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How did so many people get crypto so wrong

2 points by paulpauper ↗ HN
Down 77% in a year. This makes it the worst investment of any asset class by far.

In 2020-2021 you had all of the biggest names in tech and VC who were behind this, and it just blew up in everyone's faces. You could not have done worse. -75% in a year is worse than even the 2000s dotcom crash. Worse than 2008. You would think people would learn their lesson or at least be humbled by this.

6 comments

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motivatedthink
Motivated thinking is a hell of a drug. The folks that thought bitcoin was going to usher in an ideal libertarian age of commerce did not understand the technology but simply wanted to use it as a wedge against the existing "elite" political structure. So they overpromised on crypto's potential and underdelivered.

The reality is always more complicated and it turns out people didn't much care about the political aspects and simply wanted to gamble. Turns out that gambling is not enough to sustain the ecosystem and so now it's all crashing down.

jleyank
It was tulips, money laundering, or disguising transactions. The last two have operated just fine year over year. Purchasing tulips works until the music stops, and at least they could eat them. Bits and bytes, not so much.
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rvz
By the time crypto was running upwards, the majority were already too late and were buying at the top.

No idea why many thought BTC was going to $100K despite me warning them when BTC was at >$60K [0] or thinking this would continue forever as someone said: "This isn't even close to what will be the all time high." Or betting that DOGE will be over $1 by September 2021. [2]

It looks as though all the signs were there for this crypto crash in 2022 to happen. [3] Very unsurprising that it did, after all the warnings.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27206314

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26840880

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27046019

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29752372

bananarchist
Glad all the speculators are getting out maybe now we can finally make something useful of it.
motivatedthink
As long as people think cryptography is about money it will never lead to anything useful.