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I bought in at $800 and sold at $2000. It paid my rent and living expenses for half a year, getting a driver's license, and a trip to the US. A bigger idiot tha

by sshine 9y ago

I bought in at $800 and sold at $2000. It paid my rent and living expenses for half a year, getting a driver's license, and a trip to the US. A bigger idiot than me paid for that. Most importantly my early exit vaccinated me against FOMO. Now I feel bad for saying anything positive about cryptocurrencies when friends ask how they can buy in. If you're asking now, you're too big of an idiot to ever gain from it. I look forward to the day where cryptocurrencies are more commonly understood (and thus feared) and the technology isn't chronically lagging behind the hype.

icebraining 9y ago
If you're asking now, you're too big of an idiot to ever gain from it. When you bought, someone else was saying the same thing about you :)
- AlexandrB 9y ago
  > When you bought, someone else was saying the same thing about you :) This logic is flawless until one day the market collapses and we find out who the "greatest fools" are.
- sshine 9y ago
  > When you bought, someone else was saying the same thing about you :) Thus the hierarchy of idiocy. I believe the decision, as someone who has studied CS and economics and became deeply interested in the white paper and the game-theoretic and macroeconomic consequences of cryptocurrencies, to buy post-MtGox (which I did) vs. everyone and their grandmother feeling FOMO (and quite literally expressing this as their motivation) as they seek to buy during last year's explosion in popularity, suggests quite different risk assessments, neither of which I can morally defend in retrospect.
arthurcolle 9y ago
Alternatively one could say that you left a lot of money on the table by selling prematurely clearly, cryptocurrencies offer significant value over fiat currencies and their advantages will only continue to grow as development maturity surrounding the actual technology becomes more solidified
- abakker 9y ago
  I think you are being downvotes for the word "clearly". I think that is an extraordinary claim and requires something to back it up. I'd say (and have said [0]) that the fiat value of cryptos is the least valuable part of this technology. 0: http://isg-one.com/research/research-detail-page/cryptocurrencies-from-fiat-to-fundamentals http://isg-one.com/research/research-detail-page/cryptocurre...
3pt14159 9y ago
It's not idiotic to buy something with a 95% chance of failure if the 5% chance has a 1000x return. I bought at $3 and I started selling at $200. I sold a ton at $1000. Then a little at $5k and the rest at around $15k. The entire time I held them I thought "the government will either ban or regulate this and they'll probably ban it" and you know what? It doesn't stop you from making money anyway. Now that's a fun story right? Look at smart 3pt14159. What you don't see is the other 7 things I did with 0 payoff whatsoever. I bought a ton of emoji .ws domains. Why? I dunno, I stupidly thought they'd be the only TLD that would render as emojis. I hindsight, of course not, and once the others came out I reduced the number of domains I controlled. Nobody sees the lost weeks and $$ there, unless I happen to bring it up in a comment like this. But the core idea behind both of those actions was this: Look for the low probability, high payoff investments. Unless you have $100m+ it's usually worth your time and most people don't have an intuitive grasp of inelastic supply curves and their impact on price.
- Retric 9y ago
  I think you misunderstood the parent. At 2,000$ each they can't have 1000x returns. So the person buying at 2000$ is more likely to be a sucker than someone buying at 3$, but less likely than someone who buy's at 15,000$.
  - toomim 9y ago
    Sure they can: https://imgur.com/ag2kNr9 https://imgur.com/ag2kNr9
    - Retric 9y ago
      That is pointing to 200 not 2000. Can it be worth significantly more than all the worlds checking accounts... no.
- panarky 9y ago
  This is my investment allocation and it's worked well over the years. 95% in ultra-safe government bonds and bank CDs. 5% in ultra-high-risk moonshots. Cut the losers quickly and let the winners run.

by sshine 9y ago

icebraining 9y ago

If you're asking now, you're too big of an idiot to ever gain from it. When you bought, someone else was saying the same thing about you :)

AlexandrB 9y ago
> When you bought, someone else was saying the same thing about you :) This logic is flawless until one day the market collapses and we find out who the "greatest fools" are.
sshine 9y ago
> When you bought, someone else was saying the same thing about you :) Thus the hierarchy of idiocy. I believe the decision, as someone who has studied CS and economics and became deeply interested in the white paper and the game-theoretic and macroeconomic consequences of cryptocurrencies, to buy post-MtGox (which I did) vs. everyone and their grandmother feeling FOMO (and quite literally expressing this as their motivation) as they seek to buy during last year's explosion in popularity, suggests quite different risk assessments, neither of which I can morally defend in retrospect.

arthurcolle 9y ago

Alternatively one could say that you left a lot of money on the table by selling prematurely clearly, cryptocurrencies offer significant value over fiat currencies and their advantages will only continue to grow as development maturity surrounding the actual technology becomes more solidified

abakker 9y ago
I think you are being downvotes for the word "clearly". I think that is an extraordinary claim and requires something to back it up. I'd say (and have said [0]) that the fiat value of cryptos is the least valuable part of this technology. 0: http://isg-one.com/research/research-detail-page/cryptocurrencies-from-fiat-to-fundamentals http://isg-one.com/research/research-detail-page/cryptocurre...

3pt14159 9y ago

It's not idiotic to buy something with a 95% chance of failure if the 5% chance has a 1000x return. I bought at $3 and I started selling at $200. I sold a ton at $1000. Then a little at $5k and the rest at around $15k. The entire time I held them I thought "the government will either ban or regulate this and they'll probably ban it" and you know what? It doesn't stop you from making money anyway. Now that's a fun story right? Look at smart 3pt14159. What you don't see is the other 7 things I did with 0 payoff whatsoever. I bought a ton of emoji .ws domains. Why? I dunno, I stupidly thought they'd be the only TLD that would render as emojis. I hindsight, of course not, and once the others came out I reduced the number of domains I controlled. Nobody sees the lost weeks and $$ there, unless I happen to bring it up in a comment like this. But the core idea behind both of those actions was this: Look for the low probability, high payoff investments. Unless you have $100m+ it's usually worth your time and most people don't have an intuitive grasp of inelastic supply curves and their impact on price.

Retric 9y ago
I think you misunderstood the parent. At 2,000$ each they can't have 1000x returns. So the person buying at 2000$ is more likely to be a sucker than someone buying at 3$, but less likely than someone who buy's at 15,000$.
- toomim 9y ago
  Sure they can: https://imgur.com/ag2kNr9 https://imgur.com/ag2kNr9
  - Retric 9y ago
    That is pointing to 200 not 2000. Can it be worth significantly more than all the worlds checking accounts... no.
panarky 9y ago
This is my investment allocation and it's worked well over the years. 95% in ultra-safe government bonds and bank CDs. 5% in ultra-high-risk moonshots. Cut the losers quickly and let the winners run.