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After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

nytimes.com

11–20 of 143 posts

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#11
post #8

Nothing new. When you see ads in the subway to buy cryptocurrencies, and you have people buying cheaper coins because they don't realize they can buy a fraction of a bitcoin, this happens. There is no fast way to get rich if you are dumb.

We still have reality television right?

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#12
post #8

Nothing new. When you see ads in the subway to buy cryptocurrencies, and you have people buying cheaper coins because they don't realize they can buy a fraction of a bitcoin, this happens. There is no fast way to get rich if you are dumb.

Looking through the communities around these 'cheaper coins', these people are not the dumb. The dumb people are busy with either no investment (paycheck to paycheck) or inactive investments (401k in index funds), not building their vision of the future on risky alts. It might work too, mostly it's software engineers.

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#13
Where do they find these people? Is this what a lot of "ordinary" people do? Take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to invest in cryptocurrency? Are the people profiled in the article a representative sample? Or are we hearing about the worst cases only because they are so notable and out of the ordinary? Will this post ever stop asking questions??

Stories like these are full of anecdote and short on facts, it's hard for me to know what to make of them.

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#14
> Now, eight months later, the $23,000 he invested in several digital tokens is worth about $4,000, and he is clearheaded about what happened.

> “I got too caught up in the fear of missing out and trying to make a quick buck,” he said last week. “The losses have pretty much left me financially ruined.”

I think it's distasteful to criticize the decisions that lead to someone's downfall, but maybe someone will read this and take heed for the future. If losing $19,000 will genuinely leave you financially ruined, cryptocurrency is way too high risk of an asset to get involved in.

I feel bad for him and hope nobody ends up in the same spot.

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#15
post #2

22 years ago https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/business/investing-it-the...

Minidisc, anyone? I still do not really understand why this wasnt more successful (at least by the time CDs existed/were used)

Why MiniDisc wasn't more successful, or why Iomega wasn't more successful?

For Iomega, it was because of terrible quality control, leading to fiascos like the Zip drive "click of death" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death#Iomega_Zip_driv...). A storage vendor whose products develop a reputation for frequent, catastrophic data loss isn't going to stick around long.

For MiniDisc, it was because MD didn't offer a clear leap up from what you could get from compact discs, and because Sony couldn't help but be Sony and go off and develop their own system while everyone else in the industry was using a different one (DCC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Compact_Cassette).

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#17
post #2

22 years ago https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/03/business/investing-it-the...

Minidisc, anyone? I still do not really understand why this wasnt more successful (at least by the time CDs existed/were used)

Still have my minidisc somewhere, loved it. Though I think my latest was from Sharp and I could record, not from Sony.

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minidisc, anyone? I still do not really understand why this wasnt more successful (at least by the time CDs existed/were used)

Why MiniDisc wasn't more successful, or why Iomega wasn't more successful? For Iomega, it was because of terrible quality control, leading to fiascos like the Zip drive "click of death" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death#Iomega_Zip_driv... ). A storage vendor whose products develop a reputation for frequent, catastrophic data loss isn't going to stick around long. For MiniDisc, it was because MD didn't…

For the majority of people this is obviously true, but my MD was so much better than my Discman. I could record MDs and it was rock stable, while the Discman (even the later models with buffer) would jump all the time. Would have loved to own DAT, but was too expensive.

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#19
post #14

> Now, eight months later, the $23,000 he invested in several digital tokens is worth about $4,000, and he is clearheaded about what happened. > “I got too caught up in the fear of missing out and trying to make a quick buck,” he said last week. “The losses have pretty much left me financially ruined.” I think it's distasteful to criticize the decisions that lead to someone's downfall, but maybe someone will read thi…

I don't think any investor saw this as anything else than a bubble, they just wanted to enjoy the ride up. I would go all-in in a bubble if I had the confidence someone would tap on my shoulder to let me know when it's going to crash. Investing requires discipline.

Re: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

#20

Where do they find these people? Is this what a lot of "ordinary" people do? Take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to invest in cryptocurrency? Are the people profiled in the article a representative sample? Or are we hearing about the worst cases only because they are so notable and out of the ordinary? Will this post ever stop asking questions?? Stories like these are full of anecdote and short on facts, i…

I work in a software firm. Last autumn half of my team was "investing" in cryptos. People who never traded before, who didn't knew what a bid or an ask was, and who complained to me that exchange interfaces were terribly complicated. Some of them were mulling breaking their 401k (or whatever the term is) so that they could invest the money here.

In January they were saying to me "it's not a loss if you don't sell, right?" Literally 0 financial education.

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