Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

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It's insidious.

There are routinely four or five posts on the front page about cryptos and they usually lack substance. It seems like an entire industry with a lack of morals, ignorant about law and too often tech, but with the smug self-assuredness that they are on the verge of changing everything as only 20 somethings and extremists possess.

It doesn't really bother me that people are dumb, but it's not cool when you see this constant shilling you speak of, looking to pull in another taker who doesn't understand the tech or the financial implications of what they are doing.

I made and lost more money in a weekend than I'd ever made in a year speculating on cryptos, and this was 3 years ago, can't imagine the community or the possible winnings now. After my initial investment had been lost, I felt that very real pull of putting in just a little more from this paycheck because you know tomorrow you can win everything back. I've never gambled but I was certain that's the pull gamblers feel and I knew at least for me there was no difference. It's funny to watch friends repeat the cycle with Ethereum and ICOs. "Hey, ether is up, just made a profit :)". Of course that was a month ago at the peak, wonder how their investment is doing now?

It's an industry full of bozos and con-artists. Something good might come out of it, but I'm not investing a dollar more into that when I know that same dollar is probably going to fuck somebody else over. Besides, what good is building a fortune out of something you didn't really earn? Cool, you won the lottery, anybody can do that.

I know exactly about the pull you are describing. I also invested a small amount (around £1500). When I lost about 1/3 of my initial investment, I felt a really strong urge to deposit more cash and try some risky trade to make my losses back.

I guess this is the feeling gamblers have. I managed to use my will power and cash out my remaining investment and just stay away from this as I understand now how it can become addictive just like gambling in casino.

I know people who didn't resist and threw in their whole life savings into crypto. And they have lost massive amounts of money. I'm sure there are some "lottery winners" that have become millionaires based on early investment in crypto but they are very small minority. Most people end up losing money.

When did you invest, and why did you feel you needed to sell it off so fast? I bought some bitcoin when I thought it had reached the bottom at $800 a couple years ago, but I was wrong and it kept sliding all the way down to $250 a coin (and stayed that way for a year and a half, that was rough to see the price every day, I eventually stopped watching it for about six months), but I held on to it, and the current price is ~$2500.

Like take the stock market downturn that happened in 2008. People who sold lost their shirts, but people who held onto it for a few years saw the market completely rebound and reach even more all time highs.

I'm not saying it's always smart to have this behavior, and there was a period where it looked like Bitcoin might not ever recover in price, but if you only invest what you can afford to lose (and I have, I could lose everything I invested and I'd be sad but not destitute), then you should be able to weather these storms.

I invested when BTC was around 1100-1200, don't remember exactly. It then fell bellow 1000 to low 900s (quite quickly) and I panic sold. It was sometimes last year before it went to rise to almost 3000.

I guess I am not a type of person who can take the stress of investing in something so volatile. I am trying to live a fiscally responsible and frugal life and this was probably the riskiest investment I have ever made.

I only invested a small amount. I could have easily lost all of it and it would make almost no difference to me. But I'm trying to save money to buy a property now so I will stay away from any kind of investments until I buy a house/apartment.

I'm glad to hear you only invested a small amount. Hopefully you can just take it as a life lesson and not be filled too much with regret. I've certainly made mistakes that have cost me money in the past. A few examples: dropping out of school (and later returning years later once tuition had tripled), missteps in my career, a period of unemployment exacerbating my credit card debt, etc.

It is probably best to wait until you've bought the property. That property is an investment as well. I don't mean in the "buy a house and sell it later for big bucks" variety, it's an investment for more comfort in your life and future. I'm about ready to start saving up for a house as well, and it's going to be hard to stop throwing in $100 here, $100 there towards crypto and only put it towards a downpayment, but I need to start doing that.

Also stop buying video and board games for awhile. I'll have to only play the stuff I already have and never got around to playing for awhile. It's going to be hell :)

Yes, for me it was only a 1 week salary I invested and only lost 1 third of it so when it was all over I lost maybe 2 days wage.

So I felt sad for a while but I have forgotten about it relatively soon. And it was a good lesson to learn.

I am planning to probably buy a property either end of this year or early next year so I am nearly there. My saving discipline will soon pay off!

Yes I think if you stop throwing $100 here and there at crypto, over 2-3 years that will translate into a nice lump sum of cash. Can be a basis for a deposit to buy a house.

With games, I'd suggest buying games which you'll be able to play for a long time so you minimize these costs. For example, I bought Starcraft 2 for £35 and you can play that game for years.

It was a deal including all 3 single player campaigns which are fun and then there is a massive multiplayer world where you can incrementally improve and challenge yourself playing tougher and tougher opponents.

You just reminded me that 2 years ago I bought Heart of the Swarm and I have yet to install it or play it. I should do that. I didn't even realize the third one came out already either. Thanks for that.

Also congrats on having the savings discipline to save up for the house!

I just finished Wings of Liberty campaign recently, might try some multiplayer games first to see if I can play with real people without losing horribly.

I might play Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void later. There is also 4th campaign called Nova Covert Ops. But the pack I bought only contained WoL, HofS and LofV so I will probably skip that one.

You get in early enough, and you'll pretty much be always be up on your investment. I got in on Ethereum the day the announcement popped up on Hacker News that it was added to Coinbase, and the price per coin was $11 then. Even after it's massive 50% crash from it's peak, it's sitting at $200 a coin right now. That's still up almost 20x.

That being said, I didn't have a ton of money to invest at the time, so I'm not rich or anything, and I tend to be a long term holder, but I highly doubt it's ever going to get all the way back down to $11 a coin.

I could have bought Bitcoin when it was $4 a coin, as I was paying attention to it back then, although the infrastructure for it wasn't in place and it was really difficult to buy, so I gave up on it. If I had, I would have made 625x whatever I put into it by now. And Bitcoin is not likely to ever get back down to $4 a coin. There will be buyers for sure if it ever gets that cheap (or the landscape will have changed so obviously that I probably would have sold a long time ago).

>You get in early enough, and you'll pretty much be always be up on your investment

These sorts of statements explain a lot. You hear the same thing in every bull market, as investors conflate luck or the point in the cycle with investment acumen.

I'm not making any judgement on the usefulness or future of the blockchain et al, but this ico craze has a lot of similarities with the penny stock market, where many investors are simply relying on the greater fool to make them rich. Ultimately someone is always left holding the bag, and it is very often one without value.

The issuers and promoters always make out well. Many of the activities in the current ico market would be quite illegal if they were done in regulated markets.

Well I'm still buying a small amount of bitcoin every week, and ethereum every two weeks. I have an automatic purchase set up, and I've been doing that for over a year now. If the market does good or bad, it doesn't matter, I'm still investing the same amount. It just means I get a little more or less fractions of a coin that week.

I'm using the concept of dollar cost averaging and holding long term to help minimize the risk I'm taking, but I am certainly taking a risk. I did make a larger purchase early on with Ethereum but I'm still buying now.

My point is, if you bought two months ago when it was near its peak, and panic sold two weeks ago during the middle of the crypto downturn, you might be looking at things a bit too short term. I made a larger investment during a downturn two years ago and watched my investment go down to 25% of what I paid, and stay there for over a year, but now two years later it's up 300%.

You need to be patient and only invest what you can afford to lose, just like any other investment.

That being said, I don't disagree with you in regards to ICOs or the speculation on some altcoins feeling like the penny stock market. It absolutely does, and I mostly stay out of that (I have put small investments into some 'penny altcoins'). But I mostly stick to the big three (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin).

If a flaw is ever found in bitcoin that renders it useless, it'll drop to 0. Don't hold all your eggs in one basket!

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