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Comment by Forgeties79 | Hacker News Reader

Genuine question: what are you doing with that crypto anyway if not planning on cashing out back into fiat currency again?

My understanding is that the vast majority of cryptos are useless for actually paying for anything and the vast majority of businesses still don’t accept them anyway. So unless you are basically only using and holding BTC (which has a relatively small market of goods that can actually be purchased with it on a daily basis), I’m not really sure what good that crypto is doing for you other than sitting around as a speculative asset which will need to be converted via an exchange.

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Genuine answer: I'm holding my crypto assets until I can exchange them for the goods and services I need. I never exchange any crypto back to fiat.

I don't "invest" to make money. It's a currency. I buy it to use it. I might have to hold it for 5 years, maybe 10, maybe 30, or maybe I'll die and crypto will never be successful (a sad thought but possible).

But in the meantime I'll do what I can to improve adoption. That includes working on core protocols, improving UX for non-technical users, or writing software that helps vendors with payment integration. I also make an effort to approach business and show that there is demand for crypto payments.

This is literally the only way to make crypto successful. All this price action non-sense, and people wanting to get fiat-rich is just unproductive noise to me.

you should invest your spare cash (no matter what the currency) into actual investments. cash is dead money, and taking a buy and hold approach to foreign exchange trading is probably a bad idea compared to something like (just off the top of my head) the All Weather Portfolio.

King dollar has been disagreeing with you.

And the people in the housing bubble mostly lived in those houses, yet they got burned by the crisis nonetheless.

You don't properly evaluate the present value of money if you are willing to trade your present money for future money at completely unknown conversion rate and adoption date.

Relative to the strategy of buying it when you could use it (which also satisfies your intents) you are practically speculating. You can also look at it like opportunity cost.

> You don't properly evaluate the present value of money if you are willing to trade your present money for future money at completely unknown conversion rate and adoption date.

Unknown can mean many things. I'm convinced that the fair value of crypto is much, much higher. Adoption is still sluggish and small.

I believe in crypto's success, which you might call speculation.

> This is literally the only way to make crypto successful. All this price action non-sense, and people wanting to get fiat-rich is just unproductive noise to me.

Why are you buying crypto regularly? If you don’t care about the price, and you have no idea what the fair value is - what’s the right coin and right amount to hold?

Your response is the first that's really interesting. I know that the fair value is much, much higher than it is now, because there is virtually no real adoption.

> what’s the right coin and right amount to hold?

That's an amazing question. I have truly no idea. I'm investing based on my personal conviction.

But this opens up a really interesting discussion about game theory and prediction markets. In a zero-sum prediction market, refusing to play is pareto-optimal and an equilibrium strategy.

So you could call me an irrational actor. I'm making a first move based on personal belief, thereby giving you an opportunity to arbitrage me. I believe that the fair value is higher than it is now. If you believe differently, short me. (I'm just joking of course, but I do find your question intriguing, and is something I've been thinking about a lot)

> I *know* that the fair value is much, much higher than it is now, because there is virtually no real adoption

(emphasis mine)

This seems like an incredibly bold claim to make. I would argue that there is little adoption because many have judged crypto to be of little value.

I often find that crypto enthusiasts who go all-in on game theory are from making rational decisions despite sounding partially logical.

This is such a meaningless stance in the context of this discussion.

If only everyone was buying various crypto and holding it in a cold wallet for the next 300 years!.. that’s the only true usage for crypto. No insidious banks, no fiat, no regulations, just pure bits in my virtual wallet until I die.

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