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Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction. I know some people who were paper millionaires based on their BTC during the days before Mt Gox collapse. The

Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction. I know some people who were paper millionaires based on their BTC during the days before Mt Gox collapse. They lost their entire savings once Mt Gox collapsed, since then they have spent years working hard to recover their savings and now they are investing all of it in ICOs. This won't end well. Seems to me like the story is repeating. On a side note, the brigading/shilling here on HN is becoming quite annoying. I suppose it's a lot of computer nerds who are heavily invested in these tokens who are trying to get more new people invest their real money into these tokens so: 1) they can get rich quick 2) or recover their losses (lots of people heavily invested in crypto are underwater)

aaron-lebo 9y ago
It's insidious. There are routinely four or five posts on the front page about cryptos and they usually lack substance. It seems like an entire industry with a lack of morals, ignorant about law and too often tech, but with the smug self-assuredness that they are on the verge of changing everything as only 20 somethings and extremists possess. It doesn't really bother me that people are dumb, but it's not cool when you see this constant shilling you speak of, looking to pull in another taker who doesn't understand the tech or the financial implications of what they are doing. I made and lost more money in a weekend than I'd ever made in a year speculating on cryptos, and this was 3 years ago, can't imagine the community or the possible winnings now. After my initial investment had been lost, I felt that very real pull of putting in just a little more from this paycheck because you know tomorrow you can win everything back. I've never gambled but I was certain that's the pull gamblers feel and I knew at least for me there was no difference. It's funny to watch friends repeat the cycle with Ethereum and ICOs. "Hey, ether is up, just made a profit :)". Of course that was a month ago at the peak, wonder how their investment is doing now? It's an industry full of bozos and con-artists. Something good might come out of it, but I'm not investing a dollar more into that when I know that same dollar is probably going to fuck somebody else over. Besides, what good is building a fortune out of something you didn't really earn? Cool, you won the lottery, anybody can do that.
- richardknop 9y ago
  I know exactly about the pull you are describing. I also invested a small amount (around £1500). When I lost about 1/3 of my initial investment, I felt a really strong urge to deposit more cash and try some risky trade to make my losses back. I guess this is the feeling gamblers have. I managed to use my will power and cash out my remaining investment and just stay away from this as I understand now how it can become addictive just like gambling in casino. I know people who didn't resist and threw in their whole life savings into crypto. And they have lost massive amounts of money. I'm sure there are some "lottery winners" that have become millionaires based on early investment in crypto but they are very small minority. Most people end up losing money.
  - cableshaft 9y ago
    When did you invest, and why did you feel you needed to sell it off so fast? I bought some bitcoin when I thought it had reached the bottom at $800 a couple years ago, but I was wrong and it kept sliding all the way down to $250 a coin (and stayed that way for a year and a half, that was rough to see the price every day, I eventually stopped watching it for about six months), but I held on to it, and the current price is ~$2500. Like take the stock market downturn that happened in 2008. People who sold lost their shirts, but people who held onto it for a few years saw the market completely rebound and reach even more all time highs. I'm not saying it's always smart to have this behavior, and there was a period where it looked like Bitcoin might not ever recover in price, but if you only invest what you can afford to lose (and I have, I could lose everything I invested and I'd be sad but not destitute), then you should be able to weather these storms.
    - richardknop 9y ago
      I invested when BTC was around 1100-1200, don't remember exactly. It then fell bellow 1000 to low 900s (quite quickly) and I panic sold. It was sometimes last year before it went to rise to almost 3000. I guess I am not a type of person who can take the stress of investing in something so volatile. I am trying to live a fiscally responsible and frugal life and this was probably the riskiest investment I have ever made. I only invested a small amount. I could have easily lost all of it and it would make almost no difference to me. But I'm trying to save money to buy a property now so I will stay away from any kind of investments until I buy a house/apartment.
cableshaft 9y ago
I know Mt. Gox made it difficult to withdraw your money/coin from the exchange near the end, but they learned a hard lesson not to keep their coins sitting on the exchange (I sympathize, it's something I struggle with too periodically, it's just so easy to keep it sitting there). The digital currency landscape is still in kind of a 'Here be Dragons' unmapped territory situation. No one knows exactly where it's going to end up, but they know there's riches to be had if you can figure out how to maneuver through it, or get lucky. I'm pretty obsessed with both bitcoin and several altcoins, and I admit that I'm gambling with them, possibly more than I should, but I don't trust ICOs at all. Almost all of them seem to be money raising (for the company) schemes for what's essentially total vaporware. I'm sure some will manage to hit it big and make people a lot of money, but I fully expect a large percentage of them to crash and burn once the initial novelty and exuberance wears off and a lot of those companies to take that money and vanish, and there doesn't seem to be any decent method to evaluate which ones are the good ones and which ones are the total stinkers.
- richardknop 9y ago
  Most of these ICOs that I have read about have no reason why they need their own token. They could use existing blockchains but they introduce a custom token just to grab some free money from this ICO craze.
  - cableshaft 9y ago
    Totally agree. That's why I haven't thrown any money at any ICOs and I probably won't for quite some time, if ever.
SippinLean 9y ago
>the brigading/shilling here on HN is becoming quite annoying Can you point to a single post where the top, say, 5 comments aren't completely negative toward crypto as a whole? They typically mention gambling, fraud, ponzi schemes and (like yours) Mt Gox, in a rant that isn't specifically tied to the post at hand. Look at the top comments on this article: >Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction >cryptocurrency is the new Gold Rush >I remember the .com-bubble...But this one; it is just stupid >It's hard not to think of tulips If the shills are out there, they must not be getting paid very well.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  There are lots of negative comments, yeah, but that almost seems like a reaction to articles on crypto constantly showing up on the frontpage. Just over the last few days there was an Eth article with 392 upvotes and a "cryptoeconomics" article with 100+, which isn't unusual. Within the last 24 hours there have been at least three positive Eth articles on the frontpage, it'd be hard to find any topic so thoroughly covered especially considering how the real-world reach of this stuff is almost strictly limited to how much Eth is worth. Someone intentionally or not is doing a really good job of that.
  - discombobulate 9y ago
    Occam's razor: Crypto tech works, & will be an incremental improvement to a number of areas.
    - richardknop 9y ago
      Yes but that is completely unrelated to price of these tokens which is driven by speculation and has nothing to do with tech. I believe blockchain will be implemented by industries where it is useful and can improve many processes.
bitJericho 9y ago
If you're looking for a reliable exchange, might I humbly recommend my exchange? http://bitcoinsexchange.itmustbetrue.com http://bitcoinsexchange.itmustbetrue.com
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- loader 9y ago
  "BitcoinSexChange"
  - bitJericho 9y ago
    I'm going to sue you with my customers money!!
Vadoff 9y ago
If they had that much money, keeping it all in an exchange instead of a wallet is a very foolish thing to do. It was also known that MtGox was having problems months before they halted withdrawals.
Idontagree 9y ago
Not to speak to the other coins, but isn't BTC at all time highs?
- richardknop 9y ago
  It did touch 3k recently so it's a bit bellow all time highs, somewhere around 2.5k. But it is higher than entire last year for example.

aaron-lebo 9y ago

It's insidious. There are routinely four or five posts on the front page about cryptos and they usually lack substance. It seems like an entire industry with a lack of morals, ignorant about law and too often tech, but with the smug self-assuredness that they are on the verge of changing everything as only 20 somethings and extremists possess. It doesn't really bother me that people are dumb, but it's not cool when you see this constant shilling you speak of, looking to pull in another taker who doesn't understand the tech or the financial implications of what they are doing. I made and lost more money in a weekend than I'd ever made in a year speculating on cryptos, and this was 3 years ago, can't imagine the community or the possible winnings now. After my initial investment had been lost, I felt that very real pull of putting in just a little more from this paycheck because you know tomorrow you can win everything back. I've never gambled but I was certain that's the pull gamblers feel and I knew at least for me there was no difference. It's funny to watch friends repeat the cycle with Ethereum and ICOs. "Hey, ether is up, just made a profit :)". Of course that was a month ago at the peak, wonder how their investment is doing now? It's an industry full of bozos and con-artists. Something good might come out of it, but I'm not investing a dollar more into that when I know that same dollar is probably going to fuck somebody else over. Besides, what good is building a fortune out of something you didn't really earn? Cool, you won the lottery, anybody can do that.

richardknop 9y ago
I know exactly about the pull you are describing. I also invested a small amount (around £1500). When I lost about 1/3 of my initial investment, I felt a really strong urge to deposit more cash and try some risky trade to make my losses back. I guess this is the feeling gamblers have. I managed to use my will power and cash out my remaining investment and just stay away from this as I understand now how it can become addictive just like gambling in casino. I know people who didn't resist and threw in their whole life savings into crypto. And they have lost massive amounts of money. I'm sure there are some "lottery winners" that have become millionaires based on early investment in crypto but they are very small minority. Most people end up losing money.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  When did you invest, and why did you feel you needed to sell it off so fast? I bought some bitcoin when I thought it had reached the bottom at $800 a couple years ago, but I was wrong and it kept sliding all the way down to $250 a coin (and stayed that way for a year and a half, that was rough to see the price every day, I eventually stopped watching it for about six months), but I held on to it, and the current price is ~$2500. Like take the stock market downturn that happened in 2008. People who sold lost their shirts, but people who held onto it for a few years saw the market completely rebound and reach even more all time highs. I'm not saying it's always smart to have this behavior, and there was a period where it looked like Bitcoin might not ever recover in price, but if you only invest what you can afford to lose (and I have, I could lose everything I invested and I'd be sad but not destitute), then you should be able to weather these storms.
  - richardknop 9y ago
    I invested when BTC was around 1100-1200, don't remember exactly. It then fell bellow 1000 to low 900s (quite quickly) and I panic sold. It was sometimes last year before it went to rise to almost 3000. I guess I am not a type of person who can take the stress of investing in something so volatile. I am trying to live a fiscally responsible and frugal life and this was probably the riskiest investment I have ever made. I only invested a small amount. I could have easily lost all of it and it would make almost no difference to me. But I'm trying to save money to buy a property now so I will stay away from any kind of investments until I buy a house/apartment.

cableshaft 9y ago

I know Mt. Gox made it difficult to withdraw your money/coin from the exchange near the end, but they learned a hard lesson not to keep their coins sitting on the exchange (I sympathize, it's something I struggle with too periodically, it's just so easy to keep it sitting there). The digital currency landscape is still in kind of a 'Here be Dragons' unmapped territory situation. No one knows exactly where it's going to end up, but they know there's riches to be had if you can figure out how to maneuver through it, or get lucky. I'm pretty obsessed with both bitcoin and several altcoins, and I admit that I'm gambling with them, possibly more than I should, but I don't trust ICOs at all. Almost all of them seem to be money raising (for the company) schemes for what's essentially total vaporware. I'm sure some will manage to hit it big and make people a lot of money, but I fully expect a large percentage of them to crash and burn once the initial novelty and exuberance wears off and a lot of those companies to take that money and vanish, and there doesn't seem to be any decent method to evaluate which ones are the good ones and which ones are the total stinkers.

richardknop 9y ago
Most of these ICOs that I have read about have no reason why they need their own token. They could use existing blockchains but they introduce a custom token just to grab some free money from this ICO craze.
- cableshaft 9y ago
  Totally agree. That's why I haven't thrown any money at any ICOs and I probably won't for quite some time, if ever.

SippinLean 9y ago

>the brigading/shilling here on HN is becoming quite annoying Can you point to a single post where the top, say, 5 comments aren't completely negative toward crypto as a whole? They typically mention gambling, fraud, ponzi schemes and (like yours) Mt Gox, in a rant that isn't specifically tied to the post at hand. Look at the top comments on this article: >Investing in crypto is like a gambling addiction >cryptocurrency is the new Gold Rush >I remember the .com-bubble...But this one; it is just stupid >It's hard not to think of tulips If the shills are out there, they must not be getting paid very well.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
aaron-lebo 9y ago
There are lots of negative comments, yeah, but that almost seems like a reaction to articles on crypto constantly showing up on the frontpage. Just over the last few days there was an Eth article with 392 upvotes and a "cryptoeconomics" article with 100+, which isn't unusual. Within the last 24 hours there have been at least three positive Eth articles on the frontpage, it'd be hard to find any topic so thoroughly covered especially considering how the real-world reach of this stuff is almost strictly limited to how much Eth is worth. Someone intentionally or not is doing a really good job of that.
- discombobulate 9y ago
  Occam's razor: Crypto tech works, & will be an incremental improvement to a number of areas.
  - richardknop 9y ago
    Yes but that is completely unrelated to price of these tokens which is driven by speculation and has nothing to do with tech. I believe blockchain will be implemented by industries where it is useful and can improve many processes.

bitJericho 9y ago

If you're looking for a reliable exchange, might I humbly recommend my exchange? http://bitcoinsexchange.itmustbetrue.com http://bitcoinsexchange.itmustbetrue.com

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
loader 9y ago
"BitcoinSexChange"
- bitJericho 9y ago
  I'm going to sue you with my customers money!!

Vadoff 9y ago

If they had that much money, keeping it all in an exchange instead of a wallet is a very foolish thing to do. It was also known that MtGox was having problems months before they halted withdrawals.

Idontagree 9y ago

Not to speak to the other coins, but isn't BTC at all time highs?

richardknop 9y ago
It did touch 3k recently so it's a bit bellow all time highs, somewhere around 2.5k. But it is higher than entire last year for example.