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I lost $11k in Gox, the entire sum of what my father had saved up for me after many years. Feeling the realization of what I’d done was traumatic, and in hindsi

I lost $11k in Gox, the entire sum of what my father had saved up for me after many years. Feeling the realization of what I’d done was traumatic, and in hindsight $11k was an ok price to pay for such a lesson. It takes many years to get over the self-blame, but once you do, you end up being much more shrewd. I’d like to say that it made me make better bets, but honestly I never speculated again after that. And it’s easy to imagine me having never learned that lesson and dumping >$40k of savings into TSLA shorts (or other obviously-crazy-in-hindsight plays) and getting hit harder at a time when I can least afford it. Also watched a friend along with a former coworker both get rich on bitcoin and live the easy life. Last I heard from the friend, he was still trying to find a relationship he liked, and the former coworker seems to spend all his time and energy talking about nothing but bitcoin on Twitter. I’m grateful I channeled that into family and learning ML instead. I don’t know if any of this is helpful context for you, but the overall point is that it’s entirely possible to view this as a positive event, even though it feels really crummy right now. It’s hard to predict how it will affect your decisions in the long run, and you might end up much happier than you otherwise might’ve been. Obviously there’s a measure of self-deception here, since almost everybody will try to jump through mental hoops to justify any poor decision that causes great harm to their life. But once you stop justifying it and start healing, you’ll start to realize that $14k is a rounding error in the grand scheme of life (and that we’re very fortunate to be able to feel like that about such a sum of money), and that at the very least it’s not worth kicking yourself for too long.

gosub100 3y ago
> get rich on bitcoin And what do they pay for all their rich-person-lifestyle stuff with? USD (or the fiat of whatever nation they reside in).
- seaal 3y ago
  When will I finally be able to pay for my Starbucks latte with partial Microsoft stock?
- rokkitmensch 3y ago
  Naturally! Bought with Bitcoin couriered in without having to endure onerous capital controls.
  - daveguy 3y ago
    Are capital controls as onerous as the poor liquidity and fraud minefield of crypto?
    - rokkitmensch 3y ago
      It's a tradeoff, taanstaafl etc.
- onemoresoop 3y ago
  Getting rich on bitcoin basically means speculation, buy low and dump on high.
  - 45g45g54 3y ago
    You can say the same about the entire stock market, but Bitcoin is fundamentally different. With stocks the most you can do is "technical analysis" which I am not convinced is real because its data based entirely on speculation. There is nothing to speculate with Bitcoin. Like being a data analysis for a company, you can monitor the entire network for user behavior. You can know when large entities flow funds to and from exchanges. You can monitor user behavior over time and see what is going on with the supply and understand which entities are accumulating and holding supply for long-term. This is called "On-Chain" analytics but it is really no different than data science within a company. This is only possible because of Bitcoin's ledger being open for anyone to see (IE: https://mempool.space/ https://mempool.space/ ). Companies like Blockware and Glassnode are taking this data, enriching it, and identifying which Bitcoin belongs to which entities, not just that there is "an" entity that owns it, but who.
    - nuancebydefault 3y ago
      Did you just ask an LLM to produce some random crypto slang?
      - keep_reading 3y ago
        Where's the slang? This is just normal day trading terminology
0xy 3y ago
How did you "lose $11k" given the bankruptcy process, bitcoin's rise since, and the vast majority of creditors getting greater than their initial investment back due to appreciation? Did you choose not to file a claim or sell your claim?
- sillysaurusx 3y ago
  Because it hasn’t paid out yet, I didn’t expect diddly squat, and I have a family in the meantime? If you lost an iPad and found it ten years later magically transformed into the latest model, how would you feel if someone went up and said actually you didn’t lose your iPad? Oh, not to mention that it’ll probably pay out 20% or less, and although it’s true that 20% of that is still more than the USD I put in, it was only through sheer luck that I’m getting paid in BTC instead of USD. Gox had both options and I happened to buy back in right before the market shut down.

gosub100 3y ago

> get rich on bitcoin And what do they pay for all their rich-person-lifestyle stuff with? USD (or the fiat of whatever nation they reside in).

seaal 3y ago
When will I finally be able to pay for my Starbucks latte with partial Microsoft stock?
rokkitmensch 3y ago
Naturally! Bought with Bitcoin couriered in without having to endure onerous capital controls.
- daveguy 3y ago
  Are capital controls as onerous as the poor liquidity and fraud minefield of crypto?
  - rokkitmensch 3y ago
    It's a tradeoff, taanstaafl etc.
onemoresoop 3y ago
Getting rich on bitcoin basically means speculation, buy low and dump on high.
- 45g45g54 3y ago
  You can say the same about the entire stock market, but Bitcoin is fundamentally different. With stocks the most you can do is "technical analysis" which I am not convinced is real because its data based entirely on speculation. There is nothing to speculate with Bitcoin. Like being a data analysis for a company, you can monitor the entire network for user behavior. You can know when large entities flow funds to and from exchanges. You can monitor user behavior over time and see what is going on with the supply and understand which entities are accumulating and holding supply for long-term. This is called "On-Chain" analytics but it is really no different than data science within a company. This is only possible because of Bitcoin's ledger being open for anyone to see (IE: https://mempool.space/ https://mempool.space/ ). Companies like Blockware and Glassnode are taking this data, enriching it, and identifying which Bitcoin belongs to which entities, not just that there is "an" entity that owns it, but who.
  - nuancebydefault 3y ago
    Did you just ask an LLM to produce some random crypto slang?
    - keep_reading 3y ago
      Where's the slang? This is just normal day trading terminology

0xy 3y ago

How did you "lose $11k" given the bankruptcy process, bitcoin's rise since, and the vast majority of creditors getting greater than their initial investment back due to appreciation? Did you choose not to file a claim or sell your claim?

sillysaurusx 3y ago
Because it hasn’t paid out yet, I didn’t expect diddly squat, and I have a family in the meantime? If you lost an iPad and found it ten years later magically transformed into the latest model, how would you feel if someone went up and said actually you didn’t lose your iPad? Oh, not to mention that it’ll probably pay out 20% or less, and although it’s true that 20% of that is still more than the USD I put in, it was only through sheer luck that I’m getting paid in BTC instead of USD. Gox had both options and I happened to buy back in right before the market shut down.