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Comment by Fnoord | Hacker News Reader

Only for people who invested (I mean, speculated) before 2017. Those who started to speculate when BTC was 50k stepped right into the big pile of poo, and they have the choice to take their losses for current price, or to keep their assets ('HODL'). Either way, it remains speculation.

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I jumped in right at 60k fully knowing it will either go to 500k or to zero. I will wait this out whatever happens.

Depending on how much you went into, aside from HODL, that's called YOLO. In general, people spread their assets. So for example, you could speculate some on the stock market, some in cryptocurrencies, etc. If you put all your savings in, and it goes to zero, I feel sorry for your children. Cause there goes their scholarship.

Childless and European here :). But I put like 3 months of salary there. Really nothing that could financially ruin me. I went YOLO on housing though... That shit is expensive.

> In general, people spread their assets. So for example, you could speculate some on the stock market, some in cryptocurrencies, etc.

I find this funny, my tech stocks portfolio has gone down 10% since the beginning of the year. I do monthly investing, so that's a loss compared to my average price over time.

In contrast, I bought ETH at around $20 USD, and it being at $2000 is still quite a good outcome for me.

You can't know what happens when the cryptocurrency ETH was at $20. You still don't know what happens. In contrast, with companies, we can take some things for granted, as they have to be open about it to e.g. SEC. With regards to the $20, I knew about Bitcoin when it was a couple of USD (during the Occupy Wallstreet movement, IIRC). I liked the idea, back then. But I didn't end up buying any because to me money is a tool, not a speculative asset. And, as tool, Bitcoin was not very useful then (it still isn't, IMO). Yes, I could've bought it back then. I almost did. But we don't know what the future holds, and for every person with my story there's only a few who did buy it in large enough quantities and exfiltrated their profits at a margin of 10000% like yours. The amount of people who lost money from Bitcoin speculation is also applicable, but you don't hear about the losers. As long as you HODL, all those who HODL win (at least on paper), but as soon as large amounts get exfiltrated, the supply goes up, and value goes down. So it is very important for those who hold the asset to share the HODL mindset (as cultish as it might be).

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