8 ms·

Cryptocurrency Was Their Way Out of South Korea’s Lowest Rungs

68 points by martey 8y ago

nodesocket 8y ago
I just got back from South Korea (Seoul) where I spent a month working and on vacation. By no means am I any sort of expert, but here are my insights which may be somewhat of a rant. > Mr. Kim, who is 27 and lives with his parents - A lot of people in their twenties still live with their parents in S. Korea. It is very common. > He has lost a lot of money, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. - S. Korea is very fashion and tech savvy. It is also very wealthy notable mostly in Seoul and Itaewon. Koreans are really into how they look including high end brands and cars (Mercedes, BMW's are rampant in the city). The women are infatuated with makeup, their appearance, and Instagram. It makes sense that S. Korea was a crypto hub and that it went absolutely wild there. - There is a noticeable pro-America vibe in S. Korea and wearing clothes or fashion that has the American Flag is typically high end. They also love Whiskey, specifically Jack Daniels which I thought was funny because I live in Tennessee..
- mruts 8y ago
  I live in Tanzania (I used to live in the US). And everywhere around here you see "Jack Lives In Africa" signs. It's pretty hilarious. They think any export is some high-end good.
- dba7dba 8y ago
  Funny you mentioned Mercedes/BMW being rampant in Seoul, because Doug Demuro thought it was hilarious S. Korea had no Mercedes/BMW but only Hyundai/Kia. And only in black/gray. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZD2pBeXY6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZD2pBeXY6Q I have to say, drawing a rather sweeping conclusion of a nation of 51 million after a month long visit to a small area (albeit much of the nation's population living there) is maybe worth some reconsideration. It's like spending a month in Hollywood for a month eating out often, and concluding that every waiter/waitress in US is just working odd jobs while trying to break into the entertainment industry. Edit: I've also met people who are well off enough that they don't have to work as waiter/waitress, but still moved to LA to get a script made into movie, go to usc for movie (like writing movie script) etc etc. I'd think unmarried children living with parents until they marry or get a job that requires moving to another city is quite natural in most other countries.
  - bootlooped 8y ago
    I lived there, in Seoul, for over a year and I can say with certainty that there are a good number of Mercedes and BMW. Most of the time I saw a foreign car it was a Germany luxury brand. If I recall correctly South Korea has a trade deficit with Germany at least in part due to the import of these cars. The colors for cars really were almost all black, gray, silver and white. The main exceptions were orange taxis and blue bongo trucks. I almost never recall seeing American cars out in the wild, although I did walk by a Chevy dealership often. In the video you linked he does point out a bunch of German luxury cars.
    - ousta 8y ago
      many chevrolet
- yongjik 8y ago
  > There is a noticeable pro-America vibe in S. Korea and wearing clothes or fashion that has the American Flag is typically high end. Well, that's a bit like saying there's a pro-Chinese vibe in America because so many people have random Chinese letters printed on their shirts or tattooed on their arms. It doesn't really mean anything.
  - downrightmike 8y ago
    The pro-USA thing probably has more to do with the war in the 50's.
  - adventured 8y ago
    > It doesn't really mean anything. Among nations, South Koreans have the third most favorable opinion of the US [1], only behind the Phillippines and Israel. South Korea's well-known love of the US goes back more than half a century. As an American, for me it's mutual, I love South Korea too. My grandfather, having fought in WW2, re-enlisted and volunteered to fight in Korea. He always said the South Koreans were wonderful to him. I think he'd be proud of how amazing their country has become, knowing that putting his life in jeopardy was worth it. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-dont-like-america-and-which-do/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countr...
- habosa 8y ago
  I've been told that Jack and Coke is the #1 liquor drink in the world. I believe it, that stuff is everywhere.
- tanilama 8y ago
  > A lot of people in their twenties still live with their parents in S. Korea. It is very common. It is common anywhere where the real estate price is high.
gowld 8y ago
This seems similar to "Blackjack was their way out of USA's lowest rungs", and some people made a bunch of money and most people lost a bunch of money.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  A small handful of people made a lot of money at the expense of a huge pile of people who came after them but only the winners yell about it, FTFY :)
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Now it's reversed - only the losers yell about it, while anyone who profited from the bubble is keeping their mouth shut. Funny how the zeitgeist can turn.
yongjik 8y ago
Last year, when SK government clamped down on cryptocoin exchanges, many crypto-enthusiasts cried foul and claimed that (just like this article says) cryptocurrencies are the waves of the future and the only way out of their "dirt spoon" status. Well, IMHO, the subsequent collapse of bitcoin proved the government's point. Without timely intervention, there could now be millions who suddenly found their iron spoons turned to dirt.
- Theodores 8y ago
  You would not be able to write like that a year ago. When Bitcoin was going to be the future not just in South Korea but on Hacker News too. I am still waiting for my world changing dApps to come along from the many promising projects that needed all of this money from ICOs to finance the change that my small ill-educated brain could not imagine. Just as well I did not quit my job because my coding work was irrelevant because there would be a magic dApp coming along in two months time that would mean I could do everything effortlessly with smart contracts and the new fintech. Just as well I did not get all my money invested in [$altcoin] as I was pressured to do so. Where have all the serious people gone who were the experts a year ago? Do they still exist thinking that the serious blockchain smart contract stuff has only just started? Do they still make analogies about the dot com bust and where Amazon is today? Do they blame the state of the altcoin on how governments clamped down? A conspiracy, a refusal by governments to let people be free from the shackles of 'fiat currency'? A year ago you would not be able to write about how 'millions' of people in South Korea spared misery by their government in the tone you can freely write with today.
  - oska 8y ago
    Bitcoin never did an ICO and most of the hype around dapps was centered on ethereum. You are conflating shitcoins and scamcoins with Bitcoin. Some of the loudest voices warning against these obvious scams came from the bitcoin community. The same people also warned against the blockchain hype.
- oska 8y ago
  Bitcoin has not collapsed. The technology continues to work very, very well and it has a world-class development team maintaining it. Its price will continue to have large rises and large drops but it continues on its upward trend. However, focusing on bitcoin's price alone is where 99% of journalists and commentators go wrong.
godshatter 8y ago
> Mr. Kim, who is 27 and lives with his parents, once made so much money trading cryptocurrencies that he was spending $1,000 a month on whatever he wanted. He quit his job. He borrowed to buy more. He planned to buy a house. Cryptocurrency markets are so volatile that I would just stash that $1,000 a month away somewhere rather than trying to double down. I'd consider every penny I earned to be a win and hope it continued for a while. I'd expect it to end in tears if I didn't. I guess I'm just more risk-averse.
- megy 8y ago
  > once made so much money trading cryptocurrencies that he was spending $1,000 a month on whatever he wanted. That doesn't even sound like much at all. Surely he would have more than that if he worked a job.
  - adventured 8y ago
    The median income in South Korea is typically around $1,250 to $1,500 per month. To be entirely free to burn $1,000 per month in that style, you would want an income at least four times higher than that median. That's a considerable salary in South Korea. At $1,500 you're going to roughly be at break-even on living costs.
  - macspoofing 8y ago
    Yeah. If your food and rent is covered by your parents, any job will give you the ability to spend $1000 on whatever you want.
neokantian 8y ago
The current price is back at the price in August 2017. Anybody who got in before the subsequent speculative wave is doing absolutely fine. The $20,000 price of December 2017 was a speculative fluke of some kind of wannabe gold rush. For someone like me, who got in years before, I am actually happy that the hot money is mostly gone now. That batch gold diggers were turning the entire scene into a gigantic lottery carnival.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  You’re happy you lost 90% of your wealth? This kind of religious nonsense is pretty typical in the MLM and ponzi worlds. Nobody should be happy about that. Plus that’s some seriously classic goalpost moving. Each time the price drops further shift the buy in a date a few months to the left. Yes people who bought in two years ago (basically a tiny fraction of the people who bought in after) are now break even. Classic success. The S&P has returned 14% since August 2017.
  - gjs278 8y ago
    spy 500 nearly lost all its gains for the year. it could easily take a nosedive.
  - robertAngst 8y ago
    No one bought at 19k/BTC. And if they did, they likely bought petty amounts. Most people bought before. We believe that there may be an alternative to government currency in a rare number. I didnt lose 90% of my wealth. I actually got an extra 0.6 BTC since Jan 2017. I consider that an increase.
    - arcticbull 8y ago
      Tons of people bought at 19K. That’s when transaction counts peaked from historical graphs. And at 18k, and 17k and so on. This isn’t in dispute the historical data speaks for itself, not opinion. [1] They bought huge quantities, multiplication tells us that. And anecdota of people taking out massive loans because they couldn’t lose. Most bought in the cumulative run up from mid to end of 2017, again, charts. [1] You lost 90% of your buying power. [1] https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/5y/USD?c=e&t=b&vu=curr https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/5y/USD?c=e&t=b&vu...
rbobby 8y ago
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4240730/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4240730/ Misaeng. Provides an interesting view of life in a Korean trading company (not bitcoin). Apparently not too far off reality. Pretty great series.

68 points by martey 8y ago

I just got back from South Korea (Seoul) where I spent a month working and on vacation. By no means am I any sort of expert, but here are my insights which may be somewhat of a rant. > Mr. Kim, who is 27 and lives with his parents - A lot of people in their twenties still live with their parents in S. Korea. It is very common. > He has lost a lot of money, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. - S. Korea is very fashion and tech savvy. It is also very wealthy notable mostly in Seoul and Itaewon. Koreans are really into how they look including high end brands and cars (Mercedes, BMW's are rampant in the city). The women are infatuated with makeup, their appearance, and Instagram. It makes sense that S. Korea was a crypto hub and that it went absolutely wild there. - There is a noticeable pro-America vibe in S. Korea and wearing clothes or fashion that has the American Flag is typically high end. They also love Whiskey, specifically Jack Daniels which I thought was funny because I live in Tennessee..

mruts 8y ago
I live in Tanzania (I used to live in the US). And everywhere around here you see "Jack Lives In Africa" signs. It's pretty hilarious. They think any export is some high-end good.
dba7dba 8y ago
Funny you mentioned Mercedes/BMW being rampant in Seoul, because Doug Demuro thought it was hilarious S. Korea had no Mercedes/BMW but only Hyundai/Kia. And only in black/gray. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZD2pBeXY6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZD2pBeXY6Q I have to say, drawing a rather sweeping conclusion of a nation of 51 million after a month long visit to a small area (albeit much of the nation's population living there) is maybe worth some reconsideration. It's like spending a month in Hollywood for a month eating out often, and concluding that every waiter/waitress in US is just working odd jobs while trying to break into the entertainment industry. Edit: I've also met people who are well off enough that they don't have to work as waiter/waitress, but still moved to LA to get a script made into movie, go to usc for movie (like writing movie script) etc etc. I'd think unmarried children living with parents until they marry or get a job that requires moving to another city is quite natural in most other countries.
- bootlooped 8y ago
  I lived there, in Seoul, for over a year and I can say with certainty that there are a good number of Mercedes and BMW. Most of the time I saw a foreign car it was a Germany luxury brand. If I recall correctly South Korea has a trade deficit with Germany at least in part due to the import of these cars. The colors for cars really were almost all black, gray, silver and white. The main exceptions were orange taxis and blue bongo trucks. I almost never recall seeing American cars out in the wild, although I did walk by a Chevy dealership often. In the video you linked he does point out a bunch of German luxury cars.
  - ousta 8y ago
    many chevrolet
yongjik 8y ago
> There is a noticeable pro-America vibe in S. Korea and wearing clothes or fashion that has the American Flag is typically high end. Well, that's a bit like saying there's a pro-Chinese vibe in America because so many people have random Chinese letters printed on their shirts or tattooed on their arms. It doesn't really mean anything.
- downrightmike 8y ago
  The pro-USA thing probably has more to do with the war in the 50's.
- adventured 8y ago
  > It doesn't really mean anything. Among nations, South Koreans have the third most favorable opinion of the US [1], only behind the Phillippines and Israel. South Korea's well-known love of the US goes back more than half a century. As an American, for me it's mutual, I love South Korea too. My grandfather, having fought in WW2, re-enlisted and volunteered to fight in Korea. He always said the South Koreans were wonderful to him. I think he'd be proud of how amazing their country has become, knowing that putting his life in jeopardy was worth it. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-dont-like-america-and-which-do/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countr...
habosa 8y ago
I've been told that Jack and Coke is the #1 liquor drink in the world. I believe it, that stuff is everywhere.
tanilama 8y ago
> A lot of people in their twenties still live with their parents in S. Korea. It is very common. It is common anywhere where the real estate price is high.

gowld 8y ago

This seems similar to "Blackjack was their way out of USA's lowest rungs", and some people made a bunch of money and most people lost a bunch of money.

arcticbull 8y ago
A small handful of people made a lot of money at the expense of a huge pile of people who came after them but only the winners yell about it, FTFY :)
- nostrademons 8y ago
  Now it's reversed - only the losers yell about it, while anyone who profited from the bubble is keeping their mouth shut. Funny how the zeitgeist can turn.

yongjik 8y ago

Last year, when SK government clamped down on cryptocoin exchanges, many crypto-enthusiasts cried foul and claimed that (just like this article says) cryptocurrencies are the waves of the future and the only way out of their "dirt spoon" status. Well, IMHO, the subsequent collapse of bitcoin proved the government's point. Without timely intervention, there could now be millions who suddenly found their iron spoons turned to dirt.

Theodores 8y ago
You would not be able to write like that a year ago. When Bitcoin was going to be the future not just in South Korea but on Hacker News too. I am still waiting for my world changing dApps to come along from the many promising projects that needed all of this money from ICOs to finance the change that my small ill-educated brain could not imagine. Just as well I did not quit my job because my coding work was irrelevant because there would be a magic dApp coming along in two months time that would mean I could do everything effortlessly with smart contracts and the new fintech. Just as well I did not get all my money invested in [$altcoin] as I was pressured to do so. Where have all the serious people gone who were the experts a year ago? Do they still exist thinking that the serious blockchain smart contract stuff has only just started? Do they still make analogies about the dot com bust and where Amazon is today? Do they blame the state of the altcoin on how governments clamped down? A conspiracy, a refusal by governments to let people be free from the shackles of 'fiat currency'? A year ago you would not be able to write about how 'millions' of people in South Korea spared misery by their government in the tone you can freely write with today.
- oska 8y ago
  Bitcoin never did an ICO and most of the hype around dapps was centered on ethereum. You are conflating shitcoins and scamcoins with Bitcoin. Some of the loudest voices warning against these obvious scams came from the bitcoin community. The same people also warned against the blockchain hype.
oska 8y ago
Bitcoin has not collapsed. The technology continues to work very, very well and it has a world-class development team maintaining it. Its price will continue to have large rises and large drops but it continues on its upward trend. However, focusing on bitcoin's price alone is where 99% of journalists and commentators go wrong.

godshatter 8y ago

> Mr. Kim, who is 27 and lives with his parents, once made so much money trading cryptocurrencies that he was spending $1,000 a month on whatever he wanted. He quit his job. He borrowed to buy more. He planned to buy a house. Cryptocurrency markets are so volatile that I would just stash that $1,000 a month away somewhere rather than trying to double down. I'd consider every penny I earned to be a win and hope it continued for a while. I'd expect it to end in tears if I didn't. I guess I'm just more risk-averse.

megy 8y ago
> once made so much money trading cryptocurrencies that he was spending $1,000 a month on whatever he wanted. That doesn't even sound like much at all. Surely he would have more than that if he worked a job.
- adventured 8y ago
  The median income in South Korea is typically around $1,250 to $1,500 per month. To be entirely free to burn $1,000 per month in that style, you would want an income at least four times higher than that median. That's a considerable salary in South Korea. At $1,500 you're going to roughly be at break-even on living costs.
- macspoofing 8y ago
  Yeah. If your food and rent is covered by your parents, any job will give you the ability to spend $1000 on whatever you want.

neokantian 8y ago

The current price is back at the price in August 2017. Anybody who got in before the subsequent speculative wave is doing absolutely fine. The $20,000 price of December 2017 was a speculative fluke of some kind of wannabe gold rush. For someone like me, who got in years before, I am actually happy that the hot money is mostly gone now. That batch gold diggers were turning the entire scene into a gigantic lottery carnival.

arcticbull 8y ago
You’re happy you lost 90% of your wealth? This kind of religious nonsense is pretty typical in the MLM and ponzi worlds. Nobody should be happy about that. Plus that’s some seriously classic goalpost moving. Each time the price drops further shift the buy in a date a few months to the left. Yes people who bought in two years ago (basically a tiny fraction of the people who bought in after) are now break even. Classic success. The S&P has returned 14% since August 2017.
- gjs278 8y ago
  spy 500 nearly lost all its gains for the year. it could easily take a nosedive.
- robertAngst 8y ago
  No one bought at 19k/BTC. And if they did, they likely bought petty amounts. Most people bought before. We believe that there may be an alternative to government currency in a rare number. I didnt lose 90% of my wealth. I actually got an extra 0.6 BTC since Jan 2017. I consider that an increase.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    Tons of people bought at 19K. That’s when transaction counts peaked from historical graphs. And at 18k, and 17k and so on. This isn’t in dispute the historical data speaks for itself, not opinion. [1] They bought huge quantities, multiplication tells us that. And anecdota of people taking out massive loans because they couldn’t lose. Most bought in the cumulative run up from mid to end of 2017, again, charts. [1] You lost 90% of your buying power. [1] https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/5y/USD?c=e&t=b&vu=curr https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/5y/USD?c=e&t=b&vu...

rbobby 8y ago

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4240730/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4240730/ Misaeng. Provides an interesting view of life in a Korean trading company (not bitcoin). Apparently not too far off reality. Pretty great series.