this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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[–] blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social 76 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When you're already a millionaire but didn't want to cash out because turns out you just liked riding the gambling high rather than treat it as a job.

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Eh if you really believe in crypto it makes no sense to cash out, but every peak has shown that attitude of "this is when crypto will really go mainstream" was wrong.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, it would be smart to cash part of it out and diversity your portfolio in case something happens.

[–] MeatsOfRage@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago

Exactly. I hate this message that you should ride Bitcoin to the bottom because some day it'll be worth a million. Cash is a position. When it's low (and it always goes low) you can buy back in again. You effectively have more Bitcoin for the same invested cash.

[–] socsa@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago

The value of the work done in the Blockchain must be tied to the value of the applications it supports. This was always the premise from day one. Originally, that application was supposed to be payment processing. A perfectly legitimate application, but one which comes with an interesting problem - it requires an external source of value. The value of a payment processing application can't be more than the value of the assets it can process. Also the Blockchain turned out to be pretty shit at it.

The speculative value of Bitcoin was always a paradox, and pretty obvious IMO. But cryptocurrency as collateral value for stake/work done in a distributed applications is legitimate, and some variant of it will eventually find some valuable application IMO. But those tokens will need to have stronger anti-speculation mechanisms built in.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

Any effective investment strategy includes regular withdrawals, and you should never be over specified into one risk area

[–] blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Eh if you really believe in crypto it makes no sense

Yeah, which is why it's a Ponzi scheme banking on poor people's gambling addictions lol. Plenty of others have been duped into this shit since antiquity. MLM selling bored housewives Tupperware in the 1950s as if it was going to make them rich too. Stock is even more out of your hands unless you're already multi-millionaire rich.

The stock market, crypto, all of it when treated as short term get rich schemes is no different than literal gambling.

https://www.gatewayfoundation.org/addiction-blog/day-trading-gambling/

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/30/warren-buffett-rips-wall-street-for-turning-the-stock-market-into-a-gambling-parlor.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrencelight/2023/04/23/is-stock-investing-the-same-as-gambling/?sh=209dbb624ac9

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/10/investing-or-gambling.asp

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even if you think it's a terrible idea, that's really not what Ponzi scheme means...

[–] blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Look, hit me with the pedantic semantic hammer as much as you want. I've linked plenty of proof above likening it to both definitions lol.

It's a legal pyramid scheme, ponzi scheme, whatever, when people at the bottom who put in can go literally bankrupt, while the people at the top reap 95% or more of the benefit while being COMPLETELY INSULATED from loss due to bailouts, other rich folk insuring losses, and 'bankruptcy' for corporations while C Suite execs still walk away with millions as long as it was a 'good Faith's' investment.

Tried to fuck the rich out of their money though? They shut down trade sites, send you to jail for insider trading, meanwhile all they have to do is time their sellout on stocks a whopping 3-6 months in advance before they liquidate their company to get a max payout. All while they buy our politicians who have the LEGAL ability to inside trade...

That is a scheme where people at the bottom get fleeced for their money. Millions getting fucked by it with so many getting squalid benefits for essentially investing 1/4 their income for literally half their lives, only for the rich at the top to still make out with bank.

It's a pyramid scheme. You can narrowly define what counts as a ponzi scheme as much as you want to try to avoid it, but it's the truth.

It's a legal ponzi scheme. As I've linked to with a multitude of sources making these direct comparisons with plenty of proof beyond concept.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/ponzi-vs-pyramid.asp

[–] funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I too am also a millionaire in money I can't and won't spend

[–] Astroturfed@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

They'll come back and buy more paddy's bucks, keeping it moving!

[–] FrullaPapaya@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago

The sentence "It was the future" Is really something

[–] Dups@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago

Dude this shit is too real.

[–] Default_Defect@midwest.social 15 points 1 year ago

There's 3 kinds of people in crypto-

1 the grifter

2 the grifted

3 the about to be grifted

[–] const_void@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

There was a guy on 90 Day Fiance that was literally crying because he invested his life savings in crypto.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Acters@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aside from the few reliable ones(still volatile), there is new crypto spawning after the old one dies.

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Until it matures and decouples from the stock market, it will remain volatile.

I always liked the concept of the feeless, like Nano.

[–] colin@lemmy.uninsane.org -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

i won’t stop anyone from shitting on crypto, but i do hope the “haha anon lost all his shitty crypto ‘’’investment’’’” memes are understood to be memes above all else.

Bitcoin’s sitting at $25000. that’s up a bit from before the pandemic, 3x the March 2020 low (when everything crashed), and half its all time high. same story with the second most used cryptocurrency. sure, that’s bumpy, but nobody literally goes from millionaire to McDonalds for parking their $ in the things you or i are likely to have heard of before. it’s the person who hears some random crypto name on Twitter (or from Elen Musk) and YOLOs in on some thing which didn’t exist a year ago specifically because they’re trying to catch a hype wave.

idk maybe everyone knows that. i just get annoyed every time a “crypto crash” story breaks the mainstream news and i check the price and it’s like “none of the names i actually recognize here are doing worse than the last time you ran an article about them”.

[–] Astroturfed@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] colin@lemmy.uninsane.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

i'm not pitching. if you need to launder money or evade sanctions, then use Bitcoin (with all the caveats). if not, then don't.

the amount of (well-deserved) hate against cryptocurrency interacts with Poe's law in a way that makes it difficult for someone who's not actively involved in that area (me) to track reality. like, i see this meme and think, "oh, is it finally, actually dead?" and then check and it's not. but other people don't check, and then every family reunion i have to deal with a dozen relatives asking "is (colin's misguided libertarian friend) ok? i heard crypto crashed." he's not ok -- he's a misguided libertarian -- but the premise of the questions are just false, and it's not hard to trace where they formed the beliefs that would have them ask it.

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Keep preaching.

I remember the days when everyone was excited over the price hitting $10K. Now here we are sitting at $25K, yet people are calling BTC a "Ponzi Scheme". Give me a fucking break.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

Whelp, you're not wrong, but you're not right either. There are more crypto currencies that have crashed and burned than those that haven't. NFTs are the short game of most of the grifters in crypto... Build hype towards a release, or "drop", prices go high after the IPO, then sink to nothing. Again, and again. It's entirely a confidence game for any new crypto at this point, and confidence drops off very quickly.

Aside from a handful or two of "currencies", the story is the same, over and over again.

Bitcoin is the best case scenario, and even that's unstable at best and downright chaos at worst; bluntly, the only reason IMO, why Bitcoin (and limited others) haven't gone under is because of the long term holders of the currency. There's large amounts of those cryptos that are being held, possibly forever, and sometimes, entirely lost on thrown out hard drives in landfills. The blind confidence that long term holders of crypto have, is keeping that hype train rolling. As long as nobody cashes out, nobody's as millionaire and it's just a matter of time.

Crypto was a good idea that attracted way too many grifters and confidence game conmen.