On the other hand: pretty gross that BAGS is tied into the 'We'll help you use AI to undress children' site formerly known as Twitter. This seems like a much better fit for Bluesky. These days imho it's an automatic 2.99 strikes against anyone who is still endorsing X with their continued business.
Someone mentioned recently that it sure is a little bizarre how many "check marked" accounts Microsoft has on twatter.
https://x.com/Microsoft/affiliates
It is like USD 10k a year a pop per account? You may say 200k is a rounding error for Microsoft but it sure sends a message, doesn't it?
My repository was tagged in this morning, and I did nothing. Now I have a wallet with 4,000 some crypto in it.
If that turns out to be possible, then this might not be a complete scam.
Or it still might be, pyramid scheme wise. ie first few can withdraw, then no-one else gets to. :(
There could even be a warning to sell at the optimal time, for the celebrity…
If the business model is charity for open-source creators, then I guess it does work.
It's not entirely fair to say, though, that the creators are the ones participating in the pump. At least, not initially.
Not that the dollar is any good but crypto is worse.
Solana isn't a cryptocurrency, it's a blockchain network (by some measures, the one with the most user activity). SOL is the native token of that network, used to pay transaction fees. These are two random tokens that happen to also use Solana.
> Bags seems to me to be offering crypto-airdrop-pump-and-dumps-as-a-service, where niche celebrities can turn their status as respected community figures into cold hard cash. The people who pay into this are either taken in by the pretense that they’re sponsoring open-source work (in a way orders of magnitude less efficient than just donating money directly), or by the hope that they’re going to win big when the coin goes “to the moon” (which effectively never happens).
Honestly, I think the first category is somewhere between "microscopic" and "nonexistent", but most people in the second category will end up holding the bag when this thing inevitably collapses.
> Honestly, I think the first category is somewhere between "microscopic" and "nonexistent", but most people in the second category will end up holding the bag when this thing inevitably collapses.
I agree. There may be folks willing to support open-source software via a crypto-friendly vehicle, but most involved in this are hoping to make money on a pump and not get left holding the bag.
Everyone involved in this scheme is fully aware of the game being played (or should be) and the risks involved. The notion that "crypto grifters" are corrupting naive open-source developers just strikes me as an odd way to describe such activity.
Not a single one of the people messaging me had actually used my open source repo.
hey guys, this is what always happens when someone you respect "rugs" their token and none of their apologies sound genuine
in fact, they actually are also the victims and the real culprits (the token creators DMing popular people) are never held to account
there should be more knowledge of this so people feel deterred and also more likely to avoid these or bring the roving bands of scammers to account
and sure, still hold your community leader accountable in some way, but the proper way more in line with reality
these roving bands of token scammers look for people experiencing 15 minutes of fame, and take advantage of them
Everyone is aware that investing in crypto is risky. Especially recently established meme coins with no functional innovation whose principal distinction is celebrity endorsement.
I find it puzzling that intellectually serious people on a startup-adjacent website are morally outraged by the existence of winners and losers in a blatantly capitalistic, market-driven ecosystem.
The River [1] consists of people who are attracted to risk and opportunity. They thrive in high-risk high-reward environments.
The Village consists of people who are attracted to safety and stability. They thrive in low-risk environments, which are also usually low-reward by nature.
It's a matter of individual taste. A functioning society benefits from both. And it's a not matter of rationality or EV. Riverians can irrationally choose to make -EV high-risk bets; Villagers can irrationally take costly precautions against remote risks.
Humans are contradictory; the same person who pays for insurance might also buy a lottery ticket. The same gamer who bemoans loot boxes ruining video games might also own a large collection of Magic: The Gathering cards.
The only explanation I can come up with is that Riverian playgrounds are morally offensive to some Village types.
Many people are outraged by crypto because it's not "safe". They're the people who decided the slides and the merry-go-rounds and the pirate ships and the jungle gyms needed to be downsized and padded and supervised and taken out, until all the fun is gone.
I'm continually surprised that a substantial portion of HN, normally a startup-adjacent tech-adjacent River-adjacent community, hates so hard on crypto.
Also, whether anyone else may benefit. Value creation is a thing.
Started two weeks ago. Someone claimed people were pretending to trade coins related to my game. (Huh?)
Week later I was told I could make thousands of dollars. Today it was life changing money. Wanted me to promote it too.
derangedHorse•3w ago
No everyone who's paying into this are either a blend of both or just the latter. No one is misguided into thinking this is a more efficient form of donating via crypto than just sending usdc to the recipient's address.
nailer•3w ago
1234.56 of PyUSD becomes 1234.56 in your PayPal and bank account.
stouset•3w ago
nailer•2w ago