Ever wondered why you are not one of those guys who hold thousands of BTC/ETH?
Let me tell you this. I am pretty sure that that you've read or heard so many stories about people who are holding thousands of BTC...or bags full of ETH. Some of those stories are nothing but shit. Many of those tho are 100% true.
Some of those "lucky" guys are among us. You may not know their background nor they will come front and say "Hey I am one of those guys" but I assure you that they are here. Trust me on that.
Now tell me this: How many times you wished you were in their shoes? Plenty of times right? You've even imagined what your life would be like if you were "lucky' enough...just like they were. Really?
No...No...No...
The real question is were they really lucky or was it something else?
You see, I've been there...I have those weird discussions with myself (why with myself? because whenever someone else in part of a conversation where the words BTC/ETH are mentioned, it usually ends up with me being on the receiving end of a strange look, as if I am a weirdo or something) from time to time and keep telling them about the things I'd do if I was holding thousands of ETH or BTC. If only I was more informed...
Informed? Bullshit...
It has nothing to do with being informed. Well, that's not entirely true. Being informed is a solid reason but not the main reason why these people hold bags full of BTC and ETH or any other coin that skyrocketed over the years. It's called wisdom. You heard me...wisdom.
The vast majority of those people are the ones who could see the future. They had a vision. The crazy ones...The ones who know exactly what decentralization stands for...men who had enough of their corrupted governments and tried to find an alternative. People who got tired of being slaughtered by their government forced to pay huge taxes if they earned a penny more than what is allowed so that those who pull the strings along with their banker friends can get richer every single day.
Can you teach that to your 20 old cousin whose only concern is to smoke a joint at the park with their friends? Nah...you can't teach that...They'll probably realize that about a decade down the road. Why? Because that's how life works. You can't teach wisdom...
That's exactly the reason I am not holding tons of BTC or whatever coin and probably the same goes for you too...Because back in 2009 - 2010 when I could have bought tons of it....I just didn't care. My priorities were different. Parties...hot chicks...having a good time...Nothing else seemed important back then...
Did I have access to a computer back then? Of course I did. Did I care to dig deeper? Nope...
12 years later I am the one who's looking for alternatives, and probably you too, because I know pretty damn well how it feels like to be desperate for help from the government to get out of a situation that wasn't my fault in the first place, and their only help was a tombstone on top of my dreams.
Some were indeed lucky...friends of a friend of Satoshi or whoever was behind BTC in the first place..others were friends of Vitalik and got there first...so unless you were friends with the group of devs that designed BTC or Vitalik himself, the next time you start dreaming of Lambos and exotic islands better ask yourself:
"What were your priorities about a decade ago?" I am pretty sure you'll figure out why your bags aren't loaded...
Oh....don't forget to let me know about those priorities in the comment section below...
Have a good one people...
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Cheers!
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Eh, no big deal...a decade or so from now our bags will be loaded. All we gotta do is hodl!
I know right? Deep down you know you're talking to a future millionaire.
Jokes aside, I keep thinking of all those missed opportunities. Not just mine. But those who I failed to persuade that crypto is what they should focus on. Meh...they'll learn the hard way
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as far as it concerns me i think a huge role that made me not have btc or eth is my age and fear. You see i knew about btc since i was in high school but i couldn't comprehend anything else behind it.
I talked with some friends they had no clue, i talked with my father he was against that because he couldn't understand it either. Note that btc was somewhere are 20$-50$ at that time. To add to that i had no money :P
Another scenario though that would be very realistic is what would happen if i bought some back then. I bet that when the price reached 100 or 200 backs i would sell the majority of my btc :P
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That's where the vision comes in. You have to be able to resist the temptation to sell for short term gain.
The intestinal fortitude part comes in when the massive volatility or the relentless FUD make you fear losing everything.
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totally agree and only trial and error work for me at this scenario. I really admire those that had the vision as crystal clear and hodl since the beginning!
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Exactly right. It takes vision and intestinal fortitude to have got into the space early and to have held onto the coins.
Mining BTC or ETH were no longer profitable when I got in. But I could've mined any number of coins since the time I first heard about cryptocurrency. It's my own fault that I didn't look into the space more closely to find all the opportunities that existed.
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information is important but not the main thing. some 8-9 years ago, did i hear that there is something called bitcoin. yes in a passing by, somewhere. but i know no one that is that much into tech and i was not that much into it to go and look wtf is it.
would i buy it, most probably not, because it would be hell of a problem for me do so, in 2010 i spend like a week to try to cash out a check for a video. and some 2 months to get the money. Fuck, if i bought btc with that 200$ i would be a millionaire now :D
even if i did buy some at that point, would i hold it until now? most probably not, maybe some. Would i lose my private key? Most probably YES. And i would be one of those stories of a man who is digging through the local dump trying to find my lost btc.
Now did i have an opportunity to buy it at 4000$ and did i buy it at 11000$, yes i did :D would the amount i bought change my life if i got it on 4000? no not really, it is all pocket change in changing life sense.
I thought about this a bit more while at the grocery store just now, and I think your conclusion that not investing in BTC/ETH back in the day was due to lack of wisdom is incorrect, and I'll attempt to explain why.
Back 8 - 10 years ago, the risk of investing in Bitcoin was HUGE. Even with fully understanding what it was and the promise it held, it was completely unproven from many different perspectives and there was a high chance it would simply fail, or be replaced by something else. In hindsight it's easy to say that it was obvious that Bitcoin would become what it is today, but in reality no one could know that back then.
It was a very very high risk / high reward situation, and in most cases it's actually wise for most people to not put money into things like that. I think that investing in BTC 8-10 years ago can be compared to going to a casino. Let's say that your friends invite you to go to a casino, but since you don't have much free money available to gamble with you make the wise choice not to go. Then later you find out your friend played the exact machine you would have played if you had gone and won a huge jackpot. Does that mean you made an unwise decision? No. Sometimes you can do the right thing and it doesn't work out in your favor and vice versa. That's life. But if you continually make wise choices chances are things will work out in your favor more often than not - and vice versa.
So if you had a bunch of extra cash you could easily afford to lose back then, then yea it would have been wise to put some in BTC/ETH if you really understood and believed in the potential. But otherwise I think it was the right choice to wait. I personally learned about BTC in 2012, at around the same time my son was born and I had just bought a house. I didn't have much extra money available and I think that it was the right choice considering the circumstances not to invest in such a high risk thing as Bitcoin was at the time - even though that obviously did not work out in my favor in hindsight.
BUT I still kept following Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and come 2017 the situation had changed considerably. The risk at that time was MUCH less, yet the reward was still unusually high, and I was in a better financial position. At that point I decided that the wise choice was to invest into BTC and crypto.
Fast forward to now, and the risk has dropped way more from even 2017. The chances that Bitcoin is going away now are incredibly low, but there are still really high potential returns to be had by investing in it. That's why a lot of people are referring to Bitcoin as an asset with "asymmetric returns". Typically an asset's expected return is in line with it's risk (i.e. high risk / high reward or low risk / low reward or somewhere in between), but Bitcoin today (as well as ETH to a lesser extent) is low risk / really high reward, meaning it's "asymmetric".
Before 2017 or so I don't think that was the case, and it was still too risky for most people. For all the people who got rich by getting into crypto early there are far more stories of people who lost everything putting money into high risk ventures that they couldn't afford to lose. You just don't hear about those as much.
The really wise people wait for the opportunities for asymmetric returns (low risk / high reward). They wait for things to prove themselves before investing. Sure they miss out on the 1000x potential gains and only get 10 - 100x, but they also aren't risking losing all of their money. This is what most high net worth and institutional investors do, and that's why they're all starting to get into Bitcoin now and not earlier.
Anyway, sorry for the super long reply...I'll shut up and get back to work now :-)
Wise words!
I get your point. But I think it would worth the risk of a small investment in something as revolutionary as it was back then.
Smart investors indeed wait to see how things play out and then they jump in but visionaries act first.
You didn't even have to invest a serious amount. $1000 would be enough to change your life forever. I mean I've lost 10x those $1000 trying to find the next big thing all these years.
I know it’s kinda silly to talk about it after knowing it reached $40K but back then those who took the risk not only did they win big but are also part of history. Of course we’ll never know who they really are...but they do.
Hey interesting analysis and probably one of the best comments I’ve had in a while.
The perfect response to what is Wise or not in reference to BTC and history. I 100% agree with you!
Absolutely correct. BTC was proven back in 2017, though less risky then years before. And agree, also I know many more sad stories than good stories of people. Many lost a lot of their fiat when the bull run end of 2017 ended in a dump. Some took the money at the right time, many didn't, Since then, most of these people who lost big, never returned to crypto anymore.
I tend to behave like this with respect to investing (see also my other comment to the post). so I must be WISE. Thanks for the compliment {LOL}
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Just HODL what you have (if you can) and in a couple of years you might travel to the moon...like that saying, what was the best time to buy? Yesterday.When it is the second best time? Now...
Thanks for the reminder on hodling!
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I wish I could be one of those guys, haha!
I only started my journey in the world of cryptocurrencies in late 2017 and even so, I still haven't invested any money out of my own pocket.
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It's similar to the people who mined Steem but never sold.
Is it? Steem came on stage some 7-8 years later...BTC was one of a kind. There was no competition and all the elements were there. Scheduled halving events, limited supply...high risk investment of course but I think it was worth a try.
I am sure that nobody who got involved really early and still holds has regretted it. Can we say the same about those who mined Steem early and never sold?
My point being that people who mined Steem and held it took a big risk, it was a gamble. They could have sold at 7 cents, and been extremely profitable, even 3 cents. It was a very short mining period. No one knew what it would become, if anything at all. In fact, there was a good chance the mining would be unprofitable. Granted it never ended up performing well, but those who mined made millions regardless.
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How many tokens out of the current supply were mined during that short mining period anyways?
I’m not 100% sure. Never did the math. I’m guessing around 150M.
In the early days of BTC, it was a super high risk to invest in BTC and holding it. Sure, some to more did this, but it was even riskier then angel investors usually put their risk money into. Why? Because BTC was not just a new service, it established a totally new market. This market was not proven. Same was for BTC, it was not proven. It could've trended to zero over time.
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What is "super high risk"?
What seems a very super risky for one person, may not look the same for others.
It all depends from you knowledge level, and from the viewing point perspective.
To me the biggest attraction, and biggest "risk remover" factor always was the fact, that BTC removes "the middle man"
That transactions can be trustless.
You can always influence the middle man. Be it individual, a group of individuals, organization, corporation, government. What ever.
Influence things by human week points: greed, love, fairs, selfishness, phobias, addictions, etc etc. The list is endless.
Try to racket, or intimidate, or bribe the algorithm, formula. Mathematics.
:)
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I do understand you r few to wards BTC and how this is much different to what we are accustomed with today, and may not like how its done today. But back in the days, even when BTC mechanism could be categroised as THE future way of handling money, it was still the question, will it be BTC or something else that will be the right technology.
In my case, it was a sum of many factors.
One of them was fear and risk aversion. I didn't have much back then, so I was very afraid to risk losing even the smallest bit of the little I had.
Another reason was pure and simple ignorance. I didn't know the first thing about what was bitcoin, blockchain, or cryptocurrencies. I even thought it could be something illegal.
And, to top it off, some of what you said also applies to who I was back then. I just didn't care.
But, anyway, it's like that old saying: do not cry over spilled milk. Let's focus on future opportunities instead, because there will be plenty and we just have to be prepared. They say luck is when opportunity meets preparation and I gotta say I am feeling lucky!
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? cant remember what my priorities were last week.
i do vaguely recall drunk texting everyone to buy btc at $140 as it was gunna moooon!..... not that i did :) hmmm
Should have given you my number....dammit
I had a chance to buy some bitcoin in 2012.
Buuuut, I was too busy with getting drunk, partying and being broke to even consider the impact it would have xD
This I totally agree with. I had a friend who was willing to invest few thousand dollars in STEEM when I told him about it. He said he had the income. But never went ahead for it. Now he is doing fine. But he did miss out on HIVE/BLURT airdrops and all the extra income he could have gone from delegating.
As for me, I was a teen during the time when BTC hit $1,000 and I didn't have any easy access to buying BTC. Instead of pushing for it, I gave up. Eventually I registered myself an account as an adult and put all my net worth into crypto.
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Interesting take :) Though you may not agree, I believe when being wise, one only invest in something (token, asset, company) when the project/company/token show forms of successes. Sure, we have angel investors, those who throw in money at concept phase of a project or company. Very risky endeavour. But, this could turn out to be very profitable. But could also turn bad.
My own story, in summary, is like this: In 2013 I ditched my office job to enjoy a large amount of free time. That's when I started digging into bitcoin. I came across the idea of mining and played around with that thought for some time. Those days, simple laptop GPU mining didn't cut it, so I should've invested in hardware (ASICs) and all. After two months of digging around, I decided: "Mining is not for me".
Then I took a step back from crypto and BTC. The main reason for this was the enormous pump end of 2013 and the massive dump not too long afterwards. To me, BTC hadn't proven its existence yet!
In 2016, Autumn timeframe, I was informed about Steemit and it took me till the end of 2016 (in a moment of boredom) to get myself an account. The main reason: I was not a believer in free money for blogging (maybe am still not a believer... the market shows us: free money and blogging are not the best performing projects out in the crypto universe).
Since 2016/7 I came a long way, but am somehow still sceptical about the crypto universe. I believe, for good reasons. Many projects are not professional enough in my opinion. We had to deal with too many scams in this space. I see too little drive to connect crypto projects with the real fiat-based economies (sure, some projects are creating these bridges, and I love them for that).
Was I Stupid back in 2013? Was I Ignorant? Was I Wise?
You tell me. I still don't know, but I think I tend to be more to the Wise side of things, then to the Stupid side of things.
I rarely think: I should've done things differently. Questions like: "I should've bought lots of BTC when it was still around 50 dollars, doesn't cross my mind. And when it does, I bin it within a split second. I didn't invest back then. For good reasons, in my opinion, BTC didn't prove itself that it can cross the chasm (Jeffrey Moore model). The history we can't change, therefore no point in thinking of the past in terms of "I should've done this or that" :)
In the fiat world, when I invest in equity, I tend to invest in people. Obviously, these people must have a cool concept, a concept that can make it business-wise. Just people is not enough. But just investing in a cool concept, a concept that can make it, is definitely not sufficient.
Some of these investments I did in startups, and some to support the growth phase of a young company. All the investments I did in growth companies are in the positive! All the investments I did in startup companies are struggling to stay alive.
One exception to my rule: Investment in a concept, but in this case, I knew the founder personally, for a longer period of time, so I knew what I was getting into. An almost pure investment play into the person. The true belief, this guy is the right person to make any business flourish, no matter what; Knowing if the concept would not work, he will change it to something else. A true business guy; A true entrepreneur! Obviously, the concept for the company was something unique and something that will work (my own analyses and opinion). Some of the concept I didn't like and suggested changes. All of them accepted by the founder and implemented when the business was buying setup and build. The results are super positive! The company is expanding! :) With the upcoming expansion, the company will show it can enter its growth phase. Today still nationally, but when this next step is successful, it'll go international and expansion will be accelerated big time. That's the plan at least (but plans can be adjusted, and I know the founder and director, will adjust when needed).
My take is: Look for proofs in one or the other way. A project, company or token must show signs that it can become successful and only then decide to invest. Sure, some of the early gains will not be monetised, but you'll also lose less money. In the fiat world, 80% to 90% of the startup companies go belly up. That's 9 out of 10. To the side, one can play the angel investor role, invest some (small) amounts into concepts and first-day startups. But keep in mind: 9 out of 10 investments will trend to zero. That requires that 1 project out of 10 to make up for all the other losses.
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I like to think that we all are where we are because it's meant to be. We all walk our own paths. In my case that meant that I only learnt about crypto in May 2017. No idea where my mind was in the early days of crypto. Probably trying to figure out how to fit in society post Uni. Only when I almost gave up to fit in, my eyes were opened. I might not be a millionaire yet but it sure has been life changing, financially and in many other ways.
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keep doing what you're doing bud...you're on the right path...anything is possible in crypto world.
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Thank you man and likewise. Have a great day!
ha, so true.. literally why i am here.
alas.. i also was late to the bitcoin party
to me this has extreme spiritual significance.
if you do not prepare in your mind where you want to go.. you end up getting the default.
so 'pack your bags' means spend time dreaming about how'd you like your life to be.
...and do something about it, I'd add
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indeed. it is almost like my comment continue here.
I have a thing, I'll help someone but I won't do it for them.
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STOPWow wow wow. In 2009-2010? Seriously? 😃
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Most likely 2011-12...you're right. Not that I knew what BTC was but the deeper you dig the more you discover.
But yeah my priorities back then were different. Instead of planning my future I only cared about having fun...which isn't a bad thing when you're young but a combination of both planning on your future and having fun would have been better.
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More info why you see this.
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Remember this?
It was some time in mid 2014, when I learned about Vitalik Buterin. After few weeks of intensive reading about him, I said:
This young guy one day will go bigger then Albert Einstein + Isaac Newton + Nikola Tesla + Warren Buffett + Bill Gates, all COMBINED !
(nobody was even knowing much about Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos by these days)
Soon came ETH presale...
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I know man...and glad you took the time and did your research...Proud of you really! you wouldn't have done that if you were a child. But you're wise and wisdom comes with age.
I had no clue who he was til 2017...
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Whereas, i do agree with some things in this article. I also see some fallacies. The fallacies that people with unusual tolerance for high risk are visionaries or genius level i think is incorrect. I do believe there are such visionaries that exist and they certainly exist in cryptocurrency
However the fact of the matter is a large percentile of cryptocurrency is just driven by speculation. So bitcoin was crafted from digital currency in satoshi's idea to a venture capitalist wallstreet wetdream. So most people just hoping to get rich from the darn thing. No real use or utility whatsoever.
You ask them if they even used btc today they probably will tell you no. Now what i do agree with is the idea of " blockchain" technology was the vision. Not so much can you get rich from bitcoin or ethereum. A currency is the same use at any value it serves generally as a medium of trade. So now they say its a store of value okay fine well it's going up and up and until it doesn't go up anymore it has no use really.
The idea that blockchain technology gives value and power back to the people in a way that they now have a choice not to be victims of their governments or any syndicate or controlling group is very valuable and whoever created it is very visionary. I don't think it was created by one man or one group to be honest. I think it was always building up from system to system.
So blockchain technology is the vision not speculation and not if you can drive a lambo that does'nt improve the world it means nothing to the world. it would maybe mean something if most of them could drive lambos but most of them don't and teh distribution is poor. Alot poorer than distribution in our standard economy right now so you're not going to get alot of economic prosperity from cryptocurrency yet in the sense it will be significantly valuable to the world.
Evenso you're right some people who got in got lucky or were probably a small percentage of einstein level genuises got rich. There is an important lesson here. When people get tired of being on the bottom end they find systems to work for them. Nobody wants to be at the bottom of a system or serve the interest of those at the top and they go no place. Thats why i foresee a new vision in ubi that will serve the people and will at some point in the future overturn these poorly designed systems that aren't sustainable that are a kin to neofeudalism and will not endure but ubi will. So that's the new vision.
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We are still early, In ten years from now we are going to be the ones people look at and wish: man i should have invested back then. Keep HODLING and good luck!
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I remember being there in 2013 and facing it. I was going to buy 4 btc at $250 when it pumped to $260. I wanted for it to go back down but then it shot up to $400s lol. But honestly, I was there with guys who had a lot of btc in those days and most sold at $1000ish. I think a lot of those that I knew who didn't sell forgot they had it. I can't imagine I would have hung onto it when it turned into real gains. Would i have sold at $1000? yes. $5000 for sure! Some were wise with their investment but I think many were Lucky or stupid. It seems dumb to hold onto a 100 bagger. I wouldn't have been able to handle the pressure. So I have .2btc that is from 2013 or 2012 and Im happy with it. (but wish I had more lol)
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Could be worse, you could have been wise enough to invest in BTC at the very start. But not wise enough to use a password you wouldn't forget. Some guy has been in the media recently for the same reason, but I know someone else that has only 3 or 4 in a wallet, still a life changing amount.
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Rewinding back... MY entry to the world of BTC was by chance in 2013, where my employer who is a Bitcoin Maximalist, talked to me in receiving crypto for payment for services.
I was hesitant, my head was too crowded to understand what Bitcoin is, and those days it was not as evoled as now, with so many educational videos. But I accepted the offer, for it was cool, that's all.
Most of the BTC I sold it for fiat, that's it, the good thing was lesser transaction fees than paypal. Ok, meanwhile, whatever exciting things was happening to Bitcoin's price I had no idea. I did not monitor its price regularly, too much of information, too little time to understand. All what I learned, I just followed instructions of employer...
2017, noticed price of Bitcoin was exploding... did have money to invest, had to liquidate BTC salary for expenses, my employer though paid me by BTC, gave me very less actually, no savings.
2018, I went into the world of cryptos, my employer gave me task related to updating a crypto site, so I got all the news articles links and eventually got to understand crypto. That time it was a bear market, and I lost money, did not know all this trading wisdom fundamentals. But then, I was in the space.
Last year 2020, I was laid off so went full crypto and at the right time, so now I think I will do well, maybe not with bags of BTC or ETH, was too late for that, I missed it, still somewhere can make something out of knowledge and experience, and ofcourse I have a small bag of BTC, ETH and other cryptos and monitoring them.
Chances are I will profit in a lot of ways, more than just money you know for sure.
Ha...ha...10 years ago... I would not have bother about BTC, would have not understood its potential anyway and my priorities, I was buried deep in suffering in a way, not doing well for myself working, or in relationships, no hope. Things changed now...and now, I see oppurtunity to up myself and do well you know, for I am no longer without hope, without some knowledge in cryptos to make it well in this bull run.
Mind you, its still challenging. It's hardwork, I need to monitor prices, still the charts, there is still risk but still its so exciting that I feel so priveledged to be in the space really!!