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Really? No bitcoin? I mean, I know, lots of hate on HN about the whole thing being scammy and rife with criminal activity, but none of that changes that buying

Really? No bitcoin? I mean, I know, lots of hate on HN about the whole thing being scammy and rife with criminal activity, but none of that changes that buying it in 2010 would right now give you insane and fairly liquid returns on one of the absolute best performing speculative assets of modern history. And since you're writing a letter to the past before 2010, well......

inopinatus 6y ago
I wouldn’t bother trying to advise past me to invest in tobacco, oil, defence, Facebook, bitcoin, or any other morally questionable investment vehicle. He would reject the authorship and discard it as some kind of peculiarly ham-fisted attempt at fraud by someone with no idea of my (his/our) values.
- shadowprofile77 6y ago
  Well in 2000 they'd hardly know that some of these were morally questionable no? and by 2010 they'd have 10 years of solid predictions to know your letter is no fraud.
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    That isn’t how values work. Well, not mine at any rate. The outcome wouldn’t change.
    - inopinatus 6y ago
      I can’t believe it took me seven hours to realise there was an immutable values jest to be made. Damnit. Leaving this as a memo to my future self.
pjc50 6y ago
I knew someone in the same office as me who bought in at about $400, ran an arbitrage bot between exchanges .. and somehow lost money on it. The flaws were clear. If you bought and held (which requires keeping the keys secret against a lot of attacks and not losing them), and also managed to pick the peak to sell at, and managed to sell without being scammed, exit-scammed by the exchange, or having your account locked, then yes you could have made a lot of money. Because there's a lot of risk along the way.
- core-questions 6y ago
  > which requires keeping the keys secret against a lot of attacks and not losing them Piece of paper in a safety deposit box (maybe even at 2-3 different banks) would do this just fine, but you'd have to know it was going to be worthwhile enough to have bothered. > managed to pick the peak to sell at Just sell bits of it here and there to spread the risk around.

inopinatus 6y ago

I wouldn’t bother trying to advise past me to invest in tobacco, oil, defence, Facebook, bitcoin, or any other morally questionable investment vehicle. He would reject the authorship and discard it as some kind of peculiarly ham-fisted attempt at fraud by someone with no idea of my (his/our) values.

shadowprofile77 6y ago
Well in 2000 they'd hardly know that some of these were morally questionable no? and by 2010 they'd have 10 years of solid predictions to know your letter is no fraud.
- inopinatus 6y ago
  That isn’t how values work. Well, not mine at any rate. The outcome wouldn’t change.
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    I can’t believe it took me seven hours to realise there was an immutable values jest to be made. Damnit. Leaving this as a memo to my future self.

pjc50 6y ago

I knew someone in the same office as me who bought in at about $400, ran an arbitrage bot between exchanges .. and somehow lost money on it. The flaws were clear. If you bought and held (which requires keeping the keys secret against a lot of attacks and not losing them), and also managed to pick the peak to sell at, and managed to sell without being scammed, exit-scammed by the exchange, or having your account locked, then yes you could have made a lot of money. Because there's a lot of risk along the way.

core-questions 6y ago
> which requires keeping the keys secret against a lot of attacks and not losing them Piece of paper in a safety deposit box (maybe even at 2-3 different banks) would do this just fine, but you'd have to know it was going to be worthwhile enough to have bothered. > managed to pick the peak to sell at Just sell bits of it here and there to spread the risk around.