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by legionof7 2290 days ago
I work in the crypto industry and I think this a failure of our community to properly inform people of the risks.

These people weren't gambling for massive returns. They thought it would be a safe way of getting pretty good ones.

4 comments

Returns are always the inverse of risk. If you are getting "pretty good" returns, then you have pretty high risk.
They thought they were risking 13% of their collateral in the event of a liquidation - not 100%. They were risking way more than they thought.
No one lost 100% They lost their collateral and got to keep the loan the took out against it.

If I stake $2000 of Ethereum, and in return get $1500 in a stablecoin, when my $2000 in collateral gets liquidated I still have 75% of that in the loan I took out and can walk away.

The people with the 100% loss story are being deceptive

That's not the complete story. They have lost one asset with a certain set of liquidity characteristics, and unexpectedly gained one with another set.
There was nothing unexpected here. Users traded their eth X days ago for dai, with the full intention of adjusting their liquidity characteristics

What happened here simply precluded the possibility of the reverse trade when the loan became under collateralized, this was not unclear to anyone involved

Traded? You mean loaned. That was always the wording that was used to promote DAI, whatever the underlying transaction might be.
Really?

I've never seen a hive of more rampant unchecked greed.

You mean r/WallStreetBets and how they play with options in the traditional market?

Don’t clutch your pearls too hard - greed is everywhere, not just crypto.

I don't know if it's true, but my impression is that the same people who got really into complicated crypto trades also got into complicated option trades once it became accessible via app.
My impression of /r/wallstreetbets in particular is that they seem to think particularly highly of crypto.

There might be an overlap elsewhere but I don't think I've seen it on wsb personally

No such thing... better the return, higher the risk. Fact of life.
If someone invested in crypto thinking it would be a safe way of getting anything that’s still on them.