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After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for Cryptocurrency Investors

nytimes.com

21–30 of 143 posts

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

#21
Investors? More like speculators, gamblers...

Most people buy crypto because they believe the price will rise and they will be able to sell at profit. Investing is when you buy something that generates profits or utility, for example a share of a company or a house.

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

#22

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 zip drives, also because it became cheaper and faster to burn a CD, then came usb keys.

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

#23
post #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?

You are not wrong:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/love-isla...

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

#24

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…

Spend any time on the crypto currency subreddits and you’ll find dozens of people who took out >$20k loans to buy cryptocurrency. There are people still doing it. My co-working office space was filled with people in December talking non-stop about buying crypto currency, although all the crypto currency traders are long gone now.

I don’t think people losing tens of thousands are the norm but absolutely there is a never ending list of people who’ve lost most of what they put in, whether that was hundreds or low thousands.

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

#25
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…

At least it was 23k not 100k

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

#26
post #2

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

Just going to say that I loved my Zip drive!

True! Before USB drives they were great at the job.

And my unit wasn't affected by the click of death apparently.

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

#28
post #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, ri…

What's the problem here? That software devs were investing in a potential future? That they were getting wrapped up in hype? I bet these new investors learned quite a bit about markets and will be a little more knowledgeful when it comes to negotiating equity.

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

#29
post #5

Corrected title: After the Bitcoin Boom: Hard Lessons for n00b crypto Investors

That doesn't even make sense. Anyone that is attempting to invest in crypto is a noob, even the ones that claim to be 'experts'. Nobody had any type of signaling to predict a price deflation for any of the crypto assets. The hard lesson is about timing, not about expertise.

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

#30
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…

At least it was 23k not 100k

Unfortunately, from later in the article:

> Kim Hyon-jeong, a 45-year-old teacher and mother of one who lives on the outskirts of Seoul, said she put about 100 million won, or $90,000, into cryptocurrencies last fall. She drew on savings, an insurance policy and a $25,000 loan. Her investments are now down about 90 percent.

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