Bitcoin Forum

Whether it is true or not that in markets like Bitcoin (crypto) ; one person gains only when the other losses some thing.  Suppose one person bought one Bitcoin for $5000 in January 2017 and sells in June 2017 for suppose $10000 he gains $5000 by selling.  Now the purchaser in June 2017 @ $10000 sells it for $6000 in January 2018 and as a result  he losses $4000.  So it is clear from the example that the profit of seller in June which was $5000 includes the loss suffered by the person who bought it in June 2017 and sold in January 2018.
If there are some other reasons for this profit / loss factor, I request other members to please share their knowledge with the platform because my opinion may be on the basis of partial truth and there may be other factors responsible too.

The other person not necessarily ends up with a loss. What if the purchaser in June 2017 doesn't sell it for $6000, and instead waits for the future increase instead like $12,000 for instance, so he still wins $2000 in the end. There's more to that in the markets, and it's much much more complicated (I think). But yea, whether we like it or not they're gonna be losers in the markets. There's always going to be those people who FOMOs in and panic sells out.

P.S. Correct me if I'm wrong

Anytime you sell for more than you paid. Your taking someone else’s money.

A buyer is only losing if, when they become a seller, they are found to be bag holding and are selling at a loss. The OPs example only takes into account a declining market. If instead there is an increasing market then the 2nd buyer will make a profit selling as well. That may seem like its just passing the buck down the line until there is a decline in the market. What if bitcoin finds stability in the end, and is used as an everyday currency. This means that the buyers may have slight fluctuations, like in every currency, but not swings. I have found a number of people that believe Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme because you need to have people buy your bags in order to make your money, but this doesn't take into account the use case of Bitcoin and the end goal, which doesn't necessarily need stability but which would be greatly assisted by it.

no, not necessarily true.
things are a lot more complicated than just one buying at $5000 selling at $10000 and the other doing the reverse. maybe the first investor buy at $5000 and sells at $6000 and the second one buys at $6000 and sells at $7000 and both make profit.
it is not a game to have only 1 side winning and the other losing. of course there are always some who make mistakes and lose money but that doesn't still mean they have to lose in long term.

Your concept is wrong profit for one does not mean it is a loss for the other investor.As you said in your statement if a person make investment for 5K USD in 2017 sell for 10K it is true that he will gain profit and if someone buy for 10K need not wait till January to sell off at loss in fact if that person did not have patience to wait for the market to grow he should have already sold his investments when it was at 20K USD instead of selling them off at loss

Bitcoin trading come with it own risk and if you are not smart enough to calculate the market you may end up losing but when you are smart to know when to sell or hold then you will attain some level of profit, it also true that the lose of one means profit to another because if one does notblose the other will not gain.

That is the greater fool theory. That is the case when people are trading without knowing the intrinsic value of something.

If the ability to own an innovation that allows you to make financial transactions free from third-party control and disturbances is not worthwhile to you, you should probably not invest in bitcoin.
If you think that bitcoin has the ability to make our society more open, our banks more compliant and wealth distribution better, then you are welcome to inform yourself about it and invest what you can afford to lose.

Bitcoin is the only crytpocurrency with this level of underlying infrastructure, tested under extreme conditions already and a huge community of adopters and developers. None of the others have even approached the scale of usage. Bitcoin has been there, done that.
As crytpo gains momentum, bitcoin will lead the charge. That is its intrinsic value and you should try to increase your holdings without risking your economic well-being.
We are at the cusp of great changes and its your responsibility to inform yourself and make an educated decision. In the greater fool theory, its the foolish who lose.

This is spot on. And particularly so because at the time of the trade no one can know what the future holds. No one knows if they have just committed to being on the winning or losing end of the price performance and what makes one a loser of a weeks time (meaning the price goes down in the first week after the trade) doesn't mean that this person is a loser in a months time (because the stock price could go up after initially be down in the first week.)

Is this not the basic building blocks of any commodity that are bought and sold on open markets? We are dealing with a market that are based on supply and demand. <prices will go up and down> It is the traders choice <nobody is forcing him or her> to sell at a profit or a loss.

Some people buy bitcoins on credit and if the price does not increase or double it's value, then they are forced to sell those coins at a loss, because they have to pay back that credit. <The choice to take that risk was on their shoulders>

Are you familiar with pyramid scamming? They are quite the same, though I think bitcoin is more appealing for the people.
Because they both have the chance to earn, it just differs on how much.
So, the main deciding factor in this kind of business is how willing are you?
How willing are you to wait, how willing are you to invest and take risk, and etc.
Besides, our system is build in that kind of system. Laborers works hard for a low wage while their bosses earns a lot for their work.
Make sense right?  ???

It's just hows the ways its work. Trading is a non-zero-sum game, if there's a winner there must be a loser. At some points, it does not matter how good the traders is they will have some losses. Its no way the traders will always have a profit.

I dont agree with you are this is partially right, what if the another user who bought in june 2017 @ $10000 sells it for $17000 in December 2017 itself that means he is also in profit. Who is greedy will only mostly make loss but who takes profit in short will always be in gain. So your theory wont work for almost everyone only for greedy traders it suits it.

I would say you are a little wrong here. This is actually a matter of Time complexity where one has to bear the loss of the equivalent profit made by the other. So in one case, the OP is right. If there is no buyer then you will not be able to sell your bitcoins at all and vice versa. As the future chain continues where the person from future keeps buying at higher rates, everybody makes profit but as soon as he sells at lesser rate ( for example: panic sellers) that amount is lost and indirectly reaches the person who bought it at lesser rate. So yeah, it is complex and yeah, one has to loose money so that the other can make a profit out of it(but as long as the price is going up , everybody makes profit).

I strongly disagree with this one, because if you're an investor and bought crypto at low price you'll sell it on your desired price where you'll gained profit and you have no plan of selling it if you'll lose more than you bought. Your only best plan to do is to hold it until you'll get back what you have spend and ofcourse a little or more profit from it but in trading your opinion is applicable I guess.

Some people do loose money especially as it has evolved now. People investing at current levels have more chances of getting burnt than those who took the risk at initial stages. The only solution I see to this is to invest for long term. If you are waiting for at least 6 months after investing, Bitcoins will not disappoint you. 

So moral is that when you are buying in low price you should hold and sell in the high price. If the second person would sell coins in the end of December, he/she would get profit,  or if he would not sell and wait until February when price at least the same as it was when he was buying. So it is about making wise decisions :)

It’s hard to say that but I think investing or trading is really a cycle. Yes, one will loss and the other one takes profit. But for me, It doesn’t matter if I make profit and someone loss Its not my problem anymore because I am just doing what’s on my strategy so if people make loss, then the problem is with him.

You dont realise a profit or loss until you sell something.  Profit for one investor means a cost for another, which may be a profit or loss in the future. If something has utility, then there may never be any loss, or a purchaser may evaluate their gain in ways other than simplistic $ profit/loss.  i.e., buying food, transportation or shelter.

You are perfectly right that transacting is a game with negative expected return. Why is that? Because the only sure winner is the exchange or broker who takes profit from percentage or constant fees. Bitcoin is still different, but if you take forex, than the next winners are big corporate investors who have their infrastructure enabling them a very fast access to that market, they can make arbitrage or take positions increasing liquidity which give them profit because they are the very first to do it. The rest of investors don't have those opportunities, they are to slow, and in the long run they lose (negative expected return).

In bitcoin the expected return is still negative, but with current influx of money into bitcoin you can bet against the increase of the price (aka hodl). It may be a good bet, I admit. But chances are, of course, that you will lose. In that case the winners will be the guys who sold when it was still high and maybe will buy on the next deep.

Remember, that the expected return is negative, what means that it is not "when you win somebody must lose", but rather  "somebody must lose some more when you win", and of course, "when somebody wins you lose some more".

You are partially right but those who bought what someone sold can still profit in the future. The full truth is that, the Bitcoin is being passed from one user to another using a process called trading, which have two categories, the buy and selling. Bitcoin is being passed from the seller to the buyer and then the buyer later on can become the seller to pass it on to another person. The buyer can profit if he/she can sell it at a higher price.

Yes, the market keep it that way, imagine if everyone gains and no one will lost the capital goes down and btc value will be back where it started. There's a gamble when it comes to investment.

Of course they can profit in the future, but only provided there is a an influx of fresh money into the system. At some point in the future there is no more people to sell to, you are the last holder of bitcoin and you must sell cheaper than you bought or you will not sell at all. At that point in the future bitcoin may be 20k or 100k or 1m, I do not know, the point is that you will kind-of pay for the money other guys before you have won.

The market is a profit and loss platform. One losses and another gains. It all matters what you know, the move you make and the ability to push your way. So one investor gains and another looses.

Yes it is true one month before how much price on bitcoin but now decrease bitcoin price and you can think and invest

No, not always so. Of course, it often turns out like this, but everyone has the right to decide when to buy and when to sell. If you look at the example, then it is not obliged to sell when the price reached $ 6000 in January 2018

This is somewhat true but not always and here's why. What if the person who bought Bitcoin at the price of $10000 before the price goes down to $6000 did not sell his/her Bitcoin and just decided to hold it because he/she believe that the price will go up soon? he/she probably lose almost half of his capital but what if the price goes up again? finally he/she gets a profit. And you will not lose a lot if you are actively checking the price and can get out early when the price goes down. Bitcoin is not originally designed to be an investment or asset but due to its volatility is high and only supply and demand determines its price, people are taking advantage of it.

Ok, let us take it away from Bitcoin and into forex trading for instance. How would you explain what happens each time someone closes a trade in profit? Don't you realize that someone else loses? Of course, that's how it works. I once bought regalcoin at $62 not knowing it was at the overbought. Now regalcoin is shitcoin at $0.30+ or so. At the time I bought, someone sold and took profit, right? You see, that someone made profit but I lost out. That's the way it works.

You are right, we will not gonna loss if we dont sell our coin for cheaper price. Holding will help us to recover.
I have other point, i know its true that the winner is getting money from losser trader but if the price downfall and they sell the coin cheaper. But if the price always remain up, nobody loss. They loss if the market down.

No, it's not true. Read on the Internet what is capitalization and how the market works. This naive theory can be turned against those who earn on stock exchanges too. Since if you earned from $ 100 a few thousand, at this time another person, can earn hundreds of times more. ;)

Ironically this is correct. Somebody has to pay - even if it seems pretty cruel. When a new investors enters crypto market they buy coins at some price while someone else does sell it. So there is always the transfer of funds from one person to another in trading.

Though this is not how traders make money. They rely on the market volatility and how much FUD is influencing the market.


That is true. But they "will" sell at some time or the other. Nobody forces the other to sell or buy but they are humans and they need cash at hand at often times - which is when they might sell or sometime later on.

every time you are making a profit, well, it's some other peoples money - that's the way you make a profit.

Yes really a loss if the person sells it, but the reason what makes the person must sell loss.I think no one like that because to know bitcoin is an interesting investment and people who invest I think also know the way how he to play investment so not maybe he will sell a loss.
Bitcoin is always up and down but the graph rises bigger than the charts in the year, so it's unlikely anyone invests in bitcoin and sells a loss or does not make a profit.

 Actually it is not correct in a word. But it correct in another sense when the company progressless then profit for means loss for another person.

Stocks and penny stocks feature the same system, the investor will usually win until there is no one around to purchase the coins anymore and the one left holding loses money.

Both buyer and seller can make profit and there is a probability that both lose money. But for sure there are many people in cryptocurrecncies making money and also many people losing money. But I don't think the ratio is 1:1. I think the number of losers are much more than the number of winners. Because most of humans cannot be patient. The patient person gets several impatient person's money.

You guys are discussing only about the trading of bitcoin.
You are completely ignoring the value that it derives from being used for (edit) buying other cryptos, having the most underlying infrastructure and having the most information and support out there for anyone who seriously wants to explore crypto.

The underlying value it derives from driving the crowdfunding requirements of so many startups and future companies is also being largely ignored.
Thats what gives it value and not just the people buying in for trading purposes or for getting rich quickly.

This is no different than the way that the stock market operates. People buy and sell all the time, some at a profit, some at a loss. So while you are technically profiting from someone's loss, let's not forget that new bitcoins are being mined on a regular basis. While the cap maximum supply is limited, that hasn't been reached yet, so the circulating supply is growing on a daily basis.

I think this is what people want to believe as a "scam" when they hear about Bitcoin. That in order for you to profit, you have to sell for more than what you bought for. Here's the thing, and why I'm able to sleep at night playing the crypto market: I don't prey on new buyers. I don't make them pull the trigger in deciding when or what to buy. Just as in the stock market, buyers should do their due diligence and invest only what they believe is a good investment for them. Nobody is forcing these buyers to make their investments. So just as I think that it's a great thing that I bought in at $200, some new investors might think it's great that they are buying in now at $8k.

That can never be correct not even in theory or as a general rule . An investor who purchased at 1 dollar and soled it for 2 dollars has gianed a profit on his investment. I

There are always winners and losers in every situation.  I guess it depends on your goal.  During the crash I was buying up ETN at levels I had predetermined for myself, down to 600 sats, few days later it was backup to 840~ sats, however my goal is to hold as much as possible, so those sellers may consider themselves 'winners' with their profit now, but hopefully in a few months, i'll be the winner.

This can never be true in theory or the real world . if buyer A bought some coins at $1 and sold them to B for $2 then A has made a profit of $1 . when buyer B now decides to sell and based on market conditions sells for $5 dollars then he would have made a profit of $3, are you suggesting that buyer B made a profit at the expenses of buyer A, this can absolutely not be the case so to say "profit for one investor means loss to the other one" is in fact a statement that is not factual. both individuals come come out making profits.

There's just one flaw in your example: Who bought from Buyer B? Yes, Buyer A and Buyer B made profits, but in order for that to happen, there has to be a Buyer C (or D, E, F, etc.). Not all sellers will profit, as we all know that somebody that FOMO'd at $20k and then panic-sold at $10k, but that's just the nature of the game. And yes, this can absolutely be true in theory AND the real world. A prime example of this happening on a day-to-day basis? The stock market.

it is not always like that as profit to one investor will be the loss to another.There are situations like crash or all time high,which gives equal opportunities to everyone and it's just one's smartness how you handle this opportunity.But Opportunities comes to brave one and who are ready to take risks.One who wants to trade safe has very limited opportunity as well as returns are also less.

After the purchase of any item, profit or loss is understood. Any investor is investing for profit. Which may lead to loss or damage to the future. But it will be the profit of the real one to the other. So, the price of Bitcoin is the loss of one person's profit to other people.

Trading crypto must be smarter than trading in other forms because of crypto price fluctuations that tend to be very active at all times. Then, when we buy a crypto and in the next few months the price of the crypto is decreasing and if we sell it will certainly lose it would be much better we hold the crypto until the price is high again and avoid the loss. We have to believe that the right time to sell crypto and make a profit will always come even if we do not know when it will surely come. But, rest assured that the annual price of crypto will continue to increase as the crypto investment enthusiasts continue to grow.

All the profits we have come from the losses of other investors. When you get a profit means that someone has lost money in the crypto. If all investors are profitable, the market cannot survive. A down market says that it is trying to make a profit for the winners and make many losers.

Yes that is how it goes , the money has to come from someone right. There is always that 1 person who buys on ath.

While people trade crypto or anything else they look for profit - without profit they never came to the field of trading. Hence we cant think of net no money transfer when a trade happens. Obviously one person gains some money while another person loses some money. The difference is the timing and the decisive nature of placed orders if done correctly.


It often comes from many people not only a single person but there are methods by which cashing one persons buy order can be done specially or small volume exchanges.

I think this is the real experiences of a successful investors. Sometimes gain more, but sometimes loss many also. Just think that investing in bitcoin world is risky always. So, be in a strong determination when it comes to a decision. And be patient because there is always an opportunity to come to be able to grab for in the Cryto world market with a good and a profitable results, for no oneself will be loss.

Unfortunately, any financial system that everyone is winning together isn't possible. The cryptocurrency markets have the same delicate equilibrium. Prices have fluctuated to supply and demand. Of course, while the earliest taking an action is a winner, latecomers is always loser. It can't be any different.

Steps to eliminate the existing restrictions have already been outlined, and work is under way in this direction. Since launch, every aspect of the network has been in the process of continuous improvement, optimization and specialization