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You're absolutely right and this is the part that many do not understand about crypto culture. Its players are fully aware of most of it being a casino. They p

by fleddr 4y ago

You're absolutely right and this is the part that many do not understand about crypto culture. Its players are fully aware of most of it being a casino. They play anyway. They do not want to be "rescued" by your moral preaching or regulation, they willingly take big risks, often lose it all, and then do it again. Crypto, as they see it, is the only asymmetrical bet of their lifetime. The only way to "make it". And making it doesn't even have to mean millionaire status, it could just mean any type of life improving wealth. So "adults" preaching about why they can't just be "normal" and financially sane, are deeply out of touch. "Normal" as in...student debt, stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, healthcare costs that can bankrupt you, double digit inflation, one crisis after the other (9/11, financial crisis, COVID, war), job insecurity, climate change, political boiling pot...that kind of "normal"? Many if not most young people cannot get ahead by doing "normal". They can't even reach middle class. If doing all the right things leads to a miserable result, any escape hatch is embraced.

jazzyjackson 4y ago
totally agree with you, but I wonder if things would be different if the players of the casino were aware that the jackpot winners were plants, fakes, renting lamborghinis or worse, actually profiting on money laundering schemes while passing it off to their instagram followers as being a good day-trader. just shaking my head that anyone thinks putting their life savings into an alt-coin has any chance of going well for them
- fleddr 4y ago
  There's two camps here. On Crypto Twitter and Reddit, the space being ridden with scams and fraud is widely acknowledged and even accepted as part of the game. Some take it even as far as to congratulate the scammer, although most don't. There's also people actively researching and documenting scams, and doing good in warning people. But overall, one can say that this public outlet of crypto is very much aware. They know in what type of casino they're playing. We won't ever hear of camp 2, the silent majority that bought into the scam and lost their money. "just shaking my head that anyone thinks putting their life savings into an alt-coin has any chance of going well for them" There actually is a chance that this goes VERY well for them, which is of course the fatal attraction. During a bull run you can buy almost any altcoin and it will rise with the tide of the crypto market as a whole. Watch Bitcoin's trajectory in a 1 minute chart and compare it with almost every other chart, it's nearly identical, because it's algorithmically traded. You're still right though that you should only put in what you can afford to lose.
dvtrn 4y ago
For my part... Crypto, as they see it, is the only asymmetrical bet of their lifetime this is the part that makes me feel the most cynically incredulous about some of the claims and aspirations not just from my friend but others who have bought entire box cars on the web3 hype train, andit's probably my own biases and notions about the world, but: is it really all that asymmetrical? I presume you mean in the same spirit that the people who jumped in on the GameStop wagon did so not only because they saw dollar signs, but they bought into the notion that there had been some discovery, an inefficiency to exploit and they were "sticking it" to the institutional trading system by refusing to sell? If that's not what you meant, feel free to stop reading, as my skepticism is borne out of completely misunderstanding your point (and I concede the misunderstanding on my part). On the other hand if so.... I don't see the asymmetry, really. I just see a new set of thumbs on the scale. That's the cost of admission isn't it? Is that what I've been so oblivious to in my own apoplectic shock at all of this?
- IanCal 4y ago
  The asymmetry is not in information but in the potential gains and losses. Even if the overall EV is lower than 1, it's about risking £100 for a potential £10000 or other much larger figure, 10x/100x/10000x.
  - lxgr 4y ago
    If you don't care about negative expected values, bets of that nature are widely available in many countries in the form of lotteries.
    - IanCal 4y ago
      I didn't say people don't care, but that the EV is not relevant for calling it an asymmetrical bet. The EV may also be under 1 for the value but may be >1 for utility. That can easily be true for things with more moderate returns than the extremes of lotteries.
- fleddr 4y ago
  Say you have 10K USD. If you don't know what you're doing, take extraordinary risks, have poor timing or just bad luck...you'll lose all of it. If you do know what you're doing, you can turn it into 20K, 30K, 50K, 100K. The potential upside is many multiples of the downside, hence it's asymmetrical. There's no asset I can think of with this potential upside on such small timescales. Isn't it risky? Yes it is. Like I said, -100% when fully incompetent. Against many multiples of potential upside. That's what makes it asymmetrical.

by fleddr 4y ago

jazzyjackson 4y ago

totally agree with you, but I wonder if things would be different if the players of the casino were aware that the jackpot winners were plants, fakes, renting lamborghinis or worse, actually profiting on money laundering schemes while passing it off to their instagram followers as being a good day-trader. just shaking my head that anyone thinks putting their life savings into an alt-coin has any chance of going well for them

fleddr 4y ago
There's two camps here. On Crypto Twitter and Reddit, the space being ridden with scams and fraud is widely acknowledged and even accepted as part of the game. Some take it even as far as to congratulate the scammer, although most don't. There's also people actively researching and documenting scams, and doing good in warning people. But overall, one can say that this public outlet of crypto is very much aware. They know in what type of casino they're playing. We won't ever hear of camp 2, the silent majority that bought into the scam and lost their money. "just shaking my head that anyone thinks putting their life savings into an alt-coin has any chance of going well for them" There actually is a chance that this goes VERY well for them, which is of course the fatal attraction. During a bull run you can buy almost any altcoin and it will rise with the tide of the crypto market as a whole. Watch Bitcoin's trajectory in a 1 minute chart and compare it with almost every other chart, it's nearly identical, because it's algorithmically traded. You're still right though that you should only put in what you can afford to lose.

dvtrn 4y ago

For my part... Crypto, as they see it, is the only asymmetrical bet of their lifetime this is the part that makes me feel the most cynically incredulous about some of the claims and aspirations not just from my friend but others who have bought entire box cars on the web3 hype train, andit's probably my own biases and notions about the world, but: is it really all that asymmetrical? I presume you mean in the same spirit that the people who jumped in on the GameStop wagon did so not only because they saw dollar signs, but they bought into the notion that there had been some discovery, an inefficiency to exploit and they were "sticking it" to the institutional trading system by refusing to sell? If that's not what you meant, feel free to stop reading, as my skepticism is borne out of completely misunderstanding your point (and I concede the misunderstanding on my part). On the other hand if so.... I don't see the asymmetry, really. I just see a new set of thumbs on the scale. That's the cost of admission isn't it? Is that what I've been so oblivious to in my own apoplectic shock at all of this?

IanCal 4y ago
The asymmetry is not in information but in the potential gains and losses. Even if the overall EV is lower than 1, it's about risking £100 for a potential £10000 or other much larger figure, 10x/100x/10000x.
- lxgr 4y ago
  If you don't care about negative expected values, bets of that nature are widely available in many countries in the form of lotteries.
  - IanCal 4y ago
    I didn't say people don't care, but that the EV is not relevant for calling it an asymmetrical bet. The EV may also be under 1 for the value but may be >1 for utility. That can easily be true for things with more moderate returns than the extremes of lotteries.
fleddr 4y ago
Say you have 10K USD. If you don't know what you're doing, take extraordinary risks, have poor timing or just bad luck...you'll lose all of it. If you do know what you're doing, you can turn it into 20K, 30K, 50K, 100K. The potential upside is many multiples of the downside, hence it's asymmetrical. There's no asset I can think of with this potential upside on such small timescales. Isn't it risky? Yes it is. Like I said, -100% when fully incompetent. Against many multiples of potential upside. That's what makes it asymmetrical.