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What happened to people that got in early on the USD?

gruez 5y ago
"got in early on the USD" would imply a time where USD was still on the gold standard. I'm not aware of any gold standard currencies where they increased the valuation (ie. previously they promised to pay you 1 oz of gold but now they'll pay you 2oz of gold), so at best they would have retained their original value and not made any gains. If we count the debasings and/or transition off the gold standard, they would have lost money due to inflation.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Getting in early means getting time to amass a lot of it. Rockefellers, Carnegie, the people that bought Manhattan Island for $1,143 in 2020 dollars. The artist that painted the Facebook murals for stock options that is a multi-millionaire now. My point is that people that get in early in crypto are no different, of course they are more wealthy than those that come after, as long as they don’t waste it. There are always monetary rewards for people that recognize good investments before the rest of the crowd.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > The artist that painted the Facebook murals for stock options that is a multi-millionaire now. That person did not "get in early" on USD. They got in early on Facebook stock. Currencies are designed to stay flat-ish, and ideally have a low, predictable rate of inflation to among other things incentivize investment. Your job is to allocate that currency towards getting in early on something productive. Like an upstart social network.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    It's funny how it's considered a "good investment". The point of "investing" in Bitcoin is to make it harder to access its utility and make it harder to further invest into Bitcoin. With stocks you aren't supposed to "overinvest". If the company is overvalued you'll lose your money one day.
chii 5y ago
you cant "get in early" on an asset that can be diluted.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  All company stock undergoes substantial dilution. The trick is that at each dilution the unit value goes up more than the number of units does. A smaller piece of a bigger pie, that in this case, is still net more pie.
imtringued 5y ago
They spent their USD and got something in exchange or they didn't because they waited so long that the something no longer existed and thus the value of the USD disappeared.

"got in early on the USD" would imply a time where USD was still on the gold standard. I'm not aware of any gold standard currencies where they increased the valuation (ie. previously they promised to pay you 1 oz of gold but now they'll pay you 2oz of gold), so at best they would have retained their original value and not made any gains. If we count the debasings and/or transition off the gold standard, they would have lost money due to inflation.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Getting in early means getting time to amass a lot of it. Rockefellers, Carnegie, the people that bought Manhattan Island for $1,143 in 2020 dollars. The artist that painted the Facebook murals for stock options that is a multi-millionaire now. My point is that people that get in early in crypto are no different, of course they are more wealthy than those that come after, as long as they don’t waste it. There are always monetary rewards for people that recognize good investments before the rest of the crowd.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > The artist that painted the Facebook murals for stock options that is a multi-millionaire now. That person did not "get in early" on USD. They got in early on Facebook stock. Currencies are designed to stay flat-ish, and ideally have a low, predictable rate of inflation to among other things incentivize investment. Your job is to allocate that currency towards getting in early on something productive. Like an upstart social network.
- imtringued 5y ago
  It's funny how it's considered a "good investment". The point of "investing" in Bitcoin is to make it harder to access its utility and make it harder to further invest into Bitcoin. With stocks you aren't supposed to "overinvest". If the company is overvalued you'll lose your money one day.

chii 5y ago

you cant "get in early" on an asset that can be diluted.

arcticbull 5y ago
All company stock undergoes substantial dilution. The trick is that at each dilution the unit value goes up more than the number of units does. A smaller piece of a bigger pie, that in this case, is still net more pie.

imtringued 5y ago

They spent their USD and got something in exchange or they didn't because they waited so long that the something no longer existed and thus the value of the USD disappeared.