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0 pointsAnimats3y ago0 comments

By number, maybe. By dollars, no.

Madoff's core operation was based on scamming rich Jews in New York City, Palm Beach, Florida, and Hollywood. In each location, he had a prominent Jewish leader steering investors to his fund. Ezra Merkin handled New York, Stanley Chais handled Hollywood, and Madoff himself worked the Palm Beach Country Club. This was very much an in-person scam. A long list of celebrities lost big.

That's why the recovery operation was so long, so extensive and so successful. The major victims were well connected, could afford expensive lawyers, and collectively, they had a lot of clout.

The crypto world tends to have less well connected suckers.

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Cd00d3y ago

Your point would not be weakened if you left ethnicity out of it, but risks coming across as un-credible and conspiracy driven with the addition. I'd recommend an edit.

telotortium3y ago

No, he's not accusing Jews of "running the world" or anything like that. It's a fact that Madoff focused on finding victims of the Ponzi scheme in his community, which is not at all unusual (MLMs often encourage their participants to sell to their friends and acquaintances, for example). As a well-off American Jew himself, Madoff went after his community of well-off American Jews, calculating correctly that their in-group trust would make them easier targets.

It's also a fact of the world that the rich are generally better able to pursue legal action to recover money that they've lost than the poor. The fact that these rich people were Jewish doesn't make much of a difference here (not to mention that the Madoff scheme was extremely infamous after it imploded, so it was more likely to receive resources to rectifying the wrongs that Madoff dealt as compared to an equally-damaging but less well-known scheme).

AnimatsOP3y ago

Here's a writeup in Jewish Journal at the time.[1] Wikipedia for background.[2]

Madoff is important in relation to crypto scams for a number of reasons. He showed how to run a successful Ponzi - pay good, but not unreasonable returns, and be very reliable about servicing withdrawal requests. That kept the scam going for 17 years. Few Ponzis last that long. Most of the crypto Ponzis can't manage either of those goals, but the "staking" crowd is trying. "Staking" is really just a High Yield Investment Program.[2] (There's real staking with proof of stake Etherium, where you're guaranteed by smart contracts to get back the ETH you put in, although it might be worth less when you get it out. But most of what's called "staking" is just a loan.)

The overall market collapse in 2008 finally caused a collapse of Madoff's scheme. This, too, is typical of crypto schemes. They can't survive a downturn. As long as "line goes up", it's not clear what's a Ponzi. People who point out that the numbers don't work are derided for spreading "FUD". When line goes down, the whole thing collapses. Which is what happened to Terra. The relationship between TerraUSD and LUNA (now LUNC) didn't help, either. The stablecoin maintenance system minted unlimited amounts of LUNC trying to prop up TerraUSD. The end result was LUNC dropping from $117 to $0.0003051, with a total supply of 6,904,017,889,662 LUNC. The $1 stablecoin dropped to $0.03497. (Forum comment: "Don't worry,don't be afraid. The whole market has collapsed. Buy & Hold. Luna Classic pump will start soon." This is typical of mass-market Ponzi schemes - even after being fleeced, many sheep retain hope. There's less of that at the high end, where investors usually kick themselves for being suckered, then lawyer up.)

Key takeaway: little of what happens in crypto is new. Most of the schemes go back to at least the 18th century. Most crypto enthusiasts don't know enough financial history to get this.

[1] https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/67582/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-yield_investment_program

tartoran3y ago

I saw a docu portrating something like that. He apparently was doing his friends a favor and of course in the jewish communities he was a fellow who had the secret sauce to steady great returns in addition to a very good reputation. I’m sure there were doubters too but his long track record spoke for itself. A lot of those people had charitable orgs that were completely wiped out. His sick thinking was something like people are greedy and so they more than deserve to lose their money. Thing is folks who’d want to get out would be convinced to stay in afraid he’d never ‘invest’ their money again.

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