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Comment by Kathula | Hacker News Reader

It isn't lucky to hold through multiple multi-year 80% drawdowns, it's called doing research and having a conviction. I didn't sell at 60k, I'm not selling now, because I have a strong conviction. You call this lucky, but it isn't. If you have a conviction and a span longer than four years you could get "lucky" too.

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But if you didn't sell at 60k you're not lucky at all. If you're still sitting there, hodling the ball, you're one of the suckers who paid the lunch for those who did get lucky.

You're the opposite of lucky.

Only if you bought around 60k.

I bought in 2015 when Bitcoin was about $250, so still looking good on a 10 year timescale.

Yes, because people who bought at 20,000 are holding your ball for you... and you're holding the ball for people who bought at 10 dollars...

Or am I missing something?

Your 'convictions' will not help you predict where a herd of cows will move or stampede. And that's all BTC is. Whatever a crew of people believe it will be worth. Other currencies are integrated into the economy, which gives them a baseline value from which valuation isn't going to go to far away from.

Moreover, the entire philosophy of holding BTC as some store of value destroys the notion of BTC as a viable currency.

You would have been much luckier if your worldview had allowed you to sell at $60k and buy back at $20k.

For most of 2018-2020 it was between $4k and $10k.

If someone's looking to sell high, what's to stop them from selling at $20k, which was an all time high in December 2020? Why not wait for $80k instead of selling at $60k?

It's easy to see these opportunities in hindsight, but you can never be sure where the peak is.

I had no conviction that 60k would be the top. But I have a conviction that it'll be surpassed eventually.

> it'll be surpassed eventually

money has a time-value, the opportunity loss of investing it in other instruments. The longer you wait for a peak, the more that peak has to be for it to be worth it. When the value you would have had you invested elsewhere reaches your expected peak, you can officially say your strategy failed.

And what objective metrics are you using to back up your conviction that bitcoin is worth X?

Many people have conviction in their belief in God. That doesn't make the existence of God any more sound.

I may only buy when Fidelity and Blackrock say it is safe for retail, if at all.

Until then, I will let institutions take the risk and I will stick with my index fund.

I think even if they say it's safe, it wont make it so: there is fundamentaly no special value in bitcoin compared to the Thai Baht and nobody's rushing to buy those.

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