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The tone of comments by the kids reminds me of school exercises in economics and financial literacy. It also makes me worried to hear people fail to understand

The tone of comments by the kids reminds me of school exercises in economics and financial literacy. It also makes me worried to hear people fail to understand that the real time volatility of cryptocurrency trading makes it effectively gambling. Gambling with good odds of not losing your money in 5 minutes, but still far more like gambling than a classic investment in all but the most volatile stocks and commodities, I’ve seen gold move pretty hard when major world news happens, but I have never seen anything move up and down in value faster than a cryptocurrency.

wruza 5y ago
Is “faster” an issue though? Wading through the general investments theme for a year or so I understood that you have to do a titanic work to place a good bet anyway, and risk is always there. The only thing you should know is to not go all in with everything you have, but for these risky 10% you explicitly/safely allocate for it, you’re as good as an average “investor”, because both suck at it. I decided to just bet on what I personally believe in and not spend a valuable time on pointless silver bullet research. It’s different because the goal is not money, the goal is taking part in something you believe as a person, be it a technology, a sector or a company. All other risky investment schemes are just speculative gambling and don’t support any idea. Market is humans and humans don’t really change. It’s okay to think in simple terms like “x is future”, “y doesn’t go away” or “z is obvious bullshit”, because everyone does. We invest time into projects we do and we invest part of a revenue into projects we can’t do ourselves. Isn’t that the essence of investments? (Not an investment advice.)
- techdragon 5y ago
  “Faster” is a multiplier on the risk they are taking. It’s one thing to risk where you may only lose 5% to 10% more money if you take an extra day or two to decide if you should sell. With cryptocurrencies you may have lost 25% to 50% or even 100% for the smallest and most volatile currencies or even by forces outside of your control if you start investing in smart contracts and someone finds a flaw and exploits it to drain the money away. These all happen at a speed that can take even seasoned crypto investors by surprise from time to time. Sometimes you only have a matter of hours to get your money out before an entire currency becomes worthless. It sounds like you understand the nature of these as risks and are sensible about it but from what I’ve seen in my interactions with people who are starting to look at it now it’s starting to get widespread with some companies now advertising to “normal people”. These people are learning about it entirely from the PR coming from crypto trading sites that want to turn them into profitable users, their view of the risks is deeply flawed, sanitised for the benefit of the companies that want their business.

wruza 5y ago

Is “faster” an issue though? Wading through the general investments theme for a year or so I understood that you have to do a titanic work to place a good bet anyway, and risk is always there. The only thing you should know is to not go all in with everything you have, but for these risky 10% you explicitly/safely allocate for it, you’re as good as an average “investor”, because both suck at it. I decided to just bet on what I personally believe in and not spend a valuable time on pointless silver bullet research. It’s different because the goal is not money, the goal is taking part in something you believe as a person, be it a technology, a sector or a company. All other risky investment schemes are just speculative gambling and don’t support any idea. Market is humans and humans don’t really change. It’s okay to think in simple terms like “x is future”, “y doesn’t go away” or “z is obvious bullshit”, because everyone does. We invest time into projects we do and we invest part of a revenue into projects we can’t do ourselves. Isn’t that the essence of investments? (Not an investment advice.)

techdragon 5y ago
“Faster” is a multiplier on the risk they are taking. It’s one thing to risk where you may only lose 5% to 10% more money if you take an extra day or two to decide if you should sell. With cryptocurrencies you may have lost 25% to 50% or even 100% for the smallest and most volatile currencies or even by forces outside of your control if you start investing in smart contracts and someone finds a flaw and exploits it to drain the money away. These all happen at a speed that can take even seasoned crypto investors by surprise from time to time. Sometimes you only have a matter of hours to get your money out before an entire currency becomes worthless. It sounds like you understand the nature of these as risks and are sensible about it but from what I’ve seen in my interactions with people who are starting to look at it now it’s starting to get widespread with some companies now advertising to “normal people”. These people are learning about it entirely from the PR coming from crypto trading sites that want to turn them into profitable users, their view of the risks is deeply flawed, sanitised for the benefit of the companies that want their business.