[throwaway10110]

That is just awesome, I go into bitcoin in 2011 or 2012 (in top few hundred users on bitcoin-otc back when price was $4 a pop) and had loads of ideas for services (+ accepted bitcoin for years for webhosting) but listened to all negative comments about crypto and spend most of them over years (have a descent stash left) and hence now not a billionaire just a millionaire, but yeh moral of story is not to listen to overly critical nerds who are overly negative about every subject (often just to be edgy/cynical) and just do it!

[apples_oranges]

Yes, there's also something about techies that get older that makes them more negative? Thinking of comments on some other websites that have been around longer, such as slashdot.

[thathndude]

You can’t fault folks for being “negative” when Armstrong’s narrative did in fact prove to be very wrong. He’s saying in 5-10 years Amazon isn’t going to suffer paying CC interchange fees, and yet here we are and that hasn’t changed.

Folks are talking about mainstream acceptance of BTC, and that means holding 1-3% of the balance sheet in BTC and an eccentric billionaire with an electric car company accepting them for payment.

To be sure, the underlying crypto value has blown up, but it’s integration into society has fallen well short of Armstrong’s predictions in 2012.

More mature/older tech individuals have seen this cycle play out before, and so they’re just not as quick to embrace the unchecked enthusiasm and optimism.

[sjg007]

I’m mean credit card fees are still too high but I guess it’s harder to build a payment system? With square on iPads though it seems like an alternate could exist even though everyone loves Venmo...

[manigandham]

Not negative, just more realistic as experience builds up and patterns emerge. It doesn't mean that people can judge everything perfectly, but it is backed up by the fact that the vast majority of new crazy projects don't end up actually doing anything.

[monoideism]

Yes, but Bitcoin didn't fit a "pattern". I saw it was going to likely change the world back then, if governments didn't ban together to suppress it (which could have easily happened). And I was > 30 when I got into Bitcoin back in early 2011. I started a crypto business that fizzled out, and then had to sell most of my Bitcoins for medical bills 5 years later (sold the rest for med bills last year - just another way that medical care destroys people's future in this country, also had to liquidate a good part of my retirement).

But yeah, it didn't pan out as a payment processor, which is what I was hoping for. But mathematically, it was easy to predict that if things caught on, Bitcoin would go over $10,000. It killed me to sell mine 5 years ago.

[gist]

> just another way that medical care destroys people's future in this country, also had to liquidate a good part of my retirement).

Is it right to blame medical bills rather than blame bad luck for your misfortune and/or lack of a job or income to buy healthcare to cover those medical bills? (This is general w/o knowing your specifics).

> I started a crypto business that fizzled out

Example if your crypto business (or any business you started) didn't fizzle out you would not have to have sold your bitcoins possible. Also (and this is the larger point) if you had taken a traditional and less risky job at a large company (tech or otherwise) most cases the healthcare provided would have covered (once again generally w/o knowing your specifics) your healthcare bills.

[monoideism]

> s it right to blame medical bills rather than blame bad luck for your misfortune and/or lack of a job or income to buy healthcare to cover those medical bills

I had health insurance and a job. I had just transitioned from a job paying ~$30,000 to one paying $100,000. Perhaps my only mistake was waiting 10 years to move to a software engineering job despite hobby programming my entire life, and loving programming (my prior industry originally paid ~$50,000/year but automation, globalization, and consolidation had whitled the average salary down over 10 years)[1].

And you're stunningly naive to think that having health insurance and a job will save you from financial catastrophe if you face severe illness (and I was within 20 pounds of my ideal weight and in relatively good shape). Perhaps you can come out OK (not great) if you have a large nest egg and really good long-term care insurance (I didn't, having recently worked a $30,000/yr job with a family). If you have those, congrats: you're in the top ~5% of Americans.

But sure, let's blame "bad luck" instead of an obviously malfunctioning system. It's not necessarily capitalism. If you're not poor, it appears that medical costs are reasonable in countries with a functioning capitalist medical system (like India, Thailand, Mexico, etc). It's our weird hybrid system, where there's no competition and no downward price pressure on providers. And hospitals continue to consolidate, so prices will only go up.

> Also (and this is the larger point) if you had taken a traditional and less risky job at a large company (tech or otherwise)

You know nothing of my situation. Building that company, and programming that service (which I did while holding down a job in my old industry), was the exact thing that allowed me to flee a dying $30,000/year profession and transition into a bigcorp as a software developer making $100,000/year, a little over 1 year before my first major illness. I had tried to transition into tech once before, and was turned down for lack of experience (and to be fair, it was also during the great recession).

1. And I can tell you're the kind of person who would interject here, "maybe you were just a bad worker, and that's why your salary went down instead of up". Well, my salary has gone the other way (up, significantly) since I entered tech, even as I've struggled with significant chronic health issues. So let me stop you there.

[thathndude]

And this project didn’t meet Armstrong’s own projections in 2012. We’re still using that 30-year-old (now 40yo) CC infrastructure primarily.

[gist]

> Yes, there's also something about techies that get older that makes them more negative?

Most ideas do not work and even most that work don't work as well (in terms of making money) as coinbase has. The only reason we are discussing what Brian was looking for in 2012 is because he is an outlier. Otherwise what he said back then would be of little interest.

[benjohnson]

Speaking for myself, it’s because I’ve seen a lot of things that not only were leading but the best in the business fail to remain relevant:

We not now even using CompuServe on Commodores aver AT&T lines. Modula-2 and Prolog are just footnotes, and Lotus 123 is gone.

[NicoJuicy]

Seeing problems on changing things.

To be honest, decentralized crypto is terrible for any financial service.

If you get scammed, you're money is gone. Nothing in crypto is fixing this and i don't see a real future without it.

And i don't think it's even possible without keeping it's essence of existence.

[sumedh]

Even if HN would was more pro BTC back in the day you and most others would have sold a majority of BTC when the price started crashing from the 20K USD peak

[hmmokidk]

I struggle with this. How do you know when to sell for good?

I suppose it is when you predict opinion is going to work against this and public opinion seems a very slow moving thing. Unless some sort of crazy event occurs.

[jameslk]

The responses here are surprising. Your trading activity should be based on a strategy with a clear point when you should exit, e.g. you should have a prediction of how high an asset will go and sell when it reaches that point, or some timeline/portfolio risk mix that determines when you sell. And adjust that strategy based on new information (e.g. if you have a credible reason for why that strategy is no longer applicable you should adjust). Everything else is subject to bias and emotion, which is only useful at the casinos.

That is, you should NOT sell something because you're becoming emotional drained by it as someone else suggested. That implies you're not fit for managing and investing your own wealth. Don't jump off a rollercoaster while you're still riding it.

If you don't know what your strategy would be for bitcoin or some other asset, you should figure that out before trading.

[Sammi]

Yes. Know when you will sell before you buy. Or else you won't know why you are holding and you will sell at an arbirtary time.

But keep reading and stay informed as you go as everything is changing always.

[sumedh]

> you should have a prediction of how high an asset will go and sell when it reaches that point

Do you really think people would have predicted BTC can touch 60K?

[derivagral]

If this kind of thing is longer term, you can play the "for free" game. If your 1 turns into 2, then sell the 1 (plus tax, etc) and you're left with your initial plus a freebie. Play with the ratio however you want, and repeat as you see fit.

[sumedh]

One signal you can use for selling is if your investment starts giving you sleepless nights. If the value is going down and you constantly think about it then its better to sell instead of letting it affect you mentally.

[Sammi]

You did not afford to buy if you are fretting every short term price move.

[sumedh]

That is not true, you could have bought when the price was low but now when the price is high you are not sure if you want to sell or keep holding.

[eric_cc]

> How do you know when to sell for good?

You don't ever sell for good. The goal is to increase BTC not USD. USD is a trap.

[midasuni]

For every example like this, how many are there of people failing?

[Isn0gud]

Yeah, if you know the future, just play the lottery, its much quicker!

[seriousquestion]

Unknown. But we do know that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

[midasuni]

You miss 100% of the shots you can’t take because of the high risk play.

[d_burfoot]

Cranky nerds are like a dumb baseline ML algorithm that always predicts "false", and is right 95% of the time.

[FlyingSnake]

> moral of story is not to listen to overly critical nerds

I would say pay attention to overly critical nerds, and see of the opposite could be used to your own benefit.

[thathndude]

Enjoy your millionaire status! Could of, should of, would of!