3 ms·

The current price of bitcoin was considered a pipe dream by almost everyone just a few years ago. What bust?

netsharc 7y ago
I wonder how many people bought at 19K USD (or anything between 5.5K and 19K) and are now in the red, or indeed if they bought at e.g. 19K and sold at 15K, swallowing 4K of losses. For sure there are Lamborghinis out there bought with people's retirement money.
- fyfy18 7y ago
  Is it really that different from the housing bubble that popped in 2008? Leading up to that point plenty of people bought houses they couldn't afford with large loans from banks, on the idea of getting rich in a short time.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    While I agree with your sentiment, housing has the advantage of being directly useful in and of itself. It’s bad to lose 20% of a $200k house, but it’s still saving you rent and is a long-term wage-inflation-matching (not, and cannot be, wage-beating in the long term) asset.
- seibelj 7y ago
  I wonder how many people bought into SNAP or Blue Apron stock, and are in the red. For sure, the founders of startups bought a lot of lambos with retail investors’ money, and the original VC’s dumped their equity on IPO day on the masses.
- vibrato 7y ago
  You make a 20% drawdown sound so bad. You know the stock market can do that right? Just the fees to get in and out are over 3% total generally. Anybody betting their retirement on bitcoin deserves their fate, good or bad.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    I lost 90% of the value of my Lloyds shares. I’m fine, of course, but just because other things are worse doesn’t make a bad thing into a good thing. As for ‘deserves’… there’s a reason why speculation on financial products is something banks and governments don’t want J. Average to do.
- TelmoMenezes 7y ago
  > For sure there are Lamborghinis out there bought with people's retirement money. Oh yes, but sociopaths and foolish greed are not bitcoin-specific. Bitcoin seems to annoy people at some fundamental level that I do not understand. Perhaps because it exposes that all money is an abstraction, that it really rests on nothing except some social narrative that we all share? 2009: Bitcoin is a nerdy pipe-dream. It will never be worth anything! 2011: Ok, bitcoin is worth something, but it is only used by drug dealers on the dark web. 2017: OMG I'm going to buy bitcoin and get rich! 2019: Bitcoin is worth nothing, exactly like the tulips, told you so! 2022: ... etc etc Thinking about cryptocurrencies by following the latest wave of hype is the way to neurosis. As with anything involving money & investments, I suspect. At the moment I am writing this 1BTC ~= 5K Euros. This is only considered bad because there was am unsustainable spike when greed went viral. I suspect more events like this will come. Who cares what the trend-followers think?

I wonder how many people bought at 19K USD (or anything between 5.5K and 19K) and are now in the red, or indeed if they bought at e.g. 19K and sold at 15K, swallowing 4K of losses. For sure there are Lamborghinis out there bought with people's retirement money.

fyfy18 7y ago
Is it really that different from the housing bubble that popped in 2008? Leading up to that point plenty of people bought houses they couldn't afford with large loans from banks, on the idea of getting rich in a short time.
- ben_w 7y ago
  While I agree with your sentiment, housing has the advantage of being directly useful in and of itself. It’s bad to lose 20% of a $200k house, but it’s still saving you rent and is a long-term wage-inflation-matching (not, and cannot be, wage-beating in the long term) asset.
seibelj 7y ago
I wonder how many people bought into SNAP or Blue Apron stock, and are in the red. For sure, the founders of startups bought a lot of lambos with retail investors’ money, and the original VC’s dumped their equity on IPO day on the masses.
vibrato 7y ago
You make a 20% drawdown sound so bad. You know the stock market can do that right? Just the fees to get in and out are over 3% total generally. Anybody betting their retirement on bitcoin deserves their fate, good or bad.
- ben_w 7y ago
  I lost 90% of the value of my Lloyds shares. I’m fine, of course, but just because other things are worse doesn’t make a bad thing into a good thing. As for ‘deserves’… there’s a reason why speculation on financial products is something banks and governments don’t want J. Average to do.
TelmoMenezes 7y ago
> For sure there are Lamborghinis out there bought with people's retirement money. Oh yes, but sociopaths and foolish greed are not bitcoin-specific. Bitcoin seems to annoy people at some fundamental level that I do not understand. Perhaps because it exposes that all money is an abstraction, that it really rests on nothing except some social narrative that we all share? 2009: Bitcoin is a nerdy pipe-dream. It will never be worth anything! 2011: Ok, bitcoin is worth something, but it is only used by drug dealers on the dark web. 2017: OMG I'm going to buy bitcoin and get rich! 2019: Bitcoin is worth nothing, exactly like the tulips, told you so! 2022: ... etc etc Thinking about cryptocurrencies by following the latest wave of hype is the way to neurosis. As with anything involving money & investments, I suspect. At the moment I am writing this 1BTC ~= 5K Euros. This is only considered bad because there was am unsustainable spike when greed went viral. I suspect more events like this will come. Who cares what the trend-followers think?