disallowed/technology/it-was-a-piss...-and-how-it-reached-2-4b-20180125-p4yyvf.html
"What ended up happening, as has occurred with other crypto-currencies, is market manipulation in order to drive up the price for some people to make quick profits.
"[People in the cryptocurrency community] get a few daily emails that say, 'Make the price go up, make the price go up'. That's pretty much what it's evolved into, unfortunately."
As documented by a
Business Insider investigation in November, cryptocurrency exchanges have become rife with "pump and dump" scams in recent times. Typically, these would be illegal in most regulated markets as they leave unsuspecting investors at risk of large losses.
The pump and dumps are typically coordinated using messaging app Telegram. In one week, Business Insider observed five apparent pump and dumps, which artificially inflate the price of a cryptocurrency in the hope of making a quick profit at the expense of other investors.
Surprisingly, Palmer doesn't own any dogecoin.
"I gave away what I had," he says.
"Back in the day, I had a few million dogecoin, which was nothing. It was like five or ten grand's worth. And I gave it all away to charities that we were supporting early on," he says.
"I thought … how long can it last? I was about a month into it and I thought dogecoin can last maybe a couple of months; people aren't going to remember it anymore in a year, why would I hold onto it? So, sadly, I have no dogecoin.
"Unlike most people who have created cryptocurrencies, I'm not some baller getting around in a Ferrari. The joke is on me, firmly. That being said I feel like I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I was like some rich crypto guy off the back of a joke that was me poking fun at crypto."
Palmer adds that he is kind of glad he didn't become rich off it.
"While I would like to become a multi-millionaire," he says, "what I've seen happen to those who create cryptocurrencies and make a heap of money off them is they become less and less grounded. They become part of the hype cycle and say things like, 'Blockchain is going to do everything in the future' and, 'Your fridge is going to be connected to a blockchain' and all this bullshit. It's like, they are completely detached from reality.
