructure.
China has successfully limited Bitcoin with its ban. Bitcoin's value (its exchange rate with other currencies) is affected by China limiting its citizens' ability to host a node and exchange or hold Bitcoin the Chinese sovereign territory.
The author is correct that there isn't a centralized entity controlling Bitcoin as with a central bank and fiat currency, but in this case there's still a group of ISPs and governments that together can influence Bitcoin "printing" in many ways.
Cool, I just signed up. Is there no way to change your site's URL once you've picked it in settings? Can you use a custom domain or will it always be x.montaigne.io? The help page is empty - this would be a good place to put FAQs. FYI I'd be willing to pay for something like this as it tears down all excuses for me not to have a blog, and I'm sure many Apple users would share that sentiment.
They play the video picture-in-picture and outside the video frame is a QR code which takes you to a site with one of a couple clever strategies:
1) A "mint" of Elon's new token and a counter that shows the token mint is almost completed (e.g. 9973/10000)
or
2) A more basic "crypto doubling" philanthropy event including a feed like those seen on DeFi sites, showing wallets depositing ETH/whatever and immediately being sent double whatever the deposit was