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Absolutely nobody paying even a drop of honest attention was surprised by any part of the crypto drawdown

roflc0ptic 4y ago
This is silly hyperbole. I was paying honest attention to crypto and I was continually surprised that it didn’t crash. Eventually I gave up and stopped guessing it was going to crash. Then it did :shrug:
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Bitcoin has dropped about the same amount as Netflix, Meta and Tesla (~70-74%) It has significantly outperformed VC darlings like Peloton (-93%) and WeWork (-90%). You can't tell me that WeWork stock wasn't working on the greater fool theory any more than Bitcoin's price works on finding more bagholders. It's all a grift, some worse than others.
  - ycombobreaker 4y ago
    Peloton in particular was a beneficiary of the pandemic and lockdowns. With no ill will, I'm content to see their stock price drop if it is correlated with an improvement in the general state of the world. It's absolutely not informative to compare their returns to various crypto.
    - dilyevsky 4y ago
      Peloton got massively mismanaged by its ceo.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    WeWork wasn’t public, and SoftBank in particular seems more than willing to be the greater fool on bets we all know are terrible.
  - yunohn 4y ago
    Equity/market are down generally, and some VC companies are frauds. That doesn’t change the fact that crypto is zero/negative sum.
- ssharp 4y ago
  Obviously hindsight, but the combination of 0% interest rates and the rise of retail investing post-March 2020 was fuel that had to run out eventually. Predicting tops/bottoms is a fools errand, however. If you thought Bitcoin was overpriced at $15,000 and see it rise to almost $70,000, only to see if fall, but not past the point where you initially thought it was overpriced -- well, hopefully you at least didn't bet on it being overpriced at $15k. I remember thinking how crazy Tesla's price seemed to me in June/July 2020. It then proceeded to go up more than 4x that price over the next 1.5 years before falling, but TSLA is still trading ~30% higher than those June/July 2020 prices.
UncleMeat 4y ago
I don't agree. People were aware of all of the same problems in early 2021. Is it a surprise that the momentum behind the ecosystem eventually fled once people couldn't sell to the next bagholder as easily? No. Is it a surprise that it happened in 2022? Yes. Nothing about the industry fundamentally changed between 2020/2021 (massive explosion of interest) and 2022 (collapse). In Dec 2021 there wasn't a particularly good reason to predict that the industry would collapse in 2022 instead of any other year.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Absolutely everyone was surprised by the pace of the tech meltdown. It's not everyday that "blue chip" companies like Netflix and Meta and Tesla drop 60-70% within months. Meta crashed 73%. Tesla crashed 70%. Netflix crashed 72%. Everyone knew it was always going to come down, but if I were to tell you in September 2021 that Meta was going to trade 70% down within a year, you wouldn't have believed me
- ycombobreaker 4y ago
  > if I were to tell you in September 2021 that Meta was going to trade 70% down within a year, you wouldn't have believed me I would have probably asked "who is Meta?" at which point you explain you are a time traveler, and Facebook was to change their name in the next few months, too. After my initial laughter, I suppose I'd believe your whole story, because you can't make this stuff up. Next thing you'll tell me, Zuckerberg has legally changed his name to "The Cooler Mark".
- hvs 4y ago
  Sure I would. I've been through a couple of recessions now.
- robswc 4y ago
  You know, I really like this comment because its pretty true. I think a lot of people will say they say the signs... and I initially wanted to say that too. It happened so "slow" though and its crazy to think about how "good" it was pre-covid. I mean, things generally were going up and IMO, life felt more "stable" so a tech crash 2-3 years out just wouldn't be on the radar. I have always said (w/comments to back it up) the $600 checks were going to cause huge issues sooner than later. I don't think its that prophetic or controversial (its basic econ) but at the time it seemed if you even suggested the idea that printing so much money was a bad idea you were seen as "hating poor people" or some other flavor of "against the common man." Still. I can't say I would have believed you. Otherwise, I would have shorted the whole tech sector.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago

This is silly hyperbole. I was paying honest attention to crypto and I was continually surprised that it didn’t crash. Eventually I gave up and stopped guessing it was going to crash. Then it did :shrug:

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Bitcoin has dropped about the same amount as Netflix, Meta and Tesla (~70-74%) It has significantly outperformed VC darlings like Peloton (-93%) and WeWork (-90%). You can't tell me that WeWork stock wasn't working on the greater fool theory any more than Bitcoin's price works on finding more bagholders. It's all a grift, some worse than others.
- ycombobreaker 4y ago
  Peloton in particular was a beneficiary of the pandemic and lockdowns. With no ill will, I'm content to see their stock price drop if it is correlated with an improvement in the general state of the world. It's absolutely not informative to compare their returns to various crypto.
  - dilyevsky 4y ago
    Peloton got massively mismanaged by its ceo.
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  WeWork wasn’t public, and SoftBank in particular seems more than willing to be the greater fool on bets we all know are terrible.
- yunohn 4y ago
  Equity/market are down generally, and some VC companies are frauds. That doesn’t change the fact that crypto is zero/negative sum.
ssharp 4y ago
Obviously hindsight, but the combination of 0% interest rates and the rise of retail investing post-March 2020 was fuel that had to run out eventually. Predicting tops/bottoms is a fools errand, however. If you thought Bitcoin was overpriced at $15,000 and see it rise to almost $70,000, only to see if fall, but not past the point where you initially thought it was overpriced -- well, hopefully you at least didn't bet on it being overpriced at $15k. I remember thinking how crazy Tesla's price seemed to me in June/July 2020. It then proceeded to go up more than 4x that price over the next 1.5 years before falling, but TSLA is still trading ~30% higher than those June/July 2020 prices.

UncleMeat 4y ago

I don't agree. People were aware of all of the same problems in early 2021. Is it a surprise that the momentum behind the ecosystem eventually fled once people couldn't sell to the next bagholder as easily? No. Is it a surprise that it happened in 2022? Yes. Nothing about the industry fundamentally changed between 2020/2021 (massive explosion of interest) and 2022 (collapse). In Dec 2021 there wasn't a particularly good reason to predict that the industry would collapse in 2022 instead of any other year.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Absolutely everyone was surprised by the pace of the tech meltdown. It's not everyday that "blue chip" companies like Netflix and Meta and Tesla drop 60-70% within months. Meta crashed 73%. Tesla crashed 70%. Netflix crashed 72%. Everyone knew it was always going to come down, but if I were to tell you in September 2021 that Meta was going to trade 70% down within a year, you wouldn't have believed me

ycombobreaker 4y ago
> if I were to tell you in September 2021 that Meta was going to trade 70% down within a year, you wouldn't have believed me I would have probably asked "who is Meta?" at which point you explain you are a time traveler, and Facebook was to change their name in the next few months, too. After my initial laughter, I suppose I'd believe your whole story, because you can't make this stuff up. Next thing you'll tell me, Zuckerberg has legally changed his name to "The Cooler Mark".
hvs 4y ago
Sure I would. I've been through a couple of recessions now.
robswc 4y ago
You know, I really like this comment because its pretty true. I think a lot of people will say they say the signs... and I initially wanted to say that too. It happened so "slow" though and its crazy to think about how "good" it was pre-covid. I mean, things generally were going up and IMO, life felt more "stable" so a tech crash 2-3 years out just wouldn't be on the radar. I have always said (w/comments to back it up) the $600 checks were going to cause huge issues sooner than later. I don't think its that prophetic or controversial (its basic econ) but at the time it seemed if you even suggested the idea that printing so much money was a bad idea you were seen as "hating poor people" or some other flavor of "against the common man." Still. I can't say I would have believed you. Otherwise, I would have shorted the whole tech sector.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago