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A good counter to "I could have made $X bazillion if I'd gotten into Y thing at Z time" is to remember that you could have doubled your money at the horse track

A good counter to "I could have made $X bazillion if I'd gotten into Y thing at Z time" is to remember that you could have doubled your money at the horse track yesterday by betting on the right horse at the right time. So the only question is: what's different between Y thing and horse betting? Did you have enough information at Z time to know you should have invested? Or are you just wishing you could have predicted the future? Anyway, that's the framing I use to counter the regret of not getting into any given asset that's appreciated a lot in a short period: BTC, tesla stock, etc.

xuki 4y ago
Who goes for horse betting when you could buy powerball tickets?
- charcircuit 4y ago
  Because horse betting is a game of skill where powerball is pure randomness.
bcrosby95 4y ago
Whenever someone says "I could have made X money if I put it into Y" I say "yeah, crystal balls are in short supply".
ramraj07 4y ago
The issue is that many of us WeRE present and actively monitoring crypto. Heck I even tried to mine bitcoin back when you had a chance to mine one in your own gpu. I even thought maybe I’ll buy a coin or two; it’s only 20 bucks each! But “better judgement” said that it’s a currency it shouldn’t appreciate so why bother unless you want to actually use it? So if there’s regret it’s because many of us feel almost penalized for applying better judgement. It’s like you’re rewarded for stupidity. Not a single person I know and actually respect invested in crypto, and half brained idiots I know have become millionaires. So yeah this is not like horse betting.
- dojitza1 4y ago
  The difference between gambling and crypto is in the timelines. Gambling has a high frequency where crypto is quite a bit lower. This allows some lucky people to 'exit the casino' by the virtue of being lucky enough to have won the bet, and being pressured somehow to cash out and not continue gambling. For some, it is a birth of a child, perhaps a purchase decision etc. Low frequency allows for these events to take place, betting on horses does not.
- fishtoaster 4y ago
  Isn't that exactly like horse betting It's like if you see a friend betting a bunch of money on a long-odds horse and then winning. You exercised good judgement, but he won anyway. Do you feel penalized for applying your better judgement in that situation? The only thing that really matters is: was it the right decision given the information you had at the time?
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Even if you bought a few bitcoins $20, who’s to say you wouldn’t have sold at $40? Easy to think “what if I bought”, but really, would you have hold it until 50K? Quite unlikely! I don’t know any millionaires from crypto. I know people who are loud when market is up and very silent when it’s down. May be they were millionaires on paper at some point. Highly doubt they sold everything at the right time and became actual millionnaire. But sure, it did happen for many.
  - bradstewart 4y ago
    Yea this is how I try to think about. I mined a "bunch" back in 2011 or so, lost the hard drive with the keys on it in the years since, didn't really think about backing it up, because of course it's not worth anything, etc, etc. If I had that drive today, I'd be a millionaire. But also, if I had that drive in 2013, there's absolutely no chance I would have held it. I would have sold it for a few hundred bucks and been elated.
    - ProZsolt 4y ago
rplnt 4y ago
With BTC especially, my argument (to myself) is that if I weren't lazy and got BTC at $20 I would have definitely sold at $100.
- tinco 4y ago
  I did that, and then rebought at 130 and sold again at 175, and so on until I only had a couple and then MtGox happened and I lost 80% of that and lost interest for a couple years. It's definitely possible to get in early and not become rich at all.
  - greenhorn123 4y ago
    You should stay away from casinos. Gamblers tend to follow this pattern, they are ahead in between but they always lose it all in the end, they just don't know when to walk away.
    - tinco 4y ago
      Ah yeah, that typical behaviour of gamblers that when they lose it all they stop gambling for years :P
once_inc 4y ago
I tend to counter in a different way: YES, I knew about Bitcoin a couple of years before I invested in it. YES, I could have made a significant return during that time. YES, I should have investigated it further at that time, instead of focussing on other things. YES, I made a risk/return analysis at that time, and felt that the risk of investing was too high, even if I didn't do my due diligence. Everyone, at every time makes a decision to either invest or not invest in something at any point in time, even if that decision is subconscious. I can feel bad about making that decision, but I did make it. My risk/reward appetite just wasn't high enough.
- greenhorn123 4y ago
  In an alternative world where Bitcoin crashed and burned after it was launched but before you decided to invest you would feel that much smarter! It's all very easy in hindsight, the trouble is to predict it accurately. A better way to look at this is to say that some people got lucky and some didn't.
- netsharc 4y ago
  The lucky ones are the ones who were a little foolish (spot my bias...) and not greedy. Those who got on the bandwagon (again, spot my bias), and decided to cash out when they thought "That's great enough ROI!". Of course the problem with humans is, if they cashed out at say 25K, they'd have regrets when BTC hit 30K-35K, and since they have money they'd be tempted to join in again...
jstummbillig 4y ago
The difference is that Crypto is The Future. Horse betting has been established to be just that: Betting (I have no clue if that's really true, no offense to the hn horse racing crowd). There is no big institution money that says otherwise. There are no startup wizards working in the field. Nobody claims they are going to change the world. Crypto on the other hand is sold as the future, and the people who miss out on the future are losers. The tech is really complicated, you don't understand what's going on, but, clearly, some very smart people do and they are convinced. The point being, it's a lot easier to disregard horses than it is to disregard the future.
- sentirism 4y ago
  It is a great point. Off Track Betting near me is also always packed with people betting on horses. No one there though is foolish enough to create an ideology around horse betting and I am sure most know deep down the house always wins.
- peterpost2 4y ago
  >The difference is that Crypto is The Future. [Citation needed]
  - jstummbillig 4y ago
    Imagine you actually read, and understood, my entire post.
    - peterpost2 4y ago
      Apparently I'm not the only one who did not get the sarcasm.
    - hnaccount_rng 4y ago
      I think you should have kept the capitalisation consistent.. The Future
    - quickthrower2 4y ago
      > you don't understand what's going on, but, clearly, some very smart people do and they are convinced. Even applying a steel man, it is not convincing. Don’t defer to “smart people”. Do your own research from first principles.
agumonkey 4y ago
It's funny, trading games lead to philosophy. You can't maximize, everything is fuzzy, a blend of patience and reaction is key.
mgraczyk 4y ago
The difference is that I founded and raised millions of VC $$ in the crypto space, and watched some of my friends make tens or hundreds of millions, and yet I made very little from crypto. I didn't build a protocol or anything with a token. The whole time I felt like I could have just built some pie-in-the-sky "crypto for ML" thing and done a huge token sale.

xuki 4y ago

Who goes for horse betting when you could buy powerball tickets?

charcircuit 4y ago
Because horse betting is a game of skill where powerball is pure randomness.

bcrosby95 4y ago

Whenever someone says "I could have made X money if I put it into Y" I say "yeah, crystal balls are in short supply".

ramraj07 4y ago

The issue is that many of us WeRE present and actively monitoring crypto. Heck I even tried to mine bitcoin back when you had a chance to mine one in your own gpu. I even thought maybe I’ll buy a coin or two; it’s only 20 bucks each! But “better judgement” said that it’s a currency it shouldn’t appreciate so why bother unless you want to actually use it? So if there’s regret it’s because many of us feel almost penalized for applying better judgement. It’s like you’re rewarded for stupidity. Not a single person I know and actually respect invested in crypto, and half brained idiots I know have become millionaires. So yeah this is not like horse betting.

dojitza1 4y ago
The difference between gambling and crypto is in the timelines. Gambling has a high frequency where crypto is quite a bit lower. This allows some lucky people to 'exit the casino' by the virtue of being lucky enough to have won the bet, and being pressured somehow to cash out and not continue gambling. For some, it is a birth of a child, perhaps a purchase decision etc. Low frequency allows for these events to take place, betting on horses does not.
fishtoaster 4y ago
Isn't that exactly like horse betting It's like if you see a friend betting a bunch of money on a long-odds horse and then winning. You exercised good judgement, but he won anyway. Do you feel penalized for applying your better judgement in that situation? The only thing that really matters is: was it the right decision given the information you had at the time?
jeromegv 4y ago
Even if you bought a few bitcoins $20, who’s to say you wouldn’t have sold at $40? Easy to think “what if I bought”, but really, would you have hold it until 50K? Quite unlikely! I don’t know any millionaires from crypto. I know people who are loud when market is up and very silent when it’s down. May be they were millionaires on paper at some point. Highly doubt they sold everything at the right time and became actual millionnaire. But sure, it did happen for many.
- bradstewart 4y ago
  Yea this is how I try to think about. I mined a "bunch" back in 2011 or so, lost the hard drive with the keys on it in the years since, didn't really think about backing it up, because of course it's not worth anything, etc, etc. If I had that drive today, I'd be a millionaire. But also, if I had that drive in 2013, there's absolutely no chance I would have held it. I would have sold it for a few hundred bucks and been elated.
  - ProZsolt 4y ago

rplnt 4y ago

With BTC especially, my argument (to myself) is that if I weren't lazy and got BTC at $20 I would have definitely sold at $100.

tinco 4y ago
I did that, and then rebought at 130 and sold again at 175, and so on until I only had a couple and then MtGox happened and I lost 80% of that and lost interest for a couple years. It's definitely possible to get in early and not become rich at all.
- greenhorn123 4y ago
  You should stay away from casinos. Gamblers tend to follow this pattern, they are ahead in between but they always lose it all in the end, they just don't know when to walk away.
  - tinco 4y ago
    Ah yeah, that typical behaviour of gamblers that when they lose it all they stop gambling for years :P

once_inc 4y ago

I tend to counter in a different way: YES, I knew about Bitcoin a couple of years before I invested in it. YES, I could have made a significant return during that time. YES, I should have investigated it further at that time, instead of focussing on other things. YES, I made a risk/return analysis at that time, and felt that the risk of investing was too high, even if I didn't do my due diligence. Everyone, at every time makes a decision to either invest or not invest in something at any point in time, even if that decision is subconscious. I can feel bad about making that decision, but I did make it. My risk/reward appetite just wasn't high enough.

greenhorn123 4y ago
In an alternative world where Bitcoin crashed and burned after it was launched but before you decided to invest you would feel that much smarter! It's all very easy in hindsight, the trouble is to predict it accurately. A better way to look at this is to say that some people got lucky and some didn't.
netsharc 4y ago
The lucky ones are the ones who were a little foolish (spot my bias...) and not greedy. Those who got on the bandwagon (again, spot my bias), and decided to cash out when they thought "That's great enough ROI!". Of course the problem with humans is, if they cashed out at say 25K, they'd have regrets when BTC hit 30K-35K, and since they have money they'd be tempted to join in again...

jstummbillig 4y ago

The difference is that Crypto is The Future. Horse betting has been established to be just that: Betting (I have no clue if that's really true, no offense to the hn horse racing crowd). There is no big institution money that says otherwise. There are no startup wizards working in the field. Nobody claims they are going to change the world. Crypto on the other hand is sold as the future, and the people who miss out on the future are losers. The tech is really complicated, you don't understand what's going on, but, clearly, some very smart people do and they are convinced. The point being, it's a lot easier to disregard horses than it is to disregard the future.

sentirism 4y ago
It is a great point. Off Track Betting near me is also always packed with people betting on horses. No one there though is foolish enough to create an ideology around horse betting and I am sure most know deep down the house always wins.
peterpost2 4y ago
>The difference is that Crypto is The Future. [Citation needed]
- jstummbillig 4y ago
  Imagine you actually read, and understood, my entire post.
  - peterpost2 4y ago
    Apparently I'm not the only one who did not get the sarcasm.
  - hnaccount_rng 4y ago
    I think you should have kept the capitalisation consistent.. The Future
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    > you don't understand what's going on, but, clearly, some very smart people do and they are convinced. Even applying a steel man, it is not convincing. Don’t defer to “smart people”. Do your own research from first principles.

agumonkey 4y ago

It's funny, trading games lead to philosophy. You can't maximize, everything is fuzzy, a blend of patience and reaction is key.

mgraczyk 4y ago

The difference is that I founded and raised millions of VC $$ in the crypto space, and watched some of my friends make tens or hundreds of millions, and yet I made very little from crypto. I didn't build a protocol or anything with a token. The whole time I felt like I could have just built some pie-in-the-sky "crypto for ML" thing and done a huge token sale.