I know stuff like this shouldn’t bother me relative to all the other stuff worth worrying about, but damn if it isn’t demoralizing. Makes me question why I even bother going into work and put in an honest effort every single day.
As a parallel there are thousands of kids setting out to become the kingpin drug-dealers glamorized in media and most of them end up dead, in jail or working bad dead end low level dealer jobs where they make less than minimum wage.
There are now over fifteen hundred different alt coins most of them languishing in complete obscurity and failure. Nobody knows the exact statistics, but I am sure the vast majority of the reported ICOs were failures too. The ICO market is unregulated so that it does not show when the promoters are buying their own tokens ... I guarantee you that most ICOs were basically propped up by the promoters in order to make them look successful so that they did not really make anyone any money.
The major difference between this and the drug dealers, is that the police have not moved in yet, so people are not going to jail yet.
So it is always better to work in creating real value and making an honest living. And don't worry about what would have been if you were a successful criminal. Consider the infinitely more likely possibility of what would have been if you were failed criminal, or just an impoverished barely-getting-by criminal.
Ripping people off for €40 million may end well for this fellow or it might result in a few irritated “investors” (donors?) coming round with knives, or even just fists, for a quick chat about what happened to their money.
It might not be likely but that’s a risk and a much greater one than I would want to take. Besides, someone can only use the defense of polite society if he or she hasn’t already ripped the cover away.
Yeah, there's more than a few cases of people ending up back in the US (or whatever country) in the trunk of a car. I may prefer prison over the constant fear of being "disappeared" by a bounty hunter or hired kidnapper [1-3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Sidney_Jaffe
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Luster
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann#Capture_in_Arge...
A number of people "score" their life by the size of their bank balance. That is easy to do because hey a number is a number and they are easy to compare. As a life score however it doesn't reflect a lot of meaning.
One of the things I point out to young people who are just getting started in their careers is that nobody made the baseball of hall of fame by being the highest paid player. The things they did that counted were runs, and pitches, and defensive plays. Games played, and games won. Owners and managers throw around money to try to put together a team that can win the pennant or the series, but the players are evaluated, and judged, on their play not their pay.
So why would anyone evaluate themselves based on how much they have earned rather than a much more meaningful example like how much they have done. Start evaluating yourself on how many problems you have solved, or how many people you have helped, or how many lives you have saved. Those are good measures for a score. Money isn't.
In reality though there is a psychological effect that benefits those who make a lot of money as long as other people know they make a lot of money. How much money someone is willing to pay you is inherently a value judgement on their part.
All else equal, is a player paid $100K a year or a player paid $10M a year more likely to make the baseball hall of fame?
... and this sentence becomes more ambiguous
The only good argument is that stealing from people is immoral.
I agree that it's a buyer beware market, but it's because of people like this guy. The laws are on the books and hopefully will be enforced. Just because it's a new tech doesn't mean it's a lawless frontier even though some people are acting like it is.
Unless he wants a life of paranoia, he's limited to countries who don't extradite to the United States [1]. Since his face and name are known, as well as his wealth, he'll likely have to share a good fraction of his proceeds with local officials to stay alive.
[1] https://www.internationalman.com/articles/which-countries-ca...
New Zealand resident, with a service based out of Hong Kong, and the U.S. attempted (still attempting) to extradite him.
You could probably just go to whatever beach he's chilling at, and just take what you want if you have the physical power to influence him to do so.
And the blatant display ala martin shkreli doesn't play very well once twitter is no longer the buffer between you and reality.
Only the very best scammers ever get to learn about extradition.