Same thing with Archegos (Bill Hwang) and their rapid failure. It’s the hubris that makes it fun to poke fun, the sun blastin’ Icarus’ wings clean off.
(no crypto exposure)
Those people make me sad. They got fleeced. Maybe they got lured in by the promise of easy money and should have known better, but that doesn't make it pleasant to watch lambs driven to the slaughter.
The other kind, the ringleaders and the ones gloating "HFSP" during more bullish times. That's comedic gold.
I mean there's a streamer I follow and generally like, but that interviewed Do Kwon on their stream, just a few weeks before it depegged. I wonder how many of their followers were the ones that lost the game of musical chairs. The halo effect is real.
And that's not even getting into the craven scumbags leveraging influencer marketing, like Stake.
The people with the hubris understand deep down that they are involved in a ponzi scheme, and the only way up and out is to herd the unsophisticated investor. Not that there's explicit malice here (though, sometimes it is), but there's the understanding that driving demand is what drives up the price.
There's a reason that so many fad "investments" follow this exact same path, time and time again.
I think this is overlooking why people are engaging in these types of investments to begin with: they're greedy speculators who got caught up in a get rich quick scheme. They don't know what this tech is, why it is or isn't useful, or how it works. They don't know what the investment risks are and don't make any attempt at mitigating risk. They don't seek expert assistance. Instead of doing basic research to make informed decisions, they see dollar signs and yolo with their life savings. I don't feel bad for them in the same way that I don't feel bad for people who fall for 419 scams. If you participate in get rich quick schemes that you don't understand, there is a high probability of getting owned. This exact same collapse in value happened only 5 years ago, how could people be caught flat footed twice?