I absolutely loathe this article, but you have a point. It seems unseemly to engage in schadenfreude against gullible retail investors, many of which are legitimate victims. This point is not really related to the arguments put forth by the article itself, but it still seems like a point that should be made here.
I’m fairly skilled at making a compelling, cohesive, and even entertaining argument.
I had no effect on any of them.
Luckily, they were all playing with pocket-money amounts. A few hundred dollars or a few thousand at most.
So this crash has done them no real harm and taught them all a valuable lesson. It’s something every generation goes through.
Why can’t I be entertained by it also?
That also seems fine, provided you draw the distinction. (I don't claim to be any kind of arbiter of taste, but you asked, so I answered.)
Have you looked through the responses to the meltdown of Celsius on Twitter? In many individual cases these appear to be ordinary people, in shock at having lost practically everything. All I'm saying is that laughing at people like that seems to me to be in very poor taste.
Michael Saylor and his ilk are definitely fair game, though. Just be sure to leave some Schadenfreude for me!
Which is absolutely terrible and no laughing matter.
I’ve heard that there has been an uptick in suicides.
As an anecdotal data point, my neighbour killed himself recently — he was working (solo) on a crypto startup.
I expect it to get worse before it gets better. I imagine that people in this situation are typically overwhelmed by the shame.
I would also venture to guess that specimens like Michael Saylor don't feel any shame whatsoever, despite making statements about Bitcoin intended to convince ordinary retail investors to go all in at the height of the bubble:
Exactly. Madoff's crimes were despicable because of the way that they hurt individuals and families. The situation with crypto is potentially quite a lot worse than that was. And not just because of the overall scale.
Many individual retailer investors will never recover. This has the potential to do a great deal of damage to the fabric of society.