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So it was dumb of me to buy my bitcoins back when they were less than $100 a coin just in the slim chance that it completely blew up? I don't see what was dumb

So it was dumb of me to buy my bitcoins back when they were less than $100 a coin just in the slim chance that it completely blew up? I don't see what was dumb about a decision to put less than $1000 into 10 coins just in case. Worked out really well for me in the end and a less than $1000 gamble doesn't seem like that crazy of a gamble, at least to me.

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greekrich92 10mo ago
That wasn't dumb but thinking this a meaningful rebuttal is
seanhunter 10mo ago
You can't evaluate a decision in a stochastic process based on a single outcome, you need to look at the expectation over all outcomes.
cryptonym 10mo ago
You basically just confirmed that, from beginning, it's just gambling. Being lucky on your bet doesn't make it a wise investment. I wouldn't call you dumb. I don't know how gamblers feel about their moves.
- SirMaster 10mo ago
  And the stock market isn't gambling? I view it as such. Was this more or less risky than buying $1000 in scratch offs, or lottery tickets, or spending $1000 in Vegas? In my opinion, crypto when I bought it had a lot more "potential" than any of those more "traditional" forms of gambling which is why I was willing to give it a try with a sum of less than 1% of my yearly income... I am not saying it was a smart choice, just that I don't think it was a particularly stupid choice.
  - cryptonym 10mo ago
    Putting money in a company because you reviewed its business, the way it operates and add value to the society is more of an investment than gambling. Now things happens and I agree there is always a part of luck, called risk. BTC isn't really adding value to the society, except the shady parts of it. I can't assess the part of luck in BTC gambling. Many lost money, many betted on the wrong coin. Did you bet on it because of the impact on dark economy or because you believed in unlocking the economy, blockchain everything which didn't happen?
    - SirMaster 10mo ago
      I bet on it because in 2009 when I bought the coins for about $100 each I thought that maybe blockchain could do something unique that would cause the value to rise an appreciable amount. Or at the very least that it sounded like something that would get the tech sector excited and that alone would be enough to build enough hype around it that many more people would buy it causing the price to go up. In my mind it seemed cheap enough to try a $1000 gamble and just hold long, long term ignoring the fluctuations and either this will be worth 0 or it will maybe be worth a boatload in the far future. That was always my idea and goal from day 1. I mean I invest tens of thousands in the stock market and real-estate every year. This was just a tiny and wild gamble, but I don't think it was a dumb or foolish decision at the time given my financial position at the time and the amount involved.
FabHK 10mo ago
Suggest you put $1000 each into all the other 28m of cryptos tracked by coinmarketcap, "in the slim chance that it completely blew up".
- SirMaster 10mo ago
  I don't see how you jump form this to that. I made a singular choice once to put less than 1% of my yearly income into 1 thing that seemed to have some potential. Back then it was the only crypto. I put in knowing full well it could go to 0, but the potential of where it could possibly go seemed well worth the tiny risk to an essentially insignificant sum of money to me. There are other cryptos but they aren't the original or anywhere near the biggest, so they are not the same in my eyes. So those are actual legitimate reasons why I would not choose to perform that same risk again with a different crypto.
darrenf 10mo ago
I shoved £500 down in Sept 2017 knowing full well it was a gamble, and still have a roughtly £500 balance now -- having skimmed enough off the top over the years to buy a couple of iPhones and whatever else. I 100% consider this profit to be literal dumb luck.
- lxgr 10mo ago
  Unironic congratulations on being self-aware enough to take your profits without it affecting your reasoning. Anecdotally, not many seem to come out of crypto net positive with that mindset.
lxgr 10mo ago
Whether you made a profit, especially just once, is indeed not indicative of the quality of your decisionmaking either way.
- SirMaster 10mo ago
  You don't think a $1000 gamble on this new paradigm of blockchain crypto was a sound decision? When the sum I was putting in was otherwise an insignificant sum to me. I bought in fully knowing it could go to 0, or maybe it could be worth a ton in 10+ years. To me it seemed like the chance it would blow up was well worth the tiny risk of losing a pretty meaningless amount of money to me. I am not even otherwise a gambler. I have never gambled at a casino or on sports or anything like that. And my stock investing is all index funds. This was the only singular "crazy gamble" I had ever made and I knew full well it was crazy. But the potential in my mind around the tech and the potential hype around it seemed to greatly outweigh the tiny risk.
  - lxgr 10mo ago
    You had a positive outcome, but yes, despite that, I don't know if that was based on a sound decision. It's possible to vastly misjudge the expected value of a trade and still come out ahead. > This was the only singular "crazy gamble" I had ever made and I knew full well it was crazy. The only thing that matters is whether it's positive EV (and whether your methodology of coming up with the EV itself is sound). If you didn't have any explicit or implicit notion of the EV at the time you made it... It was probably not a sound investment decision, despite being profitable.
    - SirMaster 10mo ago
      I mean I thought that there was a potential in blockchain tech back when I bought it. I also thought that there was also potential in the hype around blockchain to explode the value simply from hype and how humans behave alone. At least WAY more of a chance than what I would get spending $1000 on a lottery ticket or at a casino.
jakelazaroff 10mo ago
"So it was dumb of me to buy my lottery tickets just in the slim chance that I won? Worked out really well for me in the end and a less than $1000 gamble doesn't seem like that crazy of a gamble, at least to me." (See also: https://xkcd.com/1827/ https://xkcd.com/1827/)
- SirMaster 10mo ago
  I don't see how that relates to me. I made a singular choice. I am going to put in $1000 one time and leave it alone because there seems to be some potential here. I made the choice basically saying OK this $1000 I am putting in will either be worthless in 10+ years or it will be worth a lot. I am not continuing to buy, I am not dumping loads of money into it. I spent less than 1% of my yearly salary one time knowing full well it could go to 0. The potential seemed well worth the tiny risk.
  - KolmogorovComp 10mo ago
    The point is that, your "investment" was pure gambling. See how I can replace bitcoin with lottery ticket. > I am going to buy $1000 in lottery tickets one time and leave it alone because there seems to be some potential here. > I made the choice basically saying OK this $1000 I am putting in will either be worthless in 10 hours or it will be worth a lot.
    - SirMaster 10mo ago
      But it's more than just a binary. Do you not think that the chance that bitcoin blew up big was more or less than my chance at winning a million on a $1000 lottery gamble? I bought bitcoin because I perceived more potential around blockchain tech becoming either useful or at least drawing hype to explode the value. I wouldn't buy a lottery ticket because the odds of winning are astronomically low. I perceived there to be a far greater chance in bitcoin blowing up than winning the lottery, or even winning big at a casino. Do you think I really over-estimated bitcoin's odds early on? At least with blockchain there were some potential real-world possibilities to it and that was a big factor in my choice to gamble on it. Is that kind of thought not at least somewhat more sound than buying a simple lottery ticket? To me it was.
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greekrich92 10mo ago

That wasn't dumb but thinking this a meaningful rebuttal is

seanhunter 10mo ago

You can't evaluate a decision in a stochastic process based on a single outcome, you need to look at the expectation over all outcomes.

cryptonym 10mo ago

You basically just confirmed that, from beginning, it's just gambling. Being lucky on your bet doesn't make it a wise investment. I wouldn't call you dumb. I don't know how gamblers feel about their moves.

SirMaster 10mo ago
And the stock market isn't gambling? I view it as such. Was this more or less risky than buying $1000 in scratch offs, or lottery tickets, or spending $1000 in Vegas? In my opinion, crypto when I bought it had a lot more "potential" than any of those more "traditional" forms of gambling which is why I was willing to give it a try with a sum of less than 1% of my yearly income... I am not saying it was a smart choice, just that I don't think it was a particularly stupid choice.
- cryptonym 10mo ago
  Putting money in a company because you reviewed its business, the way it operates and add value to the society is more of an investment than gambling. Now things happens and I agree there is always a part of luck, called risk. BTC isn't really adding value to the society, except the shady parts of it. I can't assess the part of luck in BTC gambling. Many lost money, many betted on the wrong coin. Did you bet on it because of the impact on dark economy or because you believed in unlocking the economy, blockchain everything which didn't happen?
  - SirMaster 10mo ago
    I bet on it because in 2009 when I bought the coins for about $100 each I thought that maybe blockchain could do something unique that would cause the value to rise an appreciable amount. Or at the very least that it sounded like something that would get the tech sector excited and that alone would be enough to build enough hype around it that many more people would buy it causing the price to go up. In my mind it seemed cheap enough to try a $1000 gamble and just hold long, long term ignoring the fluctuations and either this will be worth 0 or it will maybe be worth a boatload in the far future. That was always my idea and goal from day 1. I mean I invest tens of thousands in the stock market and real-estate every year. This was just a tiny and wild gamble, but I don't think it was a dumb or foolish decision at the time given my financial position at the time and the amount involved.

FabHK 10mo ago

Suggest you put $1000 each into all the other 28m of cryptos tracked by coinmarketcap, "in the slim chance that it completely blew up".

SirMaster 10mo ago
I don't see how you jump form this to that. I made a singular choice once to put less than 1% of my yearly income into 1 thing that seemed to have some potential. Back then it was the only crypto. I put in knowing full well it could go to 0, but the potential of where it could possibly go seemed well worth the tiny risk to an essentially insignificant sum of money to me. There are other cryptos but they aren't the original or anywhere near the biggest, so they are not the same in my eyes. So those are actual legitimate reasons why I would not choose to perform that same risk again with a different crypto.

darrenf 10mo ago

I shoved £500 down in Sept 2017 knowing full well it was a gamble, and still have a roughtly £500 balance now -- having skimmed enough off the top over the years to buy a couple of iPhones and whatever else. I 100% consider this profit to be literal dumb luck.

lxgr 10mo ago
Unironic congratulations on being self-aware enough to take your profits without it affecting your reasoning. Anecdotally, not many seem to come out of crypto net positive with that mindset.

lxgr 10mo ago

Whether you made a profit, especially just once, is indeed not indicative of the quality of your decisionmaking either way.

SirMaster 10mo ago
You don't think a $1000 gamble on this new paradigm of blockchain crypto was a sound decision? When the sum I was putting in was otherwise an insignificant sum to me. I bought in fully knowing it could go to 0, or maybe it could be worth a ton in 10+ years. To me it seemed like the chance it would blow up was well worth the tiny risk of losing a pretty meaningless amount of money to me. I am not even otherwise a gambler. I have never gambled at a casino or on sports or anything like that. And my stock investing is all index funds. This was the only singular "crazy gamble" I had ever made and I knew full well it was crazy. But the potential in my mind around the tech and the potential hype around it seemed to greatly outweigh the tiny risk.
- lxgr 10mo ago
  You had a positive outcome, but yes, despite that, I don't know if that was based on a sound decision. It's possible to vastly misjudge the expected value of a trade and still come out ahead. > This was the only singular "crazy gamble" I had ever made and I knew full well it was crazy. The only thing that matters is whether it's positive EV (and whether your methodology of coming up with the EV itself is sound). If you didn't have any explicit or implicit notion of the EV at the time you made it... It was probably not a sound investment decision, despite being profitable.
  - SirMaster 10mo ago
    I mean I thought that there was a potential in blockchain tech back when I bought it. I also thought that there was also potential in the hype around blockchain to explode the value simply from hype and how humans behave alone. At least WAY more of a chance than what I would get spending $1000 on a lottery ticket or at a casino.

jakelazaroff 10mo ago

"So it was dumb of me to buy my lottery tickets just in the slim chance that I won? Worked out really well for me in the end and a less than $1000 gamble doesn't seem like that crazy of a gamble, at least to me." (See also: https://xkcd.com/1827/ https://xkcd.com/1827/)

SirMaster 10mo ago
I don't see how that relates to me. I made a singular choice. I am going to put in $1000 one time and leave it alone because there seems to be some potential here. I made the choice basically saying OK this $1000 I am putting in will either be worthless in 10+ years or it will be worth a lot. I am not continuing to buy, I am not dumping loads of money into it. I spent less than 1% of my yearly salary one time knowing full well it could go to 0. The potential seemed well worth the tiny risk.
- KolmogorovComp 10mo ago
  The point is that, your "investment" was pure gambling. See how I can replace bitcoin with lottery ticket. > I am going to buy $1000 in lottery tickets one time and leave it alone because there seems to be some potential here. > I made the choice basically saying OK this $1000 I am putting in will either be worthless in 10 hours or it will be worth a lot.
  - SirMaster 10mo ago
    But it's more than just a binary. Do you not think that the chance that bitcoin blew up big was more or less than my chance at winning a million on a $1000 lottery gamble? I bought bitcoin because I perceived more potential around blockchain tech becoming either useful or at least drawing hype to explode the value. I wouldn't buy a lottery ticket because the odds of winning are astronomically low. I perceived there to be a far greater chance in bitcoin blowing up than winning the lottery, or even winning big at a casino. Do you think I really over-estimated bitcoin's odds early on? At least with blockchain there were some potential real-world possibilities to it and that was a big factor in my choice to gamble on it. Is that kind of thought not at least somewhat more sound than buying a simple lottery ticket? To me it was.

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