[kick_in_the_dor]

"Michael... now has 30 BTC, now worth $3 million, and is waiting for the value to rise to $100,000 per coin."

What the ? You presumably go from not a millionaire to having $3,000,000, and you decide to risk it to triple it? That's some next level greed right there.

[BLKNSLVR]

FYI he's not gambling the bitcoin, he's holding onto it, and given it's history, which is the sub-story, it seems to be the smart thing to do not the risky/ dumb thing to do, especially in the current stage of the cycle.

[baobabKoodaa]

None of that makes any sense whatsoever.

[BLKNSLVR]

Not if you're the sort of person who dismisses it out of hand, no.

In the context of understanding that Bitcoin is the best performing asset over its admittedly small lifetime, then it just sorta kinda might just start the process of making sense to unthaw a little.

This justification is only valid for certain time-scales however, and once you get into a discussion of that it can easily degenerate into cherry-picking and misaligned points - and I can be accused of cherry picking in limiting my judgement to "over it's admittedly small lifetime".

Basically, it comes down to a difference of opinion in the long-term value of an asset that hasn't existed long-term. If using the only available data, being short-term, as a guide, then it could be predicted to be a great investment.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. True of everything. I guess you and me both are just showing our different colours based on, potentially, the exact same reference data (although I'm going to assume my reference data set is larger and/or more varied than yours).

Alternate comprehension of your comment: He's not gambling his Bitcoin, he's holding it. At the "end" he will still have the same number of Bitcoin. I believe your misunderstanding is that it may represent a smaller US dollar value and therefore he's gambling his bitcoin, however this means he's actually gambling the value of his bitcoin - which I specifically didn't say.

[baobabKoodaa]

> FYI he's not gambling the bitcoin, he's holding onto it

This is the type of cultish speak that makes it insufferable to listen to your sermons.

Yes, he is "holding onto" his Bitcoin. But based on the interview it represents something like >90% of his net wealth. Putting >90% of your net wealth onto an extremely volatile asset like Bitcoin can fairly be called "gambling". Some gambles have positive expected values and some gambles have negative expected values, but taking risks of such level should be called "gambling".

There is very little meaningful distinction between "holding onto" Bitcoin and "buying" Bitcoin. The fact that he already owns the Bitcoin doesn't make it any less gamble-y.

> At the "end" he will still have the same number of Bitcoin.

Nobody here claimed otherwise. You're attacking some kind of weird strawman argument.

[gobindoriu]

Its not risky if you understand it. If you don’t…then it is gambling

[baobabKoodaa]

That's not how words work. Or risk. Or anything else, really.

[jpadkins]

Holding federal reserve dollars is guaranteed to lose value. Inflation is the stated goal of the Fed (as dictated by Congress in the dual mandate).

So trading Bitcoin for dollars is almost always a bad trade.

[baobabKoodaa]

Nobody advocates holding USD as an "investment", so none of what you said relates in any way to the discussion.

[jpadkins]

The OG stated

> What the ? You presumably go from not a millionaire to having $3,000,000, and you decide to risk it to triple it? That's some next level greed right there.

This implied selling btc to get dollars is less risky than holding BTC. I replied to that statement. You will likely lose more value holding dollars than holding BTC. Neither is an investment, they are both an asset.

[baobabKoodaa]

> having $3,000,000

At no point in the story did the person "have" 3 million dollars worth of USD. They had Bitcoin worth 3 million dollars. The letters "$3,000,000" refer to the USD-denominated value of the Bitcoin. When they talk about "risking it", they refer to the idea of keeping the Bitcoin, as opposed to selling the Bitcoin and then doing something else with the money. It's not specified how exactly one might invest 3 million dollars, but no reasonable person would keep the whole amount in a bank account.

Nobody implied that holding 3 million USD in a bank would be a good idea.

[hypeatei]

Few understand this

[tempestn]

It is possible to sell less than all of the bitcoin.

[BLKNSLVR]

He did sell some.

Michael waited until it rose to $62,000 per coin and sold some of it. He now has 30 BTC, now worth $3 million, and is waiting for the value to rise to $100,000 per coin.

[mindcandy]

Math is mixed up. He's got 43.6 BTC. Currently worth $68K each, for a total of $2.9 mil. He's waiting for it to be worth $4.4 mil.

I'm betting his retirement math worked out to $4.4 mil before taxes. And, $100k is a human-bias round number that BTC is widely expected to hit in the next year.

[GrantMoyer]

Considering bitcoin call options for March 2025 are going for only about 12k, I think it's fair to say the consensus is that bitcoin exceding 100k in about a year is unlikely.

[RealStickman_]

He hasn't needed them the last 10 years so he can probably hold out 10 more years.

[tosl559]

You want him to swap absolutely scarce Bitcoin for something that can be printed infinitely out of thin air? Swapping to dollars would be the risk here.

[Manabu-eo]

Only since crypto boom I see people (crypto aficionados) thinking of money as an investment. And that makes no sense, as you explain yourself.

Dollars are much less volatile and thus less risky than any crypto currency I know. A perfect intermediate step before investing in some equity or some other thing that produces value.

[a_dabbler]

I think it makes sense to consider money as an investment. Its somewhere you're deciding to hold value. Holding cash is a bad investment due to inflation so you need to spend it or store the value somewhere else. Its one of those things where deciding not to invest your money somewhere is a decision to invest it in money.

[munksbeer]

You know what else is absolutely scarce? Litecoin. And Solana. And XRP. And Cardano. And Avalanche. And Chainlink. And Bitcoin Cash. And Tron. And Ethereum Classic. And Stellar. And VeChain. And AlgoRand. And an infinite amount of other coins that anyone can invent at a moments notice.

Bitcoin only has value because someone else is willing to pay for it. That can hold true until it suddenly doesn't. If Bitcoin disappeared today, the world would go on without blinking. Nothing would stop functioning. That is of how little use it actually is.

That said, I'm a great believer in the meme value of Bitcoin and the greater fools. I hold several, with the belief that someday enough other fools will pay me a lot more fiat money to allow me to retire in style.

[Gigachad]

International crime like ransomware would stop working. I wonder if the entire value of crypto is propped up on the value of enabling crime.

[pjkundert]

How do you know he isn’t hedged?

NOT keeping it in Bitcoin is some next-level stupidity, by the simple analysis of trends over the time he’s held it.

And the inflation produced by the creation of broad money over the last 3 years hasn’t even come home to roost, yet.

I’d say he’s being ruthlessly analytical, not greedy.

[metabagel]

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

[kube-system]

True, but if he were looking for guaranteed returns he picked the wrong investment. I presume this person is has some level of risk tolerance far exceeding zero.