Comment by wakkaflokka | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wakkaflokka | Hacker News Reader

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I put a fair bit of money into ETH immediately when I saw the NYT article on the announcement of the EEA. If I were to sell now, I will have made a very good bit of money from it. I'm at a crossroads where, given the EEA and their recent white paper about linking private blockchains the banks will potentially be using, with the public blockchain, makes me think I should stay in it.

On the other hand, the skepticism in this forum (albeit from people who are far more knowledgeable about crypto currencies and markets than me) makes me feel like I should 1) sell it all, or 2) sell only enough to recoup my initial investment.

Either way, the money I put into it was just fun money and wouldn't hurt if I lost it. It's a bit of a thrill to watch an asset appreciate in value that much within such a small period of time. The ultimate question is when to realize the gain or the loss.

Humans have a distinct disposition wherein we tend to sell gaining assets earlier than we sell losing ones (the disposition effect), even in circumstances where it's detrimental to us. Is this playing out in my mind right now?

Commenters here were deeply skeptical of Ethereum during its crowdsale too. People who bought in and held anyway made a 100x gain, so far.

Personally I develop smart contracts on Ethereum for a living, and business is good. The ecosystem is developing fast.

I didn't know you could already do this for a living. Care to share what kinds of smart contracts?

I do partly new development, partly security audits for clients' code. Projects so far include an Ethereum-backed debit card, a gambling system, a currency backed by hours of labor, and ICOs ("initial coin offerings").

All my work so far is on startup projects for the public chain, but there's also corporate work for the EEA's private chain efforts. They said there's a severe shortage of skilled people.

I've gotten two other full-time job offers and one for ongoing freelance, without really promoting myself at all. I'm just active in the community and blog a little.

I remember six years ago when there was a similar skepticism about Bitcoin. Those skeptics were proven wrong, and I believe they will be proven wrong again, about Ethereum.

But be warned, it will be a long time before it matures, and it will be a bumpy ride.

Take a bit out now that it's at an all-time high. Ask yourself what you would regret in different scenarios? If it went down, of course you wouldn't regret it. But if you cashed out some now and it continued to go up could you live with it? What if you used the money to buy something important to you?

See prospect theory [1]. But I think GP is approaching it in the right way to avoid these suboptimal biases: set reasonable limits up-front but otherwise treat it as a game.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_theory

You could sell bottled air in the current economic environment. I am not surprised that something like ETH is also going up. What matters is if it has any fundamental value that will sustain it when all the slush capital disappears.

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