https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2022-crypto-pump-and-dump-schemes/
In addition to the atrocious amounts of wasted resources to produce new coins (electricity to run the computing power) cryptocurrency is perfectly designed for scamming. By nature a lot of the transactions are hidden on the darker corners of the internet.
An argument that makes sense on the pro crypto side is that we’ve historically assigned value rather arbitrarily to precious metals since historically having pretty metal things was nice. The Dungeons & Dragons treasure hoard guard by a fierce dragon is platinum and gold. The irritating and nowhere near as dangerous band of orcs has copper pieces and maybe a few silver. Another historical arbitrary value is what’s placed on famous works of art. Whatever the market bears out as the value is the value, although the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
At least when governments back legal tender there’s some legislative regulation involved, taking some of the guess work out of the value that piece of paper actually has. Unregulated crypto, where payments made outside the view of the rest of the world is completely normal has no such legislative backing. Although promoted as an alternative to traditional financial transactions the reality is a lot of activity as a completely speculative investment. Not only are you playing a game of trying to buy low and sell high, you’re also risking that one day the markets decide that it has no value at all.
The traditional pump and dump scheme has an influencer talk up how great something with little to no real value, like a brand new crypto coin, where they’ve bought low. If enough other people join in on the hype of a get rich quick scheme the arbitrary price moves up, the influencer sells all their supply which also influences the price on the rest of the suckers following suit. Like a mini bank run.
Another thing that I speculate on personally is the extreme volatility of the crypto prices. Bitcoin prices fluctuate rapidly; they’re always volatile. One of the danger signs of a market in trouble is excessive volatility. The “blue chip” stocks tend to increase slowly and steadily. They’re backed not by legislation like printed money but by a sound business model showing proven economic value. Every time bitcoin drops massively and it looks to be in trouble there’s always news stories about it’s imminent comeback and soon returns to even twice or three times the value of when it looked like it was in danger of extinction.
And the basic reason is because people are idiots. Pump and dump is old, illegal, and still makes its way into the world on a regular basis. Crypto adds the layer of protection of anonymity to the scammer. You can’t prosecute what you can’t find. People continue to be lured into the idea of getting rich fast. And always will.
And social media doesn’t help at all. The same way it’s pretty obvious that someone who puts out content regarding an arbitrary scapegoat should be harassed and has a Patreon for their sports picks is up to no good, the crypto scammers are pretty blatant about it. Not necessarily completely anonymous even. People operating as an unlicensed securities advisor are all over the place. YouTube community standards don’t seem to care. The SEC doesn’t seem to care or have time to get involved.
So now, what’s different when gematria gets involved.
Most of my thoughts are from researching only a few of my favorite people, but whenever I stray into other accounts it seems to be the same. Gematria is a scamming dog whistle, just like crypto has become as shown in the linked article. A match made in hell. As soon as someone shows signs of being “into” gematria they paint the bullseye on them as being a fish to be reeled in. The crypto gematria scammer doesn’t go for the angry at the world small time bet a couple of bucks on the Super Bowl crowd. The content is more spiritual, because…reasons. The same way sports games are retroactively assigned value down to clock times and what happened on 4th down with 4 yards to go, crypto volatility is assigned arbitrary significance to the high price during a day’s trading, the low price, prices at arbitrary dates in the past (crypto rituals) or whatever becomes the fit for the magic number of the day. With so many massive swings in price there’s always a match. Looking at my phone I see the bitcoin current price is 51,083. You’re not going to get a gematria story matching that many digits. So that’s 51. Or even better, wait a couple of minutes and hope you see it fluctuate to 51,000 and screenshot it took make it look more genuine.
The target audience is better off than the guy complaining about his job and betting on sports. The cult leader goes for a bigger score - hundreds of dollars for a course that includes philosophy and high vibration and whatever other weirdness that can be reasonably thrown in to make it look magical instead of just a straight up financial transaction. The key non magical word is INVESTMENT. You’re not just investing in the coin itself, you’re investing in your personal understanding of the matrix that mystically operates the financial world. Which mystically has to put up with mild mood swings. The Matrix needs lithium.
The mystical matrix gematria aficionado does not do business in the sports betting world, apparently. Content to follow just their clique of choice. And the crypto gematria leaders don’t seem to go to war with each other like the sports betting people. Again, the spiritual nature of the leaders and their content attracts a similarly calmer crowd. Someone with enough rational thought to have saved enough money to invest instead of living paycheck to paycheck.
I imagine a side effect of this is a lot of not paying taxes material gets digested. Passive income earners hate paying taxes.
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