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Meanwhile I have a house and was able to lift out of poverty by ignoring people like you and saving in BTC instead of USD for the last decade. YMMV.

by lrvick 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nathanaldensr 4y ago
Even gamblers occasionally hit the jackpot.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> I have a house and was able to lift out of poverty by ignoring people like you and saving in BTC instead of USD for the last decade. YMMV. This is fine. But you acknowledge you gambled. If you'd lost, it would have been inappropriate to ask for others' sympathy or, worse, public support.
- notch656a 4y ago
  The only way to not gamble wealth is not to have it. Leaving cash in the bank is gambling that government won't inflate it away. Buying equities is gambling that market conditions won't change. Buying bonds is gambling that the returns will outpace inflation and that the bond seller won't default.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > only way to not gamble wealth is not to have it This is a false analogy between taking measured risks and gambling. Putting 100% of your assets into anything, particularly a cryptocurrency, is gambling.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      Putting 100% of your assets into one thing is bad gambling. Putting your assets into diversified, positive-sum assets is good gambling. I can play semantic games too :)
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > Putting your assets into diversified, positive-sum assets is good gambling. I can play semantic games too Semantics means arguing over definitions, not misunderstanding them. The difference between positive- and zero-sum systems is unambiguous. We can call participating in the latter, whether by trading cryptocurrencies or derivatives or playing slots, with an intent to profit gambling or wijiwogging or blurlippening, it doesn't matter, the expected outcome is the same.
        notch656a 4y ago
        >Semantics means arguing over definitions, not misunderstanding them. Ah the semantics of semantics. If two people disagree on a definition, then there will be some belief that the counterparty "misunderstands" the definition. That goes hand in hand. >The difference between positive- and zero-sum systems is unambiguous. And uncontested. >We can call participating in the latter, whether by trading cryptocurrencies or derivatives or playing slots, with an intent to profit gambling Yes we can. We can also call a well diversified portfolio of 'positive-sum' investments gambling. You are risking your money on the chance you'll have a favorable outcome. There is no riskless portfolio. You are forced to gamble if you keep your wealth, because there is always an element of chance regarding maintaining your wealth. The default, uninvested state, for most is to gamble inflation won't eat it away.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > can also call a well diversified portfolio of 'positive-sum' investments gambling We can call it whatever we like. It's still positive sum. (That's the point of the part of the quote you omitted.) Crypto and slot machines are not positive sum. That is a fundamental difference that separates them from investing. > is no riskless portfolio Straw man [1]. Nobody claimed this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
- stuxnet 4y ago
  You could say the exact same thing about the broader stock market volatility (read: downturn) we’re experiencing. How one can be considered gambling and the other not? At least the crypto investors aren’t expecting a wholesale bailout at any point, unlike “sophisticated” institutional investors as we saw in 08…
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > How one can be considered gambling and the other not? Positive- versus zero- or even negative-sum games.
    - stuxnet 4y ago
      That doesn’t explain anything. The broader stock market valuation bears no resemblance to reality and hasn’t for a while. Crypto does have value. Not all of it, but again we could make the same comparison with ridiculously overinflated stocks like PTON or CVNA.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > doesn’t explain anything. The broader stock market valuation bears no resemblance to reality and hasn’t for a while. This is irrelevant to the game dynamic. (Trading stock in the short term is usually gambling, by the way, because trading per se is a zero-sum game.) > we could make the same comparison with ridiculously overinflated stocks like PTON or CVNA One, I can buy a Peloton. People pay for Pelotons. Positive sum. Two, if you go all in on Peloton stock, yes, you're gambling.
        stuxnet 4y ago
        You’re arguing semantics. No one is arguing that dumping all your money into Bitcoin or PTON specifically is a good idea. > One, I can buy a Peloton. People pay for Pelotons. Positive sum. Yes and once Peloton runs out of people to sell overpriced bikes and treadmills to, the valuation will (hopefully) return to reality. Uber continues to lose money on every ride. If you’re going down the “people pay for it” route, we could say that people also pay for NFTs of monkey pictures.
- gfodor 4y ago
  One Bitcoin is presently worth $30,000.
- vecinu 4y ago
  I'm generally curious about this question because it popped in my mind when I read your comment but what about the situation where someone builds or buys a house in a dense forest in California? Said house is destroyed in a fire, insurance can't pay everyone out (see Paradise fire) and then those same people end up begging others for support (Including GoFundMe) pages. Didn't they gamble on having a house in a high risk area and lost? Why do we only bail out certain people and not feel bad about it?
  - jeromegv 4y ago
    Just like houses built in known flooding zone. It’s a good point.
    - vel0city 4y ago
      The tricky part is, a lot of flood-prone areas tend to also be very economically active overall. Lots of ports on the coasts or along riverbanks which need people to operate and deal with the economic activity of the area, but rivers do sometimes flood and hurricanes will push water inland.
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    Well presumably they have insurance, although I think the days of insurance companies offering insurance to just about anywhere in the western US are numbered, with the rapidly disappearing water and constant threat of wildfires. But people who bought LUNA didn't buy insurance. But generally I agree with you, there are definitely tragic events that happen to people that get more sympathy than other types of tragic events, even if they're pretty similar ultimately. But I'm also someone who "gambles" on nothing but "ponzi schemes", (i.e. I buy Bitcoin and Ethereum) according to HN. I don't have insurance though, if some black swan thing happened and I lost it all, then I don't have much recourse. Crypto is far from the only thing where that's a possibility, though. I'd say three of the startups I worked for have been even more of a gamble than my crypto purchases (all three shut down a little more than a year after I joined and I never made a dime more than my kind of low salary, and they didn't offer a 401k so I missed out on a lot of financial accumulation and security there).
- lrvick 4y ago
  I just wanted to share a counter example to those saying Bitcoin is a poor savings vehicle. I did something I believed in and happened to get a better result than I ever planned on. I am in it for digital sovereignty, and establishing an alternative to banks and inflationary fiat that is accessible to all. It going up in buying power on average is something I also do not really see as surprising given the deflationary nature, interest, and adoption. When the traders walk away I will still be using Bitcoin as a way to store and transfer value p2p unless something with similar properties replaces it.
  - 1270018080 4y ago
    It is a poor savings vehicle. You got lucky. You are confirmation biasing yourself into thinking it's a good savings vehicle. This it tough love and for your long term well being you should acknowledge this.
    - lrvick 4y ago
      I will take storing wealth in a deflationary currency over an inflationary one any day. How many USD savings accounts are outrunning inflation these days?
danrocks 4y ago
You just got lucky. It is time everyone in crypto acknowledge that.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  True in almost all aspects of life.
kurthr 4y ago
Even if you think BTC with limited coinage is valid (vs Dogecoin which is unlimited), how can you believe an algo "stable coin" like UST is after the iron.finance failure?
scoofy 4y ago
Good for you. People like you will make money. That's how all speculative bubbles form... nobody would join them if there weren't highly visible gains in wealth, but they are effectively zero-sum. Unless the product creates value, independent from speculative value, it's a bad investment period. The entire reason we were banging our drums was exactly because people made money, but the music will stop, and when it does, all that value disappears. There is nothing wrong with crypo as a commodity. If you need it to build something with, fine, but it's not a wealth creating asset. It's a commodity, which is effectively never an investment vehicle.
- gfodor 4y ago
  The crash was in a non-appreciating asset.
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  “I played Russian roulette and won, you should try it too!” is not a very convincing argument. Nonetheless, the winners think they’re winners because they made the right choices and will try to convince others to follow suit.
  - lupire 4y ago
    It's not Russian roulette. It's "let's all shoot each other and whoever wins gets all the stuff".
    - prepend 4y ago
      “My dad played a tontine and won. So should we all.”
- kareemsabri 4y ago
  Don't people trade in commodities though? Corn and soy and other things fluctuate in price because of their utility and changes in supply and demand, no?
  - 4y ago
greiskul 4y ago
Did new wealth get created? Cryptocoins are a negative sum game (trading is zero sum, but since mining wastes resources, total has to be negative). For you to have gained this wealth, a group of people have to have lost this wealth, they might not have realized it yet. A ponzi scheme doesn't stop being a ponzi scheme because your personally profited from it. It doesn't stop being a ponzi scheme because it uses complex technology that 99% of people don't understand.
lupire 4y ago
Your money came from the people who ruined their lives gambling.
- jaakl 4y ago
  Bad carma for 7 generations
spoonjim 4y ago
Yes, but your story only exists because you found a bag holder who may or may not jump off a bridge when the chickens come home to roost.
- lrvick 4y ago
  I am still holding that bag and buying more myself because I see utility in private, decentralized, and censorship resistant value storage. I will have no regrets for funding digital sovereignty. It is a war for critical freedoms that if lost at least wont be as bloody as those with weapons. The world I want to live in requires decentralized money and governance and I continually vote with my wallet.
diegocg 4y ago
And someone lost their life savings so that you could have that.
dabeeeenster 4y ago
Dude, where did you think that money came from?
oarsinsync 4y ago
Let’s see if the next decade delivers returns like the last decade. There’s no guarantees of that, unless you believe past performance is an indicator of future success. I won’t be getting a house unless it does, so here’s hoping. I also won’t be in trouble if it doesn’t, so here’s also to a sensible investment strategy.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Meanwhile I have a house and was able to lift out of poverty by ignoring people like you and saving in BTC instead of USD for the last decade. YMMV.

by lrvick 4y ago

Meanwhile I have a house and was able to lift out of poverty by ignoring people like you and saving in BTC instead of USD for the last decade. YMMV.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

nathanaldensr 4y ago

Even gamblers occasionally hit the jackpot.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> I have a house and was able to lift out of poverty by ignoring people like you and saving in BTC instead of USD for the last decade. YMMV. This is fine. But you acknowledge you gambled. If you'd lost, it would have been inappropriate to ask for others' sympathy or, worse, public support.

notch656a 4y ago
The only way to not gamble wealth is not to have it. Leaving cash in the bank is gambling that government won't inflate it away. Buying equities is gambling that market conditions won't change. Buying bonds is gambling that the returns will outpace inflation and that the bond seller won't default.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > only way to not gamble wealth is not to have it This is a false analogy between taking measured risks and gambling. Putting 100% of your assets into anything, particularly a cryptocurrency, is gambling.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Putting 100% of your assets into one thing is bad gambling. Putting your assets into diversified, positive-sum assets is good gambling. I can play semantic games too :)
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Putting your assets into diversified, positive-sum assets is good gambling. I can play semantic games too Semantics means arguing over definitions, not misunderstanding them. The difference between positive- and zero-sum systems is unambiguous. We can call participating in the latter, whether by trading cryptocurrencies or derivatives or playing slots, with an intent to profit gambling or wijiwogging or blurlippening, it doesn't matter, the expected outcome is the same.
      - notch656a 4y ago
        >Semantics means arguing over definitions, not misunderstanding them. Ah the semantics of semantics. If two people disagree on a definition, then there will be some belief that the counterparty "misunderstands" the definition. That goes hand in hand. >The difference between positive- and zero-sum systems is unambiguous. And uncontested. >We can call participating in the latter, whether by trading cryptocurrencies or derivatives or playing slots, with an intent to profit gambling Yes we can. We can also call a well diversified portfolio of 'positive-sum' investments gambling. You are risking your money on the chance you'll have a favorable outcome. There is no riskless portfolio. You are forced to gamble if you keep your wealth, because there is always an element of chance regarding maintaining your wealth. The default, uninvested state, for most is to gamble inflation won't eat it away.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > can also call a well diversified portfolio of 'positive-sum' investments gambling We can call it whatever we like. It's still positive sum. (That's the point of the part of the quote you omitted.) Crypto and slot machines are not positive sum. That is a fundamental difference that separates them from investing. > is no riskless portfolio Straw man [1]. Nobody claimed this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
stuxnet 4y ago
You could say the exact same thing about the broader stock market volatility (read: downturn) we’re experiencing. How one can be considered gambling and the other not? At least the crypto investors aren’t expecting a wholesale bailout at any point, unlike “sophisticated” institutional investors as we saw in 08…
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > How one can be considered gambling and the other not? Positive- versus zero- or even negative-sum games.
  - stuxnet 4y ago
    That doesn’t explain anything. The broader stock market valuation bears no resemblance to reality and hasn’t for a while. Crypto does have value. Not all of it, but again we could make the same comparison with ridiculously overinflated stocks like PTON or CVNA.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > doesn’t explain anything. The broader stock market valuation bears no resemblance to reality and hasn’t for a while. This is irrelevant to the game dynamic. (Trading stock in the short term is usually gambling, by the way, because trading per se is a zero-sum game.) > we could make the same comparison with ridiculously overinflated stocks like PTON or CVNA One, I can buy a Peloton. People pay for Pelotons. Positive sum. Two, if you go all in on Peloton stock, yes, you're gambling.
      - stuxnet 4y ago
        You’re arguing semantics. No one is arguing that dumping all your money into Bitcoin or PTON specifically is a good idea. > One, I can buy a Peloton. People pay for Pelotons. Positive sum. Yes and once Peloton runs out of people to sell overpriced bikes and treadmills to, the valuation will (hopefully) return to reality. Uber continues to lose money on every ride. If you’re going down the “people pay for it” route, we could say that people also pay for NFTs of monkey pictures.
gfodor 4y ago
One Bitcoin is presently worth $30,000.
vecinu 4y ago
I'm generally curious about this question because it popped in my mind when I read your comment but what about the situation where someone builds or buys a house in a dense forest in California? Said house is destroyed in a fire, insurance can't pay everyone out (see Paradise fire) and then those same people end up begging others for support (Including GoFundMe) pages. Didn't they gamble on having a house in a high risk area and lost? Why do we only bail out certain people and not feel bad about it?
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Just like houses built in known flooding zone. It’s a good point.
  - vel0city 4y ago
    The tricky part is, a lot of flood-prone areas tend to also be very economically active overall. Lots of ports on the coasts or along riverbanks which need people to operate and deal with the economic activity of the area, but rivers do sometimes flood and hurricanes will push water inland.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Well presumably they have insurance, although I think the days of insurance companies offering insurance to just about anywhere in the western US are numbered, with the rapidly disappearing water and constant threat of wildfires. But people who bought LUNA didn't buy insurance. But generally I agree with you, there are definitely tragic events that happen to people that get more sympathy than other types of tragic events, even if they're pretty similar ultimately. But I'm also someone who "gambles" on nothing but "ponzi schemes", (i.e. I buy Bitcoin and Ethereum) according to HN. I don't have insurance though, if some black swan thing happened and I lost it all, then I don't have much recourse. Crypto is far from the only thing where that's a possibility, though. I'd say three of the startups I worked for have been even more of a gamble than my crypto purchases (all three shut down a little more than a year after I joined and I never made a dime more than my kind of low salary, and they didn't offer a 401k so I missed out on a lot of financial accumulation and security there).
lrvick 4y ago
I just wanted to share a counter example to those saying Bitcoin is a poor savings vehicle. I did something I believed in and happened to get a better result than I ever planned on. I am in it for digital sovereignty, and establishing an alternative to banks and inflationary fiat that is accessible to all. It going up in buying power on average is something I also do not really see as surprising given the deflationary nature, interest, and adoption. When the traders walk away I will still be using Bitcoin as a way to store and transfer value p2p unless something with similar properties replaces it.
- 1270018080 4y ago
  It is a poor savings vehicle. You got lucky. You are confirmation biasing yourself into thinking it's a good savings vehicle. This it tough love and for your long term well being you should acknowledge this.
  - lrvick 4y ago
    I will take storing wealth in a deflationary currency over an inflationary one any day. How many USD savings accounts are outrunning inflation these days?

danrocks 4y ago

You just got lucky. It is time everyone in crypto acknowledge that.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
True in almost all aspects of life.

kurthr 4y ago

Even if you think BTC with limited coinage is valid (vs Dogecoin which is unlimited), how can you believe an algo "stable coin" like UST is after the iron.finance failure?

scoofy 4y ago

Good for you. People like you will make money. That's how all speculative bubbles form... nobody would join them if there weren't highly visible gains in wealth, but they are effectively zero-sum. Unless the product creates value, independent from speculative value, it's a bad investment period. The entire reason we were banging our drums was exactly because people made money, but the music will stop, and when it does, all that value disappears. There is nothing wrong with crypo as a commodity. If you need it to build something with, fine, but it's not a wealth creating asset. It's a commodity, which is effectively never an investment vehicle.

gfodor 4y ago
The crash was in a non-appreciating asset.
jiggawatts 4y ago
“I played Russian roulette and won, you should try it too!” is not a very convincing argument. Nonetheless, the winners think they’re winners because they made the right choices and will try to convince others to follow suit.
- lupire 4y ago
  It's not Russian roulette. It's "let's all shoot each other and whoever wins gets all the stuff".
  - prepend 4y ago
    “My dad played a tontine and won. So should we all.”
kareemsabri 4y ago
Don't people trade in commodities though? Corn and soy and other things fluctuate in price because of their utility and changes in supply and demand, no?
- 4y ago

greiskul 4y ago

Did new wealth get created? Cryptocoins are a negative sum game (trading is zero sum, but since mining wastes resources, total has to be negative). For you to have gained this wealth, a group of people have to have lost this wealth, they might not have realized it yet. A ponzi scheme doesn't stop being a ponzi scheme because your personally profited from it. It doesn't stop being a ponzi scheme because it uses complex technology that 99% of people don't understand.

lupire 4y ago

Your money came from the people who ruined their lives gambling.

jaakl 4y ago
Bad carma for 7 generations

spoonjim 4y ago

Yes, but your story only exists because you found a bag holder who may or may not jump off a bridge when the chickens come home to roost.

lrvick 4y ago
I am still holding that bag and buying more myself because I see utility in private, decentralized, and censorship resistant value storage. I will have no regrets for funding digital sovereignty. It is a war for critical freedoms that if lost at least wont be as bloody as those with weapons. The world I want to live in requires decentralized money and governance and I continually vote with my wallet.

diegocg 4y ago

And someone lost their life savings so that you could have that.

dabeeeenster 4y ago

Dude, where did you think that money came from?

oarsinsync 4y ago

Let’s see if the next decade delivers returns like the last decade. There’s no guarantees of that, unless you believe past performance is an indicator of future success. I won’t be getting a house unless it does, so here’s hoping. I also won’t be in trouble if it doesn’t, so here’s also to a sensible investment strategy.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]