8 ms·

Misplaced Crypto Schadenfreude

25 points by marcell 4y ago

leahgerics9 4y ago
h2odragon 4y ago
"It's stupid to miss out on 100x returns" I don't feel I'm missing out, tho. I'm refusing to participate in anti-social hucksterism. Even if there's the chance of making money. "Cryptocurrency" was interesting, briefly, before the scams took it over. Now the interesting bits are buried too deep in scummy scams to be worth delving for.
- dubswithus 4y ago
  > "Cryptocurrency" was interesting, briefly, before the scams took it over. Now the interesting bits are buried too deep in scummy scams to be worth delving for. The whole point of being an early stage investor is that you have to dig for the opportunities. Here is what likely happens: A few cryptocurrencies become used or adopted by the public in some form. All the critics stomp their feet and say, "But a centralized database could do it better, faster, and cheaper! And better for the environment! This is 2026, technology is supposed to move in a direction that helps society! [Coughs in Google, Facebook, and Amazon]" A few years later... Ted: Where are you taking the kids? Janet: Ted, I'm done with this! All you talk about is your hatred of crypto! You're always tweeting about it! What happened to our future?!
  - tartuffe78 4y ago
    I don't think it's the wives of husbands who think too little of crypto that are complaining...
    - dubswithus 4y ago
      ... You spent all that time playing fucking Call of Duty online? Maybe if you had invested in the technology our daughter is using now we wouldn't be living in a studio!
      - timkam 4y ago
        Buying crypto is not 'investing in technology'. Also, a currency with massive deflation is not usable. You can't go to the moon forever AND have a usable currency. So even if one bets on adoption of crypto and is risk averse (e.g., to not endanger one's family), the best is to not buy crypto. By now, there are most likely already plenty of families falling apart because plenty of guys (many of whom live under problematic socio-economic conditions/are poorly educated/adopted a responsible lifestyle too late in their lives) followed exactly your line of argumentation. Is there really any doubt that this is happening?
        dragontamer 4y ago
        > Also, a currency with massive deflation is not usabl You got it backwards. Its currently inflation (BTC getting less-and-less valuable over the recent past). Deflation was 2020, when BTC climbed in price dramatically. Neither deflation, nor inflation, makes for a good currency. That "1000 ether" bet could be $1-million if executed today, but it was $3-million just a few months ago. Because there's no stability in cryptocoins, they are neither stores of value (they decline too quickly), nor currencies (they go up and cause price changes).
        timkam 4y ago
        I think you are right. But my argument was addressing the crypto-bullish assumption that crypto goes up (i.e., assuming long-term deflation) and that one should 'invest' in it as a responsible parent (as implied by the parent comment that I was responding to). So assuming a (potentially counterfactual) deflation was a strategy for my argument (like in a formal proof by contradiction).
FullyFunctional 4y ago
The author seems desperate to justify the existence of this blatantly obvious Ponzi scheme. Also on display is the oft associated arrogance that insists that the only reason people are against Crypto currencies is because they “missed out”. What a depressing load of manure. I can’t wait for it all to crash and burn yet I feel sorry for the many who were duped and lost a lot of money they couldn’t afford to loose.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dubswithus 4y ago
  It's not ponzi, it's greater fool. It's entirely possible for bitcoin to exist without new participants buying into it.
  - beefield 4y ago
    Not sure I follow. Ponzi can also exist without new participants buying into it - as long as the existing ones keep pumping money into it. And on the aggregate, bitcoin is negative sum game. Someone must pay for the mining costs and that money must come from outside bitcoin.
    - dubswithus 4y ago
      https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp Doesn't share the same characteristics.
    - smokey_circles 4y ago
      Aren't new investors the required check for an investment scam like a ponzi scheme? Genuine question
notavalleyman 4y ago
Critics: "Crypto is useless, and you're all going to be left broke and sad." Proponents: Are left broke and sad. Author of this article: The critics are just "tricked into thinking they are were right all along, and they miss out on huge opportunities in crypto." Oh, that tricksy crash in the price of beanie babies! Always confounding the silly critics who are befuddled into thinking that they were right all along, when they said the price of beanie babies would crash. Sure, they said it would crash and it did, they said it was useless and it is - but it's just a trick! Tricked you, haha! Now I'm broke and sad, but you silly critics have egg on your face!
rideontime 4y ago
This is "serious web3 analysis"? Another "it's time to buidl" fluff piece?
cuteboy19 4y ago
From a practical perspective I definitely agree. Creating a crypto scam coin is a free, low risk way of making money. If Do Kwon can do it, so can you. Critics are far too obsessed with the triangular shape of the system to realise that they could be sitting on the top of the triangle.
csdvrx 4y ago
I think the most horrible is when techies celebrate a crash, without thinking about the middle class/lower class people who may have lost their life savings, just because it offers them the possibility to say "I told you so!" If there's anything that SCREAMS privilege, I can't think of a better example than that. For people working retail job and who noticed the COVID-related inflation was unsustainable (20% of the USD stock was minted due to COVID IIRC), and that the grow in the M1 aggregate would lead to inflation that would hurt them, what else exactly do you think they could do? We have nice jobs. They don't. We can work from home. They can't. We've been protected. They were deemed "essential" and told to wear masks and wash hands. And now, you want to celebrate their savings being wiped because you have some moral objection to crypto, or because it made it harder for you to buy a GPU? Sorry but I can't. Do your navel gazing/"fuck you got mine" without me.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  I've spent years telling people that cryptocurrencies are a bubble that rely on Greater Fools, and some day you run out of fools. Sadly, some friends of the family became massive believers, and have lost a lot of money, I'm not celebrating that at all.
- dubswithus 4y ago
  Video game addiction. More serious than anyone thought.
- BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
  This site and social media in general has been filled to the brim with warnings that people were going to be conned out of their savings for years now but thanks for your sanctimonious post.
- Grim-444 4y ago
  You're implying most "working class retail job" people got into crypto as an inflation hedge and not because of the non-stop in your face FOMO propaganda about how rich they could get? And that no inflation hedges existed for these people besides sinking their life savings into crypto?
- 4y ago
kabirgoel 4y ago
The argument this article makes is invalid. You’re missing out on a 100X investment opportunity in any bubble. The question isn’t whether you can make money off it—of course you can! The question is how soon the dumpster fire is going to explode into a full-blown trash tornado that eats up little Timmy’s college fund. If you’d bet on dotcom stocks back in 1998 you’d be 100X until suddenly you weren’t. I also find the comparison to tech stocks odd. Stocks are, of course, a fever dream. But far fewer snake oil salesmen are marketing them as magical financial instruments with lofty safety guarantees. Besides, unlike the tech crash, a huge part of the lack of confidence in crypto right now is failed Ponzis like Terra Luna.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > a huge part of the lack of confidence in crypto right now is failed Ponzis like Terra Luna. Terra / Luna is so last month. Today is all about speculating upon Celsius.
- masswerk 4y ago
  In my opinion, the article totally misses the point, which is really, "this is globally detrimental" versus "I can make personal profits". Edit: On the other hand, it's a somewhat refreshing alternative to the usual exchanges, like, "Did you hear, X is bust?" – "This is, because you don't know how going bust works." – "???". (In essence, it's actually the same, as the alleged real worth of something going bust is the investment opportunity and anyone pointing at the values destroyed just doesn't understand this, since – allegedly – there isn't anything destroyed, but only opportunities created.)
  - masswerk 4y ago
    Regarding the latter: This is not how Schumpeter works, this was not about investment strategies, or currencies.
- petergeoghegan 4y ago
  > I also find the comparison to tech stocks odd. Stocks are, of course, a fever dream. Very true. But arguments in favor of cryptocurrencies often rely on absurd false dichotomies that start from a reasonable premise, and take it somewhere wildly unreasonable. This is just one example. My favorite example: the way that human beings believe that gold has intrinsic value is somewhat arbitrary and based on historical or cultural factors, so it might as well be completely arbitrary -- this distinction is meaningless and/or doesn't exist. (This ignores obvious factors, such as the fact that gold is used in various industrial contexts, despite its high cost. Just for starters.)
JoeMascuve 4y ago
smokey_circles 4y ago
ITT: Critics ;) I think it's disingenuous to call crypto an investment. It would be nice to see some legislation tame the absolutely insane relationship between crypto and fiat. I like the idea of bitcoin, but until such time as it stops repeating avoidable mistakes tradfi has solved, I'm out. Distributed, trustless consensus is a wild idea and I hope it finds root in something practical. Dunno if this is a thought about goal or not though. Seems to me that the current interest is building the next big crypto thing. Also, isn't the idea of making money off of fiat/crypto exchanges kinda anti-thetical to what the cipherpunks were going for? Bitcoin's relationship to the USD is fairly toxic imo
- bandrami 4y ago
  There's no fundamentals so it's not strictly an "investment" as the term is usually used in finance. Investments have to trade at some multiple of book value, and book value is zero.
bluehorseray 4y ago
It's not schadenfreude if people on HN criticize crypto when it's hitting ATHs, which we absolutely do...
Gehlitio 4y ago
chickenpotpie 4y ago
> Crypto critics need to reconcile these two conflicting ideas: “I’m not stupid” and “I missed out on 100x gains.” A crypto downturn provides them with a cathartic opportunity to brag “I told you so.” Those ideas are not conflicting ideas. If my friend takes his life savings, goes to Vegas, and bets it all on black: he can double his money and still be dumber than me. Crypto critics just got sick of people buying lottery tickets all day and telling everyone else how great of an investment lottery tickets are because they won one time.
jgerrish 4y ago
I wonder, just speaking blindly, how many emerging artists were able to utilize blockchain technologies to reach a market they wouldn't have. I never took part in the NFT wave. It was, of course, a tulip bubble, it married high-tech and artist in the most horrible way possible. Tsk tsk tsk. Exploration, browsing, search and discovery are powerful things.
Imnimo 4y ago
>Crypto critics need to reconcile these two conflicting ideas: “I’m not stupid” and “I missed out on 100x gains.” This guy is like the poster child for misguided results-oriented thinking.
mk81 4y ago

25 points by marcell 4y ago

"It's stupid to miss out on 100x returns" I don't feel I'm missing out, tho. I'm refusing to participate in anti-social hucksterism. Even if there's the chance of making money. "Cryptocurrency" was interesting, briefly, before the scams took it over. Now the interesting bits are buried too deep in scummy scams to be worth delving for.

dubswithus 4y ago
> "Cryptocurrency" was interesting, briefly, before the scams took it over. Now the interesting bits are buried too deep in scummy scams to be worth delving for. The whole point of being an early stage investor is that you have to dig for the opportunities. Here is what likely happens: A few cryptocurrencies become used or adopted by the public in some form. All the critics stomp their feet and say, "But a centralized database could do it better, faster, and cheaper! And better for the environment! This is 2026, technology is supposed to move in a direction that helps society! [Coughs in Google, Facebook, and Amazon]" A few years later... Ted: Where are you taking the kids? Janet: Ted, I'm done with this! All you talk about is your hatred of crypto! You're always tweeting about it! What happened to our future?!
- tartuffe78 4y ago
  I don't think it's the wives of husbands who think too little of crypto that are complaining...
  - dubswithus 4y ago
    ... You spent all that time playing fucking Call of Duty online? Maybe if you had invested in the technology our daughter is using now we wouldn't be living in a studio!
    - timkam 4y ago
      Buying crypto is not 'investing in technology'. Also, a currency with massive deflation is not usable. You can't go to the moon forever AND have a usable currency. So even if one bets on adoption of crypto and is risk averse (e.g., to not endanger one's family), the best is to not buy crypto. By now, there are most likely already plenty of families falling apart because plenty of guys (many of whom live under problematic socio-economic conditions/are poorly educated/adopted a responsible lifestyle too late in their lives) followed exactly your line of argumentation. Is there really any doubt that this is happening?
      - dragontamer 4y ago
        > Also, a currency with massive deflation is not usabl You got it backwards. Its currently inflation (BTC getting less-and-less valuable over the recent past). Deflation was 2020, when BTC climbed in price dramatically. Neither deflation, nor inflation, makes for a good currency. That "1000 ether" bet could be $1-million if executed today, but it was $3-million just a few months ago. Because there's no stability in cryptocoins, they are neither stores of value (they decline too quickly), nor currencies (they go up and cause price changes).
        timkam 4y ago
        I think you are right. But my argument was addressing the crypto-bullish assumption that crypto goes up (i.e., assuming long-term deflation) and that one should 'invest' in it as a responsible parent (as implied by the parent comment that I was responding to). So assuming a (potentially counterfactual) deflation was a strategy for my argument (like in a formal proof by contradiction).

FullyFunctional 4y ago

The author seems desperate to justify the existence of this blatantly obvious Ponzi scheme. Also on display is the oft associated arrogance that insists that the only reason people are against Crypto currencies is because they “missed out”. What a depressing load of manure. I can’t wait for it all to crash and burn yet I feel sorry for the many who were duped and lost a lot of money they couldn’t afford to loose.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dubswithus 4y ago
It's not ponzi, it's greater fool. It's entirely possible for bitcoin to exist without new participants buying into it.
- beefield 4y ago
  Not sure I follow. Ponzi can also exist without new participants buying into it - as long as the existing ones keep pumping money into it. And on the aggregate, bitcoin is negative sum game. Someone must pay for the mining costs and that money must come from outside bitcoin.
  - dubswithus 4y ago
    https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/ponzischeme.asp Doesn't share the same characteristics.
  - smokey_circles 4y ago
    Aren't new investors the required check for an investment scam like a ponzi scheme? Genuine question

notavalleyman 4y ago

Critics: "Crypto is useless, and you're all going to be left broke and sad." Proponents: Are left broke and sad. Author of this article: The critics are just "tricked into thinking they are were right all along, and they miss out on huge opportunities in crypto." Oh, that tricksy crash in the price of beanie babies! Always confounding the silly critics who are befuddled into thinking that they were right all along, when they said the price of beanie babies would crash. Sure, they said it would crash and it did, they said it was useless and it is - but it's just a trick! Tricked you, haha! Now I'm broke and sad, but you silly critics have egg on your face!

rideontime 4y ago

This is "serious web3 analysis"? Another "it's time to buidl" fluff piece?

cuteboy19 4y ago

From a practical perspective I definitely agree. Creating a crypto scam coin is a free, low risk way of making money. If Do Kwon can do it, so can you. Critics are far too obsessed with the triangular shape of the system to realise that they could be sitting on the top of the triangle.

csdvrx 4y ago

I think the most horrible is when techies celebrate a crash, without thinking about the middle class/lower class people who may have lost their life savings, just because it offers them the possibility to say "I told you so!" If there's anything that SCREAMS privilege, I can't think of a better example than that. For people working retail job and who noticed the COVID-related inflation was unsustainable (20% of the USD stock was minted due to COVID IIRC), and that the grow in the M1 aggregate would lead to inflation that would hurt them, what else exactly do you think they could do? We have nice jobs. They don't. We can work from home. They can't. We've been protected. They were deemed "essential" and told to wear masks and wash hands. And now, you want to celebrate their savings being wiped because you have some moral objection to crypto, or because it made it harder for you to buy a GPU? Sorry but I can't. Do your navel gazing/"fuck you got mine" without me.

EdwardDiego 4y ago
I've spent years telling people that cryptocurrencies are a bubble that rely on Greater Fools, and some day you run out of fools. Sadly, some friends of the family became massive believers, and have lost a lot of money, I'm not celebrating that at all.
dubswithus 4y ago
Video game addiction. More serious than anyone thought.
BaculumMeumEst 4y ago
This site and social media in general has been filled to the brim with warnings that people were going to be conned out of their savings for years now but thanks for your sanctimonious post.
Grim-444 4y ago
You're implying most "working class retail job" people got into crypto as an inflation hedge and not because of the non-stop in your face FOMO propaganda about how rich they could get? And that no inflation hedges existed for these people besides sinking their life savings into crypto?
4y ago

kabirgoel 4y ago

The argument this article makes is invalid. You’re missing out on a 100X investment opportunity in any bubble. The question isn’t whether you can make money off it—of course you can! The question is how soon the dumpster fire is going to explode into a full-blown trash tornado that eats up little Timmy’s college fund. If you’d bet on dotcom stocks back in 1998 you’d be 100X until suddenly you weren’t. I also find the comparison to tech stocks odd. Stocks are, of course, a fever dream. But far fewer snake oil salesmen are marketing them as magical financial instruments with lofty safety guarantees. Besides, unlike the tech crash, a huge part of the lack of confidence in crypto right now is failed Ponzis like Terra Luna.

dragontamer 4y ago
> a huge part of the lack of confidence in crypto right now is failed Ponzis like Terra Luna. Terra / Luna is so last month. Today is all about speculating upon Celsius.
masswerk 4y ago
In my opinion, the article totally misses the point, which is really, "this is globally detrimental" versus "I can make personal profits". Edit: On the other hand, it's a somewhat refreshing alternative to the usual exchanges, like, "Did you hear, X is bust?" – "This is, because you don't know how going bust works." – "???". (In essence, it's actually the same, as the alleged real worth of something going bust is the investment opportunity and anyone pointing at the values destroyed just doesn't understand this, since – allegedly – there isn't anything destroyed, but only opportunities created.)
- masswerk 4y ago
  Regarding the latter: This is not how Schumpeter works, this was not about investment strategies, or currencies.
petergeoghegan 4y ago
> I also find the comparison to tech stocks odd. Stocks are, of course, a fever dream. Very true. But arguments in favor of cryptocurrencies often rely on absurd false dichotomies that start from a reasonable premise, and take it somewhere wildly unreasonable. This is just one example. My favorite example: the way that human beings believe that gold has intrinsic value is somewhat arbitrary and based on historical or cultural factors, so it might as well be completely arbitrary -- this distinction is meaningless and/or doesn't exist. (This ignores obvious factors, such as the fact that gold is used in various industrial contexts, despite its high cost. Just for starters.)

JoeMascuve 4y ago

smokey_circles 4y ago

ITT: Critics ;) I think it's disingenuous to call crypto an investment. It would be nice to see some legislation tame the absolutely insane relationship between crypto and fiat. I like the idea of bitcoin, but until such time as it stops repeating avoidable mistakes tradfi has solved, I'm out. Distributed, trustless consensus is a wild idea and I hope it finds root in something practical. Dunno if this is a thought about goal or not though. Seems to me that the current interest is building the next big crypto thing. Also, isn't the idea of making money off of fiat/crypto exchanges kinda anti-thetical to what the cipherpunks were going for? Bitcoin's relationship to the USD is fairly toxic imo

bandrami 4y ago
There's no fundamentals so it's not strictly an "investment" as the term is usually used in finance. Investments have to trade at some multiple of book value, and book value is zero.

bluehorseray 4y ago

It's not schadenfreude if people on HN criticize crypto when it's hitting ATHs, which we absolutely do...

Gehlitio 4y ago

chickenpotpie 4y ago

> Crypto critics need to reconcile these two conflicting ideas: “I’m not stupid” and “I missed out on 100x gains.” A crypto downturn provides them with a cathartic opportunity to brag “I told you so.” Those ideas are not conflicting ideas. If my friend takes his life savings, goes to Vegas, and bets it all on black: he can double his money and still be dumber than me. Crypto critics just got sick of people buying lottery tickets all day and telling everyone else how great of an investment lottery tickets are because they won one time.

jgerrish 4y ago

I wonder, just speaking blindly, how many emerging artists were able to utilize blockchain technologies to reach a market they wouldn't have. I never took part in the NFT wave. It was, of course, a tulip bubble, it married high-tech and artist in the most horrible way possible. Tsk tsk tsk. Exploration, browsing, search and discovery are powerful things.

Imnimo 4y ago

>Crypto critics need to reconcile these two conflicting ideas: “I’m not stupid” and “I missed out on 100x gains.” This guy is like the poster child for misguided results-oriented thinking.

mk81 4y ago