"If you were to sell 0.001 token for $1.00, you'd then have a Billion Dollar Valuation. ;-)
This reminds me of a stock market simulation in my Econ 102 class. With a fellow student, we picked a few stocks, and sold them to each other for a very low price, and then bought all of them up as the other students watched the trends. We repeated this for 1/2 of the stocks in the simulation. We then sold each other 1 share of those stocks for $99.99 (the maximum price in the simulation), and ended up with almost all the money. 8)
The professor thought we must have hacked the computer, but we played by the rules."
It is obvious that all the new cryptocurrencies are just like that econ 102 class simulation, and just as vulnerable to gaming, but this time with real money.
> we picked a few stocks, and sold them to each other for a very low price, and then bought all of them up as the other students watched the trends. We repeated this for 1/2 of the stocks in the simulation.
I can see how you could use this strategy to exchange a fairly low amount of money for these stocks. But that would mean you have less money than you started with, and more stock.
> We then sold each other 1 share of those stocks for $99.99 (the maximum price in the simulation), and ended up with almost all the money.
And then this trade causes you to have the same amount of money and the same amount of stock. How did you get the money back? Did you actually end up with almost all of the money, or did you end up with almost all of the market capitalization?
It shouldn't be possible to make any sales of a stock at the maximum price, because the only thing that can happen to you, if you buy a stock at the maximum price, is that the price of your stock goes down.
> The professor thought we must have hacked the computer, but we played by the rules."
Sounds like a terrible prof then. What is such a simulation supposed to teach if not that those kinds of attacks are possible? These are inherent in the construction of the system and your prof should have just given you cudos for having understood that.
It is obvious that all the new cryptocurrencies are just like that econ 102 class simulation, and just as vulnerable to gaming, but this time with real money."
Isn't the whole stock market? I always wondered, they call these companies "billion dollar companies", but does that take into account the order book and how steep sorted order prices drop of?
Not familiar with his crypto hustle, but I watched some Martin Kleppman talks on YouTube, and Tech Lead commercials started devouring my YouTube. The algorithm mistook me for not knowing how to code? Not sure.
Apparently this tech lead guy created programming videos to teach you how to get hired at big tech companies. It turned out the partner guy in the videos wasn’t even a developer but had maybe interned somewhere in data science? And both of these guys were claiming to be career professionals, as if they were staff or principal engineers.
The ads reminded me of another character from many years ago that would show off a Lamborghini or some sports car in his garage with a wall of books - another scammy self help guru.
Edit: I looked tech lead up on YouTube as I read the Reddit post and typed up this post. I can’t tell if this guy is trying to be a parody/using dry humor or if he’s a narcissist sociopath.
“Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here. It’s fun to drive up here in the Hollywood hills. But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge. In fact, I’m a lot more proud of these seven new bookshelves that I had to get installed to hold two thousand new books that I bought. It’s like the billionaire Warren Buffett says, “the more you learn, the more you earn.””
I never enjoyed TechLead's main channel content but respected him (and still do) for covering the 2019 employee suicide at Facebook when they tried to sweep it under the rug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEQriZEfoI
Backstory: an H-1B Facebook Ads-team employee was on a PIP, was denied internal transfer, and had a SEV follow-up task he was called to present at a SEV Review. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of pressure-levels within Ads, but considering that's where the money comes from I assume it's pretty high. He tried to request more time, but a task nagbot kept changing the task "due date" back any time he tried to adjust it. He never made it to that SEV Review #JusticeForQin
Sounds like you need to build some passive income streams and generate wealth. Please buy the online course I'm hucking on YouTube because I'm such an expert in these topics.
Seriously though, it pains me to see the young and naive fall for these scams. Also, wasn't there a data science YouTuber recently that was busted for more or less plagiarizing their content?
> I looked tech lead up on YouTube as I read the Reddit post and typed up this post. I can’t tell if this guy is trying to be a parody/using dry humor or if he’s a narcissist sociopath.
He's clearly comedic, the question is whether he's also an unhealthy person. I lost interest in him when it looked like he was destroying his own life while simultaneously making a show out of it. I do hope it truly is just a show, because otherwise it's sad that he basically lost his family while being absorbed into an absurd YT personality.
Narcissist sociopath. I'm a huge fan of dry humor (and British) so should be able to read sarcasm or dry humor but he just annoys me. Putting "as a millioaire" in video titles is the most crass thing I've seen.
I want to assess this situation by facts and not by sentiments for or against TechLead. Could someone please help me understand some facts:
- The reddit post only provides an etherscan link to the transaction in which he adds liquidity. Where did he remove liquidity?
- Permanent removal of liquidity clearly breaks the promise of 1MM for at least 1 USDC. But a temporary removal does not, correct?
- As long as more people want to buy MM, a temporary removal of liquidity leads to a shortage of MM thereby driving price quicker.
- I flat out don't understand the "selling without selling" part.
It appears to me so far neither "MM will go to the moon" nor "1MM for 1USDC is guaranteed" appear to be false statements. Let's not call him a fraudster just yet.
> I flat out don't understand the "selling without selling" part.
He HODLS 1M in his wallet in solidarity with the community to show he is not selling, but simultaneously secretly sells inflation to profit the same - is what the author is claiming.
After watching his videos on this, it's pretty obvious to me that he created the coin as a joke/satire to show the absurdity. Yet most comments are talking seriously about this and comparing it to actual pump'n'dump scams. What's the deal?
The deal is that he is a comedian first but also gives advice that is often superficial but serious enough so there is some value to it for beginner developers. It’s both satire and seemingly genuine encouragement.
Most importantly he seems to be very good at YouTube marketing. Apparently many have watched his videos, even in this crowd, which means he knows how to attract views.
My intuition is that this is a stunt, but there is a non zero chance that he is in over his head.
Correct. No human person would buy this is an investment. If someone buys they are buying a lottery ticket and gambling against other crypto gamblers. I do think that using word scam warrants that someone is being lied in some point.
This is my favorite YT channel atm. His video on Tether is excellent. There's also an episode of him on the Jordan Harbinger podcast that is worth a listen.
If you are familiar with the term 'Drama channels', they are a very toxic genre where the group finds a target and gives their opinion about the alleged offences.
All good and well except they started to create the drama and their fans would dogpile on people or as twitter would describe 'Targeted harassment campaigns'.
CoffeeZilla is a drama channel often with dubious opinion driven videos. There a few other drama channels in the professional world but I won't give them spotlight.
Not surprising, I've seen people complain on reddit that TechLead 500$ video courses is basically Cracking the Coding Interview book repackaged and leetcode problems copy-paste.
In 2021 I find it hard to see anyone losing money on crypto as a victim.
Buying it is pure speculation. Bitcoin pivoted from exchanging value to storing it due to high cost and friction on transactions. And it will pivot again after it fails to store the value next time it crashes.
Crypto is speculative and SEC are to some degree allowing people to gamble a bit - until something seriously blows up and gives them a reason to step in.
TechLead’s coin is a play on DOGE, the original meme coin. Whoever got hurt it this must have ignored loud warnings from all sides.
Well I have to give him credit for one thing. He let me know what valley salaries were like. He is the reason I came to the valley. Now, it kind of sucks that all of my vested RSUs are worth what I would have if I'd have kept my old house in SoCal, but assuming I can hold on to my FANG job for another year it will be worth it. It also got several of my friends to look for higher paying jobs outside of SoCal, and a couple of them are now millionaires after choosing a better company than I did. So hey, thanks Tech Lead.
I also have to feel sorry for him since his wife left him and took his kid. Maybe it was deserved... I don't know. As a fellow survivor of a California divorce(why I needed a FANG income to begin with), I can't help but pity him. It could be why he's pushing the scams so hard now.
The MM coin is clearly launched as a joke and to inform about how he created it.
I like his channel.. been following him for quite a while, and I mostly agree with the things he says. He makes it sound like it's all a joke or made up, but it's really not.
How can companies like Google change their hiring process and avoid toxic engineers like this? I’m sure he did well on the Leetcode interviews and even accelerated up the engineer ladder relatively quickly by “playing by the rules”
These are not incredibly hard traits to identify upon talking with people. The problem is when you willingly dance with the devil because of how much value he delivers.
TechLead is a satirical channel and a satirical character. And this is a satirical project.
The coin is worthless. It is 4 lines of original code. Basically just saying the supply is fixed at 1 mio tokens.
It was introduced via Uniswaps liquidity provider mechanism with a thousand USD or so in liquidity. This will buy back the coin at 1 USD as long as the liquidity provider is running.
Giving the coin a "market value" of 1 mio. USD even though it is of course absolutely worthless.
Seeing this the crypto community started to traded it - higher and higher - while the founder of course sells into it.
Frankly, I don't understand why this is on the front page of HN. It's TechLead, it's enough to look at the title of his videos "I MADE A $1,000,000+ COIN. Introducing MILLION TOKEN, the cryptocurrency for millionaires" to understand it's a joke. Everything he is doing is a kind of weird humor, and this one is not an exception.
There have been ICOs which definitely have been represented as securities and have been regulated/quashed/fined.
But when not used as a representation of ownership of currencies or assets... what is a cryptocurrency and does it fit into existing law about securities fraud?
Another way to ask the question: should the SEC regulate pump and dump schemes with collectables? (I'd say beanie babies and pokemon cards to date myself, I don't know what people are speculating on these days)
wasnt crypto's entire usp its decentralized nature? No Fed,SEC or other centralized body that would breathe down your neck. People didnt want these institutions controlling thir assets, i guess the obvious downside of no regulatory support when things go wrong should be part of the risk one takes when investing in crypto.
"I found it to be, quite interesting SOCIAL EXPERIMENT!". (8m 33s)
------------
I see this:
------------
1. SOCIAL EXPERIMENT! Nothing else!
2. Funny experiment. Attacking the very current psychological aspects of people on internet. CLICK-HERE, and for 1$ USD you can have Yacht, Luxury Mansion, ... just tell them about 1M $, Crypto and Tokens! People will do whatever without thinking about it.
That's part of his meme/satire. I am still surprised at reading a few comments here which think he's doing the "as a millionaire" in his title as a serious/arrogance thing. He often has very good advice on his videos. I also like how he incorporates his "ads" into the video so well. This "Why programmers are so UNHEALTHY... (as an ex-Google software engineer)" for example:
It is not at all clear to me that this is a scam or a rug pull. The uniswap pool[1] seems to show there is more than a million USDC left (unless I'm misreading this) and that is all that TechLead guaranteed - that you could sell the token back for 1 dollar minimum. You still can, right? In fact, the price is still up.
I think cryptocurrencies generally are scams, but this one doesn't seem like any more of a scam than any other token. Maybe TechLead is selling some - but why wouldn't he? It's a gimmick token.
Social media has platformed many narcissists and psychopaths. They still pose considerable trouble and damage to individuals, even when actually skilled. It boils down to wether skills are all that should be valued in life, or not.
Making jokes and making people laugh is an old trick in the hustler and charmer book. But what is behind the façade? Even the life of a digital nomad, if it's staying in hotel rooms or living alone. Not a good life even for people on the spectrum.
Unfortunately people mix up these oppositional personality traits all the time.
[+] [-] mikewarot|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|4 years ago|reply
> we picked a few stocks, and sold them to each other for a very low price, and then bought all of them up as the other students watched the trends. We repeated this for 1/2 of the stocks in the simulation.
I can see how you could use this strategy to exchange a fairly low amount of money for these stocks. But that would mean you have less money than you started with, and more stock.
> We then sold each other 1 share of those stocks for $99.99 (the maximum price in the simulation), and ended up with almost all the money.
And then this trade causes you to have the same amount of money and the same amount of stock. How did you get the money back? Did you actually end up with almost all of the money, or did you end up with almost all of the market capitalization?
It shouldn't be possible to make any sales of a stock at the maximum price, because the only thing that can happen to you, if you buy a stock at the maximum price, is that the price of your stock goes down.
[+] [-] ganafagol|4 years ago|reply
Sounds like a terrible prof then. What is such a simulation supposed to teach if not that those kinds of attacks are possible? These are inherent in the construction of the system and your prof should have just given you cudos for having understood that.
[+] [-] teekert|4 years ago|reply
Isn't the whole stock market? I always wondered, they call these companies "billion dollar companies", but does that take into account the order book and how steep sorted order prices drop of?
[+] [-] ozzythecat|4 years ago|reply
Apparently this tech lead guy created programming videos to teach you how to get hired at big tech companies. It turned out the partner guy in the videos wasn’t even a developer but had maybe interned somewhere in data science? And both of these guys were claiming to be career professionals, as if they were staff or principal engineers.
The ads reminded me of another character from many years ago that would show off a Lamborghini or some sports car in his garage with a wall of books - another scammy self help guru.
Edit: I looked tech lead up on YouTube as I read the Reddit post and typed up this post. I can’t tell if this guy is trying to be a parody/using dry humor or if he’s a narcissist sociopath.
[+] [-] jazzyjackson|4 years ago|reply
“Here in my garage, just bought this new Lamborghini here. It’s fun to drive up here in the Hollywood hills. But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge. In fact, I’m a lot more proud of these seven new bookshelves that I had to get installed to hold two thousand new books that I bought. It’s like the billionaire Warren Buffett says, “the more you learn, the more you earn.””
[+] [-] Lammy|4 years ago|reply
Backstory: an H-1B Facebook Ads-team employee was on a PIP, was denied internal transfer, and had a SEV follow-up task he was called to present at a SEV Review. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of pressure-levels within Ads, but considering that's where the money comes from I assume it's pretty high. He tried to request more time, but a task nagbot kept changing the task "due date" back any time he tried to adjust it. He never made it to that SEV Review #JusticeForQin
[+] [-] monkeybutton|4 years ago|reply
Seriously though, it pains me to see the young and naive fall for these scams. Also, wasn't there a data science YouTuber recently that was busted for more or less plagiarizing their content?
[+] [-] threatofrain|4 years ago|reply
He's clearly comedic, the question is whether he's also an unhealthy person. I lost interest in him when it looked like he was destroying his own life while simultaneously making a show out of it. I do hope it truly is just a show, because otherwise it's sad that he basically lost his family while being absorbed into an absurd YT personality.
[+] [-] exdsq|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chii|4 years ago|reply
Art imitates life imitates art...
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] odd_presence|4 years ago|reply
That's his shtick.
[+] [-] pengwing|4 years ago|reply
- The reddit post only provides an etherscan link to the transaction in which he adds liquidity. Where did he remove liquidity?
- Permanent removal of liquidity clearly breaks the promise of 1MM for at least 1 USDC. But a temporary removal does not, correct?
- As long as more people want to buy MM, a temporary removal of liquidity leads to a shortage of MM thereby driving price quicker.
- I flat out don't understand the "selling without selling" part.
It appears to me so far neither "MM will go to the moon" nor "1MM for 1USDC is guaranteed" appear to be false statements. Let's not call him a fraudster just yet.
[+] [-] thinkloop|4 years ago|reply
He HODLS 1M in his wallet in solidarity with the community to show he is not selling, but simultaneously secretly sells inflation to profit the same - is what the author is claiming.
[+] [-] yoz-y|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiro|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgb23|4 years ago|reply
Most importantly he seems to be very good at YouTube marketing. Apparently many have watched his videos, even in this crowd, which means he knows how to attract views.
My intuition is that this is a stunt, but there is a non zero chance that he is in over his head.
[+] [-] miohtama|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bArray|4 years ago|reply
He has a very good video recently on a scam being run by influencers and provides some pretty damning evidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv6ne6VQCZI
[+] [-] BrissyCoder|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godmode2019|4 years ago|reply
All good and well except they started to create the drama and their fans would dogpile on people or as twitter would describe 'Targeted harassment campaigns'.
CoffeeZilla is a drama channel often with dubious opinion driven videos. There a few other drama channels in the professional world but I won't give them spotlight.
[+] [-] hellotomyrars|4 years ago|reply
It’s so hard to take crypto seriously.
[+] [-] diimdeep|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matjazdrolc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikewarot|4 years ago|reply
That's how he's gotten a million subscribers.
[+] [-] 01100011|4 years ago|reply
I also have to feel sorry for him since his wife left him and took his kid. Maybe it was deserved... I don't know. As a fellow survivor of a California divorce(why I needed a FANG income to begin with), I can't help but pity him. It could be why he's pushing the scams so hard now.
[+] [-] young_unixer|4 years ago|reply
The fact that he is being serious half of the time makes it funnier, IMO.
[+] [-] jbverschoor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbverschoor|4 years ago|reply
I like his channel.. been following him for quite a while, and I mostly agree with the things he says. He makes it sound like it's all a joke or made up, but it's really not.
[+] [-] alephnan|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MarkSweep|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Apocryphon|4 years ago|reply
https://guruscoach.com/techlead-patrick-shyu/#Making_over_a_...
[+] [-] MattGaiser|4 years ago|reply
People being jerks may only manifest in certain environments.
[+] [-] tolbish|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tradertef|4 years ago|reply
When someone has different opinion on certain thinks, it does not make them toxic.
[+] [-] throwaway4good|4 years ago|reply
Secondly. There is "no rug pull" whatever that means.
The coin is trading at 17 USD after being introduced at 1 USD less than a week ago:
https://info.uniswap.org/#/tokens/0x6b4c7a5e3f0b99fcd83e9c08...
The coin is described here:
https://milliontoken.org
TechLead is a satirical channel and a satirical character. And this is a satirical project.
The coin is worthless. It is 4 lines of original code. Basically just saying the supply is fixed at 1 mio tokens.
It was introduced via Uniswaps liquidity provider mechanism with a thousand USD or so in liquidity. This will buy back the coin at 1 USD as long as the liquidity provider is running.
Giving the coin a "market value" of 1 mio. USD even though it is of course absolutely worthless.
Seeing this the crypto community started to traded it - higher and higher - while the founder of course sells into it.
[+] [-] dvfjsdhgfv|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donmcronald|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|4 years ago|reply
There have been ICOs which definitely have been represented as securities and have been regulated/quashed/fined.
But when not used as a representation of ownership of currencies or assets... what is a cryptocurrency and does it fit into existing law about securities fraud?
Another way to ask the question: should the SEC regulate pump and dump schemes with collectables? (I'd say beanie babies and pokemon cards to date myself, I don't know what people are speculating on these days)
[+] [-] Ecto5|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] MattGaiser|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomasdd|4 years ago|reply
"I found it to be, quite interesting SOCIAL EXPERIMENT!". (8m 33s)
------------ I see this: ------------
1. SOCIAL EXPERIMENT! Nothing else!
2. Funny experiment. Attacking the very current psychological aspects of people on internet. CLICK-HERE, and for 1$ USD you can have Yacht, Luxury Mansion, ... just tell them about 1M $, Crypto and Tokens! People will do whatever without thinking about it.
[+] [-] stretchwithme|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dijit|4 years ago|reply
The problem I have with it is the extreme deadpan delivery, the arrogance and closeness to reality.
Obviously he’s playing a character; but I wish I didn’t get so much of a “this is serious” vibe.
[+] [-] busymom0|4 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/2RzhJ_uqYj8
[+] [-] ALittleLight|4 years ago|reply
I think cryptocurrencies generally are scams, but this one doesn't seem like any more of a scam than any other token. Maybe TechLead is selling some - but why wouldn't he? It's a gimmick token.
1 - https://info.uniswap.org/#/pools/0x84383fb05f610222430f69727...
[+] [-] kebman|4 years ago|reply
Million Token - Answering questions and status update (as a Millionaire) ^[1]
^[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iITypTHJnAQ
[+] [-] _y5hn|4 years ago|reply
Making jokes and making people laugh is an old trick in the hustler and charmer book. But what is behind the façade? Even the life of a digital nomad, if it's staying in hotel rooms or living alone. Not a good life even for people on the spectrum.
Unfortunately people mix up these oppositional personality traits all the time.
"Karma bit me hard, as a millionaire."