Good on you for admitting that at least. Considering how often even the paid professionals get economics wrong it’s all we can do to offer our best guesses at how things will play out… and be willing to pivot off of ideas as the many things outside of our control change.
I took a massive loss on LTC but still came out +$90k total on crypto since I started buying in '19, which has been life changing money for me. Not quite the “never have to worry about finance again” levels I was hoping for, but I learned a lot about trading and how to deal with the emotional response it generates. And hey, I guess that still puts me ahead of many of these crypto “hedge funds” at least
I’ve started buying back at these levels as well but far from all in. Would love to see even more decimation/regulation of the defi/shitcoin space before I could get really bullish again. Count me as still in the fundamental BTC believer camp tho. Would gladly take same offer @clovis8 mentioned above.
To those that are still “allin” on bitcoin, I think now is the time to really think hard about why you believe in the macro reasons for bitcoin to moon shot again. I listened to a bunch of bitcoin maxi podcasts and most of them are completely off base with their views.
In a bull market, you make money even when you are wrong on your thesis.
In a bear market, you pay dearly if you are wrong.
In this podcast with Igor Makarov they ask what drives price movement in crypto (given the challenge of coming up with a valuation model). His researched indicated that it’s essentially all price elasticity aka order flow. A relatively small amount of demand/supply imbalance can drive some big swings.
He estimated that Microstrategy alone was responsible for about a 50% runup in BTC in order to satisfy their demand.
the thing that always bugged me about crypto bugs is not because I necessarily disagree with its value as a currency (although its environmental cost is an immediate nonstarter for me) or potential for block-chain technologies and all that, it’s just that a lot of the crypto bug stuff out there made claims about it that just couldn’t be the case.
for instance I see huge, huge regulation risks to this currency if I look at it as a long bet. It wouldn’t take much for governments to start cracking down on stuff enough to really deflate it quite easily. see: china’s increasingly tough laws on cryptocurrency
and then, one of its chiefiest self-described “perks” was it being unregulated and decentralized - which immediately makes it super predictable the space is going to be infested with scams and fraud and outright theft.
I think anyone crowing about it tanking is mostly reacting to that, not like, personally gleeful that some people may have foolishly lost a lot of money. at least I hope not, I’m certainly not.
Surely the play is to wait until they officially raise interest rates and then wait a year or so when they lower them again and more money comes into the ecosystem?
I don’t hate bitcoin or crypto at all. I think there are novel ideas that can be spawned from the space. The blockchain technology is an incredible idea.
However, there were a few thesis behind bitcoin that I always believed to be untrue:
Bitcoin will replace the financial system because people want decentralized system of finance.
Bitcoin will always go up because of fixed 21M supply.
People will adopt bitcoin because holding on to fiat in inflationary system is a losing bet.
US dollars is backed by nothing.
People in their minds love to have an alternative to the current “rigged” system until they find out what it actually means in practice.
Does anyone believe 1 or 4? I listen and read a lot of crypto stuff and don’t hear anyone talk in these absolutes. And 2. is never framed in terms of “always” but more like a point in its favor. It’s a fixed supply, but nothing about a fixed supply alone does anything for crypto, gold, or even oil.
I have been following Bitcoin since it was at 50 cents (~2010ish?). I really liked the idea, because at that time just the simple act of trying to settle up a bit of money with a friend or process transactions at a farmers market had no really convenient options.
Maybe Paypal was ok, or deal in checks or cash. But the fintech industry has provided solutions to these problems that don’t have the downsides (speed, cost) that come with crypto. It has been a real surprise that in the past 10 years, I have never encountered any personal real world use case.
If I wanted to crow about this, it would 100% be for this reason, just as I applaud when any MLM scam gets murdered. Im not happy abput the poor people who get duped into buying at the top and getting slaughtered, but I am happy when an MLM dies a death it deserves
Peak portfolio value was around 210k at the LTC top. Net worth is down like 66% from there at this point, but not soley due to crypto.106k realized profit from btc, +11k from eth, -31k on ltc. Started buying in my first year of self employment with a 10k bankroll. I’m only 31 so still feeling pretty good about my situation overall.
