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I wonder if people who are "invested" in cryptocurrency are more susceptible to these kind of scams. There's a strong aspect of FOMO in getting people to buy imaginary internet money, and also in getting them to panic and fumble said internet money.
One of the reasons I stay away from it is that, at least in recent years, every scam that I see taking place involves crypto. I have a lot of acquaintances and I can almost draw a line at this stage: the higher the "shadyness" of the person, the more they are invested or talking about crypto. I am yet, even tho I owned, to have had the need to use crypto in my daily/weekly/monthly/yearly life.

It is very easy to destroy lives with it as we can see in this case, and, making it harder to do so will work against the vary nature of this tech. This is a tough nut to crack but I think the space will remain filled with predators constantly baiting prey into the system with the promise of a big reward.

"You can't undo a transaction" is a core feature of crypto. This is hilarious, because in actual payment networks, it literally only benefits scammers.

Every consumer ever has at one point or another wanted or needed to reverse a transaction. Chargebacks are a FEATURE of credit cards.

You know how in old crime fiction there was often an episode with "bearer's bonds" where up top they define bearers bonds as "this just belongs to whoever holds it, so be very careful" and you just know they're going to get stolen immediately?

That's how I feel about crypto.

Reversibility is great for consumers who are sending money in exchange for products and services. It can be a nightmare for people who receive the money and are providing the products and services.

And it isn't just businesses who carry this risk. If a business was depending on a large inflow to make payroll, and that inflow gets reversed, the people who are expecting payment for their labor also are subject to a payment reversal.

There's definitely a lot of benefits to reversibility, but it has very real costs and tradeoffs.

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