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I grew up kind of poor. I was one of the smart ones. A lot of the neighborhood kids were dummies. Good people, but not too bright. Fast forward a couple decades

I grew up kind of poor. I was one of the smart ones. A lot of the neighborhood kids were dummies. Good people, but not too bright. Fast forward a couple decades and I made a fair bit of money in the software business. I started meeting rich people. The thing that surprised me is that a lot of the children of rich people are also dumb. I'd say about the same percentage. My theory is that NFTs and Bored Apes are a fad of dumb rich kids playing with Mom or Dad's money, which they are given so they stay out of their hair. Kind of like Garbage Patch Kids of the old days. It's kind of brilliant actually. I'm trying to think of ideas that appeal to dumb rich young adults but not being dumb, I don't know what appeals to dumb people.

aero-glide2 5y ago
On the contrary I've seen many poor people get into nfts to get rich quick.
- labrador 5y ago
  Poor people aren't spending 10's or 100's of thousands of dollars on NFTs. I'm not talking about poor kids. I'm talking about rich kids. $276k avg price https://www.nft-stats.com/collection/boredapeyachtclub https://www.nft-stats.com/collection/boredapeyachtclub
  - fouc 5y ago
    I assume a lot of that is from people that already got rich with crypto in the first place.. Also, the average price is based on the current value I'm guessing rather than the value at the time of purchase?
    - labrador 5y ago
      > I assume a lot of that is from people that already got rich with crypto in the first place. I don't think that is a good assumption. I don't know the space that well, but from what I gather, some smart rich people set up a market to suck in dumb rich people. Poor kids got rich in the 2015 to 18 timeframe on Bitcoin and Ether. I've not familiar with poor kids getting rich on NFTs
  - rib3ye 5y ago
    In the creative arts world, every illustrator is being commissioned to create a brand of NFTs to cash in on the trend and very few break into mainstream success. But that doesn't stop people, rich or poor from trying to speculating on them.
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  It's not only getting into NFTs, it takes vision to time the buys and sells, just like the stock market. Right now the crypto ecology looks very iffy because most of the profit seems to come from speculation, and the best deals are suspiciously similar to insider trading.
exabyte 5y ago
I'm not familiar with this space, but from what I have heard... Aren't we talking about NFT's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? I don't think it's limited to a group of young kids... Your post has some tension in it that I can't quite place my finger on. Like you want to succeed like the dumb people but you can't cause you're not dumb? I'm confuses then, are the NFT producers dumb if that's the case? Maybe the king of the dumbs. NFT's in this realm don't really seem like they add value to much, but I am starting to see the value of NFT's more generally speaking!
- TylerE 5y ago
  Don’t underestimate how ludicrously wealthy some kids are. We’re talking about the kind of people who get a new Lamborghini for their first car at 16.
- labrador 5y ago
  I see some confusion about what I am saying. I guess people here aren't familiar with rich young adults flaunting their life style on Instagram? I get the confusion because HN is where people like me try to learn things to improve their wealth. I don't see a lot of people born into it here. Perhaps they keep it quiet. Rich Kids Of The Internet https://www.instagram.com/rkoi/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/rkoi/?hl=en The tension you detect is probably some resentment on my part. Resentment about kids in high school who had several dirt bikes, horses and swimming pools and got into Stanford or Harvard with a lot of help that I didn't have. I went to public school (U.C. Berkeley) and I had to work at the same time. I'll work on letting that go.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    It’s such a trite thing to say, but clicking that link (to my detriment) really brings it home for me: money can’t buy class.
- 8note 5y ago
  It's not succeeding like the dumb people, it's taking advantage of them and their inherited wealth
- 5y ago
mrjangles 5y ago
I know exactly what you mean. What people don't realize though, is this idea of creating scams for extracting money from trust fund kids has been around for a very long time, it's called the stock market. I also think these things perform a very important, and underappreciated roll in society and have a lot to do with the success of capitalism. In the old days wealth would be concentrated in rich families who could use it to hold on to power for centuries, despite their incompetence. Money is power, and the more methods society invents of redistributing that wealth away from people who shouldn't have to those that should, the better. Edit: That being said, the first movers in the NFT area who are now all rich are definitely not the "dumb" ones, like you seem to be implying.
klodolph 5y ago
> My theory is that NFTs and Bored Apes are a fad of dumb rich kids playing with Mom or Dad's money, which they are given so they stay out of their hair. It’s so much worse. NFTs and crypto are seen as a lottery ticket. If you’re near broke, you’re gonna still be poor even if you save a couple hundred bucks… but if you strike it rich with NFTs, you have a ticket out of poverty. Someone else made it rich with NFTs and crypto, and now I’m gonna make it rich with NFTs and crypto. Bored Apes are expensive but there are NFTs at all sorts of price points.
- c0nducktr 5y ago
  Agreed with a minor correction. It's not "Someone else made it rich with NFTs and crypto, and now I’m gonna make it rich with NFTs and crypto." But "Someone else made it rich with NFTs and crypto, and maybe I'll do it to." I don't think there's a feeling of certainty that they'll get a big payoff, but the possibility is enough. They say people play the lottery not to win it, but to entertain the idea of winning. It gives you an escape. Cryptocurrency/NFT, for many people, is just a lottery which doesn't expire at the end of the week.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> My theory is that NFTs and Bored Apes are a fad of dumb rich kids playing with Mom or Dad's money, which they are given so they stay out of their hair. I’m guessing it’s bimodal: On one end: Cryptocurrency whales trading expensive NFTs back and forth as speculative instruments plus some wash trading to pump the prices. The more hype they generate by spending huge money, the more buyers they can entice to join the frenzy. On the other end: People who can’t really afford to speculate, but who think NFTs are their only chance to get ahead and secure financial independence. This group consumes the doom-and-gloom financial opinions of Reddit, TikTok, and celebrity politicians who tell them that the system is rigged and they’ll never get ahead. Then NFTs come along and suddenly there are stories of people getting fantastically rich by selling terrible JPEGs of monkeys and squiggly lines. It’s such a dumb idea that the boomers won’t understand it and won’t get to it first like they did with the stock market and real estate. It’s a financial asset made to generate wealth for young people! So they pour a lot of money into it, thinking that they’re either going to get rich or be back to square one with a depleted bank account, which is their baseline mental financial state. When these people buy NFTs, they’re buying dreams. Maybe it fizzles out, or maybe they’re going to get lucky and have enough money to buy a house with cash in a few months. In their mind, it’s a chance they can’t afford to pass up. The latter group makes me very anxious. Every once in a while I drop into /r/cryptocurrency to check the pulse and see if things are turning around, but it only gets worse every time I look. It’s baffling to see the posters talk about being down 40% on their portfolios but being convinced that it’s all going to turn around and make them retirement-wealthy in just a couple more years.
tyrfing 5y ago
What you're missing is how many millionaires/billionaires have been made in crypto. Spending small fractions of your stupid internet money everyone spent the last decade telling you was going to fail any day now, to buy a stupid monkey picture everyone is telling you will fail any day now, starts to look reasonable. Not to mention the venture capital firms with billions to hand out, throwing money at anyone who can make up a whitepaper and ensuring there are vast amounts of money flowing around.

aero-glide2 5y ago

On the contrary I've seen many poor people get into nfts to get rich quick.

labrador 5y ago
Poor people aren't spending 10's or 100's of thousands of dollars on NFTs. I'm not talking about poor kids. I'm talking about rich kids. $276k avg price https://www.nft-stats.com/collection/boredapeyachtclub https://www.nft-stats.com/collection/boredapeyachtclub
- fouc 5y ago
  I assume a lot of that is from people that already got rich with crypto in the first place.. Also, the average price is based on the current value I'm guessing rather than the value at the time of purchase?
  - labrador 5y ago
    > I assume a lot of that is from people that already got rich with crypto in the first place. I don't think that is a good assumption. I don't know the space that well, but from what I gather, some smart rich people set up a market to suck in dumb rich people. Poor kids got rich in the 2015 to 18 timeframe on Bitcoin and Ether. I've not familiar with poor kids getting rich on NFTs
- rib3ye 5y ago
  In the creative arts world, every illustrator is being commissioned to create a brand of NFTs to cash in on the trend and very few break into mainstream success. But that doesn't stop people, rich or poor from trying to speculating on them.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
It's not only getting into NFTs, it takes vision to time the buys and sells, just like the stock market. Right now the crypto ecology looks very iffy because most of the profit seems to come from speculation, and the best deals are suspiciously similar to insider trading.

exabyte 5y ago

I'm not familiar with this space, but from what I have heard... Aren't we talking about NFT's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? I don't think it's limited to a group of young kids... Your post has some tension in it that I can't quite place my finger on. Like you want to succeed like the dumb people but you can't cause you're not dumb? I'm confuses then, are the NFT producers dumb if that's the case? Maybe the king of the dumbs. NFT's in this realm don't really seem like they add value to much, but I am starting to see the value of NFT's more generally speaking!

TylerE 5y ago
Don’t underestimate how ludicrously wealthy some kids are. We’re talking about the kind of people who get a new Lamborghini for their first car at 16.
labrador 5y ago
I see some confusion about what I am saying. I guess people here aren't familiar with rich young adults flaunting their life style on Instagram? I get the confusion because HN is where people like me try to learn things to improve their wealth. I don't see a lot of people born into it here. Perhaps they keep it quiet. Rich Kids Of The Internet https://www.instagram.com/rkoi/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/rkoi/?hl=en The tension you detect is probably some resentment on my part. Resentment about kids in high school who had several dirt bikes, horses and swimming pools and got into Stanford or Harvard with a lot of help that I didn't have. I went to public school (U.C. Berkeley) and I had to work at the same time. I'll work on letting that go.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  It’s such a trite thing to say, but clicking that link (to my detriment) really brings it home for me: money can’t buy class.
8note 5y ago
It's not succeeding like the dumb people, it's taking advantage of them and their inherited wealth
5y ago

mrjangles 5y ago

I know exactly what you mean. What people don't realize though, is this idea of creating scams for extracting money from trust fund kids has been around for a very long time, it's called the stock market. I also think these things perform a very important, and underappreciated roll in society and have a lot to do with the success of capitalism. In the old days wealth would be concentrated in rich families who could use it to hold on to power for centuries, despite their incompetence. Money is power, and the more methods society invents of redistributing that wealth away from people who shouldn't have to those that should, the better. Edit: That being said, the first movers in the NFT area who are now all rich are definitely not the "dumb" ones, like you seem to be implying.

klodolph 5y ago

> My theory is that NFTs and Bored Apes are a fad of dumb rich kids playing with Mom or Dad's money, which they are given so they stay out of their hair. It’s so much worse. NFTs and crypto are seen as a lottery ticket. If you’re near broke, you’re gonna still be poor even if you save a couple hundred bucks… but if you strike it rich with NFTs, you have a ticket out of poverty. Someone else made it rich with NFTs and crypto, and now I’m gonna make it rich with NFTs and crypto. Bored Apes are expensive but there are NFTs at all sorts of price points.

c0nducktr 5y ago
Agreed with a minor correction. It's not "Someone else made it rich with NFTs and crypto, and now I’m gonna make it rich with NFTs and crypto." But "Someone else made it rich with NFTs and crypto, and maybe I'll do it to." I don't think there's a feeling of certainty that they'll get a big payoff, but the possibility is enough. They say people play the lottery not to win it, but to entertain the idea of winning. It gives you an escape. Cryptocurrency/NFT, for many people, is just a lottery which doesn't expire at the end of the week.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> My theory is that NFTs and Bored Apes are a fad of dumb rich kids playing with Mom or Dad's money, which they are given so they stay out of their hair. I’m guessing it’s bimodal: On one end: Cryptocurrency whales trading expensive NFTs back and forth as speculative instruments plus some wash trading to pump the prices. The more hype they generate by spending huge money, the more buyers they can entice to join the frenzy. On the other end: People who can’t really afford to speculate, but who think NFTs are their only chance to get ahead and secure financial independence. This group consumes the doom-and-gloom financial opinions of Reddit, TikTok, and celebrity politicians who tell them that the system is rigged and they’ll never get ahead. Then NFTs come along and suddenly there are stories of people getting fantastically rich by selling terrible JPEGs of monkeys and squiggly lines. It’s such a dumb idea that the boomers won’t understand it and won’t get to it first like they did with the stock market and real estate. It’s a financial asset made to generate wealth for young people! So they pour a lot of money into it, thinking that they’re either going to get rich or be back to square one with a depleted bank account, which is their baseline mental financial state. When these people buy NFTs, they’re buying dreams. Maybe it fizzles out, or maybe they’re going to get lucky and have enough money to buy a house with cash in a few months. In their mind, it’s a chance they can’t afford to pass up. The latter group makes me very anxious. Every once in a while I drop into /r/cryptocurrency to check the pulse and see if things are turning around, but it only gets worse every time I look. It’s baffling to see the posters talk about being down 40% on their portfolios but being convinced that it’s all going to turn around and make them retirement-wealthy in just a couple more years.

tyrfing 5y ago

What you're missing is how many millionaires/billionaires have been made in crypto. Spending small fractions of your stupid internet money everyone spent the last decade telling you was going to fail any day now, to buy a stupid monkey picture everyone is telling you will fail any day now, starts to look reasonable. Not to mention the venture capital firms with billions to hand out, throwing money at anyone who can make up a whitepaper and ensuring there are vast amounts of money flowing around.