If there's one great thing that Bitcoin enables, it is to actually truly own something. By merging possession and ownership, and making it intangible, it became this incredible and unique asset.
Per Lyn Alden in this neat little Natalie Brunell (#1403332) clip: You can't self-custody Nvidia stock!
Here's Mr. Ricardo Salinas, now a "crypto-loving billionaire" (disgusting phrasing... if he's anything, he's a Bitcoiner you SEO-hungry slopshop), falling prey to a custody stock-loan fraud case
Salinas has a Bitcoin book out, The Bitcoin Enlightenment: Ending The Fiat Dark Age, that I reviewed for BM last year (it was mje, as far as Bitcoin books go, 6.5/10), but this story about Tio Richi has everything to do with tradfi custody problems: he tried to borrow against his family company stock.
There's a whole international financial-parasitic industry devoted to this, and between London brokerage and Swiss advisers and a lender in the Bahamas, Mr. Salinas found a pretty shady type -- obvs enticing customers with lower rates than other financiers (tho with higher collateral requirements).
Turns out the guy didn't lend him anything, but merely sold the shares that were supposedly collateral (bounced via a few different institution and shell companies) _and lent the proceeds back to him!
"It was the perfect fraud,” he says. “The guy took my stock, sold it, and gave me the money as a loan — Jesus, that’s as bad as it gets.”""It was the perfect fraud,” he says. “The guy took my stock, sold it, and gave me the money as a loan — Jesus, that’s as bad as it gets.”"
The villain is some Ukrainian dude who grew up in the US, changed his name a half-dozen times and moved abroad and yada yada:
repurposed an existing company, America 2030, into a stock-loan business, having developed an interest in the practice during his time in Ukraine.
It was a business model built as much on image as structure. The paperwork was thick and the branding reassuringly old-school; he set up entities with bank-like names, later facing lawsuits from the Rothschild and Barclays financial groups over trademark infringement.
According to the StoneTurn report, the proceeds from the Elektra sales were split between two accounts. An Astor Capital account received $60mn. Another, for Cornelius Vanderbilt Capital Management — a Belize-registered entity named after another gilded-age dynasty whose trademark is registered to Sklarov’s lawyer — sold Elektra shares almost daily since 2021, receiving $359.4mn.
Based on bank disclosures from JPMorgan ordered by a New York court, its March 2025 report estimated that about $420mn was realised from sales of Elektra shares, of which roughly $104mn appear to have funded the loan extended to Salinas. “I know exactly what a Lombard loan is,” Salinas says. “If I wanted to sell my stock, I’d have done it myself.”
Later in 2021, one of Salinas’s advisers noticed something odd: Elektra’s tightly held and thinly traded shares were being sold. “I even called up my brother,” Salinas says, “and said, ‘Hey brother, are you selling your stock?’”
"Another $88mn of the proceeds cannot be accounted for.""Another $88mn of the proceeds cannot be accounted for."
...the Epstein cut.
Stories like this make me think toothless (but very annoying!!) AML and KYC requirements for us plebs are pretty ridiculous. The big dudes transact in the millions and yet they don't get caught (except this one, tho):
I do not own any of these entities and do not control them,” Sklarov says. But StoneTurn identifies transfers of $3.6mn from the Cornelius Vanderbilt account directly to Sklarov and parties it describes as connected to him. A further $225.2mn was routed indirectly through Astor Asset Management 3 and Sklarov’s longtime New York lawyer.
archive: https://archive.md/aakvQ
How did that happen?
Would have thought that Vanderbilt progeny were a little more careful of their ancestor's good name...
Anyhow, I'm going out to register companies in the name of every 100+ year old famous businessman I can come up with.
Winning strategy
My morals are the reason I'm poor
Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Morgan
... Nakamoto.
https://twiiit.com/Swan/status/2024148143538123254
OP refuses to attach and show LN wallets.
OP is undermining the V4V P2P sats denominated integrity of SNs.
Downzap his hypocrisy if you value the SNs platforms integrity.
Explanatory Notes-
What is Stacker News?
It is a social media platform intentionally created to enable a P2P V4V BTC denominated community.
Originally Stacker News (SN) custodyed sats on behalf of participants but the threat of government regulatory prosecution on the pretext of money transmitter forced a move away from the custody of sats by the platform to the platform enabling participants to send sats via their wallets.
To achieve this participants need to attach wallets to both send and receive sats.
Where participants do not or cannot attach LN wallets transactions will often default to Cowboy Credits.
This change was a compromise forced by the threat of government prosecution.
The difficulty of attaching both sending and receiving wallets is moderate- it takes some effort and newbie or non tech people may struggle with it, but most competent Bitcoiners can succeed in attaching wallets and thus enabling sats denominated P2P transactions.
But a number of Stackers have chosen not to attach wallets- in particular sending wallets which enable you to send sats into the SN community.
Very few have attached just a sending wallet- many have attach just a receiving wallet.
Those who only attach a receiving wallet can receive sats from others but cannot send sats into the community. They may feel that as content providers they have no need or obligation to send sats into and within the SN community. I disagree.
Where these receive but not send (horse but no gun) Stackers proclaim to be Bitcoiners but refuse to enable a sending wallet they are demonstrably hypocrits. They claim they want to build and grow the BTC LN MoE network but they cannot be bothered contributing toward that growth by attaching a sending wallet and demonstrating they are not just talking, but are also walking and supporting a sats denominated platform.
If we do not use the LN wherever and whenever we can it will not grow and develop.
Some claim it is too hard to attach wallets- its too hard on their self custody nodes or wallets- this just highlights how much work the LN still needs before it is capable of anything approaching 100% reliable MoE capability.
But the best way to grow and strengthen the LN is it use it – despite its remaining flaws and glitches.
When wallets are supported by people using them they receives transaction fees and can develop liquidity and systems further.
When LN wallets are not used the LN decays- it does not have the usage and fees income to grow.
So when self proclaimed advocates for BTC and LN refuse to attach wallets (especially sending wallets) I see hypocrit.
I will continue to see hypocrit until and unless someone can explain why I should not.
Calling me a Nazi, trolling and making fun of me crudely seeking to avoid the issues I raise will not stop me from asking why are you claiming to be a Bitcoiner but refusing to attach wallets and use the LN here where we can help it grow.
Now some are deliberately concealing their wallet status, as if this is about a right to privacy.
Concealing your wallet status means nobody else can verify whether or not you are serious about using BTC LN, or whether you are just an all talk no walk hypocrit.
Do not trust- verify.
What about this fundamental principle do they not understand?
And then they talk about 'content' being more important than whether or not you have attached wallets - in this context the intentional lack of attached wallets undermines your credibility as your actions do not match your words.
Your submitted content may be great, but you as someone claiming to be a serious Bitcoiner are undermining your credibility and the credibility of your content by being a hypocrit.
Your content, is tainted by your verifiable hypocrisy.
SNs needs both good content providers and those who pay for that content if it is succeed.
I am more in the latter group than the former but both are required overall or the model does not work.
So as a net contributor of sats and thus a net consumer of content I object where content providers refuse to engage in the P2P V4V ethos by refusing to attach both sending and receiving wallets and I will both withhold my contribution of sats and sometimes downvote in response.
V4V needs to work reciprocally or it will not work at all.
The content providers need net sats contributors/content consumers who send sats into the platform, or the entire platform fails.
OP refuses to attach and show LN wallets.
OP is undermining the V4V P2P sats denominated integrity of SNs.
Downzap his hypocrisy if you value the SNs platforms integrity.
Explanatory Notes-
What is Stacker News?
It is a social media platform intentionally created to enable a P2P V4V BTC denominated community.
Originally Stacker News (SN) custodyed sats on behalf of participants but the threat of government regulatory prosecution on the pretext of money transmitter forced a move away from the custody of sats by the platform to the platform enabling participants to send sats via their wallets.
To achieve this participants need to attach wallets to both send and receive sats.
Where participants do not or cannot attach LN wallets transactions will often default to Cowboy Credits.
This change was a compromise forced by the threat of government prosecution.
The difficulty of attaching both sending and receiving wallets is moderate- it takes some effort and newbie or non tech people may struggle with it, but most competent Bitcoiners can succeed in attaching wallets and thus enabling sats denominated P2P transactions.
But a number of Stackers have chosen not to attach wallets- in particular sending wallets which enable you to send sats into the SN community.
Very few have attached just a sending wallet- many have attach just a receiving wallet.
Those who only attach a receiving wallet can receive sats from others but cannot send sats into the community. They may feel that as content providers they have no need or obligation to send sats into and within the SN community. I disagree.
Where these receive but not send (horse but no gun) Stackers proclaim to be Bitcoiners but refuse to enable a sending wallet they are demonstrably hypocrits. They claim they want to build and grow the BTC LN MoE network but they cannot be bothered contributing toward that growth by attaching a sending wallet and demonstrating they are not just talking, but are also walking and supporting a sats denominated platform.
If we do not use the LN wherever and whenever we can it will not grow and develop.
Some claim it is too hard to attach wallets- its too hard on their self custody nodes or wallets- this just highlights how much work the LN still needs before it is capable of anything approaching 100% reliable MoE capability.
But the best way to grow and strengthen the LN is it use it – despite its remaining flaws and glitches.
When wallets are supported by people using them they receives transaction fees and can develop liquidity and systems further.
When LN wallets are not used the LN decays- it does not have the usage and fees income to grow.
So when self proclaimed advocates for BTC and LN refuse to attach wallets (especially sending wallets) I see hypocrit.
I will continue to see hypocrit until and unless someone can explain why I should not.
Calling me a Nazi, trolling and making fun of me crudely seeking to avoid the issues I raise will not stop me from asking why are you claiming to be a Bitcoiner but refusing to attach wallets and use the LN here where we can help it grow.
Now some are deliberately concealing their wallet status, as if this is about a right to privacy.
Concealing your wallet status means nobody else can verify whether or not you are serious about using BTC LN, or whether you are just an all talk no walk hypocrit.
Do not trust- verify.
What about this fundamental principle do they not understand?
And then they talk about 'content' being more important than whether or not you have attached wallets - in this context the intentional lack of attached wallets undermines your credibility as your actions do not match your words.
Your submitted content may be great, but you as someone claiming to be a serious Bitcoiner are undermining your credibility and the credibility of your content by being a hypocrit.
Your content, is tainted by your verifiable hypocrisy.
SNs needs both good content providers and those who pay for that content if it is succeed.
I am more in the latter group than the former but both are required overall or the model does not work.
So as a net contributor of sats and thus a net consumer of content I object where content providers refuse to engage in the P2P V4V ethos by refusing to attach both sending and receiving wallets and I will both withhold my contribution of sats and sometimes downvote in response.
V4V needs to work reciprocally or it will not work at all.
The content providers need net sats contributors/content consumers who send sats into the platform, or the entire platform fails.