Dogecoin DOGE/USD co-creator Jackson Palmer said that billionaire investor Mark Cuban and some high-profile venture capitalists have “drunk the Kool-Aid” with respect to cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
What Happened: In a recent interview with Business Insider, Palmer said that unlike celebrities that get paid to promote certain crypto projects, Cuban seems to actually buy into the idea of crypto.
“Mark Cuban isn’t getting paid as a celebrity to promote this stuff. He actually has kind of been indoctrinated into believing that these things are the future,” said Palmer.
The Dogecoin co-founder went on to say that by funding the crypto space, Cuban and VCs like Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon are actually running a type of grift.
“That is more of a grift to me in that they actively see it as an ongoing way to extract profit — it’s not like they’ve been paid once off to promote something — it’s that they want to be the ones that are in control or have ownership or a large stake in this kind of extractive, grifty system of cryptocurrency,” he said.
Also Read: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Surge Higher Into The Weekend: What’s Happening?
Cuban reportedly shrugged off Palmers statements when Business Insider asked for his take on them.
“Sounds like the same thing that has been said about every new technology I’ve been involved in,” Cuban said to Business Insider in a statement. In another statement to Decrypt, the Shark Tank investor said, “some people get caught up in the speculation side [of crypto]. I don’t.”
Speaking at the 2022 Code conference earlier this week, Cuban, who declared himself an Ethereum ETH/USD maxi, said he believes that crypto is “kind of boring” now because it lacks newer applications to take it forward.
Price Action: At press time, DOGE was trading at $0.064 and ETH was trading at $1,719, up 3% and 5% respectively in the 24-hours.
Photo: Courtesy of Gage Skidmore on flickr
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Dogecoin Co-Creator Jackson Palmer said he feels major investors are running a crypto “grift.”
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Palmer originally created Dogecoin as a part of a counter-cultural movement against Wall Street.
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Mark Cuban told Insider that Palmer’s gripe isn’t anything he hasn’t heard before.
Dogecoin Co-Creator Jackson Palmer had some harsh words for crypto enthusiasts like Mark Cuban.
In an interview with Insider, Palmer said Cuban seems to have “drunk the Kool-Aid” when it comes to crypto and NFTs.
“Mark Cuban isn’t getting paid as a celebrity to promote this stuff,” Palmer said. “He actually has kind of been indoctrinated into believing that these things are the future.”
The Adobe engineer accused Cuban and other major investors in and promoters of crypto — including billionaire Marc Andreessen and investor Chris Dixon — of running a “grift.”
“They actively see it as an ongoing way to extract profit. It’s not like they’ve been paid once off to promote something — it’s that they want to be the ones that are in control or have ownership or a large stake in this kind of extractive, grifty system of cryptocurrency,” Palmer claimed.
Cuban dismissed Palmer’s charges in a statement to Insider. “Sounds like the same thing that has been said about every new technology I’ve been involved in,” he said.
Andreessen and Dixon did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.
Still, in August, Dixon, who leads the crypto fund at Andreessen Horowitz, said he sees digital currencies as a way to shift the power away from big tech. The fund, which was co-founded by Andreessen, has invested in more than 50 crypto startups. Meanwhile, Andreessen has called crypto skeptics like Palmer an “incredible gift” to his firm in the past.
Earlier this year, Cuban said 80% of his current investments that are not on the ABC program “Shark Tank” are related to crypto. In contrast, despite helping create Dogecoin — which peaked in 2021 and currently has a $7.84 billion market value — Palmer has said he hasn’t made a cent off the digital currency, he told the crypto blog Decrypt in 2018. He told Insider he’s always seen crypto as more of a “hobby.”
Palmer also commented on the role celebrities like Matt Damon and Kim Kardashian have taken in advertising crypto to the masses. Though he said he sees the role of actors and artists in the crypto scheme as more transactional and less of a “grift.”
“They promote what they get paid to promote,” Palmer said. “I think that the actors don’t have a moral compass when it comes to that, but it’s their job. That’s what they do. It’s not surprising to me.”
In June, Damon was mocked online as the value of cryptocurrencies plummeted. People took to social media to slam the actor for his Superbowl ad with Crypto.com that told viewers “Fortune favors the brave” just months before cryptocurrencies lost more than $2 trillion in value.
The co-creator of the meme currency has long had a cynical view of crypto as more and more traditional finance types have embraced what was once an alternative to the mainstream financial system.
“Back in 2013 — or even when crypto was first coming out in 2008 — there was a portion of it that was actually a response to Wall Street and the overarching capitalist system,” Palmer said.
“What really turned me off was that I quickly realized that the people that were building these systems —building Bitcoin and building all of these cryptocurrencies — didn’t necessarily want to replace a corrupt capitalist system. They more so wanted to be the ones in control of an alternative capitalist system. The gripe for most people in crypto isn’t that Wall Street bankers were exploitative or had unfair power, it’s that they want to be the unfair power in the system and they want to be the ones that are able to extract large profits from people instead of Wall Street bankers,” he added.
Read the full interview with Palmer here.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The Drunk Robots team just made a huge announcement: their IDO will launch on April 7 on the Liquidifty, GameFi and TrustPad platforms! It’s time for followers of the project, as well as lovers of beer, robots, and good old-fashioned brawls, to celebrate!
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About Drunk Robots
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What is $METAL used for?
Through their battles and adventures in Drunk Robots, players will earn various rewards, such as equipment and upgrades for their fighters, in the form of NFTs. Players can buy and sell these tokens on the game’s marketplace using $METAL tokens.
$METAL tokens can be used by players to:
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How to Participate in IDO
There are three options to participate in the Drunk Robots IDO: Liquidifty, GameFi and TrustPad. The $METAL token price and vesting conditions will be the same on all platforms, but each launchpad has its own system of allocation and its own terms for participation. Here’s what you need to know to get started:
Liquidifty
Liquidifty aims to bring more liquidity to the NFT market by granting NFT owners more use cases. Their platform provides different tools for NFT collectors; users can use cross-chain NFT oracles, take out loans using NFTs as collateral, earn with NFT vaults, trade tokens on a convenient cross-chain marketplace, or join a multi-ownership feature.
Minimum Investment for FCFS: $600
Minimum Investment for Guaranteed allocation: $2000
Total number of METAL allocated: 5,000,000
KYC: No
GameFi
GameFi is an all-encompassing hub for game finance, serving game studios, players, traders, and investors in one place. GameFi brings the gaming community the promising blockchain game initiatives developed on the BSC and Polygon networks, which host most of the top-rated play-to-earn titles. Simultaneously, GameFi is the first marketplace to enable cross-game trading of in-game items and NFTs.
Minimum Investment for Lottery: $889
Minimum Investment for Guaranteed allocation: $133,350
Total number of METAL allocated: 20,000,000
KYC: Required
TrustPad
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Minimum Investment for Lottery: $1590
Minimum Investment for Guaranteed allocation: $7950
Total number of METAL allocated: 5,000,000
KYC: No
Tokenomics and Vesting
Total supply: 2,750,000,000 $METAL
Public round allocation: 30,000,000 $METAL
IDO and Listing price: $0.01
FDV on Listing: $27.5M
TGE MarketCap with liquidity provided: 18,750,000 $METAL / $187,500
TGE MarketCap without liquidity: 5,000,000 $METAL / $50,000
Vesting schedule for public round: 10% TGE, 15% monthly
For additional information, take a look at Drunk Robots’ tokenomics in more detail here: https://liquidifty.info/3hdfP4j
Listing
After the IDO, $METAL tokens will be purchasable on the Pancakeswap and Gate.io exchanges from April 8.