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Coinbase tells judge that buying crypto is just like collecting Beanie Babies
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My old beanie baby collection has no monetary value, but my niece very much enjoys it. I've yet to see her play with a dogecoin.
But the point is your niece created novelty value on a thing with no monetary value. So literally dogecoin.
Couldn't this thought process be applied to all possessions? Clothes, a keyboard, hell even the McRib because of its scarcity.
Finally an explanation for crypto - now do one for "blockchain"...
"Crypto is like a McRib" is the best explanation I've seen yet. Not because it's accurate, because it's hilarious.
TBF, Blockchain is just a name for a technology, it's an append only list, where "blocks" are interlinked with their neighbors (what's known as a linked list). It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with crypto.
Yes. That's the entire point of the argument.
The alternative is that the value derives from the profits of someone else's enterprise.
Everything is an NFT
Who you calling non-fungible boy?
Funny thing about the McRib is it's a localized scarcity. Go to Germany and it's a standard menü item.
Yes, it could.
Value is social contract
The McRib has more utility and intrinsic value than cryptocurrency.
They have value because they have a use. Crypto has value because?
Yes. And?
I think, ignoring the deserved dig at dogecoin and focusing on the case, it’s more like they created Beanie Babies as a novelty/toy, not specifically to be a collectible where as crypto’s sole and original purpose is to be a speculative commodity, even Dogecoin which banked on the joke supporting/carrying its value.
If beanie babies speculative value dropped to zero it would still carry more value than dogecoin. At last I can turn a pile of beanie babies into a pillow or sew their pelts into a blanket. Can’t do that with doge
clown argument. i can burn cash to keep warm.
...how exactly does a physical object have no monetary value?
Let me tell you about my POG collection though!
Pogs were the shit back in the day.
still. are. friend.
I still have all of mine (including the mallard, macaw and deer in the thumbnail image) because I still think they’re adorable. Much more so than whatever the fuck Ty is doing these days
Why would anyone want to play with a dogecoin?
you clearly haven't taught your niece the fun of gambling (investing)
Sounds about right.
If only.
Beanie baby collectors don't push beanie babies to every person they meet, nor do they lead to emissions if a small country.
correct on the emissions, but I remember the 90's a little different :)
In the 90s, collectors did push them on others.
I remember the collectors hoarding and not wanting to sell them.
During the craze, they definitely pushed ppl to buy them. I also wonder how many people drove way out of their way to collect them.
For sure. Worth noting that may be a habit of collectors in general. I don’t give a shit about baseball but during the pandemic the amount of people trying to get me into baseball cards was stupidly absurd.
Honestly, would not be surprised if Beanie Babies as a whole had more emissions than a small country. We are talking hundreds of millions of not billions of largely plastic toys. Plus tag covers, collectors boxes, and more. Largely produced in China with an older dirtier energy grid than is used today.
Creating them, shipping them, people driving to stores for them, people buying and throwing out happy meals for them, at one point they were 10% of eBay’s sales which is even more energy and more shipping.
That’s a shit load of energy and oil being used + tons of micro plastic being introduced.
Hell, was just reading about it and even in 2021, they couldn’t ship them by boat due to supply chain issues and paid for hundreds of air shipments from China.
But they are something tangible that kids can still play with. Lol crypto is literally just wasting resources.
Ok fair, I have no idea of popularity. Feel free to do the maths, would be fascinating. Crypto is also an annual thing just to keep the charade running and isn't just the energy but also the compute power and all the hardware to go with it.
As someone below said however, at least they are actual physical things people can handle and enjoy. Crypto is not, in fact it probably causes stress, divorce and suicides when it yoyos like an angry trumpkin.
I don’t know which Beanie Baby collectors you know but the ones I do absolutely push that they are the best things on planet Earth. Those people are insane. They are kind of cute though. I like Steg the Stegosaurus.
Yeah I guess I have been insulated from the beanie baby pushers but I sure as hell have not been from the crypto bros. Do the BB collectors try to get you to buy into their pyramid scheme? 🤔
It was at its craziest in the 90’s but even today some try to flip Beanie Babies for 2-3k even though that list for 200 tops. I’ve seen people stock them in attics and think they will appreciate like bonds or form collector groups to try and make them appreciate. Apple TV+ has a doc called The Beanie Bubble that goes into some of the insanity.
Better than Tulips I guess.
not mad at a headline for once
It’s definitely true from a what is crypto useful for in practice perspective, and it’s definitely not true in context because tokens that have networks behind them absolutely are securities and lots of people including coinbase did unlicensed securities offerings… basically the worst of both worlds lol
So they will eventually lose 99% of their value?
With a 1% margin of error.
Eventually everything will lose all its value.
So long as people are alive water and food will have value
No, it isn’t like a Beanie babies because you can use Beanie babies to barter goods in the post apocalyptic society that is to come, unlike crypto coins that will be lost for ever.
Oh , they have really obscure and odd ways around that , all of it sounds incredibly involved
I remember hearing about it during the volcanic island eruption
they buy gold with their digital coin right?
Which itself is a funny concept, since you can't eat gold either.
Even assuming someone could manage to convert their crypto into gold (or a similar commodity) before the system collapsed entirely, they'd then need to find suckers who'd actually swap items of real value - food, bullets, etc - for basically useless metal.
Over on BTC , they nearly every day talk about the coming financial collapse with joy.
They assumes a financial apocalypse happens but somehow “they few” will have some BTC and be the new kings.
People in this scenario will just flock to BTC
But NFTs are still good right? People/mutants will still need digital certificates of ownership of various cartoon apes right? Otherwise how will the otherkin and zombies know who owns what jpeg????
If there is a post apocalyptic society, and if people give a shit about stuffed animals in a post apocalyptic society.
Post apocalypse or not, sometimes it’s useful to hand a kid something that makes them stop crying.
You can give them nearly anything and get them to stop crying.
One thing you can't hand them: Bitcoin
They have many use’s including burning as fuel
The real question is, what currency will be used in a post apocalyptic society?
I suppose if the conditions are right and someone develops any sort of rudimentary Internet access they could still access the Bitcoin blockchain as it can be accessed via satellite.
Otherwise I guess it would go back to precious metals or gemstones.
Beanie babies as currency.
In your scenario, what’s the difference between my crypto and my digital bank account? Most money today is just numbers on a spreadsheet backed by our trust in oil prices
And all the paper cash will be good for is burning in a fire to help keep warm, ironically leading to emissions.
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Well, you have a manufactured product where it appears that the market determines the price, but all it takes is someone to flood the market, or try to corner it (I realize this would be tricky) but the market is ripe for manipulation. Look at Musk and Dogecoin.
or the market suddenly goes "meh..." and moves on to something else.
When did that happen?
There are plenty of instances of “collectibles” all of a sudden “crashing” in value. Crypto could very easily fall the same way. Many have. Certainly happened with NFTs. It could happen to BC. It’s not like it hasn’t had volatile price drops and spikes. All that would be required would be for people to lose faith in it. It has no physical representation. It’s literally ethereal.
Manipulation is the entire market for Bitcoin. It is worse than stocks and legalized short selling.
Not sure how to tell you this, but short-selling a stock is 100% legal and very common
Are you blind. I said it was legal. The whole point is that it needs to stop being illegal.
It is so bad, investment firms control large corporations through their boards and are perfectly fine ordering the CEO to bankrupt the company. They can make money whether the stock goes up or down by using their board info to stay ahead of down trends.
The entire point of golden parachutes is so a CEO will not hit the breaks if a company is headed towards a bankruptcy cliff. They want to make sure the CEO does not prevent a collapse investors can make money on.
People over here acting like the Federal Reserve can't just make as much money as they want at will with zero accountability. The only reason Bitcoin is successful is that people are rapidly losing faith in government currencies.
Edit: The downvotes prove that most people have absolutely no idea how dollars are created in the US/global system.
Watch a video about it or read up on it, the Fed literally just creates the money from nothing, then loans it to the US Treasury at the interest rates that they set. That's it. They don't have to physically print it, they don't have to back it, they just add whatever they want to their balance sheet. It's so crazy that people just refuse to believe it.
That is the role of the Fed. They are not doing some sort of "scam", it is one of the reasons they exist. Everyone knows it. It is 'crazy' you think people are somehow ignorant of this fact.
The amount of money is increased as needed by the economy and can equally be destroyed. The reason the $ has value is that it is based on the economic base of the american economy, which is huge.
Printing more $'s can reduce the value of the $ so they have to created at the right rate. Btw, they are not really printed, just added into a spreadsheet.
Bitcoin on the other hand, a bit like beany babies, has no backing but gets it value from other greater fools who would want to buy your bitcoin when it falls in value. Bitcoin can go to zero if no one wants it. The $ will only go to zero if there is no american economy.
And if there is no american economy then no one is trading in bitcoin as they will have greater problems.
Musk doesn’t manipulate the market. There are no buy or sell orders that he executes before or after any price action.
Does he exploit morons? Yes. And those people blindly follow.
These are not the same thing.
Sure. Whatever you say. It’s market manipulation. He knows that his comments will have an impact. Don’t pretend to be naive.
He has not, and WILL NOT be convicted of this. Market manipulation requires proving that you did something to make a profit.
He may very well just be playing with people. Because he’s a twat. But he’s not manipulating the market.
When he made the Tesla announcement in the Joe Rogan show, and then people bought stock, that was manipulation. Because he directly profited from the rumours.
Yeah there’s no way that is good for business lmao
For them yes. Crypto proponents have to enter disingenuous arguments that their jargons of protocols, web3, communities, DAOs, and DeFis don’t amount to an enterprise - or else they might have to follow rules that prevent them from scamming people!
I didn’t read the article but I’d guess he’s trying to make the argument that it’s not a security so it doesn’t need regulation. He really didn’t think that one through though.
The reason they are arguing this is because they don’t want the tokens that functioned like stock with voting rights and dividends to be treated like stocks, because it’s illegal for them to run a stock exchange without registering it. Bitcoin may be like a beanie baby but they aren’t arguing about bitcoin.
Yeah. The Howey test.
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not ever really very bright, but from what I can tell, tokenized cryptos do technically count as securities under the Howey test. But the Howey test is a little outdated for what cryptos are.
Now crypto has piqued my curiosity.
Princess Diana bear has entered the chat
I inherited 3 of those lol
other than the fact that beanie babies physically exist and tend not to simply evaporate when some crooked exchange goes belly up.
Those coins still exist you know that right? Stealing a dollar doesn’t evaporate it either …
Pretty sure he would be into Bitcoin, or at the very least gold, as an alternate currency.
screw rich employ faulty instinctive historical like squeamish one cow
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I got lucky with doge. I lived out of state for s couple years. Met this kid who was dumb af with shitcoins, or so I thought. He bought doge and told me to when it was low, over the course the course of the next two days it skyrocketed. He told me to sell. I did he did. Woke up (worked nights) and it crashed to nothing and has never reovered since. I hit big, not rich big, not usually life changing big but big enough that I was able to majorly fund my gaming obsession a bit with some new expensive toys.
I will never touch crypto again though. The market is much scarier now espcially with heavy regulation looming.
violet wild sense chunky scandalous squeal head axiomatic cough safe
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Yeah I can't lie I made more then just on doge but it was the best example. I jumped in with him high risk. But it was fucking stupid and I could have screwed myself. I really wish I got in when btc was .25 cents. I had no clue. This same kid made 200k off btc but he lost the wallet LOL.
tub nippy smile shelter long coherent screw unwritten disagreeable mighty
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What is the equivalent of cutting off the beanie babies tags? Losing your recovery phrase?
Ransomware group gets raided by the FBI
Unless you have a huge 7 figure + wallet, you’re somebody else’s exit liquidity.
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What do it do doh?
it's a bubble waiting for a solar flare to wipe it out.
Because it hasn't found a use amongst the general population. It seems to be mainly a speculation thing.
Coming soon: Beaniecoin
Kinda true, except beanie babies are a physical object and bitcoin is a mental illness
What about Utility?
Someone mentioned it's not their fault nike shoes are resold at a premium, as the original shoe has utility value. Beanie babies do too - playtime. Crypto is not that.
I wonder what happens when people learn less than 7% of gold is actually used for electronics, while about 47% of it makes up jewelry, 37% for bullion, and 9% for coins and medals.
Learn what? That it has uses? It’s used for electronics, satellites, jewelry/art and coins. That’s a good thing, crypto has none of that, and half the time people can’t even sell the crypto they own.
You never see gold all a sudden worthless like you would with crypto.
Yeah not only that, you end up with all these stupid ass transfer fees trying to exchange…So annoying
I've used Bitcoin as a middle man to send money overseas at a fraction of the cost of an international wire transfer or Western Union.
Idk what people do with the monkey jpegs.
so, money laundering?
You can look at all the coins you own and get a cheeky wank in
There is at least 1 crypto coin that allows you pay for on-demand GPU computation.
I feel like that's a pretty reasonable use-case. You basically pay to have a video or blender file rendered by a bunch of peoples GPUs.
What about something like Dogecoin? Not sure.
RNDR (Render) token, I believe. Great use case, reminds me of those SETI screensavers back in the day that had people analyze data from Arecibo and other radio telescopes.
> Crypto is not that.
Sure, it is also scam and dark market
Average redditors entire grasp of crypto be like:
As opposed to the non-scam and not-dark market of Wall Street. lol
Look, no one has ever bought drugs with US Dollars. No one has ever used cash to launder money. No one has ever funded any illegal activity with greenbacks. Please don't act like it has ever done 1000X more of anything that bitcoin is accused of.
I have zero utility for beanie babies.
Crypto is useful for remittances as it tends to charge a flat rate based on network demand rather than a percentage of the total, like western union.
I am STILL waiting on funds to settle for a transfer last week from one financial institution to another. It would have been done in an hour with bitcoin.
Unless you underpaid and it’s still in the mempool.
Yes, you do need to do a minimal amount of work to make sure your transactions are included in the next block. But even that takes less work than filling out the transfer form that I had to use to make the transfer between banks.
at least they know.
my grandkids really enjoy playing with my mom's beanie baby "investments"
Did he just say the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet in court?
Do we call the CBDCs beanie babies too?
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/digital_euro/html/index.en.html
Yeah it’s a huge waste of money
Back off! I’m gonna collect all the NFTs!!
It should have just stayed a stupid hobby for nerds but nope… we had to monetize the crap out of it. Blockchain does have it uses but they are few and far between. It’s fun to toy around with and maybe some business applications but it was taken waaaaay too far.
welcome to the IT industry. Marketing buzzwords come and go.
IoT, Cloud, Blockchain, NFT, 5g, 4g, vr, metaverse, e-commerce, AI.
I think this is more true with NFTs than crypto. I guess it depends on the crypto.
Not really sure what the difference is. It’s an arbitrary value based on perceived scarcity.
I say fuck crypto and NFTs. But I do believe bitcoin is different. There is actual utility for people who aren't fortunate enough to live in western societies.
Check your financial privilege. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/check-your-financial-privilege
Beanie babies are far more valuable, kids love them.
So that means it will all be worthless. Crypto bros will be mad.
r/nottheonion
Pointless? Yea we know
at least you actually hold and cuddle a beanie baby
The context in which this reference is made during the court hearing by Coinbase is misconstrued by the title. Coinbase is using the metaphor of beanie babies to make the obvious distinction between investing in a company (Beanie Baby Co.) and a commodity/collectible (beanie babies). The SEC wants to categorize BTC a security, when in fact, it is a non-security, similar to gold, silver, diamonds, rare art, or the metaphor used here: beanie babies. Most people I’ve come across who tread on BTC, either A: don’t understand it, or B: are just upset they missed the boat (more often than not, this is the real reason)
Coinbase is pulling lawyers from the same pool that Donald Trump is.
Edit: Awww…downvotes. Truth hurts bitches
Not entirely wrong.
Most accurate description anybody in the "industry" has ever used.
And we saw how that turned out.
Much. Wow. True. Very.
If somebody legitimately offered you free bitcoins, I'm betting you wouldn't refuse.
If someone offered me a free beanie baby I'd probably take it too
I feel like I'd probably get more value from a free beanie baby, to be honest. Even after the market crashed, at least you still had the beanie babies.
Well that's great logic. I would also take free nukes and tanks but that doesn't mean these things shouldn't exist or are good for the world.
Besides being used as a digital currency, Ethereum can also process other financial transactions, execute smart contracts and store data for third-party applications.
The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) now has more than 200 member organizations including Samsung Group, J.P. Morgan, Mastercard, and Microsoft — all of whom are experimenting with private versions of Ethereum for enterprise purposes. J.P. Morgan and more than 300 banks use a version of Enterprise Ethereum to run an inter-bank payment network.
There are myriad sectors in which Ethereum is providing utility and creating value. Industries from healthcare to entertainment to real estate are creating novel tools on the protocol to enhance efficiency, trust, and democratize access to various types of services.
The issue is that, in 20 years from now, will people give a shit. The collector market is different than other markets. Crypto isn't really in that space, and if that's the angle, it will fail.
My grandma loved collecting beanie babies not because of no wreath value but because they were cute. She especially loved collecting the ones that had the birthdate of family members
Are those still worth anything?
1 Beanie Baby = 1 Beanie Baby
looks like 1 bitcoin transaction uses the same energy as charging a tesla 5 times!
Sure, if you exclude comic "payments" part that is used only on dark market and for scum, Beanie Babies is what is left.
I came here hoping for memes, disappointed.
The right beanie babies can fetch a high price.
https://wealthygorilla.com/most-expensive-beanie-babies/
Beer mats can also fetch a lot.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/goodness-guinness-memorabilias-worth-90000-8143706
Ooh! We have that platypus. They gave it to my daughter years ago when she was in the emergency room getting stitches on her forehead. Probably not going to be able to recoup the ER visit with the value of our beanie baby though.
https://financeillustrated.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/39.jpg
It's a hedge against inflation of net worth.
So they are saying it's a waste of money... No arguments here lol
Well yeah but also even less valuable since nothing tangible
Beanie baby etf incoming…
My grandparents had HUNDREDS of Beanie Babies, I’m talking floor to ceiling displays in every room of their 4 bedroom house. When they passed they left them to me and now I have at LEAST 20 storage boxes of them…..help.
well, you could make a youtube or ticktock short vid of a beanie baby avalanche...that could possibly generate some views?
Can't wait to see the documentary on the crypto currency craze in 20-30 years. And all the young people will say "how did they think that was worth money?"
it will be right next to enron and social security as text book ponzi schemes
Worthless got it. Throw the book at him.
In Layman's terms, sure
Crypto Bros trying to justify their scams are fun to watch squirm as they get sentenced.
It's all about replacing currency, until anyone's held accountable.
Or pretty shells, this is the definition of value. If enough people value it it will have a measurable exchange with other things of value.
I’m a crypto bro and I invested, have lost and have gained some, crypto can’t do anything useful. The first crypto (Bitcoin) was supposed to be a peer to peer “digital” coin and the value was what people believe it was worth it. There are over 10000 different coins and tokens and virtually all of them are worthless and pure speculation and hope. For a few dollars you can make yourself a coin and you can name it whatever you want and shill it hoping it can become valuable. Shiba Inu, the second meme coin started as an “experiment is spontaneous community building” which translate to “I hope this shit works and people buy it so I can be rich”, it doesn’t create anything, it doesn’t solve anything and it doesn’t work on anything other than what people believe it’s value should be. its a lottery ticket
But what about blockchain and digital contracts? I thought that was the whole point of ethereum— I just don’t see snt digital contracts being used irl
Any digital contract can be created without the “token” or “coin” and actually that’d be even worst because instead of being peer to peer contract a digital coin would be involved. Walmart and Amazon wanted to create their own token but they found it was useless
Okay, but what about my Trolls?
After all the hype didn't beanie babies become worthless? Guess they are pretty much like crypto.
Lmao, at least beanie babies are cute when you hang them over a monitor
People, you understand this is bullshit from Coinbase, yes? The SEC is correct here. These are securities, not collectibles. You invest in, and rely on, the network (NOT Coinbase).
Coinbase engages in governance/staking as well. That is defacto proof that a solid amount of the offerings are securities because it meets the definition. Now, one can argue about Bitcoin and similar. But not about a lot of others.
Incorrect. Beanie Babies are at least valuable to children.
It's interesting to see the legal debate around crypto tokens likened to collectibles. In the context of crypto payments gateways, it's essential for users to be aware of the regulatory landscape. Regardless of the outcome, understanding the distinction between investment and utility in the crypto space is crucial. When exploring crypto payment options, users should prioritize platforms that prioritize transparency, regulatory compliance, and user education. This ensures a safer and informed journey into the world of digital assets. Always stay vigilant and make decisions based on a thorough understanding of the evolving regulatory environment.
I just donated a bunch of comic books to goodwill that I had been holding on to for decades thinking they’d make me rich. Problem was so many other people were doing the same thing.
Good to know. I wouldn’t collect Beanie Babies either. So they’re both scams them? That what I thought from day one with both.
This is "a lobster is a fish" level of twisted logic.
At least BB are cute and tangible.
It's not, it's dumber
beanie babies that must be constantly supplied with ever increasing amounts of electricity otherwise they catch fire and disappear forever.
Where is the beanie baby EFT!!!!
They wish it was like collecting Beanie Babies
BB don't need gobs of electricity
BB can fallback from being an investment to just being a toy
BB arent a very liquid asset unless I have a yard sale, but I dont have a yard.