Without any clear understanding of the China daily deal market at the time—many of the players experienced similar issues—having spoken to no one at 24Quan who was close to the situation about what really happened, comments like this will do nothing other than perpetuating fake news.
Media are incentivized by maximizing eyeballs, not always standing for what really happened. Most news readers want to read what’s entertaining and confirms their cognitive biases, and care less about the dry facts behind which truth stands.
Beam was not able to speak openly before the Settlement about what really happened—FTC holding Beam at “gun point”, vendors requiring Beam to stay silent or else they will not release the customer funds. Beam now can finally speak openly, but does not have the PR budget to go against these fake news that has been in public domain in the last few months. That’s the price to pay for doing the right thing — making sure all customers are made whole and putting the preposterous “Ponzi scheme” stupidity to rest.
If you care about the truth more than the sensationalism and entertainment-at-the-expense-of-others, you’re probably the minority. Please stay well.
I can always be reached at aaron at meetbeam dot com.
Let’s first remove the misconception that it is anywhere near a Ponzi scheme. If it was, the news and Settlement will be mentioning that P work again. No mentions, no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing in the Settlement.
Contrary to FTC statement and CNBC reports, the timeline is the following, and Beam had the paper trail to show that this is factual —
1) October 1, 2020 - Beam's ACH service provider's API service stopped working. Funds locked in banking service provider.
2) Early October - Beam began proactively working with its ACH service provider, banking service provider to unlock the funds help at bank. Service providers initially refused to unlock funds unless Beam indemnifies them. Months long disputes with ACH vendor who locked up the fund.
3) November 16 - All of $2.6 million except around 80 customers who Beam was not able to reach had been refunded in full by Beam and Beam's service providers. The remaining amount of these around 80 customers accounted for <$90K in aggregate dollar amount.
4) November 18 or about - FTC, knowing that Beam had returned vast majority of the $2.6 million, still filed a lawsuit against Beam. CNBC article came out around the same time misstating that Beam had not yet returned the funds and it was FTC who “made” the fund return happen or to be happened.
5) By January - Beam had since then contacted all remaining 80 customers and the return of funds had been complete for all where customers can be reached.
FTC admitted explicitly to Beam on an internal call that they have not reviewed all the evidence —and that they WILL NOT review the full evidence proving Beam's innocence—which is against the principle of due diligence and fair justice.
Beam offered full review of the facts and full disclosure of all facts and evidence, but FTC refused to examine the facts to rectify false allegations by FTC. This is clear evidence that this case was NEVER about truth-seeking, but a PR chess piece for FTC.
About Settlement
1 - There is zero conclusive evidence of finding of wrongdoing. Nil. Only false allegations.
2 - There is $0 penalty. When was the last time you saw FTC taking on an scrappy SME for months, only to come to a $0 settlement? Shows there’s more to the story.
To be clear, Beam as a company is not shutting down. Stop the misleading headlines just like when people call Beam a Ponzi scheme. False “entertaining” frivolous news comes and goes, but the damage on good people and startups is a permanent injustice.
If the “System” can take down any small, defenseless SME with explicit refusal to review the FACTs, simply sensationalizing a false make-believe story to paint a picture of the “System” being glorious, fired up by fake news, is this the world we want to leave to our children?
Let’s first remove the misconception that it is anywhere near a Ponzi scheme. If it was, the news and Settlement will be mentioning that P work again. No mentions, no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing in the Settlement.
Contrary to FTC statement and CNBC reports, the timeline is the following, and Beam had the paper trail to show that this is factual —
1) October 1, 2020 - Beam's ACH service provider's API service stopped working. Funds locked in banking service provider.
2) Early October - Beam began proactively working with its ACH service provider, banking service provider to unlock the funds help at bank. Service providers initially refused to unlock funds unless Beam indemnifies them. Months long disputes with ACH vendor who locked up the fund.
3) November 16 - All of $2.6 million except around 80 customers who Beam was not able to reach had been refunded in full by Beam and Beam's service providers. The remaining amount of these around 80 customers accounted for <$90K in aggregate dollar amount.
4) November 18 or about - FTC, knowing that Beam had returned vast majority of the $2.6 million, still filed a lawsuit against Beam. CNBC article came out around the same time misstating that Beam had not yet returned the funds and it was FTC who “made” the fund return happen or to be happened.
5) By January - Beam had since then contacted all remaining 80 customers and the return of funds had been complete for all where customers can be reached.
FTC admitted explicitly to Beam on an internal call that they have not reviewed all the evidence —and that they WILL NOT review the full evidence proving Beam's innocence—which is against the principle of due diligence and fair justice.
Beam offered full review of the facts and full disclosure of all facts and evidence, but FTC refused to examine the facts to rectify false allegations by FTC. This is clear evidence that this case was NEVER about truth-seeking, but a PR chess piece for FTC.
About Settlement
1 - There is zero conclusive evidence of finding of wrongdoing. Nil. Only false allegations.
2 - There is $0 penalty. When was the last time you saw FTC taking on an scrappy SME for months, only to come to a $0 settlement? Shows there’s more to the story.
To be clear, Beam as a company is not shutting down. Stop the misleading headlines just like when people call Beam a Ponzi scheme. False “entertaining” frivolous news comes and goes, but the damage on good people and startups is a permanent injustice.
If the “System” can take down any small, defenseless SME with explicit refusal to review the FACTs, simply sensationalizing a false make-believe story to paint a picture of the “System” being glorious, fired up by fake news, is this the world we want to leave to our children?
Coinbase and Winklevoss ETF are acting more like new commodity exchanges than currency exchanges. A commodity (like Gold) has value attached but it is not a currency, and its value invariably fluctuates (like Bitcoin).
To date, crypto currency remains a technology topic. If you want to change finance, first understand it. Take your corporate finance, capital market, macro economics classes, and understand government's role in currency and economy. Learn about the history of how commercial banking, investment banking, currency and payment worlds have evolved over the last 100 years.
In short, figure out how bank and capital flows work before prescribing any solutions like Bitcoin, otherwise it will just prove the rightful criticism - that crypto may point to the right problem, but it in itself is just a technology looking for a problem to solve, and that even if it eventually finds its purpose, the chance that the problem will be small or a better, simpler solution comes by remains high.
Financial system as it's built today is an equally sophisticated system vis-a-vis the digital world. Most of those system designers (from say Banking Act of 1933) have left this world. Tech-hackers are many, finance-hackers are fewer. Even fewer understands both. This is why if you ask the view on crypto, you will have very conflicting views between the tech and the finance worlds. And rest to be sured, we are dealing with a problem that's more finance (including financial regulatory) than tech.
Almost anyone on hacker news understands how a full stack software system works. But do you understand how a financial "full stack" works? If you're interested in tackling the problem in a new way, we are hiring and welcome your input.
FWIW aarondu appears to have posted an identical comment on three different bitcoin related hn threads.. and is associated with http://boomerangwallet.com. Not sure why this info not on his/her profile page.
"If you want to change finance, first understand it."
You should take your own advice.
"just a technology looking for a problem to solve"
haha thanks for the Monday morning laugh.
I'd give you a clue but you took, "corporate finance, capital market, macro economics classes, and understand government's role in currency and economy." at a US school.
You should ask yourself why, knowing it all, you don't have it all...
To date, crypto currency remains a technology topic. If you want to change finance, first understand it. Take your corporate finance, capital market, macro economics classes, and understand government's role in currency and economy. Learn about the history of how commercial banking, investment banking, currency and payment worlds have evolved over the last 100 years.
In short, figure out how bank and capital flows work before prescribing any solutions like Bitcoin, otherwise it will just prove the rightful criticism - that crypto may point to the right problem, but it in itself is just a technology looking for a problem to solve, and that even if it eventually finds its purpose, the chance that the problem will be small or a better, simpler solution comes by remains high.
Financial system as it's built today is an equally sophisticated system vis-a-vis the digital world. Most of those system designers (from say Banking Act of 1933) have left this world. Tech-hackers are many, finance-hackers are fewer. Even fewer understands both. This is why if you ask the view on crypto, you will have very conflicting views between the tech and the finance worlds. And rest to be sured, we are dealing with a problem that's more finance (including financial regulatory) than tech.
Almost anyone on hacker news understands how a full stack software system works. But do you understand how a financial "full stack" works? If you're interested in tackling the problem in a new way, we are hiring and welcome your input.
To date, crypto currency remains a technology topic. If you want to change finance, first understand it. Take your corporate finance, capital market, macro economics classes, and understand government's role in currency and economy. Learn about the history of how commercial banking, investment banking, currency and payment worlds have evolved over the last 100 years.
In short, figure out how bank and capital flows work before prescribing any solutions like Bitcoin, otherwise it will just prove the rightful criticism - that crypto may point to the right problem, but it in itself is just a technology looking for a problem to solve, and that even if it eventually finds its purpose, the chance that the problem will be small or a better, simpler solution comes by remains high.
Financial system as it's built today is an equally sophisticated system vis-a-vis the digital world. Most of those system designers (from say Banking Act of 1933) have left this world. Tech-hackers are many, finance-hackers are fewer. Even fewer understands both. This is why if you ask the view on crypto, you will have very conflicting views between the tech and the finance worlds. And rest to be sured, we are dealing with a problem that's more finance (including financial regulatory) than tech.
Almost anyone on hacker news understands how a full stack software system works. But do you understand how a financial "full stack" works? If you're interested in tackling the problem in a new way, we are hiring and welcome your input.
Media are incentivized by maximizing eyeballs, not always standing for what really happened. Most news readers want to read what’s entertaining and confirms their cognitive biases, and care less about the dry facts behind which truth stands.
Beam was not able to speak openly before the Settlement about what really happened—FTC holding Beam at “gun point”, vendors requiring Beam to stay silent or else they will not release the customer funds. Beam now can finally speak openly, but does not have the PR budget to go against these fake news that has been in public domain in the last few months. That’s the price to pay for doing the right thing — making sure all customers are made whole and putting the preposterous “Ponzi scheme” stupidity to rest.
If you care about the truth more than the sensationalism and entertainment-at-the-expense-of-others, you’re probably the minority. Please stay well.
I can always be reached at aaron at meetbeam dot com.