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Comment by pastacacioepepe | Hacker News Reader

I've been working real hard for the past 10+ years and I have very little to show for it yet.

In the meantime a couple of friends who never worked got rich(er) just because they bought a few thousands $ (money borrowed...from their family) worth of crypto at the right moment.

What is this bullshit? Why am I even busting my ass trying to create value, when I could just buy shitcoins and become a millionaire?

I don't think this is healthy for any society. I don't even want to get rich with a fucking lottery. I want to earn it, to provide something to others and get something in return. No, I don't consider "making a market more efficient with my investments" as providing value. It's just speculation.

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I would argue that crytpo is not pure lottery. It's a risky investment. As every assets, crypto can be over-valued or under-valued.

As someone from China, where central government limit foregin currency exchange, Bitcoin is a god-given tech. I'm not arguing for its value and i don't mean to persuade anyone. This is my opinion. I believe in its value. And guess what? I miss the crypto train too. And I have zero crypto investments. Because I don't want to take unncessary finantial risk when I cannot. I didn't borrow to bet on Bitcoin. In fact, I didn't bet at all. I didn't envy those who bet and win. Because there 100 losers for each winner.

Hard working provides higher expected return than betting.

Wise investmens and hard working provide higher expected return than hard-working alone.

Just my personal thoughts.

> I would argue that crytpo is not pure lottery. It's a risky investment.

Unless you have funds to throw on it and you become rich without ever moving a finger. I mean yeah, congrats for your ability to "see" the future, but I struggle to understand how you created any value, how there's anything more than luck and income inequality to support a case for your new wealth to be legit. You're just extracting value from whoever came after you, in what is a classic Ponzi scheme.

If you already had capital to begin with, you never even really "risked" on it. If you have $10 milions and you risk $1 milion, that is in no way a risk comparable to someone who owns $1k and risks $100.

> As someone from China, where central government limit foregin currency exchange, Bitcoin is a god-given tech.

Why? Most usage of crypto I see is either tax eavsion or on the black markets. Drugs, weapons, fake ids and much much worse. China is doing well and the rest of the world is considering limitations on crypto as well.

> Wise investmens and hard working provide higher expected return than hard-working alone.

I agree on this, but fuck this world where you can get richer than people who work without doing any hard work.

> China is doing well and the rest of the world is considering limitations on crypto as well.

Well, it depends on how you view the condition. I believe that a citizen should be able to change any local curreny to foreign currency. If citizens are not allowed to do that, they are exploited by the governemnt, who can simple print money to finance its corrupted operation. And that's what happen in china.

I don't care about the price of bitcoin. I care about the ability of moving my money wherever I want.

It's a risky investment in the exact same way a lottery ticket is a risky investment: unless a particular lightning bolt of luck strikes you, it stands to reason that no underlying value is being created to return to your investment, _particularly_ for the shitcoins. They're just "toss a few thousand dollars at the dartboard and see what pumps" pure luck. As evidenced by the falling knives people are trying to catch right now.

Every week, there is someone whose lottery ticket wins millions or tens of millions of dollars. It's not fair, but such is life - some people are just more lucky than others. The smartest thing you can do about it is to not dwell on it too much, other people's extraordinary luck does not affect your life in any way anyway.

That also applies to crypto - at any given point in time, plenty of people are investing in crazy speculative schemes. A minority of them win big, while a majority loses some or most of their money. The crypto crowd who bough 10 years ago just happened to select the right lottery ticket, while other people who at that time invested in equally far-fetched ideas (AR startups, synthetic meat, whatever crazy fad that died in the early stages before even reaching mainstream media) lost their money.

I have long-suspected that a significant part of the hate for crypto from tech-literate people is resentment for not figuring out the success of something they were equipped to have seen earlier. And here is a little snippet of it at work.

> If your friend only had $5k in total and threw them all in Terra then I guess the lesson he got in the crash is way more valuable than any savings he might have kept. He would have lost them anyway on the next shitcoin.

So if they lose money, they deserve it.

> In the meantime a couple of friends who never worked got rich just because they bought a few thousands $ (money borrowed...from their family) worth of crypto at the right moment.

> What is this bullshit? Why am I even busting my ass trying to create value, when I could just buy shitcoins and become a millionaire?

If they win money, they don't deserve it.

I guess we should just send the money to you.

Nah. You're just projecting your fears on me.

> So if they lose money, they deserve it.

I didn't say that. Just that it was bound to happen sooner or later. It's clear though that as with any other Ponzi scheme, there are people who join early and profit and people who join late and give all their savings to the early comers. OP's friend is one of the late comers. My friends are early comers.

> If they win money, they don't deserve it.

Again, never said this. I'm just saying that it's a lottery and that it's crazy to have masses of people betting their future livelihoods on this Ponzi scheme.

By the way yes, I don't think you really "earned" your wealth if you got it on the lottery or from your parents. Sue me. Or better, get to work and earn your wealth.

> resentment

No resentment. Just pity for people who think they earned and deserve all they have, when in fact they've just born in the right family, in the right place, at the right time.

> I guess we should just send the money to you.

Keep your lottery money. As I pretty clearly stated, I want to earn mine with actual work.

Taking out a reasonable position is not entering a lottery. Even KPMG allocated.

From what I can tell Bitcoin is irredeemably flawed. No, I am not jealous for missing the train. I don't have money to fling into a shitcoin even if I was brainwashed enough to believe that this is how one should structure society.

I am honestly disappointed that the only cryptocurrency that is worth using is dead. If anything, if I wanted to get into crypto I would have to create my own cryptocurrency which is inherently anti speculative and encourages people to work and trade instead of rent seeking. However, even if I were to do that, I would run into two problems. I don't need a decentralized cryptocurrency for this, a normal bank would be good enough, the only point would be to bypass regulations. Because taxes are payable in a different currency than my own, there would be a constant drain of people selling the currency for dollars to pay taxes for example.

Since cryptocurrency is inherently unusable as a medium of exchange, it is a complete failure.

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