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by AtNightWeCode 22 days ago
The CEO of Coinbase finished an earnings call by reading all the buzzwords you could bet on to be mention during the call. So a CEO can manipulate these things and who knows if it was just a marketing thing or if he shared his plans.
2 comments
BeetleB 22 days ago
As long as he didn't place any bets, I think what he did is totally fine.

If I find out my friends placed bets on whether I'll say X tomorrow, I'm not obligated to act as if I didn't know.

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wayeq 22 days ago
> As long as he didn't place any bets, I think what he did is totally fine.

you might need to take your imagination and critical thinking out for a spin if you can't see where this leads.

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antiframe 22 days ago
So is it also okay if his friends placed a bet and shared the profits with them?
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BeetleB 22 days ago
Don't quibble on details. The point is that as long as he didn't profit from the bets, he is free to mess around that way.

This isn't share price manipulation.

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daemin 22 days ago
Him placing the bets or a co-conspirator placing the bets and sharing the profit is the same thing. He is effectively betting on himself saying those words which he then goes on to say.

I'm pretty sure this is the same as match or race fixing to get the payout from bets made.

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BeetleB 21 days ago
> Him placing the bets or a co-conspirator placing the bets and sharing the profit is the same thing.

So we're in agreement that if he is not profiting from saying it, then it's OK, correct?

> I'm pretty sure this is the same as match or race fixing to get the payout from bets made.

If my friends make a bet that I will/won't do something, and I choose to make one side win, that is not match fixing. I'm sure match fixing only applies to regulated games. If people want to make bets on unregulated games, and lose their shirt, they have only themselves to blame.

Here's a paper on match fixing:

https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol56/iss4/9/

For something to be match fixing, the government has to recognize the activity as a sport, and most state laws require the person to benefit from the fixing, which the CEO here is not and/or they require "rule tampering" - there was no rule broken here.

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daemin 21 days ago
Depends how you count profiting from it, if you only count direct monetary profit, or if you count things such as favours to be profit.

There has to be some motivation for people to do such random things, and even if not directly illegal, they do smell rather fishy and unethical.

T hen again crypto isn't known for its bastion of legality and morality, therefore I would assume there are some deals going on in the background which are probably illegal, and if not that then unethical - not that they would care about that.

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AtNightWeCode 22 days ago
Downvotes on HN is always fascinating. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/coinbase-ceo-s-bizar...
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lxgr 22 days ago
"I don't want to consider possibly living in a world in which this might be true" is definitely a specific genre of downvote.
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