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Crypto Capture of Foreign Aid

75 points bko 2 hours ago 17 comments

raincom 31 minutes ago | parent

It is common to hear phrases such as "Mr 10 percent" as a reference to powerful leaders in various countries. For instance, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is called "Mr 10 percent". 10 percent cut from every contract. This is not unique to Pakistan. In India, many regional party leaders (basically, they and their family own the political party) want 20 percent cut.

When one hears 2-6%, it is just the floor.

binlog 22 minutes ago | parent

Don’t need to look that far. The person in the White House is doing the same thing.

raincom 15 minutes ago | parent

The corruption elsewhere is of different order. In US, one can bid up four times normal, one at least delivers the quality. Elsewhere, roads fail, buildings fall, bridges collapse, pipes burst upon the first use, ...

glimshe 13 minutes ago | parent

If they are built at all.

vinyl7 11 minutes ago | parent

When was the last time the US built anything at all?

skizm 8 minutes ago | parent

We did just break ground on the new tunnel from NJ to NYC for trains. We'll see how that plays out in the next 1-2 decades.

williamtell 9 minutes ago | parent

That's quite optimistic. How many months of further development does a deal usually need to have something sizeable that can collapse?

pj_mukh 30 minutes ago | parent

I know nothing about crypto, but wasn't one if its selling points that its "digital gold" for people without stable fiat currencies?

You send aid to a drought-stricken farmer to some sub-saharan region with ample cheap data but no (stable) banks, how...are they supposed to store the money?

satya71 27 minutes ago | parent

World Bank doesn’t typically give money to people. They fund development projects.

cucumber3732842 15 minutes ago | parent

This. All the perverted incentives and money wasting inefficiency of federal grant funded local projects but for poor brown people half a world away.

rfghy 22 minutes ago | parent

Crypto was DoA as the architect had a delulu view of humanity.

netsharc 20 minutes ago | parent

From this exact blurb:

> We estimate an implied leakage ...

So the estimation became almost a fact in the title? What's the equivalent of clickbait in papers?

The rest of that sentence:

> ... of 2 to 6 cents per aid dollar, which amounts to roughly 1.7 to 4.4 billion dollars of aid diversion across the tranche arrivals we study.

BeetleB 16 minutes ago | parent

This submission is not following HN news for submission titles.

This isn't a clickbait in the paper, but by the submitter.

dfpojsdf 15 minutes ago | parent

Why does literally every single item on Hackernews have some replyguy screaming about clickbait? Is there therapy for that? Do you understand how headlines work? What part of 2 to 6 looks like "not an estimation"?

Dylan16807 8 minutes ago | parent

Edit: HN title used to be "Around 2-6% of World Bank foreign aid got siphoned into crypto wallet"

Original post: While you're being rude and it would be worth cutting the first half of your comment, that's a good point that "2-6%" is still clearly an estimation.

xrd 11 minutes ago | parent

This is relevant:

https://theleahfiles.substack.com/p/the-currency-killer-part...

Did you know Tether (cryptocurrency company) is in the top 20 USD treasury holders, more than most countries?

And Lutnick is the manager of those funds, or his sons are, silly mistake because he divested completely.