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Comment by oblib | Hacker News Reader

For a tech touted to be a complete and indisputable record of financial transactions it sure seems like a lot of cash has disappeared within it.

I don't claim to know anything about blockchain tech but I have been exposed to the hype around it and the mystery for me is why anyone wouldn't have cashed out long ago.

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The transactions are recorded on the blockchain. However, like USD money laundering, there are techniques for concealing the overall cash flow in order to make forensic analysis difficult. Also, once coins have been deposited on an exchange, there's no way to know (without the exchange's assistance) what account on the exchange those coins were assigned to, and whether or not that account sold the coins and cashed out.

Bitcoin is not an exchange. That's like saying the economy is screwed up because a company went bankrupt.

Remember folks, Bitcoin can never fail. It can only be failed!

I just “cashed out” the joke £50 i “invested” in Btc a couple of years ago. They are now worth £18.

I expect the real sharks have cashed out a long time ago.

If you held it for a "couple" years then you should still be ahead, definitely not a >60% loss:

https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/krakenUSD#rg730ztgSza1gSMAz...

Maybe dog years, or some unusual form of £ that has appreciated a lot relative to popular currencies (conventional and crypto) in the meantime? Or 60£ in an active investment between cryptos, occasionally taking on a little loss+fees?

I was originally planning to end this post with "or just making up some numbers", but since GP was writing of a joke investment, active gambling seems to be a reasonable assumption. And putting in 50£ in a toy account (and never extending it with fresh money), leaving with 18 after years, that also doesn't seem like an unreasonable thing to do. That's lower stakes than meeting for an amicable 2£ per player poker night once a month. If the stated goal of a joke investment is a dividend in entertainment, then passive is a terrible investment strategy.

I suppose the ironic thing is a passive investment should be worth triple what it was 2 years ago. The bubble was quick, and I suspect “a joke investment a couple years ago” is a way to rationalize the loss from FOMOing in at the top about 15 months ago.

I honestly can’t remember the exact time (at my age, one year more or less makes little difference) - it was when Revolut added support for crypto currencies. I exchanged £50 to btc to see whether it actually worked and if it made any sense. Not touched it since. I cashed out last week after it came out that Revolut is a scumbag company exploiting their workers.

I cashed out around $1000 USD for about $6000 3 months ago... crypto's just chilling recently, we'll see if there's another price kickoff.

hype is usually not the greatest source of accurate information.

I agree. I didn't seek it though, I was barraged with it.

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