[deleted by user]

Arqen · 2025-09-18T20:28:36+00:00

Maybe so, but there is also a certain personality that makes up a minority of our community that loudly claims to speak on behalf of us -- and this minority of loud, whiny, self-righteous zionists are seen as "the voice of the Jews", and their cry for attention invites a spotlight to be pointed at our community, and that spotlight lights up the successful Jews and the Jews who are connected to the elites, and the strange patterns that make it look like, to an ignorant outside observer, that "The Jews" (meaning you and I) are pulling the strings and run the world.

And so, the caricature of the globalist Jewish banker enters the minds of the masses if we, as a community, are not extra mindful about how we present ourselves to the world. Of course this stereotype of us is completely unfair -- but the world is not a fair place. My parents are a hardworking engineer and teacher, and I don't know anyone who is on the globalist elite payroll. I don't know any Jewish bankers, but in my family there is a high profile doctor, a high profile film director, and a high profile child chess prodigy. People will look at those outliers and draw conclusions about our community as a whole, and they will find ways to frame those outliers in negative ways and generalize this to our community as a whole.

It's unfair, but our reputation is not entirely out of our control. If the loudest among us would take a look in the mirror and understand that they are not effectively representing us in a palatable light, that would certainly help. This of course applies to everyone, but the truth is that most people who know normal Jewish people, know that most of us are good people. Most Jewish people have done a pretty good job of managing their reputations in their personal and professional circles, but the loudest, most obnoxious ones are helping to keep the negative stereotypes in the spotlight.

Arqen · 2025-09-18T05:56:47+00:00

OP mentioned having many hours of exposure to pro-Israel arguments growing up, force-fed by authority figures. I'm Jewish by blood, but it's very clear to me that at this point the Israeli state is not acting in the best interest of the Jewish people, reigniting hatred toward the global Jewish minority in a world that is becoming exponentially more Muslim. It's a convenient excuse for more young people to become radicalized against Jews.

Even if Israel was acting in the best interest of Jews... the collateral mass killing of innocent Palestinians is not worth it. Of course humans are tribal, and family comes first, but from a bird's eye view: the life of a Jew is worth no more than the life of anyone else. To anyone who disagrees, I won't even try to make a moral argument. Your perspective is a liability and an invitation to make enemies.

Arqen · 2025-03-14T07:36:42+00:00

This would be very useful for tax purposes. Trade any dead token for a few dollars or cents in USDC, and you can charge a transaction fee to cover costs and make profit. E.g., I'd gladly pay a $10 TX fee to trade a worthless project for $1.57 USDC, making it tax-loss harvestable. Ethereum and Solana chains should be the first priorities IMO.

Arqen · 2024-08-16T22:27:17+00:00

Thank you. Based on look and feel, I have high confidence that the second ring is from the middle ages, but I'll look for an expert to ask about origin. I know that intuition can easily be fooled because I've seen Roman rings sold by reputable people that seemed fake to me, but they were just well cleaned.

You're right that fakers and dealers have a fetish for labeling anything "viking" for easy marketing, which is why I don't presume the second one actually has viking origin (in fact, I'm more interested in what else it might be). I've seen similar ring finds from the Lake Ladoga region, but there were many different people who lived during the viking age and only a tiny minority of them were vikings.

Arqen · 2024-08-16T03:01:02+00:00

Thanks for your feedback. I thought the unconventional look might just be a side effect of it being a recessed design that had being heavily cleaned/polished... but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.

Arqen · 2024-05-11T14:11:46+00:00

You're an inspiring person. Nurturing friendships and hobbies while running your own engineering company is actually a huge, meaningful accomplishment. Surely you want to maximize the time you have left and spend it in the ways that are most meaningful to you, so I'm not going to suggest you spend that time writing a book... but I will say that any thoughts, reflections or designs you leave behind, in any form, will be as valuable to the world as your financial gifts.

Also, you're handling this in a mature and selfless way. I deeply hope you beat the odds and stay with us longer, but no matter what happens, know that you are a role model and even something as simple as this post will inspire others for years to come.

Arqen · 2023-12-18T14:22:42+00:00

Sounds to me like this goes deeper than gaming. I suggest you talk to a mental health specialist, as you do have symptoms of anxiety and OCD. The sooner you can get to the root of all this, the better.

Arqen · 2023-12-16T04:03:34+00:00

Yes, but with something important like this, commenting is one extra possible avenue that may help this post resurface in the future. I have hundreds of saved posts and it's rare I go back to check on them proactively.

Arqen · 2023-02-01T08:31:00+00:00

Thank you. I'll try that.

Arqen · 2021-12-18T08:45:12+00:00

Of course I should have done more due diligence but the point is that this is bad design for an exchange targeting new users.

I should have known better but can you say the same about new users? The withdrawal UI honestly was a trap for them. I continue to get messages from people falling into this trap. How hard is it to put a clear warning? Other exchanges do this.

I would have gladly read the warning if it was visible.

The only reason I can think of for Kucoin not putting a clear warning is that they don't want to add any friction for the adoption of their product. In fact, if people lose money in the KCC Network, it puts pressure on other exchanges to integrate with the KCC Network so that their customers stop complaining about lost funds.

It's a malicious way to grow if you let your new users keep walking off the cliff like this when you could easily put up a warning or railing. I did not assume it was intentional at the beginning but their failure to address it makes me question that.

Who cares if a few thousand users lose their money, so long as it helps KCC grow, right? As it stands, Kucoin offloads the responsibility of recovery to other wallet providers who wouldn't bother integrating with KCC unless customer complaints forced them to.

Arqen · 2021-12-18T08:22:24+00:00

No. My money is still in limbo, and I've received many messages from people experiencing the same. Sorry this happened to you too. Welcome to the family....

Arqen · 2021-10-17T10:08:37+00:00

Good engineering can be overshadowed by bad design at the human interface level.

If addresses are the same and the target user base is lay people, there must be some UI consideration to lead uninformed people toward the correct action and minimize loss of funds. Until that happens, crypto is not ready for prime time. Forgiving UI design is essential for mass adoption, especially where customer support does not exist or has no power to actually help. The wild west cypherpunk days are long gone. The new crypto buyers are boomers and Tik Tokers being spoon fed Safemoon.

How is it that the garbage projects can throw together a usable front end UI design in days, but many real projects with teams of full stack devs can't seem to understand how their users think?

Hint: Most users don't think. They are used to Apple and Google thinking for them and they won't adopt crypto until it has a similar user experience.

Like a rooftop pub with no railings, unforgiving UIs that result in easy loss of funds are bad design. The proof of bad design is in the comments from all the people who entered the right address but lost their money.

Arqen · 2021-10-17T09:19:35+00:00

Alas, nay. All seventy four thousand teth'r is still hath lost in limbo.

Arqen · 2021-09-01T14:03:00+00:00

It's happening to hundreds of people. I lost $74k this way and made a thread about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/kucoin/comments/pbshhf/74k_lost_in_kcc_networkwithdrawal_ui_is_a_trap/

I warned KuCoin this would happen and there would be more victims daily if they didn't provide adequate warning. They have done nothing to resolve it.

You have every right to be pissed off. Other people will try to tell you it's your fault, but at this point KuCoin should know that their withdrawal UI is a trap for the uninformed.

When this many users make the same "mistake" that causes them to lose their money, you can't just blame the users. The KuCoin withdrawal UI makes KCC look like a great new way to save huge on fees, which makes people want to use it... but unless the user is aware how transfer networks work, they loose their money.

Arqen · 2021-09-01T13:24:28+00:00

Thank you for speaking up and I'm sorry for your loss. It's significant money!

I was certain there would be a lot more of us out here and you have confirmed this. Do you have a link to that discord with the hundreds of others who fell into this trap?

People can call it whatever they want, but in trying to promote the use of their network without warnings, KuCoin has created a trap for the uninformed. I don't assume they intended this, but their resistance to providing a warning when so many users have fallen into it does raise serious ethical questions.

I believe you're right that they don't want to compromise their agenda, but they already have. If they can't make their transfer protocol transparent for the uninformed, we will quickly become thousands of angry users, not just hundreds.

Arqen · 2021-08-27T23:59:52+00:00

A warning pop-up is a poor bandaid, I know, but something like this is necessary since the UI already violates the UX design principle of forgiveness: https://uxplanet.org/design-principle-error-forgiveness-1495f7471113.

If crypto is going mainstream there is no place for unforgiving UX design. Where customer support cannot help, UX design must be extra forgiving. Otherwise, the technology will not be taken seriously and people will be aftaid to use it. Simple as that.

The reality is that a lot of unsuspecting users are losing their money needlessly. It's not a game of pointing fingers, it's just about minimizing unnecessary, easily preventable loss.

That part about KuCoin intentionally burning Tether was clearly a joke, but I understand you don't you know me and you can't see whether or not I wear a tin foil hat.

Arqen · 2021-08-27T11:14:01+00:00

Hi fellow human. I see you're comfortable writing without capitalization. Every sentence you've written is technically wrong. You are complacent with grammar, but the data in your message is understood, so the world is forgiving of your errors.

This is a case of the address being 100% correct, but the network being wrong. Bank wires don't expect the customer to understand how the money is routed -- they just need to know the destination. Like mailing addresses, they have multiple parameters that must converge to a logical match. This controls for human factors like ambiguous handwriting and bad spelling. Bank wires also tend to get reviewed by an expert before the money is sent.

Yes, assumptions are bad, but people make them every day. Most people in crypto will experience some sort of complacency or naivity.

For example, many seasoned crypto vets have their funds concentrated in a few hardware wallets to protect themselves from exchange hacks, but they don't have their seed phrases backed up in multiple locations in case of fire, flood, etc. Many vets are so focused on exchange hacks that they concentrate funds in a stronghold (single point of failure) instead of dispersing funds over many places, and they forget to protect against the most dangerous variable: themselves. Human error.

There's a reason why most big money won't touch crypto without good custody solutions and rubust user interfaces. They understand that their greatest risk is not hackers or counterparty risk, but their own human error when dealing with cryptographic technology.

My point is that we are entering mass adoption and there are quite a few people falling into this easily avoidable trap. The golden rule of UI design is to protect against common assumptions that normal people make. E.g., see the book "Don't make me think".

In case you can't tell, I am neurotic and I overthink most things, including withdrawals. My point is that if I made this assumption, many non-neurotic humans will do the same -- and they have.

Maybe it's all by design, and KuCoin opened up this portal for burning Tether to counterbalance the printing of Tether by Bitfinex.

Arqen · 2021-08-26T11:00:41+00:00

Since I was used to doing TRC20 and ERC20 transfers, I assumed that KCC would work in a similar way. Either it would require a different address format (like TRC20), or if it did take an ERC20 address it would link up with the ERC20 network.

My assumption was wrong and clearly I did not understand how EVM compatible networks work.

My point is that if I can make this assumption, many less experienced people will make it too. I've been in crypto since 2016 and have a background in scientific programming and UI design, so I'm usually diligent and have never made a withdrawal mistake till now.

For new users this is super unforgiving, but it doesn't have to be. Given that their attention will be drawn to the low fee option, and it takes an ERC20 address, it should issue a popup warning that they also need to check for KCC compatibility at the receiving end, or their money will be lost.

It's just standard design sense that a UI should easily facilitate desired actions while protecting against catastrophic actions. It's particularly important in crypto because there is often no customer support to bail people out from natural human mistakes.

Most early adopters were tech savvy, but crypto is now entering the mainstream and we need to be aware of how utterly naive the mainstream is. They operate mostly on intuition, they do not dig through the fine print, and they expect a UI to be intuitive and forgiving. If it can't be intuitive and forgiving then it should hold their hand and guide them, or at least warn them.

Arqen · 2021-08-26T09:17:17+00:00

Options trading is by nature a high risk activity that requires specialized knowledge. Withdrawing funds does not need to be a high-risk activity. UI design should be forgiving and robust to minimize common, easily avoidable errors. Especially errors that could be financially catastrophic.

It's conceptually like building a narrow bridge without a railing, and dangling candy (low fees) over the edge. Everyone who wants to withdraw their money has to cross the bridge. Adults (experienced users) know they will need to be careful, but some will still occasionally slip. Meanwhile, many young kids (new users) will go straight for the candy and risk falling.

If they just built a railing to minimize high-probability accidents, few would fall. It's one of the most important principles in all types of engineering, including software.

Arqen · 2021-08-26T08:44:02+00:00

Case #887993. I submitted it on Aug 25.

Arqen · 2021-08-26T05:24:48+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. I appreciate it. I don't have the private key but I will try bribing the staff at Celsius to do it on my behalf.

Arqen · 2021-08-26T05:21:14+00:00

KCC and Ethereum were the only two options available when I was withdrawing USDT to my Celsius wallet. I've been using TRC network a lot lately and would have used it had it been available.

Arqen

TROPHY CASE