Every rationalist-affiliated hedge fund I know of has operated with questionable ethics. Some scams were open and obvious. Tons of EAs released blatant pump-and-dump coins and promoted them on their persona Twitter. No one cared.
not sure how many of us considered ourselves EAs (i don’t think of myself that way) but i was in the cabal that OP is talking about here. lots of us are at least rats. i made the money i’ve been living off of for the last six months this way.
I’m not sure if you would or should consider “ampdot” prominent, as far as I understand they have received EA funding for AI research, but I could definitely be wrong about that. They did a lot of memecoin promotion, as did their social circle. I’m not sure if they consider themselves an EA or just a rationalist.
In total I know of about 6? rationalist/EAs who ran memecoin pump and dumps, but would not call them prominent.
I don’t think sapph is trying to use these examples as persuasive evidence.
As a small counterexample, I know a few rationalists who worked at normal hedge funds earning to give, and they weren’t involved in scams or unethical behavior. I haven’t met anyone at a rationalist-affiliated hedge fund, so I can’t comment on them in particular.
I was personally acquainted with Avraham Eisenberg via EA, who is now convicted of fraud. I work in crypto and it would be genuinely difficult for me to find a professional contact who isn’t familiar with what he did, it was that high profile.
There have been a number of instances recently of some EAs on Twitter having their accounts hacked for crypto scams. Possibly that’s what’s being referred to?
I want to be a counterpoint to this. Ariel Simnegar and I made AltX, which, while we shut down, I think it’s hard to say did anything ethically questionable apart from merely trading crypto. We didn’t do any scams, no pump and dumps, no nothing. We didn’t make crazy amounts of money but we made a decent amount of money for our investors and ultimately decided to shut down since it seemed we would have trouble raising enough money and scaling our arbitrage strategies to make the effort worthwhile. All investments and profits were returned to investors without issue and I continue to have a good relationship with our investors.
This is news to me. Can you give examples/links?
not sure how many of us considered ourselves EAs (i don’t think of myself that way) but i was in the cabal that OP is talking about here. lots of us are at least rats. i made the money i’ve been living off of for the last six months this way.
Can anyone point to any prominent EA promoting a cryptocurrency, full stop? I can’t ever remember this happening.
I’m not sure if you would or should consider “ampdot” prominent, as far as I understand they have received EA funding for AI research, but I could definitely be wrong about that. They did a lot of memecoin promotion, as did their social circle. I’m not sure if they consider themselves an EA or just a rationalist.
In total I know of about 6? rationalist/EAs who ran memecoin pump and dumps, but would not call them prominent.
I don’t think sapph is trying to use these examples as persuasive evidence.
As a small counterexample, I know a few rationalists who worked at normal hedge funds earning to give, and they weren’t involved in scams or unethical behavior. I haven’t met anyone at a rationalist-affiliated hedge fund, so I can’t comment on them in particular.
I was personally acquainted with Avraham Eisenberg via EA, who is now convicted of fraud. I work in crypto and it would be genuinely difficult for me to find a professional contact who isn’t familiar with what he did, it was that high profile.
There have been a number of instances recently of some EAs on Twitter having their accounts hacked for crypto scams. Possibly that’s what’s being referred to?
I want to be a counterpoint to this. Ariel Simnegar and I made AltX, which, while we shut down, I think it’s hard to say did anything ethically questionable apart from merely trading crypto. We didn’t do any scams, no pump and dumps, no nothing. We didn’t make crazy amounts of money but we made a decent amount of money for our investors and ultimately decided to shut down since it seemed we would have trouble raising enough money and scaling our arbitrage strategies to make the effort worthwhile. All investments and profits were returned to investors without issue and I continue to have a good relationship with our investors.