4 ms·

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 g

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
    Same for me. I actually tried to find my wallet in around when it went over a few hundred dollars.
  - QuantumGood 4y ago
    There is so much adaptation overlooked in any thing (item, experience, relationship, etc). becoming a thing of value, and so missing frames of references of this type occur frequently. A friend got a great job, if I hadn't failed job interview X I would have a great job. Later you find your friend hated that job; your experience of the job you "missed" is unknown, etc. It's also part of survivor bias. What would it have taken in advance for you to not cash in that early bitcoin that you didn't get (or lost) and didn't expect would become anything? Is that something you can prepare yourself for now? Is it worth preparing? Deciding you have a financial portfolio, and framing that one part of it is risky, and another part is experimental, and then placing early bitcoin ownership as part of the experimental portion of your financial portfolio, and then later (as it becomes a larger percentage of the total) as part of the risky portion, and then looking for more situations that seem like it could fit this approach could possibly be one takeaway ... but it seems like a stretch. You also have to avoid patterns that cause long-term failure but are misleading in the short term, such as buying and selling to realize gains, but then repeating ("it worked once") buying and selling until you have an overall loss. Like gamblers do. Sometimes they win, somethings they lose, but they lose overall by not ever stopping. Also, how do you know someone who seems to have succeeded isn't simply in the "looks like success" portion of long-term failure? How would you avoid it?
- lottin 4y ago
roenxi 4y ago
You have to be ruthless towards your own intuitions when investment. Human nature is absolutely geared towards buying high and selling low, and it isn't the first impression that gets you but the slow pressure in situations where social proof says you were wrong (although social proof proves nothing about money). Just because someone was actively monitoring crypto & then missed out as the price went from $1 to $10,000 still doesn't mean they have misjudged. Even if crypto is the future - and I've become convinced that it is for privacy reasons - there was still scant evidence of that during Bitcoin's rise. There have been no great arguments circulating to explain why someone should buy in and a lot of the people who made money look like they just got lucky.
nerdyrugbyguy 4y ago
I've been in it since 2012. The financial crisis of 2009 prompted me to study economics, the federal reserve system and the history of banking in the U.S. I went looking for solutions since the problem was affecting me and many people I knew. Bitcoin was the best solution I found. At first it seemed too quirky and strange, but I've continued to study over the years and have come to appreciate the elegance of the "quirks". Here is me presenting my take on bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fUiFtJ8BaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fUiFtJ8BaY

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
  Same for me. I actually tried to find my wallet in around when it went over a few hundred dollars.
- QuantumGood 4y ago
  There is so much adaptation overlooked in any thing (item, experience, relationship, etc). becoming a thing of value, and so missing frames of references of this type occur frequently. A friend got a great job, if I hadn't failed job interview X I would have a great job. Later you find your friend hated that job; your experience of the job you "missed" is unknown, etc. It's also part of survivor bias. What would it have taken in advance for you to not cash in that early bitcoin that you didn't get (or lost) and didn't expect would become anything? Is that something you can prepare yourself for now? Is it worth preparing? Deciding you have a financial portfolio, and framing that one part of it is risky, and another part is experimental, and then placing early bitcoin ownership as part of the experimental portion of your financial portfolio, and then later (as it becomes a larger percentage of the total) as part of the risky portion, and then looking for more situations that seem like it could fit this approach could possibly be one takeaway ... but it seems like a stretch. You also have to avoid patterns that cause long-term failure but are misleading in the short term, such as buying and selling to realize gains, but then repeating ("it worked once") buying and selling until you have an overall loss. Like gamblers do. Sometimes they win, somethings they lose, but they lose overall by not ever stopping. Also, how do you know someone who seems to have succeeded isn't simply in the "looks like success" portion of long-term failure? How would you avoid it?
lottin 4y ago

roenxi 4y ago

You have to be ruthless towards your own intuitions when investment. Human nature is absolutely geared towards buying high and selling low, and it isn't the first impression that gets you but the slow pressure in situations where social proof says you were wrong (although social proof proves nothing about money). Just because someone was actively monitoring crypto & then missed out as the price went from $1 to $10,000 still doesn't mean they have misjudged. Even if crypto is the future - and I've become convinced that it is for privacy reasons - there was still scant evidence of that during Bitcoin's rise. There have been no great arguments circulating to explain why someone should buy in and a lot of the people who made money look like they just got lucky.

nerdyrugbyguy 4y ago

I've been in it since 2012. The financial crisis of 2009 prompted me to study economics, the federal reserve system and the history of banking in the U.S. I went looking for solutions since the problem was affecting me and many people I knew. Bitcoin was the best solution I found. At first it seemed too quirky and strange, but I've continued to study over the years and have come to appreciate the elegance of the "quirks". Here is me presenting my take on bitcoin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fUiFtJ8BaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fUiFtJ8BaY