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I guess everyone's strategy in the crypto space is put everything you have on bitcoin and hope it goes up. It's a really good strategy, when it works.

barnbuilder 4y ago
The people getting wiped out by the collapse of Voyager, Celsius, etc. were not putting their money on bitcoin. They were giving it to a custodian who thought they could beat bitcoin by investing in altcoins (or lending to those who do so). This is definitely not "everyone's strategy"; plenty of us bitcoiners have been warning against this sort of irresponsible activity for a long time.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  What's irresponsible about that compared to just parking it in BTC?
  - barnbuilder 4y ago
    Once someone sends their bitcoin or "crypto" to a lending platform, they no longer own this asset. What they now have is an IOU for that asset that the platform may be unwilling or unable to fulfill in the future, as appears to be the case with Voyager and numerous others before it.
    - Skunkleton 4y ago
      Yes, but setting aside direct ownership which is not a prerequisite for investing in any coin, how is bitcoin a better choice? It seems to me that is like saying, well you really should have invested in Exxon and you would be ok now.
      - sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
        Crypto is one of the biggest active victim-blaming communities. "Not your wallet not your coin", or whatever they like saying, is just is just deflection from valid criticism that crypto is very easy to exploit without recourse.
        prohobo 4y ago
        I disagree. To me it's like saying passwords are broken because most people choose "password123". Or like saying dollar bills are bad because they can rip. Safety rails should be made of course, but if you aren't even maintaining basic hygiene within a system then I'm sorry but that's on you. People are learning to use better passwords, and people learned long ago to keep their paper money in a wallet. The same will happen with crypto.
        sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
        How much do you think is the fair value of 1 bitcoin?
        prohobo 4y ago
        I have no idea. Certainly more than the cost of a pizza. There are 21 million, and if split evenly among the world population each person would get ~0.002625. It depends on a lot of factors; like how important it might become for people to avoid using fiat or government controlled digital currencies, or how deeply integrated it could become in daily life.
        sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
        Splitting it evenly among the world population seems completely irrelevant for this conversation.
        henriquez 4y ago
        Check coinmarketcap - you don’t have to speculate about the market value because they list it.
      - prohobo 4y ago
        My guess: from a speculative standpoint Bitcoin is finite and the only real competitor to fiat. There's also a large amount of sustained hype. It's unlikely to flatline unless something really major happens. Blockchains like Ethereum are not (and aren't meant to be) alternatives to fiat. In fact, the best thing for ETH would be low price, since it's mostly used as gas. Altcoins are almost entirely vaporware until ETH tech matures and consumer services become feasible. Until then, any high valuation of either ETH or Altcoin is 100% Tulip Mania. I have no idea about any blockchains outside of Bitcoin or Ethereum.
      - hackingforfun 4y ago
        Direct ownership is the point though. Bitcoin allows direct ownership. Also, being the biggest, it can be considered the safest crypto.
        lottin 4y ago
        Bitcoin has no concept of ownership. "Not your keys, not your coins" means exactly that. If you lose your car keys, you still own your car. This is not true of bitcoin.
        hackingforfun 4y ago
        No concept of ownership is a stretch. If you have the keys to a Bitcoin wallet, you own that Bitcoin wallet. If you lost physical cash or gold, it would be like losing your keys to a Bitcoin wallet. No one would replace your physical cash, gold, or Bitcoin, if you lost it. However, that doesn't mean that you don't own that physical cash, gold, or Bitcoin, at least while you have it in your possession.
        lottin 4y ago
        Well, when it comes to bitcoins, you only own them as long as you have them in your possession—which means you don't own them, you only possess them. This is what I mean by no concept of ownership. The bitcoin network doesn't care who is the rightful owner of the bitcoins, it only cares about who has access to them.
  - floydnoel 4y ago
    BTC isn’t a security. “Crypto” securities are much riskier than sticking with the one cryptocurrency worthy of being called a commodity- according to Gary Gensler (SEC chair, former CFTC chair). Securities are dividend or interest bearing assets. Commodities do not give interest or dividends, it’s like holding gold or some other rock. BTC is volatile enough! “Stable” coins and other “guaranteed return but not regulated” instruments have a long history of collapsing, even before “crypto” was sprinkled on top.
- xur17 4y ago
  Exactly. And if you had half an ounce of sense, you would have withdrawn your deposits from these platforms when UST and then Celsius collapsed.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    > withdrawn your deposits from these platforms when UST and then Celsius collapsed Which ironically, is why more of them keep (and will keep) falling. It'll be a cascade of withdrawals across the ecosystem, and all these weak platforms will rightly go under. Looking forward to it.
- arlcode 4y ago
  I wonder, Where there any crypto investment Funds that invested in actual companies (aka not coins or derivates)?
Spartan112 4y ago
dragontamer 4y ago
I wish it were that simple. These folks bought GBTC, traded GBTC and staked it with others, exchanged it for USDC staked that and then used the money to buy more BTC. No one offers 3% to 20% APY just holding BTC. They are trading that coin to everyone else in a shadow banking / speculation scheme and hoping for the best.
puranjay 4y ago
to be fair, all of this CeFi crap is against the core ethos of crypto. No serious crypto person will tell you to use CeFi. "Not your keys, not your coins" is the first rule of crypto.
- yunohn 4y ago
  > No serious crypto person will tell you to use CeFi. Nobody used the term CeFi before this crash. It’s just a No True Scotsman excuse for crypto scamming.
  - puranjay 4y ago
    I don't understand what's the scam in this. You buy BTC because you either seek to profit from it, or you believe in the core philosophy behind it. Both of these are your own decisions. A scam would be you buying a phone from Amazon and getting a brick. BTC is exactly what it describes, nothing more, nothing less. If you got greedy enough to dump your BTC onto a centralized service for 3% yield, that's on you. As is the decision to buy BTC.
    - yunohn 4y ago
      > BTC is exactly what it describes, nothing more, nothing less. And that is what exactly - A store of value, a 10^n investment, a medium of exchange, a ledger, etc?
      - puranjay 4y ago
        That’s for you to decide. Its properties aren’t hidden. You get the rules handed to you upfront and the rules are always adhered to - BTC inflation will always be what the whitepaper describes. Think of it like poker. People lose money playing poker too. Is poker a scam? Nope. You might call it unethical or gambling, but unless a player is cheating, its not a scam. And any participant willingly agreed to the rules before playing. Same with BTC. If you bought BTC, you willingly agreed to the rules. If you didn’t “win”, that’s on you, not the “game” itself.
rglover 4y ago
Bitcoin is the only thing that will remain from the embers of this meltdown. This was the inevitable collapse of the shitcoin casinoconomy.
asdff 4y ago
Even better strategy imo is considering market caps alone. Dump money into the top x coins by market cap and the intertia will carry you. Whenever crypto dumps people say its the end, but get real. This is more speculative than the lottery for a lot of people. It will always have its lemmings and grifters pumping it back up after a dump. Just ride the tide. Buy low, wait, sell high, wait, buy low. Don't put all your eggs in one basket but throwing an egg or two around at these things isn't going to hurt you any if you are an otherwise responsible investor. I certainly wish I threw one of my eggs at bitcoin when I first learned of it when it was <$1, I wish I didn't cash out my measly holdings when it was ~$4k; but I won't be making these mistakes again. Now I throw a couple bucks a month into these things that legitimately have a nonzero chance of exploding. Why not? Entrees are $15 these days; whats $10 a week burned on essentially lottery tickets with better odds? I hate everything about crypto and don't see a point to it, but at this point in my life I realize sometimes you have to play the game that is given even if you don't agree with the rules because you don't have any actual sway in this world.
- vgb2k18 4y ago
  > Just ride the tide. Buy low, wait, sell high, wait, buy low. I think you're underselling the difficulty of this problem by the adverbial just.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Its easy if you only bet amounts that you won't miss. I'm not saying move your entire portfolio for crypto, I'm saying its probably wise to hedge your bets and ignore your principles sometimes.
- belltaco 4y ago
  > It will always have its lemmings and grifters pumping it back up after a dump. Just ride the tide. I think the shoeshine boy moment might be here with bitcoin and crypto, thanks to things like the Super Bowl ads, so that strategy you stated is much riskier than it was in the past, and potential returns lower. Pumping doesn't work well when the flow of new investors ebbs. Eventually a lot of the "investors" may need to take out money out of bitcoin into fiat to pay for necessities, especially if a recession hits. The issue is that people don't need or want to buy crypto except for speculation(other than some temporary crypto purchases for ransomware, drugs, money laundering etc.) to flip it.
tootie 4y ago
It's like they all thought that because they had magic money they could avoid not only the trappings of traditional financial markets, but all the laws of economics.

barnbuilder 4y ago

The people getting wiped out by the collapse of Voyager, Celsius, etc. were not putting their money on bitcoin. They were giving it to a custodian who thought they could beat bitcoin by investing in altcoins (or lending to those who do so). This is definitely not "everyone's strategy"; plenty of us bitcoiners have been warning against this sort of irresponsible activity for a long time.

tomjakubowski 4y ago
What's irresponsible about that compared to just parking it in BTC?
- barnbuilder 4y ago
  Once someone sends their bitcoin or "crypto" to a lending platform, they no longer own this asset. What they now have is an IOU for that asset that the platform may be unwilling or unable to fulfill in the future, as appears to be the case with Voyager and numerous others before it.
  - Skunkleton 4y ago
    Yes, but setting aside direct ownership which is not a prerequisite for investing in any coin, how is bitcoin a better choice? It seems to me that is like saying, well you really should have invested in Exxon and you would be ok now.
    - sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
      Crypto is one of the biggest active victim-blaming communities. "Not your wallet not your coin", or whatever they like saying, is just is just deflection from valid criticism that crypto is very easy to exploit without recourse.
      - prohobo 4y ago
        I disagree. To me it's like saying passwords are broken because most people choose "password123". Or like saying dollar bills are bad because they can rip. Safety rails should be made of course, but if you aren't even maintaining basic hygiene within a system then I'm sorry but that's on you. People are learning to use better passwords, and people learned long ago to keep their paper money in a wallet. The same will happen with crypto.
        sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
        How much do you think is the fair value of 1 bitcoin?
        prohobo 4y ago
        I have no idea. Certainly more than the cost of a pizza. There are 21 million, and if split evenly among the world population each person would get ~0.002625. It depends on a lot of factors; like how important it might become for people to avoid using fiat or government controlled digital currencies, or how deeply integrated it could become in daily life.
        sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
        Splitting it evenly among the world population seems completely irrelevant for this conversation.
        henriquez 4y ago
        Check coinmarketcap - you don’t have to speculate about the market value because they list it.
    - prohobo 4y ago
      My guess: from a speculative standpoint Bitcoin is finite and the only real competitor to fiat. There's also a large amount of sustained hype. It's unlikely to flatline unless something really major happens. Blockchains like Ethereum are not (and aren't meant to be) alternatives to fiat. In fact, the best thing for ETH would be low price, since it's mostly used as gas. Altcoins are almost entirely vaporware until ETH tech matures and consumer services become feasible. Until then, any high valuation of either ETH or Altcoin is 100% Tulip Mania. I have no idea about any blockchains outside of Bitcoin or Ethereum.
    - hackingforfun 4y ago
      Direct ownership is the point though. Bitcoin allows direct ownership. Also, being the biggest, it can be considered the safest crypto.
      - lottin 4y ago
        Bitcoin has no concept of ownership. "Not your keys, not your coins" means exactly that. If you lose your car keys, you still own your car. This is not true of bitcoin.
        hackingforfun 4y ago
        No concept of ownership is a stretch. If you have the keys to a Bitcoin wallet, you own that Bitcoin wallet. If you lost physical cash or gold, it would be like losing your keys to a Bitcoin wallet. No one would replace your physical cash, gold, or Bitcoin, if you lost it. However, that doesn't mean that you don't own that physical cash, gold, or Bitcoin, at least while you have it in your possession.
        lottin 4y ago
        Well, when it comes to bitcoins, you only own them as long as you have them in your possession—which means you don't own them, you only possess them. This is what I mean by no concept of ownership. The bitcoin network doesn't care who is the rightful owner of the bitcoins, it only cares about who has access to them.
- floydnoel 4y ago
  BTC isn’t a security. “Crypto” securities are much riskier than sticking with the one cryptocurrency worthy of being called a commodity- according to Gary Gensler (SEC chair, former CFTC chair). Securities are dividend or interest bearing assets. Commodities do not give interest or dividends, it’s like holding gold or some other rock. BTC is volatile enough! “Stable” coins and other “guaranteed return but not regulated” instruments have a long history of collapsing, even before “crypto” was sprinkled on top.
xur17 4y ago
Exactly. And if you had half an ounce of sense, you would have withdrawn your deposits from these platforms when UST and then Celsius collapsed.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > withdrawn your deposits from these platforms when UST and then Celsius collapsed Which ironically, is why more of them keep (and will keep) falling. It'll be a cascade of withdrawals across the ecosystem, and all these weak platforms will rightly go under. Looking forward to it.
arlcode 4y ago
I wonder, Where there any crypto investment Funds that invested in actual companies (aka not coins or derivates)?

Spartan112 4y ago

dragontamer 4y ago

I wish it were that simple. These folks bought GBTC, traded GBTC and staked it with others, exchanged it for USDC staked that and then used the money to buy more BTC. No one offers 3% to 20% APY just holding BTC. They are trading that coin to everyone else in a shadow banking / speculation scheme and hoping for the best.

puranjay 4y ago

to be fair, all of this CeFi crap is against the core ethos of crypto. No serious crypto person will tell you to use CeFi. "Not your keys, not your coins" is the first rule of crypto.

yunohn 4y ago
> No serious crypto person will tell you to use CeFi. Nobody used the term CeFi before this crash. It’s just a No True Scotsman excuse for crypto scamming.
- puranjay 4y ago
  I don't understand what's the scam in this. You buy BTC because you either seek to profit from it, or you believe in the core philosophy behind it. Both of these are your own decisions. A scam would be you buying a phone from Amazon and getting a brick. BTC is exactly what it describes, nothing more, nothing less. If you got greedy enough to dump your BTC onto a centralized service for 3% yield, that's on you. As is the decision to buy BTC.
  - yunohn 4y ago
    > BTC is exactly what it describes, nothing more, nothing less. And that is what exactly - A store of value, a 10^n investment, a medium of exchange, a ledger, etc?
    - puranjay 4y ago
      That’s for you to decide. Its properties aren’t hidden. You get the rules handed to you upfront and the rules are always adhered to - BTC inflation will always be what the whitepaper describes. Think of it like poker. People lose money playing poker too. Is poker a scam? Nope. You might call it unethical or gambling, but unless a player is cheating, its not a scam. And any participant willingly agreed to the rules before playing. Same with BTC. If you bought BTC, you willingly agreed to the rules. If you didn’t “win”, that’s on you, not the “game” itself.

rglover 4y ago

Bitcoin is the only thing that will remain from the embers of this meltdown. This was the inevitable collapse of the shitcoin casinoconomy.

asdff 4y ago

Even better strategy imo is considering market caps alone. Dump money into the top x coins by market cap and the intertia will carry you. Whenever crypto dumps people say its the end, but get real. This is more speculative than the lottery for a lot of people. It will always have its lemmings and grifters pumping it back up after a dump. Just ride the tide. Buy low, wait, sell high, wait, buy low. Don't put all your eggs in one basket but throwing an egg or two around at these things isn't going to hurt you any if you are an otherwise responsible investor. I certainly wish I threw one of my eggs at bitcoin when I first learned of it when it was <$1, I wish I didn't cash out my measly holdings when it was ~$4k; but I won't be making these mistakes again. Now I throw a couple bucks a month into these things that legitimately have a nonzero chance of exploding. Why not? Entrees are $15 these days; whats $10 a week burned on essentially lottery tickets with better odds? I hate everything about crypto and don't see a point to it, but at this point in my life I realize sometimes you have to play the game that is given even if you don't agree with the rules because you don't have any actual sway in this world.

vgb2k18 4y ago
> Just ride the tide. Buy low, wait, sell high, wait, buy low. I think you're underselling the difficulty of this problem by the adverbial just.
- asdff 4y ago
  Its easy if you only bet amounts that you won't miss. I'm not saying move your entire portfolio for crypto, I'm saying its probably wise to hedge your bets and ignore your principles sometimes.
belltaco 4y ago
> It will always have its lemmings and grifters pumping it back up after a dump. Just ride the tide. I think the shoeshine boy moment might be here with bitcoin and crypto, thanks to things like the Super Bowl ads, so that strategy you stated is much riskier than it was in the past, and potential returns lower. Pumping doesn't work well when the flow of new investors ebbs. Eventually a lot of the "investors" may need to take out money out of bitcoin into fiat to pay for necessities, especially if a recession hits. The issue is that people don't need or want to buy crypto except for speculation(other than some temporary crypto purchases for ransomware, drugs, money laundering etc.) to flip it.

tootie 4y ago

It's like they all thought that because they had magic money they could avoid not only the trappings of traditional financial markets, but all the laws of economics.