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On a ski trip I took in 2017, I was in line to buy a lift ticket one cold December morning. I remember overhearing the winter bros (the ones that usually talk a

by rauchp 7y ago

On a ski trip I took in 2017, I was in line to buy a lift ticket one cold December morning. I remember overhearing the winter bros (the ones that usually talk about gnar and their steezy tricks) talking about installing Coinbase and buying Bitcoin. I wouldn't underestimate the amount of retail investors that speculated on Bitcoin during that time. It was on major news networks in America, but also on national networks outside the U.S. My uncles and aunts were calling me asking how to buy Bitcoin outside the USA. The FOMO was real back then. Did Tether play a part in the grand pump? I'm sure it did, but I imagine it was more of a catalyst, and not the primary driver as the original study suggested.

pshc 7y ago
Late 2017 was nuts. I recall my brother texting me “Hey should I buy XRP?” out of the blue. Wish I had had the presence of mind to realize it was time to get out.
- helpPeople 7y ago
  Bitcoin has a usecase that makes sense, rare, government free money. Xrp, centralized money. Just as unreliable as government money. To this day, alt coins seem utterly useless. (Save privacy coins)
  - fock 7y ago
    good luck with all that government free infrastructure, but as your fellow coinhead told us, we should think about the poor people...
  - polotics 7y ago
    IMHO A lot is hanging on Monero's ASIC resistance, version coming up this month: true decentralised hashing power is essential to the concept.
- k__ 7y ago
  I can remember Bitcoin going to $200 thinking it was nuts. I can also remember it going to $700 thinkin it was nuts. Now it's over $9000. So when was there really a reason to get out?
  - ivoc 7y ago
    Back when it was $20000.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    Well, in hindsight, $18k would have been a great time to get out.
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      Well if foresight were 20/20 we'd all be rich.
      - trophycase 7y ago
        To be fair it was pretty obvious if you had been in the space for a while. When random people start texting you up asking how to buy XRP and telling you why LTC is better than BTC you know it's a bubble and know it's time to get out. Look at Charlie Lee for example. Everyone blames him for dumping his LTC at $200 or whatever it was but frankly it was extremely obvious that it was a bubble and a smart decision.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - mrb 7y ago
      You missed k__'s point which is that no matter what peak price you think was the best time to sell out, it has always been followed 2-3 years later by an even greater peak. You have hindsight in the past but you are still lacking foresight into the future.
- NeutronStar 7y ago
  Maybe time to get out but if you got in below 10k usd/btc before the late 2017 spike or even after, then you're still profitable today.
Itsdijital 7y ago
The day after our company Christmas party in 2017 I had to take an uber the next morning to go pick up my car. I was anxious mess like I had been for the last 3 weeks riding the insane wave up on a mish mosh of alt coins. Phone clasped hard in my hand I couldn't go 5 minutes without checking the market. My uber driver, a middle aged black women cheering about her Christmas plans and whole family coming to visit, suddenly breaks off track and excitedly brings up bitcoin. Her and her husband got their account set up and were putting "all their money" into it. "I don't even know what the hell it is but people are making money left and right!" I told her that it was probably a terrible idea. The next day I liquidated all my holdings. I did miss the final run up, but I came out a lot better than most.
- kevindong 7y ago
  Similarly, in June 2018, I was chatting with my Uber driver and I told them I was interning as a software engineer and the driver started asking me about the AI/ML usage at my company (without me starting that discussion). Even before then, I thought AI/ML was overhyped. That interaction just confirmed it for me.
- duxup 7y ago
  Years ago I took a random day off. I remembered after breakfast I had some old stock options that were never worth much and some stock I had been buying via an employee stock plan. I knew the company stock was doing well so I log in and find that day the stock had jumped a fair amount. It occurred to me that "I'm never going to see a return like this any other time and I almost forgot this was even here"... so I sold it all. The stock sold at a penny or two less than the all-time high that it would ever reach. That was a few months before everything hit the fan with the mortgage crisis. I like to tell that story about how calling a high or bottom in the market is pretty hard and the only time I ever did it it was because I took the day off on the right day.

by rauchp 7y ago

pshc 7y ago

Late 2017 was nuts. I recall my brother texting me “Hey should I buy XRP?” out of the blue. Wish I had had the presence of mind to realize it was time to get out.

helpPeople 7y ago
Bitcoin has a usecase that makes sense, rare, government free money. Xrp, centralized money. Just as unreliable as government money. To this day, alt coins seem utterly useless. (Save privacy coins)
- fock 7y ago
  good luck with all that government free infrastructure, but as your fellow coinhead told us, we should think about the poor people...
- polotics 7y ago
  IMHO A lot is hanging on Monero's ASIC resistance, version coming up this month: true decentralised hashing power is essential to the concept.
k__ 7y ago
I can remember Bitcoin going to $200 thinking it was nuts. I can also remember it going to $700 thinkin it was nuts. Now it's over $9000. So when was there really a reason to get out?
- ivoc 7y ago
  Back when it was $20000.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Well, in hindsight, $18k would have been a great time to get out.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    Well if foresight were 20/20 we'd all be rich.
    - trophycase 7y ago
      To be fair it was pretty obvious if you had been in the space for a while. When random people start texting you up asking how to buy XRP and telling you why LTC is better than BTC you know it's a bubble and know it's time to get out. Look at Charlie Lee for example. Everyone blames him for dumping his LTC at $200 or whatever it was but frankly it was extremely obvious that it was a bubble and a smart decision.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - mrb 7y ago
    You missed k__'s point which is that no matter what peak price you think was the best time to sell out, it has always been followed 2-3 years later by an even greater peak. You have hindsight in the past but you are still lacking foresight into the future.
NeutronStar 7y ago
Maybe time to get out but if you got in below 10k usd/btc before the late 2017 spike or even after, then you're still profitable today.

Itsdijital 7y ago

The day after our company Christmas party in 2017 I had to take an uber the next morning to go pick up my car. I was anxious mess like I had been for the last 3 weeks riding the insane wave up on a mish mosh of alt coins. Phone clasped hard in my hand I couldn't go 5 minutes without checking the market. My uber driver, a middle aged black women cheering about her Christmas plans and whole family coming to visit, suddenly breaks off track and excitedly brings up bitcoin. Her and her husband got their account set up and were putting "all their money" into it. "I don't even know what the hell it is but people are making money left and right!" I told her that it was probably a terrible idea. The next day I liquidated all my holdings. I did miss the final run up, but I came out a lot better than most.

kevindong 7y ago
Similarly, in June 2018, I was chatting with my Uber driver and I told them I was interning as a software engineer and the driver started asking me about the AI/ML usage at my company (without me starting that discussion). Even before then, I thought AI/ML was overhyped. That interaction just confirmed it for me.
duxup 7y ago
Years ago I took a random day off. I remembered after breakfast I had some old stock options that were never worth much and some stock I had been buying via an employee stock plan. I knew the company stock was doing well so I log in and find that day the stock had jumped a fair amount. It occurred to me that "I'm never going to see a return like this any other time and I almost forgot this was even here"... so I sold it all. The stock sold at a penny or two less than the all-time high that it would ever reach. That was a few months before everything hit the fan with the mortgage crisis. I like to tell that story about how calling a high or bottom in the market is pretty hard and the only time I ever did it it was because I took the day off on the right day.