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The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

thehustle.co

111–120 of 141 posts

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#111

I’m not a crypto evangelist or anything, but what about alternatives like Pokémon cards which seem to have increased in value over the same period. There’s currently a pump and dump on retro video games but I don’t think the same supply issues exist in Pokémon cards, but I’m not actively monitoring either market.

"There’s currently a pump and dump on retro video games but I don’t think the same supply issues exist in Pokémon cards, but I’m not actively monitoring either market."

Can you clarify what the pump and dump on retro video games looks like? To me, there seems to be real demand for retro video games. You can see the interest in various subreddits.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but SFH aren't the only housing type appreciating. This theory doesn't really hold when you consider both Condos, inner city locales, rural locales etc have also experienced rapid price appreciation. Rental or not doesn't really matter. Fundamentally people just need a place to live, and depending on locale will make the tradeoff between renting and buying. If rental stock doubles overnight, housing prices woul…

>Yeah, but SFH aren't the only housing type appreciating. This theory doesn't really hold when you consider both Condos, inner city locales, rural locales etc have also experienced rapid price appreciation. What theory? That people who are priced out of SFH buy condos, townhomes and other type of housing? What do they do, keep renting and enjoy 30% yoy rent bumps instead?

No, I think we are in agreement. I may have misread your post.

People priced out of one housing type will bleed into others.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#113
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So many people have learned nothing. The more I talk to crypto/NFT people, the more I’ve realized that they’re looking at the same historical events but walking away with completely different take-aways. For example, they wouldn’t look at the Beanie Baby bubble and think of the people who invested a lot of money and had nothing to show for it after the crash. They’d look at the price charts of Beanie Babies and pat…

> Just sell before the line goes down and they’re going to be rich! This is generally known as the greater fool theory.

In many respects they are right. Frequently there _are_ greater fools. Eventually someone is left holding the can. The Art world works because there are a few extremely wealthy people who are content to be the 'fool' at the end of the chain. In those cases sentimental attachment or simply being a patron of the arts is enough for them. If everyone expects to make a gain, it's a house of cards.

Cryptocurrencies are a bit different. While there is the same line-goes-up, line-goes-down hunt for greater fools going on, beneath that are people gauging the actual worth. Bitcoin and ETH are vastly overvalued base upon current utility, but if they came to replace money/gold/other they could be worth many times their current value. Investors buying and selling on that basis are not looking for greater fools but are attempting to be more right about the future than average.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#114

This leads to a pretty interesting comparison between plain cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Cryptocurrencies are beanie babies: Once available for a trifle, their value has ballooned based on speculation. But that already happened, you missed out on it, and it has no bearing on their future prospects. And if a bunch of people ever feel the need to cash out at once, they'll find out just how much value they really have whe…

> And if a bunch of people ever feel the need to cash out at once, they'll find out just how much value they really have when there's nobody buying.

This is a nice natural mechanism for the bubble to burst itself. Housing is not like this at all. Everyone can in fact get cash all out at once at the hyper-inflated prices (no real buyers needed!) by just doing a "cash out refinance" to the bank.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really appreciate this comment. The $1M house I bought last year at 2.75% (now supposedly valued $1.1M) might go down to $600-700k if we have some kind of major correction, but it's in a desirable area and never going to zero. I'm prepared for it to drop, but over the long term I expect to be fine. My house is a place to live for the long term, not something I'm looking to day trade. The only day I care what it's "…

Having equity can be important for: 1) Cash out refis. e.g. if you want to renovate, purchase a rental property or better yielding investment with the funds. Say you can take out cash at 2% rate, and buy a SFH rental with a 6% cap rate... you can build net worth faster (at more risk) 2) Being able to move without writing the bank a check. If you're underwater, you will have to pay out of pocket to sell, and then save…

I think it makes sense to have a different approach for your primary residence vs your real estate investments. If I were a real estate investor, I probably would be hoarding cash waiting for deals, licking my chops at the prospect of another housing crash.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#116

This leads to a pretty interesting comparison between plain cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Cryptocurrencies are beanie babies: Once available for a trifle, their value has ballooned based on speculation. But that already happened, you missed out on it, and it has no bearing on their future prospects. And if a bunch of people ever feel the need to cash out at once, they'll find out just how much value they really have whe…

> Cryptocurrencies are beanie babies: Once available for a trifle, their value has ballooned based on speculation. But that already happened, you missed out on it, and it has no bearing on their future prospects. And if a bunch of people ever feel the need to cash out at once, they'll find out just how much value they really have when there's nobody buying. Can you describe the situation where nobody is buying? Peopl…

Strong regulatory action that shutters most or all "legitimate" fiat offramps.

I suspect the vast majority of players, even in a criminal marketplace, are seeking cryptocurrency with the intent of cashing it our to fiat, or trading with someone who-- after possibly more exchanges-- cashes out to fiat.

Close the offranps, and the supply chains dry up.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#117

This leads to a pretty interesting comparison between plain cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Cryptocurrencies are beanie babies: Once available for a trifle, their value has ballooned based on speculation. But that already happened, you missed out on it, and it has no bearing on their future prospects. And if a bunch of people ever feel the need to cash out at once, they'll find out just how much value they really have whe…

> Cryptocurrencies are beanie babies: Once available for a trifle, their value has ballooned based on speculation. But that already happened, you missed out on it, and it has no bearing on their future prospects. And if a bunch of people ever feel the need to cash out at once, they'll find out just how much value they really have when there's nobody buying. Can you describe the situation where nobody is buying? Peopl…

The criminal buyers' plan is to buy bitcoin, maybe shuffle it around a bit to hide their tracks, and sell it as soon as they can. They don't want crypto, they want cash, and they need buyers to get that cash. That goes for everyone, in fact. The only way criminals are different is that they don't want higher prices, they want high volume, so they can sell it fast without losing too much.

A unit of cryptocurrency is a nothing. If you never sell it, it's useless and worthless. Everyone buying crypto is planning to sell all of it. They always need more and more buyers to keep driving the demand up, to in turn keep driving the price up. Eventually, there'll be a time when there are too many sellers and not enough buyers. Maybe a major recession hits and people decide it's a good time to cash out/bad time to make risky investments. Maybe regulation starts scaring people away. Maybe mainstream news coverage turns hostile. Regardless of which, people rush to sell, and as the buyers dry up, they start taking whatever price they can get. The price plummets. Sell orders accelerate. Line goes down. Pop. Then, stories of people losing everything circulate widely, cementing its reputation as worthless and scaring off any speculative buyers forever after. Just like Beanie Babies.

Just like Beanie Babies, there'll probably be some buyers and sellers forever. Just not at a high enough volume to make it worth a criminal's time.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#118

I’m not a crypto evangelist or anything, but what about alternatives like Pokémon cards which seem to have increased in value over the same period. There’s currently a pump and dump on retro video games but I don’t think the same supply issues exist in Pokémon cards, but I’m not actively monitoring either market.

"There’s currently a pump and dump on retro video games but I don’t think the same supply issues exist in Pokémon cards, but I’m not actively monitoring either market." Can you clarify what the pump and dump on retro video games looks like? To me, there seems to be real demand for retro video games. You can see the interest in various subreddits.

https://youtu.be/mKbuNwS-gaI

Sorry it’s a long watch. The tldr is that people involved in several high end sales, and game rating and auction houses are known business associates creating a conflict of interest and inflating sale prices artificially.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#119

This leads to a pretty interesting comparison between plain cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Cryptocurrencies are beanie babies: Once available for a trifle, their value has ballooned based on speculation. But that already happened, you missed out on it, and it has no bearing on their future prospects. And if a bunch of people ever feel the need to cash out at once, they'll find out just how much value they really have whe…

I think it's apples/oranges. Beanie babies had your average joe mobbing the stores black friday style. Even grandma was in on it. With NFTs, everyone is talking about them, but few folks have gone so far as to buy one relatively speaking.

Re: The Beanie Baby Bubble of '99

#120
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media stock?

If NFTs changed their image (can totally do that in most implementations, there's no hash of the contents) to an advert and made a lot of money, are they a success in a way that disproves a claim they were a bubble? I'm not really stating an opinion, just an observation that tonnes of social media companies died until the current 'in' ones adopted advertising and (so far, and for longer already) lasted.

But everyone knew social media would pivot to ads. It was baked into their valuation during the alleged bubble.

I was 1000% on team facebook/snap/twitter is a bubble.

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