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I compare it to the dot com bubble. This is simply what happens when you introduce large amounts of stupid money to a very immature sector. The average American

I compare it to the dot com bubble. This is simply what happens when you introduce large amounts of stupid money to a very immature sector. The average American doesn't exist. But of course a lot of amateur investors with dollar signs that lost their money 20 years ago, are the same kind of gullible fools lining up for a repeat of that. So, I'm happy it is happening and it can't happen fast enough for me. In fact, it's long overdue. Back in the day, if you even hinted at "we might get a domain name and a website", you'd be getting funding. People were dumping millions in some pretty moronic and misguided notions. A lot of those companies failed for quite obvious reasons. But not without making several people very rich. Investors have a way with money where they manage to not lose when things go bad and win a lot when that fails to happen. That's one of the perks of playing with other people's money. Worst case you just take your cut and then you wash your hands of the whole thing. Best case it was all you and your genius insights. Sometimes stupid money is tempting for smart investors. When it's on offer, there will be people taking it. And of course few companies actually had some good ideas and got a little more funding than they would have otherwise gotten and used that to become amazingly successful. Amazon, Google, Ebay, and a few others survived the bursting of the bubble and survived and thrived. The same is happening with crypto and blockchain companies. Most of them are obviously empty shells run by charlatans operating out of dodgy jurisdictions. But those are actually pretty easy to spot. If it looks dodgy, it more than likely is super dodgy. If it looks to good to be true, it probably is. So, people losing their money are mostly just fools. The exact same kind of fools that lost their money 20 years ago. When some of those fools are institutional investors betting with your pension money, you'd be right to be a bit concerned about that though. That too happened 20 years ago. More interesting is to look for the things that just aren't that dodgy at a first glance. Some of these companies are looking pretty serious actually. Solid investors, actual customers, working products, etc. It's not all scams and pyramid schemes and those might be the possible survivors of the crypto bubble bursting. Some of the tech is actually quite impressive and looks like it might be used to solve some real problems. There are probably more than few very good tech companies just putting their heads down and getting some real work done right now. Those are the interesting ones to follow.

piva00 5y ago
> So, people losing their money are mostly just fools. The exact same kind of fools that lost their money 20 years ago. When some of those fools are institutional investors betting with your pension money, you'd be right to be a bit concerned about that though. Why can't I be concerned about the thousands and thousands of fools that are losing money they can't afford? Yes, they are fools but are they deserving to suffer for being fools and getting carried away by con-men? I know some poor, desperate people in Brazil who got caught in cryptocurrencies and NFTs out of desperation, they are fools but I believe they do deserve empathy when their families go hungry because of a predator with confidence was able to scam them. Not feeling concerned that thousands of individuals like that exist and are being tricked is a bit concerning for me...
kbob 5y ago
> I compare it to the dot com bubble. I don't see the similarity. Yes, the stocks were overpriced, and people who didn't understand venture capital were effectively providing venture capital. But the dot com era produced some major corporations: Google, Amazon, eBay, Netflix, and many more. Those companies have real economic value because they create products that people want to pay for. Web3 hasn't produced anything comparable. The space is now polluted enough that I doubt it will.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  > Web3 hasn't produced anything comparable Yet; each of those companies burned through quite a bit of investment before they became profitable. You need to look at this space in ten years again. Web3 is just a marketing term that some people came up with in the last year or so. It takes longer than that for companies to become successful. And BTW., that's your connection to the dot com bubble right there. That was web 1.0. This is web3. The tech is different. The investment behavior is the same level of idiocy.
acdha 5y ago
> So, people losing their money are mostly just fools. The exact same kind of fools that lost their money 20 years ago. When some of those fools are institutional investors betting with your pension money, you'd be right to be a bit concerned about that though. That too happened 20 years ago. That last part is my primary concern: there's a good argument that the real-estate bubble was in part caused by big investors seeking returns high enough to make up for their bad dotcom calls, and the cryptocurrency world seems to have a much higher risk of returns being at or close to zero — pets.com at least had some assets which could be sold to Petsmart but there's no value in random hashes. > More interesting is to look for the things that just aren't that dodgy at a first glance. Some of these companies are looking pretty serious actually. Solid investors, actual customers, working products, etc. It's not all scams and pyramid schemes and those might be the possible survivors of the crypto bubble bursting. Some of the tech is actually quite impressive and looks like it might be used to solve some real problems. Do you have any examples? In the dotcom era it was pretty obvious at the time which companies had a real chance: some were losing money on every transaction but others were actually doing something real (e.g. Amazon was a popular punching bag but if you looked at the financials it was clear that there was a solid business there). That last part has been missing so far in the cryptocurrency world — the only companies which seem to have a real business are the ones which seem to have pivoted away from the blockchain world where they got their early funding to do things like supply chain management using more conventional technology.

piva00 5y ago

kbob 5y ago

> I compare it to the dot com bubble. I don't see the similarity. Yes, the stocks were overpriced, and people who didn't understand venture capital were effectively providing venture capital. But the dot com era produced some major corporations: Google, Amazon, eBay, Netflix, and many more. Those companies have real economic value because they create products that people want to pay for. Web3 hasn't produced anything comparable. The space is now polluted enough that I doubt it will.

jillesvangurp 5y ago
> Web3 hasn't produced anything comparable Yet; each of those companies burned through quite a bit of investment before they became profitable. You need to look at this space in ten years again. Web3 is just a marketing term that some people came up with in the last year or so. It takes longer than that for companies to become successful. And BTW., that's your connection to the dot com bubble right there. That was web 1.0. This is web3. The tech is different. The investment behavior is the same level of idiocy.

acdha 5y ago

> So, people losing their money are mostly just fools. The exact same kind of fools that lost their money 20 years ago. When some of those fools are institutional investors betting with your pension money, you'd be right to be a bit concerned about that though. That too happened 20 years ago. That last part is my primary concern: there's a good argument that the real-estate bubble was in part caused by big investors seeking returns high enough to make up for their bad dotcom calls, and the cryptocurrency world seems to have a much higher risk of returns being at or close to zero — pets.com at least had some assets which could be sold to Petsmart but there's no value in random hashes. > More interesting is to look for the things that just aren't that dodgy at a first glance. Some of these companies are looking pretty serious actually. Solid investors, actual customers, working products, etc. It's not all scams and pyramid schemes and those might be the possible survivors of the crypto bubble bursting. Some of the tech is actually quite impressive and looks like it might be used to solve some real problems. Do you have any examples? In the dotcom era it was pretty obvious at the time which companies had a real chance: some were losing money on every transaction but others were actually doing something real (e.g. Amazon was a popular punching bag but if you looked at the financials it was clear that there was a solid business there). That last part has been missing so far in the cryptocurrency world — the only companies which seem to have a real business are the ones which seem to have pivoted away from the blockchain world where they got their early funding to do things like supply chain management using more conventional technology.