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I can't help but feel bad for a lot of the stuff I read in the crypto subs. They read about people who invested like $10k into crypto and became a millionaire,

I can't help but feel bad for a lot of the stuff I read in the crypto subs. They read about people who invested like $10k into crypto and became a millionaire, then invest $100 and hope for the same. The amount of disdain in those subs for safe investments is borderline dangerous and the prevailing attitudes there are going to leave most of them worse off than they'd otherwise be.

ashtonkem 5y ago
My suspicion is that this is caused by both the marketing that crypto has done, and the wide ranging perception that the official mechanisms for investment and wealth growth are rigged against most Americans.
- throw1234651234 5y ago
  That perception is generally correct. Even having switched to tech from another field I took seriously...it's still luck that I was able to do so to a significant degree.
- twiceaday 5y ago
  I see the second part routinely pushed by crypto believers.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I also see it a lot outside of crypto. Heck, it’s starting to show up in surveys about “the American dream”, lots of people now think the system is rigged.
wanderingmind 5y ago
Maybe the Fed should have thought about it when they obliterated the interest rates which used to be the safe and default form of investment for poor and old.
lwansbrough 5y ago
To be fair I've lost over half my investment in ARKG in the past year.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  They were talking about safe investments. I’m not sure most should or would consider ARK funds anything but speculative. The only difference is the companies held have some underlying assets and value. The hate I usually see in crypto discussions is directed towards index funds or blue-chip stocks.
  - azemetre 5y ago
    Outside of index funds and owning real estate/property in Western countries, what else would be considered a safe investment?
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Index funds are a pretty broad class. Risk parity adjusted pairs (TMF/UPRO). Roboadvisors.
    - smashed 5y ago
      My investments knowledge is limited, but I think ARKG is an ETF, but not an index funds. It is actively managed, meaning that specific stocks are selected to be part of the fund. This is the opposite of an index fund, where the goal is to buy the whole market. That's why a fund like ARKG can sometime outperform the market, or, like recently, under perform. An index fund would match the whole market performance, no more no less.
      - azemetre 5y ago
        Sorry I wasn't referring to ETFs, but strictly index funds when the person was talking about safe investing. I should have clarified in my comment.
Enginerrrd 5y ago
Honestly it's scary. I literally just was talking to my nanny a little while back. She was telling me about her parents and brother, both basically pretty desperately poor, who have invested their life savings into GME, a literal meme stock. I laughed when I first heard about GME, but seeing people who have no idea what they are doing invest in something so incredibly risky is really painful to watch. Come the next big financial crisis, this cannot end well.
- jbay808 5y ago
  It's very sad. I strongly believe that far, far fewer people would be doing this kind of risk-taking if their savings account was yielding at or above inflation, as it did from the 80s to around 2005.
  - throwaway6734 5y ago
    There are much safer assets that have generally stable returns. These people are looking to get rich quick
    - stanski 5y ago
      Or in many cases, get not poor quick.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      There's this, but they're also unsophisticated investors doing unsophisticated investor things. Many of them truly don't understand what a good or bad investment is.
    - throw1234651234 5y ago
      So are those of us cramming leetcode for FAANG...not so different after all.
      - twiceaday 5y ago
        "get rich quick" by studying arduously for a full time job interview...
beaconstudios 5y ago
Desperate people do desperate things. This is why I really hate the crypto bros - the whole system is set up to rip people off, often the most desperate and tech illiterate, given the coin and NFT pitches are transparently bullshit to those of us with no vested interest and some familiarity with the tech and economics.
- mraudiobook_com 5y ago
- gjs278 5y ago
taurath 5y ago
People making regular salaries know their window of ever being wealthy is going away with every year they see 20-30% housing price increases. It is fucking dire making working class or middle class wages in most of the US unless you have a sizeable inheritance. Hope does not exactly abound. So everybody gets obsessed with the lottery.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  A lot of the middle class has a straightforward shot at retiring wealthy. If you invest $X per year (and adjust it for inflation) for 43 years (22 to 65), and get a return of 7% after inflation, then you can withdraw $23X per year until your 90. For whatever income you define as wealthy, a huge chunk of society can afford to save away 1/23rd of that annually. Under today's taxes in the US, those gains are tax advantaged compared to income, so take whatever salary you define as wealthy and put away 1/29th of it per year, roughly. It's not accessible to everyone, but calling it "fucking dire" is just fearmongering people into being even worse off with the lottery.
  - taurath 5y ago
    > It's not accessible to everyone, but calling it "fucking dire" is just fearmongering Individual economics are dire in terms of how much it costs to have basic security with housing specifically. Median home price in the US was $222k in 2008, its $400k in 2022. Rents have gone up accordingly. Average person sees their paycheck go less far every year, and then add inflation on top of it. Putting away $1k in a year sure doesn't seem like it helps you. Everything works out pretty well for you if you somehow own a house in the US, just hope you aren't behind the curve on assets.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
      > Median home price in the US was $222k in 2008, its $400k in 2022. Rents have gone up accordingly This is between misleading and untrue. Home prices have gone way up, while home monthly payments haven't, due to the extremely low interest rates on mortgages. This means that downpayments are less accessible, but the rest of the payments are about as accessible as before. Until 2021, monthly payments were actually unusually cheap for the last bunch of years. Probably offsetting the higher down payments and lower inflation. But the big one is that rents haven't gone up accordingly. I couldn't find 2022 data, but from 2008 to 2020, median monthly rent went up from $783 to $1,104. In 2020 dollars, it went from $941 to $1,104, or 17%. It's significant, but nowhere near the doubling you posted.
NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
The real problem is treating them like investments, when buying/spending is what makes them valuable. I bought $1000 worth of BTC in ~2006. If I'd held onto it I would...probably not be a millionaire today, even if the math says so, because it was band new then, and using them is what makes them valuable. It's a tragedy of the commons problem I believe.
- gruez 5y ago
  >I bought $1000 worth of BTC in ~2006. that might be hard to do: >On 3 January 2009, the bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the starting block of the chain, known as the genesis block. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Creation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Creation
Tenoke 5y ago
This is the case in r/WSB for stocks but I've rarely seen stuff quite like that in crypto subs (check e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/top/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/top/ ). The discussions are low quality and people do obviously believe they will make money but that specific type of post isn't all that common. Of course, I don't visit the smaller memecoin subs which might be like that and same for possibly the Dogecoin one which is the largest one which I imagine might have that type of post.
mizzao 5y ago
It's starting to feel a lot like how poor folks are more likely to buy lottery tickets... As economists sometimes say, "lotteries are a tax on the poor". (Or, "lotteries are a tax on the stupid.")

ashtonkem 5y ago

My suspicion is that this is caused by both the marketing that crypto has done, and the wide ranging perception that the official mechanisms for investment and wealth growth are rigged against most Americans.

throw1234651234 5y ago
That perception is generally correct. Even having switched to tech from another field I took seriously...it's still luck that I was able to do so to a significant degree.
twiceaday 5y ago
I see the second part routinely pushed by crypto believers.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I also see it a lot outside of crypto. Heck, it’s starting to show up in surveys about “the American dream”, lots of people now think the system is rigged.

wanderingmind 5y ago

Maybe the Fed should have thought about it when they obliterated the interest rates which used to be the safe and default form of investment for poor and old.

lwansbrough 5y ago

To be fair I've lost over half my investment in ARKG in the past year.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
alphabettsy 5y ago
They were talking about safe investments. I’m not sure most should or would consider ARK funds anything but speculative. The only difference is the companies held have some underlying assets and value. The hate I usually see in crypto discussions is directed towards index funds or blue-chip stocks.
- azemetre 5y ago
  Outside of index funds and owning real estate/property in Western countries, what else would be considered a safe investment?
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Index funds are a pretty broad class. Risk parity adjusted pairs (TMF/UPRO). Roboadvisors.
  - smashed 5y ago
    My investments knowledge is limited, but I think ARKG is an ETF, but not an index funds. It is actively managed, meaning that specific stocks are selected to be part of the fund. This is the opposite of an index fund, where the goal is to buy the whole market. That's why a fund like ARKG can sometime outperform the market, or, like recently, under perform. An index fund would match the whole market performance, no more no less.
    - azemetre 5y ago
      Sorry I wasn't referring to ETFs, but strictly index funds when the person was talking about safe investing. I should have clarified in my comment.

Enginerrrd 5y ago

Honestly it's scary. I literally just was talking to my nanny a little while back. She was telling me about her parents and brother, both basically pretty desperately poor, who have invested their life savings into GME, a literal meme stock. I laughed when I first heard about GME, but seeing people who have no idea what they are doing invest in something so incredibly risky is really painful to watch. Come the next big financial crisis, this cannot end well.

jbay808 5y ago
It's very sad. I strongly believe that far, far fewer people would be doing this kind of risk-taking if their savings account was yielding at or above inflation, as it did from the 80s to around 2005.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  There are much safer assets that have generally stable returns. These people are looking to get rich quick
  - stanski 5y ago
    Or in many cases, get not poor quick.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    There's this, but they're also unsophisticated investors doing unsophisticated investor things. Many of them truly don't understand what a good or bad investment is.
  - throw1234651234 5y ago
    So are those of us cramming leetcode for FAANG...not so different after all.
    - twiceaday 5y ago
      "get rich quick" by studying arduously for a full time job interview...

beaconstudios 5y ago

Desperate people do desperate things. This is why I really hate the crypto bros - the whole system is set up to rip people off, often the most desperate and tech illiterate, given the coin and NFT pitches are transparently bullshit to those of us with no vested interest and some familiarity with the tech and economics.

mraudiobook_com 5y ago
gjs278 5y ago

taurath 5y ago

People making regular salaries know their window of ever being wealthy is going away with every year they see 20-30% housing price increases. It is fucking dire making working class or middle class wages in most of the US unless you have a sizeable inheritance. Hope does not exactly abound. So everybody gets obsessed with the lottery.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
A lot of the middle class has a straightforward shot at retiring wealthy. If you invest $X per year (and adjust it for inflation) for 43 years (22 to 65), and get a return of 7% after inflation, then you can withdraw $23X per year until your 90. For whatever income you define as wealthy, a huge chunk of society can afford to save away 1/23rd of that annually. Under today's taxes in the US, those gains are tax advantaged compared to income, so take whatever salary you define as wealthy and put away 1/29th of it per year, roughly. It's not accessible to everyone, but calling it "fucking dire" is just fearmongering people into being even worse off with the lottery.
- taurath 5y ago
  > It's not accessible to everyone, but calling it "fucking dire" is just fearmongering Individual economics are dire in terms of how much it costs to have basic security with housing specifically. Median home price in the US was $222k in 2008, its $400k in 2022. Rents have gone up accordingly. Average person sees their paycheck go less far every year, and then add inflation on top of it. Putting away $1k in a year sure doesn't seem like it helps you. Everything works out pretty well for you if you somehow own a house in the US, just hope you aren't behind the curve on assets.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
    > Median home price in the US was $222k in 2008, its $400k in 2022. Rents have gone up accordingly This is between misleading and untrue. Home prices have gone way up, while home monthly payments haven't, due to the extremely low interest rates on mortgages. This means that downpayments are less accessible, but the rest of the payments are about as accessible as before. Until 2021, monthly payments were actually unusually cheap for the last bunch of years. Probably offsetting the higher down payments and lower inflation. But the big one is that rents haven't gone up accordingly. I couldn't find 2022 data, but from 2008 to 2020, median monthly rent went up from $783 to $1,104. In 2020 dollars, it went from $941 to $1,104, or 17%. It's significant, but nowhere near the doubling you posted.

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago

The real problem is treating them like investments, when buying/spending is what makes them valuable. I bought $1000 worth of BTC in ~2006. If I'd held onto it I would...probably not be a millionaire today, even if the math says so, because it was band new then, and using them is what makes them valuable. It's a tragedy of the commons problem I believe.

gruez 5y ago
>I bought $1000 worth of BTC in ~2006. that might be hard to do: >On 3 January 2009, the bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the starting block of the chain, known as the genesis block. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Creation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Creation

Tenoke 5y ago

This is the case in r/WSB for stocks but I've rarely seen stuff quite like that in crypto subs (check e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/top/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/top/ ). The discussions are low quality and people do obviously believe they will make money but that specific type of post isn't all that common. Of course, I don't visit the smaller memecoin subs which might be like that and same for possibly the Dogecoin one which is the largest one which I imagine might have that type of post.

mizzao 5y ago

It's starting to feel a lot like how poor folks are more likely to buy lottery tickets... As economists sometimes say, "lotteries are a tax on the poor". (Or, "lotteries are a tax on the stupid.")