26 ms·

It's less that I'm glad the market is crashing, and more that I'm glad that the insufferable crypto bros are finally getting a punch to the mouth. Seriously, th

It's less that I'm glad the market is crashing, and more that I'm glad that the insufferable crypto bros are finally getting a punch to the mouth. Seriously, these people are the worst. Your average "crypto investor" has no skills, no mathematical foundations, nothing. Except for pure stupid luck, and the ability to spew inane crypto babble 24/7. And yes, they think they are much smarter than you, because they achieved better financial results than you did while only doing 1/1000 of the work to get there. I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich. It makes me want to move to Alaska and just try to ignore society for the rest of my days. This came off as pretty bitter. I apologize, but I am bitter, and I'm having a shit couple weeks.

jeffbee 4y ago
And they are out there right now trying to destroy America with their campaign funding, because they believe their lottery winnings validate their insane politics.
jpgvm 4y ago
Hey man. Hope things get better for you. The crypto stuff is just another bubble, sticking to fundamentals will still lead you to (well earned) success. Bubbles come and go, skills and financial acumen are forever.
jdmoreira 4y ago
I'm not disagreeing with you but I don't think this is healthy. This shouldn't be eating you from the inside. "What good is envy? It’s the one sin you can’t have any fun at." - Charlie Munger
- uoaei 4y ago
  I don't know about OP but I definitely don't feel envy toward these people. I try to imagine myself in their shoes and just can't imagine myself spewing the same garbage or being the same kind of chauvinistic dick about something like this.
- philosopher1234 4y ago
  Who are you to tell him that feeling hate and bitterness is unhealthy? Bitterness is useful, it helps us protect our values and helps prevent anti social behavior.
- anotheracctfo 4y ago
  I'm not sure I'd take a billionaire's view on envy. It always comes off as "Let them eat cake" to me. I'd rather listen to someone closer to the bottom, who actually had to sacrifice for that viewpoint, like Jesus or a well adjusted homeless person.
  - jdmoreira 4y ago
    Charlie Munger wasn't a millionaire all his life. And he lost a child to cancer when the kid was 10 years old. Besides losing both his wifes as well. Reality is more complex than you make it. Not all billionaires are horrible people in case you didn't know. But yes, enjoy your Jesus fantasy.
dionidium 4y ago
I'm not gloating just yet. If you bought Bitcoin at literally any other time than the two peaks that have occurred over the last year, then you're still way, way, way up. Bitcoin was last at its current price between those two peaks, a little less than one year ago. Of course, NFTs and all that were just so obviously nonsense that I don't even think it's worth commenting on.
- joecot 4y ago
  As soon as it was clear that Bitcoin was going to be a commodity instead of a currency (why use it as a currency to buy a pizza this week when it could buy you a car next week?), it was clear it was now a pyramid scheme. That's why I didn't invest in it. What I hadn't counted on was how gullible people were for pyramid schemes.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    I could have made relatively decent chunk of money if I had just kept the little I had... But I'm really just too risk averse and believe in sanity that the things wouldn't actually go anywhere. Specially not to the 100x from point where I was. Then again, I also think most tech stocks are just stupid. Especially Tesla, but thankfully I'm not either betting against them. Let's see if I'm proven correct in long run.
    - noxer 4y ago
      People with this kind of "risk tolerance" usually dont take a risk even tho it would probably be totally "sane". If you think about it, many people make several million dollars over their life time but see it as to high of a risk to put 10k into something that could go to zero but it also could go to 100k or even more. That does not make much sense. The question should not be "should I risk the 10k? The question should be "am I in a financial position that allows me to lose 10k?" If the answer is "Yes" then consider doing it, you will not miss the 10k at the end of you life but you will remember what you did with the 100k if it happens.
      - 4y ago
colesantiago 4y ago
> This came off as pretty bitter. I apologize, but I am bitter, and I'm having a shit couple weeks. You shouldn't be, these cryptobros have been orchestrating general scams, rugpulls, hype scams, pump and dumps and all this having an effect on normal people's lives. Do not be sorry.
- jeffreyrogers 4y ago
  The majority of people I know who are into crypto buy the hype and believe their own bullshit. The cynical opportunists seem to be a minority.
  - jcpham2 4y ago
    11 years now I fall into the category of people you are all collectively referring to as "crypto bros" The only difference being I don't shill pyramid schemes on the internet for profit. I kinda sit back and wait and take profit when it makes sense to me. I certainly don't tell other people about it when I do it.
    - bdcravens 4y ago
      I wouldn't call you a crypto bro then. I've mined and traded Bitcoin for around the same amount of time, so I can say comfortably that those in our situation have seen the cycles, and are rarely surprised, boom or bust. The crypto bros are the hypers and pumpers, infused with plenty of cockiness based on their own confirmation bias.
      - jcpham2 4y ago
        Thanks for this
  - taurath 4y ago
    Until the money goes away, at which point it becomes as it always has been about getting rich and not about any of the ideals.
gsibble 4y ago
This. I cannot stand the modern crypto bro. I've met some truly insufferable people. The term "New Money" doesn't even do enough justice to how horrible these people behave.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  I think how the SV techbros in this thread view cryptobros is probably fairly similar to how most of society views SV techbros.
  - enraged_camel 4y ago
    ...this is actually a very astute observation. I think HN could benefit from some self-awareness sometimes.
    - jcpham2 4y ago
      I've pointed out this thread of comments to other people who I think should read some of the sentiment in these comments. It is absolutely amazing how polarizing this subject can become in specific forums
  - gsibble 4y ago
    Probably. Except I don't live in SV. I did for 10 years but now live in Boston. Entirely different environment.
- papito 4y ago
  Oh, you mean the very pleasant "enjoy being poor" characters?
TekMol 4y ago
crypto bros are finally getting a punch to the mouth Finally? Bitcoin has been losing 50% of its value 4 times during the last 10 years. It even lost 80% of its value multiple times.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- faraggi 4y ago
  You failed to mention that despite those falls, it is still up 100s of times its initial value. This comment is worse than the media trying to portray a specific story by presenting data partially.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    > You failed to mention that despite those falls, it is still up 100s of times its initial value Should we also benchmark stock prices against IPO prices? That information is only useful (and applicable) to those who go in at the beginning,and that is a small (and shrinking) proportion of overall traders. Apple being down 15% YoY is useful to more people than knowing it's up 25000% since it's IPO decades ago.
noxer 4y ago
There is a word for this, jealous.
Aunche 4y ago
Unfortunately, cryptobros probably bought in early enough where they are unlikely to be punished. The people who are punished are those who were told that cryptocurrency is a good way to diversify your portfolio.
maerF0x0 4y ago
you say > pure stupid luck I say > A bigger idiot
hindsightbias 4y ago
Alaska is overcrowded with all the people who fled the dot.com era.
- Inviz 4y ago
  Can you share how are these two things related?
cryptica 4y ago
This is true, but it also applies to the tech sector as a whole. The engineers of big tech companies tend to look down on all other engineers on the basis that they happen to work for financially successful companies which have market monopolies (and are propped up by easy money from government money printers via huge contracts and exposure to public markets). Never mind that their processes are a bureaucratic hell and it takes 100 of their engineers to implement the same thing which just 1 really good engineer working for a startup could implement in the same amount of time - Look at Whatsapp as an example; before they were acquired, they had hundreds of millions of users and only 55 engineers in total... Facebook has over 10K of them and gets a lot less done... Talent outside of big tech is not unusual; it is the norm, but most startups which are full of talented engineers don't go on to become Whatsapp because the market doesn't care about technical talent above a certain (rather low) threshold. Everything is a lottery. Any appearance of meritocracy is an illusion crafted by media and PR firms in an effort to keep the system from falling apart. Only extremely lucky, delusional outliers think that the narratives make sense nowadays.... Through a lot of people who know that the narratives don't make sense still pretend that they do.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
crypto dude bros are irritating, just stay off social media, what sickens me more is all these companies jumping on the crypto.nft.metaverse bandwagon, like f off seriously.
- MarcelOlsz 4y ago
  >just stay off social media, What do you do when literally everyone you know IRL is into it? Everyones brain has been warped by speculation.
  - teucris 4y ago
    Get some new IRL relationships. I find volunteering for a cause an amazing way to make new friends. Source: I am in a tech-oriented urban environment and I know nobody who is into crypto.
    - MarcelOlsz 4y ago
      >I find volunteering for a cause an amazing way to make new friends. Even if I could live to 500 years, I don't have the time to waste on random activities like this. I've never felt like North America is my home anyways, nevermind the people. I'm mostly over having any sort of social life here, have zero hope or desire to do so left. All I ever wanted to do was play music but all I ever ended up doing was paying rent.
tOUSSia 4y ago
you are correct about the bitter part. Maybe, just don't focus on things you can't do anything about.
carlsborg 4y ago
Another view : Curiosity is profitable. If you spent some time digging into the technologies and trying them out, you ended up buying a bunch of tokens/coins to play with, and sometimes they just handed out early users money. It isn’t all jpegs and cheaters- lots of interesting technology problems.. read some of the white papers you will find skill and mathematics in loads.
cinntaile 4y ago
That's apparently how the human psyche works. You attribute to skill what was dumb luck. Very common in the stock market too.
UnpossibleJim 4y ago
I will preface this statement by stating that I know nothing about the stock market and let my retirement account be handled by an investor... What real math is involved in predicting the stock market? I understand there is a lot of theory behind TRYING to predict it, just as there is a lot of study in trying to predict trends in the stock market, which is why you are better off investing in groups of stocks as opposed to a singled stock (there you go, that's the grand total of what I know about the stock market). But so far as shorting stocks (betting that they'll fall) and buying stocks (betting that they'll rise), there isn't much real math, is there? Isn't it all just a gamble? Not even a statistical gamble, like dice or cards, but a public market analysis with the uncertainty of public trading and public sentiment thrown in, not to mention the hope of government bailouts on occasion? I don't see a huge amount of difference in crypto except for physical assets, which don't cover the stock price for public companies, generally. Now, how horribly wrong am I? I'm willing to admit I missed the mark, entirely as I don't understand trading. That's what my broker does.
- throw1234651234 4y ago
  It's important to understand that your average Series 6,7,63-licensed "investment advisor" knows less about the stock market than your average crypto bro. They just follow a script of "invest into retirement-target fund over the long term". None of them adjust anything based on market conditions unless you get into "family office" territory at (at the very least) over 100 million in assets. A lot of people make the mistake thinking "investment advisor" bros know anything. - former "investment advisor" with all those licenses, CFA, etc
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > But so far as shorting stocks (betting that they'll fall) and buying stocks (betting that they'll rise), there isn't much real math, is there? A lot of the math is automated these days. PE ratios, SMA (simple moving average), etc. etc. The basis of most stock analysis is price per earnings, or also known as "How much does $1 of profits cost?". Ex: PE of 20 means that it costs $20 to buy $1/year of profits. PE of 100 means it costs $100 to buy $1/year of profits. Using this as a baseline, you can estimate the future performance of many stocks. You then correct for public sentiment, bailouts, supply changes (are chips getting rarer and/or more expensive?), and try to predict _future_ profits, not just historical profits. The company with the most profits, at the lowest price, wins in the long run. Buying $100/year worth of profits for just $1000 investment is better than buying $100/year worth of profits for $50,000. But the "math" is easy. You just take the profits from last year, then divide it by the #shares * $value of the shares. You can also try to be "forward-PE" by predicting next year's profits and dividing it with today's #shares * $value of shares. ------- The #shares changes over time. Companies can make new shares or "buyback" shares at any time. That is why when you hear about company "share buybacks", the stock goes up (fewer shares means lower PE, meaning the people who are buying the remaining shares get more $profits per $investment). ----- EDIT: Note that under this theory, it doesn't "matter" what the company does with its profits. Profits can go back to the investors through dividends. Or, profits can be spent back on the same company through Capital-Expenditures (ie: building bigger factories or larger systems). "Growth" companies issue no dividends, because they "recycle" all profits into growing. Or the company can buy another company with the profits. Etc. etc. While "Value" companies tend to return the money as dividends to the share holders. Shareholders don't really care. If the profits are given to the shareholders, then shareholders can buy up more of the stock (growing their %ownership, and they themselves get more % of the profits next cycle). If the profits are invested into itself, then shareholder value goes up as appropriate (instead of $1-million worth of factories, next year the company is doing everything with $1.1-million worth of factories and gets 10% higher profits all around). If another company was bought, same thing, except the factories are separated by different names / locations. Of course, the "details matter". Some industries are better suited for growth than others. But the fundamental assumption is "control more profits for fewer dollars". ------- EDIT2: Anyway, what ends up happening is that the math-part is easy. Its the prediction part that's hard.
2ICofafireteam 4y ago
If you don't know who Dick Proenneke is, look him up....wonderful daydream fuel.
id 4y ago
There are also those of us who played with Bitcoin when it emerged, found it promising and mined it or bought some. Who took some profits along the way and never promoted it. Who still think it's a useful concept, _despite_ the hype that gets too much at times. For what it's worth, you seem consumed by your envy. Accept that crypto investors, even the most stupid ones, took a risk you didn't take and were rewarded handsomely.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  Transfers of wealth from productive to unproductive industries arent risks worth rewarding, neither economically or with praise. It's slothful both as a personal vice, and as an economic activity.
  - id 4y ago
    A lot of economic activity is exactly that. Look no further than the big tech companies...
    - xtian 4y ago
      Great point
  - robocat 4y ago
    > Transfers of wealth from productive to unproductive industries arent risks worth rewarding Down that path lies authoritarianism: who decides what is productive? Is art productive? Is your comment on HN productive? Is beer productive? Is Haskell productive? Are you productive? It isn’t hard to argue most everything is non-productive. Remove all non-productive uses of money or time, and what is left?
    - erulabs 4y ago
      It's not surprising to me whatsoever that within that same sentence that as you said, "leads to authoritarianism", is a reference to absolute morality and sin. The scariest part of this line of thinking being so common is that it has happened! We've bench-marked humanity towards productivity before: dosed drinking water with amphetamines instead of fluoride and outlawed art and mandated labor at tank factories. Productivity! Down that path lies authoritarianism, but more than that: down that path lies mass murder. What could be more productive than removing those who block productivity? I appreciate your comment but I am always blown away by how kindly people respond to that idea of "unworthy activity", as if its not one of the cruelest ideas a person can possibly have. It's more common here because it's a community of engineers - we work with complex automations all the time - so it's only a natural mistake to see humanity as a complex automation too, and want to engineer it. But I still can't forgive the callousness.
philistine 4y ago
Living North will not allow you to ignore society more easily. Quite the contrary. I know, I've lived it.
LZ_Khan 4y ago
Keep in mind that for every one of the rich crypto babblers, there's probably 5 that got in at the wrong time and are penniless.
la_fayette 4y ago
I think this is a dump discussion here... look at the stock price of amazon, apple or what not. In perspective of the stock market, it is nothing special when u look at the crypto assets...
29athrowaway 4y ago
If someone is making money, good for them. My dislike of bitcoin is mostly due to its enormous energy usage. And the scarcity of GPUs.
api 4y ago
I have no problem with people winning the lotto. It happens. People get lucky. What I hate is people who win the damn lottery pretending they're geniuses who are on the right side of history changing the world. That's what much of the crypto ecosystem sounds like. Fxxk off. You won the lottery.
annoyingnoob 4y ago
Don't sweat it. People win the lottery too, but that does not make it an 'investment'. I've always thought of the lottery as a tax on people with bad math skills. You could win but you might have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.
munificent 4y ago
Here is my weird tin foil hat theory that explains, like, a lot of what's been going in the world in the past twenty years. A significant fraction of young single men feel a deep compulsion to indulge in risky behavior with a potential high reward in order to make a name for themselves or earn their place in society. I don't know if it's genetic, cultural, both. But for many young dudes, it's not enough to simply work a good job and enjoy their leisure time. Men like this are the free radicals of society. If the society can't find a healthy productive outlet for their drive to compete, take risks, and seek fame and adventure, then they will just do outright dangerous shit with potentially large collateral damage. For most of human society, hunting, exploring, dangerous jobs, and war were significant outlets for this. They gave men a way of doing something courageous that their culture held in high esteem. But today, we have domesticated animals, explored every square inch of the Earth, automated all of the risky manufacturing and resource-gathering jobs, avoided large-scale war outbreaks (and used technology to reduce military casualties and fatalities). There are simply less paths available for a young man who feels like he has nothing to take pride in unless he succeeds in some bold risky adventurer. For a while, videogames functioned as a simulated output for that impulse. I think that's why many gamers flipped the fuck out during Gamergate when they felt that their avenue to satisfy that urge was being invadaded and taken from them. It was, I think, a driver of the rise of the alt-right, doomsday preppers, and Trumpism. This impulse elect a wildcard as President, burn it out down and start over because in a world of chaos, there is maybe an opportunity for the bold. And now, I believe, much of the crypto world is driven by that exact same impulse. Young, overwhelmingly male, "crypto bros" desperately looking for some unexplored frontier where they can build something new and forge an identity for themselves. The problem is that there is no there there. It's all a house of cards. No actual new value is being created, so it's just crypto bros competing with other crypto bros in what will likely end up being a zero sum game (except for all the unfortunate other investors who get sucked in). Even if crypto all collapses, the core problem will remain. These dudes will just find something new to slake their thirst for risk. Hopefully it will be on something less destructive to society.
- camillomiller 4y ago
  I like this theory. Probably oversimplifying a lot of elements, but it can walk at least a bit. Kudos.
calibas 4y ago
I've seen a few "insufferable crypto bros" that are overjoyed to see the markets crashing. Just like any other investment, there's a subset of people who don't want to see stable prices and steady increases. They want extreme volatility because that means a chance for extreme profits (and loses).
seydor 4y ago
this came off as sincere, so congrats. Most of the things that offer us value are not paid for that. Most of the internet runs on PHP
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
There are a lot of people with no skills that are richer than you. Are you hating all the people who inherited money? Should any person born in poor country hate people born in rich countries?
- timtas 4y ago
  Best reply. Envy is gross. Such a socially destructive vice.
JSavageOne 4y ago
I'm sick of this meaningless word "bro" being tossed around to condemn every kind of stereotypical archetype. Crypto bro. Tech bro. These phrases are completely meaningless and sexist. > I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich. Envy is fairly toxic Amazing that this is the top comment on this thread. HN is so anti-crypto now it's almost comical
kodah 4y ago
Imagine this same statement but about people that own houses. Houses also serve as an investment to the layperson and in certain places have contributed to a higher barrier to entry for others. > It's less that I'm glad the market is crashing, and more that I'm glad that the insufferable homeowners are finally getting a punch to the mouth. Seriously, these people are the worst. Your average "home investor" has no skills, no mathematical foundations, nothing. Except for pure stupid luck, and the ability to spew inane economic babble 24/7. And yes, they think they are much smarter than you, because they achieved better financial results than you did while only doing 1/1000 of the work to get there. I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich. It makes me want to move to Alaska and just try to ignore society for the rest of my days. > This came off as pretty bitter. I apologize, but I am bitter, and I'm having a shit couple weeks. Not trying to criticize you too much; I'm more reflecting on this text because this is how I catch myself feeling about people who have participated in the inflation in the bay area with respect to homes.
kobasa 4y ago
https://www.bitcoinisdead.org/ https://www.bitcoinisdead.org/ - have fun staying poor, cope, etc..
koonsolo 4y ago
I upvoted your comment. Not because I like it, or I agree with it, but because it validates my assumption on why HN hates crypto so much. I senserely hope your weeks will get better.
timtas 4y ago
You should probably get your burning envy under control before you realize this is just a buying opportunity and it fully consumes you.

jeffbee 4y ago

And they are out there right now trying to destroy America with their campaign funding, because they believe their lottery winnings validate their insane politics.

jpgvm 4y ago

Hey man. Hope things get better for you. The crypto stuff is just another bubble, sticking to fundamentals will still lead you to (well earned) success. Bubbles come and go, skills and financial acumen are forever.

jdmoreira 4y ago

I'm not disagreeing with you but I don't think this is healthy. This shouldn't be eating you from the inside. "What good is envy? It’s the one sin you can’t have any fun at." - Charlie Munger

uoaei 4y ago
I don't know about OP but I definitely don't feel envy toward these people. I try to imagine myself in their shoes and just can't imagine myself spewing the same garbage or being the same kind of chauvinistic dick about something like this.
philosopher1234 4y ago
Who are you to tell him that feeling hate and bitterness is unhealthy? Bitterness is useful, it helps us protect our values and helps prevent anti social behavior.
anotheracctfo 4y ago
I'm not sure I'd take a billionaire's view on envy. It always comes off as "Let them eat cake" to me. I'd rather listen to someone closer to the bottom, who actually had to sacrifice for that viewpoint, like Jesus or a well adjusted homeless person.
- jdmoreira 4y ago
  Charlie Munger wasn't a millionaire all his life. And he lost a child to cancer when the kid was 10 years old. Besides losing both his wifes as well. Reality is more complex than you make it. Not all billionaires are horrible people in case you didn't know. But yes, enjoy your Jesus fantasy.

dionidium 4y ago

I'm not gloating just yet. If you bought Bitcoin at literally any other time than the two peaks that have occurred over the last year, then you're still way, way, way up. Bitcoin was last at its current price between those two peaks, a little less than one year ago. Of course, NFTs and all that were just so obviously nonsense that I don't even think it's worth commenting on.

joecot 4y ago
As soon as it was clear that Bitcoin was going to be a commodity instead of a currency (why use it as a currency to buy a pizza this week when it could buy you a car next week?), it was clear it was now a pyramid scheme. That's why I didn't invest in it. What I hadn't counted on was how gullible people were for pyramid schemes.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I could have made relatively decent chunk of money if I had just kept the little I had... But I'm really just too risk averse and believe in sanity that the things wouldn't actually go anywhere. Specially not to the 100x from point where I was. Then again, I also think most tech stocks are just stupid. Especially Tesla, but thankfully I'm not either betting against them. Let's see if I'm proven correct in long run.
  - noxer 4y ago
    People with this kind of "risk tolerance" usually dont take a risk even tho it would probably be totally "sane". If you think about it, many people make several million dollars over their life time but see it as to high of a risk to put 10k into something that could go to zero but it also could go to 100k or even more. That does not make much sense. The question should not be "should I risk the 10k? The question should be "am I in a financial position that allows me to lose 10k?" If the answer is "Yes" then consider doing it, you will not miss the 10k at the end of you life but you will remember what you did with the 100k if it happens.
    - 4y ago

colesantiago 4y ago

> This came off as pretty bitter. I apologize, but I am bitter, and I'm having a shit couple weeks. You shouldn't be, these cryptobros have been orchestrating general scams, rugpulls, hype scams, pump and dumps and all this having an effect on normal people's lives. Do not be sorry.

jeffreyrogers 4y ago
The majority of people I know who are into crypto buy the hype and believe their own bullshit. The cynical opportunists seem to be a minority.
- jcpham2 4y ago
  11 years now I fall into the category of people you are all collectively referring to as "crypto bros" The only difference being I don't shill pyramid schemes on the internet for profit. I kinda sit back and wait and take profit when it makes sense to me. I certainly don't tell other people about it when I do it.
  - bdcravens 4y ago
    I wouldn't call you a crypto bro then. I've mined and traded Bitcoin for around the same amount of time, so I can say comfortably that those in our situation have seen the cycles, and are rarely surprised, boom or bust. The crypto bros are the hypers and pumpers, infused with plenty of cockiness based on their own confirmation bias.
    - jcpham2 4y ago
      Thanks for this
- taurath 4y ago
  Until the money goes away, at which point it becomes as it always has been about getting rich and not about any of the ideals.

gsibble 4y ago

This. I cannot stand the modern crypto bro. I've met some truly insufferable people. The term "New Money" doesn't even do enough justice to how horrible these people behave.

cwkoss 4y ago
I think how the SV techbros in this thread view cryptobros is probably fairly similar to how most of society views SV techbros.
- enraged_camel 4y ago
  ...this is actually a very astute observation. I think HN could benefit from some self-awareness sometimes.
  - jcpham2 4y ago
    I've pointed out this thread of comments to other people who I think should read some of the sentiment in these comments. It is absolutely amazing how polarizing this subject can become in specific forums
- gsibble 4y ago
  Probably. Except I don't live in SV. I did for 10 years but now live in Boston. Entirely different environment.
papito 4y ago
Oh, you mean the very pleasant "enjoy being poor" characters?

TekMol 4y ago

crypto bros are finally getting a punch to the mouth Finally? Bitcoin has been losing 50% of its value 4 times during the last 10 years. It even lost 80% of its value multiple times.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
faraggi 4y ago
You failed to mention that despite those falls, it is still up 100s of times its initial value. This comment is worse than the media trying to portray a specific story by presenting data partially.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  > You failed to mention that despite those falls, it is still up 100s of times its initial value Should we also benchmark stock prices against IPO prices? That information is only useful (and applicable) to those who go in at the beginning,and that is a small (and shrinking) proportion of overall traders. Apple being down 15% YoY is useful to more people than knowing it's up 25000% since it's IPO decades ago.

noxer 4y ago

There is a word for this, jealous.

Aunche 4y ago

Unfortunately, cryptobros probably bought in early enough where they are unlikely to be punished. The people who are punished are those who were told that cryptocurrency is a good way to diversify your portfolio.

maerF0x0 4y ago

you say > pure stupid luck I say > A bigger idiot

hindsightbias 4y ago

Alaska is overcrowded with all the people who fled the dot.com era.

Inviz 4y ago
Can you share how are these two things related?

cryptica 4y ago

This is true, but it also applies to the tech sector as a whole. The engineers of big tech companies tend to look down on all other engineers on the basis that they happen to work for financially successful companies which have market monopolies (and are propped up by easy money from government money printers via huge contracts and exposure to public markets). Never mind that their processes are a bureaucratic hell and it takes 100 of their engineers to implement the same thing which just 1 really good engineer working for a startup could implement in the same amount of time - Look at Whatsapp as an example; before they were acquired, they had hundreds of millions of users and only 55 engineers in total... Facebook has over 10K of them and gets a lot less done... Talent outside of big tech is not unusual; it is the norm, but most startups which are full of talented engineers don't go on to become Whatsapp because the market doesn't care about technical talent above a certain (rather low) threshold. Everything is a lottery. Any appearance of meritocracy is an illusion crafted by media and PR firms in an effort to keep the system from falling apart. Only extremely lucky, delusional outliers think that the narratives make sense nowadays.... Through a lot of people who know that the narratives don't make sense still pretend that they do.

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

crypto dude bros are irritating, just stay off social media, what sickens me more is all these companies jumping on the crypto.nft.metaverse bandwagon, like f off seriously.

MarcelOlsz 4y ago
>just stay off social media, What do you do when literally everyone you know IRL is into it? Everyones brain has been warped by speculation.
- teucris 4y ago
  Get some new IRL relationships. I find volunteering for a cause an amazing way to make new friends. Source: I am in a tech-oriented urban environment and I know nobody who is into crypto.
  - MarcelOlsz 4y ago
    >I find volunteering for a cause an amazing way to make new friends. Even if I could live to 500 years, I don't have the time to waste on random activities like this. I've never felt like North America is my home anyways, nevermind the people. I'm mostly over having any sort of social life here, have zero hope or desire to do so left. All I ever wanted to do was play music but all I ever ended up doing was paying rent.

tOUSSia 4y ago

you are correct about the bitter part. Maybe, just don't focus on things you can't do anything about.

carlsborg 4y ago

Another view : Curiosity is profitable. If you spent some time digging into the technologies and trying them out, you ended up buying a bunch of tokens/coins to play with, and sometimes they just handed out early users money. It isn’t all jpegs and cheaters- lots of interesting technology problems.. read some of the white papers you will find skill and mathematics in loads.

cinntaile 4y ago

That's apparently how the human psyche works. You attribute to skill what was dumb luck. Very common in the stock market too.

UnpossibleJim 4y ago

I will preface this statement by stating that I know nothing about the stock market and let my retirement account be handled by an investor... What real math is involved in predicting the stock market? I understand there is a lot of theory behind TRYING to predict it, just as there is a lot of study in trying to predict trends in the stock market, which is why you are better off investing in groups of stocks as opposed to a singled stock (there you go, that's the grand total of what I know about the stock market). But so far as shorting stocks (betting that they'll fall) and buying stocks (betting that they'll rise), there isn't much real math, is there? Isn't it all just a gamble? Not even a statistical gamble, like dice or cards, but a public market analysis with the uncertainty of public trading and public sentiment thrown in, not to mention the hope of government bailouts on occasion? I don't see a huge amount of difference in crypto except for physical assets, which don't cover the stock price for public companies, generally. Now, how horribly wrong am I? I'm willing to admit I missed the mark, entirely as I don't understand trading. That's what my broker does.

throw1234651234 4y ago
It's important to understand that your average Series 6,7,63-licensed "investment advisor" knows less about the stock market than your average crypto bro. They just follow a script of "invest into retirement-target fund over the long term". None of them adjust anything based on market conditions unless you get into "family office" territory at (at the very least) over 100 million in assets. A lot of people make the mistake thinking "investment advisor" bros know anything. - former "investment advisor" with all those licenses, CFA, etc
dragontamer 4y ago
> But so far as shorting stocks (betting that they'll fall) and buying stocks (betting that they'll rise), there isn't much real math, is there? A lot of the math is automated these days. PE ratios, SMA (simple moving average), etc. etc. The basis of most stock analysis is price per earnings, or also known as "How much does $1 of profits cost?". Ex: PE of 20 means that it costs $20 to buy $1/year of profits. PE of 100 means it costs $100 to buy $1/year of profits. Using this as a baseline, you can estimate the future performance of many stocks. You then correct for public sentiment, bailouts, supply changes (are chips getting rarer and/or more expensive?), and try to predict _future_ profits, not just historical profits. The company with the most profits, at the lowest price, wins in the long run. Buying $100/year worth of profits for just $1000 investment is better than buying $100/year worth of profits for $50,000. But the "math" is easy. You just take the profits from last year, then divide it by the #shares * $value of the shares. You can also try to be "forward-PE" by predicting next year's profits and dividing it with today's #shares * $value of shares. ------- The #shares changes over time. Companies can make new shares or "buyback" shares at any time. That is why when you hear about company "share buybacks", the stock goes up (fewer shares means lower PE, meaning the people who are buying the remaining shares get more $profits per $investment). ----- EDIT: Note that under this theory, it doesn't "matter" what the company does with its profits. Profits can go back to the investors through dividends. Or, profits can be spent back on the same company through Capital-Expenditures (ie: building bigger factories or larger systems). "Growth" companies issue no dividends, because they "recycle" all profits into growing. Or the company can buy another company with the profits. Etc. etc. While "Value" companies tend to return the money as dividends to the share holders. Shareholders don't really care. If the profits are given to the shareholders, then shareholders can buy up more of the stock (growing their %ownership, and they themselves get more % of the profits next cycle). If the profits are invested into itself, then shareholder value goes up as appropriate (instead of $1-million worth of factories, next year the company is doing everything with $1.1-million worth of factories and gets 10% higher profits all around). If another company was bought, same thing, except the factories are separated by different names / locations. Of course, the "details matter". Some industries are better suited for growth than others. But the fundamental assumption is "control more profits for fewer dollars". ------- EDIT2: Anyway, what ends up happening is that the math-part is easy. Its the prediction part that's hard.

2ICofafireteam 4y ago

If you don't know who Dick Proenneke is, look him up....wonderful daydream fuel.

id 4y ago

There are also those of us who played with Bitcoin when it emerged, found it promising and mined it or bought some. Who took some profits along the way and never promoted it. Who still think it's a useful concept, _despite_ the hype that gets too much at times. For what it's worth, you seem consumed by your envy. Accept that crypto investors, even the most stupid ones, took a risk you didn't take and were rewarded handsomely.

mjburgess 4y ago
Transfers of wealth from productive to unproductive industries arent risks worth rewarding, neither economically or with praise. It's slothful both as a personal vice, and as an economic activity.
- id 4y ago
  A lot of economic activity is exactly that. Look no further than the big tech companies...
  - xtian 4y ago
    Great point
- robocat 4y ago
  > Transfers of wealth from productive to unproductive industries arent risks worth rewarding Down that path lies authoritarianism: who decides what is productive? Is art productive? Is your comment on HN productive? Is beer productive? Is Haskell productive? Are you productive? It isn’t hard to argue most everything is non-productive. Remove all non-productive uses of money or time, and what is left?
  - erulabs 4y ago
    It's not surprising to me whatsoever that within that same sentence that as you said, "leads to authoritarianism", is a reference to absolute morality and sin. The scariest part of this line of thinking being so common is that it has happened! We've bench-marked humanity towards productivity before: dosed drinking water with amphetamines instead of fluoride and outlawed art and mandated labor at tank factories. Productivity! Down that path lies authoritarianism, but more than that: down that path lies mass murder. What could be more productive than removing those who block productivity? I appreciate your comment but I am always blown away by how kindly people respond to that idea of "unworthy activity", as if its not one of the cruelest ideas a person can possibly have. It's more common here because it's a community of engineers - we work with complex automations all the time - so it's only a natural mistake to see humanity as a complex automation too, and want to engineer it. But I still can't forgive the callousness.

philistine 4y ago

Living North will not allow you to ignore society more easily. Quite the contrary. I know, I've lived it.

LZ_Khan 4y ago

Keep in mind that for every one of the rich crypto babblers, there's probably 5 that got in at the wrong time and are penniless.

la_fayette 4y ago

I think this is a dump discussion here... look at the stock price of amazon, apple or what not. In perspective of the stock market, it is nothing special when u look at the crypto assets...

29athrowaway 4y ago

If someone is making money, good for them. My dislike of bitcoin is mostly due to its enormous energy usage. And the scarcity of GPUs.

api 4y ago

I have no problem with people winning the lotto. It happens. People get lucky. What I hate is people who win the damn lottery pretending they're geniuses who are on the right side of history changing the world. That's what much of the crypto ecosystem sounds like. Fxxk off. You won the lottery.

annoyingnoob 4y ago

Don't sweat it. People win the lottery too, but that does not make it an 'investment'. I've always thought of the lottery as a tax on people with bad math skills. You could win but you might have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.

munificent 4y ago

Here is my weird tin foil hat theory that explains, like, a lot of what's been going in the world in the past twenty years. A significant fraction of young single men feel a deep compulsion to indulge in risky behavior with a potential high reward in order to make a name for themselves or earn their place in society. I don't know if it's genetic, cultural, both. But for many young dudes, it's not enough to simply work a good job and enjoy their leisure time. Men like this are the free radicals of society. If the society can't find a healthy productive outlet for their drive to compete, take risks, and seek fame and adventure, then they will just do outright dangerous shit with potentially large collateral damage. For most of human society, hunting, exploring, dangerous jobs, and war were significant outlets for this. They gave men a way of doing something courageous that their culture held in high esteem. But today, we have domesticated animals, explored every square inch of the Earth, automated all of the risky manufacturing and resource-gathering jobs, avoided large-scale war outbreaks (and used technology to reduce military casualties and fatalities). There are simply less paths available for a young man who feels like he has nothing to take pride in unless he succeeds in some bold risky adventurer. For a while, videogames functioned as a simulated output for that impulse. I think that's why many gamers flipped the fuck out during Gamergate when they felt that their avenue to satisfy that urge was being invadaded and taken from them. It was, I think, a driver of the rise of the alt-right, doomsday preppers, and Trumpism. This impulse elect a wildcard as President, burn it out down and start over because in a world of chaos, there is maybe an opportunity for the bold. And now, I believe, much of the crypto world is driven by that exact same impulse. Young, overwhelmingly male, "crypto bros" desperately looking for some unexplored frontier where they can build something new and forge an identity for themselves. The problem is that there is no there there. It's all a house of cards. No actual new value is being created, so it's just crypto bros competing with other crypto bros in what will likely end up being a zero sum game (except for all the unfortunate other investors who get sucked in). Even if crypto all collapses, the core problem will remain. These dudes will just find something new to slake their thirst for risk. Hopefully it will be on something less destructive to society.

camillomiller 4y ago
I like this theory. Probably oversimplifying a lot of elements, but it can walk at least a bit. Kudos.

calibas 4y ago

I've seen a few "insufferable crypto bros" that are overjoyed to see the markets crashing. Just like any other investment, there's a subset of people who don't want to see stable prices and steady increases. They want extreme volatility because that means a chance for extreme profits (and loses).

seydor 4y ago

this came off as sincere, so congrats. Most of the things that offer us value are not paid for that. Most of the internet runs on PHP

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

There are a lot of people with no skills that are richer than you. Are you hating all the people who inherited money? Should any person born in poor country hate people born in rich countries?

timtas 4y ago
Best reply. Envy is gross. Such a socially destructive vice.

JSavageOne 4y ago

I'm sick of this meaningless word "bro" being tossed around to condemn every kind of stereotypical archetype. Crypto bro. Tech bro. These phrases are completely meaningless and sexist. > I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich. Envy is fairly toxic Amazing that this is the top comment on this thread. HN is so anti-crypto now it's almost comical

kodah 4y ago

Imagine this same statement but about people that own houses. Houses also serve as an investment to the layperson and in certain places have contributed to a higher barrier to entry for others. > It's less that I'm glad the market is crashing, and more that I'm glad that the insufferable homeowners are finally getting a punch to the mouth. Seriously, these people are the worst. Your average "home investor" has no skills, no mathematical foundations, nothing. Except for pure stupid luck, and the ability to spew inane economic babble 24/7. And yes, they think they are much smarter than you, because they achieved better financial results than you did while only doing 1/1000 of the work to get there. I truly hate the fact that these people are so rich. It makes me want to move to Alaska and just try to ignore society for the rest of my days. > This came off as pretty bitter. I apologize, but I am bitter, and I'm having a shit couple weeks. Not trying to criticize you too much; I'm more reflecting on this text because this is how I catch myself feeling about people who have participated in the inflation in the bay area with respect to homes.

kobasa 4y ago

https://www.bitcoinisdead.org/ https://www.bitcoinisdead.org/ - have fun staying poor, cope, etc..

koonsolo 4y ago

I upvoted your comment. Not because I like it, or I agree with it, but because it validates my assumption on why HN hates crypto so much. I senserely hope your weeks will get better.

timtas 4y ago

You should probably get your burning envy under control before you realize this is just a buying opportunity and it fully consumes you.