Bitcoin Forum

We have some of the most intelligent people in the world working on extracting as much wealth as possible from high volume trading.  For someone to gain money in the market someone most lose.  Imagine if we had these minds working on solving real world problems that would actually benefit society.  Just like gambling, trading is zero sum.

You're right about that, except the loss is often intangible losses. For example someone selling before the price goes up will think they lost out but really they didn't.

There are enough great minds to go around that high volume trading can be spared a few. Most people who are at the top of this field probably aren't that capable of transitioning in to solving the issues you're talking about. Being intelligent doesn't mean you're capable of doing just anything, you have to have something that drives you.

It applies to wealth distribution as well in that sense. Imagine if all millionaires/billionaires allocated 5-10% of their wealth to finance research to cure diseases that aren't possible to cure right now. Or what if we all would allocate 5-10% of our wealth to do the same thing? In the end, everyone here could do something to make the world a better place, at least locally, but we're not doing it.

If we're not doing it, who gives us the right to demand from others to do something about it?

Happens before and up until now.

You have money you are up there and being respected and  when not you are being stepped by those who have money.

They say it is the balance of the world. I say that is BS. It is just tiring though to help someone because of their laziness which most people have.

With trading though it is just the same. If you could create a large sum for capital then it could be an easy money but again those who have low volume will suffer.

Well that's just how society is, people tend to only care about themselves and doesn't mind what happens to their surroundings but for me it is the smart way to live minding your own business. But sometimes there are people who helps even though they dont have the intelligence or the money. I like those kind of idiots.

I agree,but there is something you should know."those minds" have only one skill,and this skill is trading.They can't solve the real world problems,because they don't have the skills and knowledge to do so.They won't put their money into projects that solve the world problems,because the profit for them will be zero.

Fundamentally, you can't stop people from trading things. It's the rawest form of free markets. So while I understand where you're coming from, it's a moot point. When people see expected value, it's only rational for them to take it. I'm a trader because the market throws out opportunities to make money all the time. If I didn't take those opportunities, the money would still be on the table......and someone else would take it.

It's very difficult to get like minds to come together to solve world problems,and in our current dispensation,individuals tend to leave solving world problems in the hands of the government,and really it shouldn't be so

Comparing solving real world problems with trading isnt forming a quorum in my opinion,other than traders there are a million other intelligent people out there,we have got educational geniuses,skilled footballers,talented musicians etc, you cant clamor for them to come together to solve world problems

Everyone has the line and path he or she wishes to thread on, I wouldn't trade being a successful trader and making huge money for myself with striving to solve some world problems that people may probably never remember you(me) for.

The very fact of trading being a zero sum game means that at all times there must be winners and losers, if those winners left the market, the losers wouldn't stop losing, the winners would just be replaced.

You cannot be annoyed at people for taking an opportunity presented to them to generate profit from doing something. Each person has their own choice in life of who to be and what to do, if they choose to trade, good for them. If they choose to try and solve all of the worlds problems, good for them. Neither one is right or wrong as they're surely only motivated by what makes them happy.

If we have those intelligent people take over to solve the problems in the world, do you think one would agree to the others opinion if they have their own? Intelligent people are full of pride so I don't think letting them work together will prospher instead it will lead to chaos on leadership.

Living in this world is kind of making yourself and only yourself survive against other people to that every person in this world is trying to make out the best of it even when they know that they are stepping on someone else.

That's right. And also if you close your position, there's also this fee for the 3rd party or mining fee whatever you want to call it in different names nowadays for decentralized ones, technically it's not zero sum. Without those, yes agree that it's you the predator or the prey in that field.

Yes , money doesn't make in exchanges and they are just a platform where people can trade with each other , Money doesn't create in it and it doesn't vanish , it just goes from someone's pocket to another one , it is a zero sum game yes but different than gambling .

I agree with you, there is nothing in life one won't have a loss at but having those losses should not make you back out, besides trading in this bear market doesn't require small Capitals which isn't your spare cash. Trading in the bear market really requires lots of capital to be presides.

Definitely not all intelligent people are full of pride let's say few and around 70% in the Crypto atmosphere have lots of pride in them and when they control a huge sum of funds in their wallet.

Well, it's still zero sum, those fees are just included in the sum to zero. A zero sum game doesn't have to only consist of 2 players or parties. It can be multiple and in this case it would be, for trading it would be the exchange (fees), the buyer and the seller.

That's the sad reality in trading, unfortunately those people who think about money and forget about the risk will most likely to lose.
Even though there are information in the space but we should also be careful because it's like in the real world, there are info that are false and it's only created to mislead people on their decision making, that'st the reality, anyone can lose hard if we are lazy in learning on our own.

That's not exactly true. The price could go up without anyone selling anything which means if I have 1 bitcoin and it is at 3 thousand dollars and I don't sell it and it goes to 4 thousand dollars that means I made 1 thousand dollar profit, also if I sell it at 4 thousand dollars and someone else buys it and it goes to 5 thousand dollars it means that person made 1 thousand dollars too.

Yes I am missing out on an extra 1 thousand dollar profit in that case but still I have not made any lost. That way the trading becomes not something like a zero sum game but it is just who will make the most money. The only way people lose money trading is when they sell lower than they bought, otherwise during the peak times of bitcoin there was a lot of people profiting while selling and everyone was at a gain while no one was losing.

I don't think if we have those minds and collaborate with each other to solved problems, we still have more problems being born every minute. Regarding trading and making the most money, its human nature and the fittest survived. Other win but majority losses because crypto trading is a free market.

While I agree with what you're saying it's easy to see why you can argue the other-side. From a pure economics point of view, considering profit maximization if you sell at a profit of $1000 but could've had $2000 you've lost out on $1000. It's not practical to think that way from the point of view of someone trading but it is the simple truth if modelling the market.

however you make statements about crypto currency trading but this is very difficult to stop, some people are very confident about the future of crypto currency trading, even though in reality it is detrimental to some people.

Anyone who really wants to address the real problems of society and the planet is already engaged in this. First you need to be honest with yourself. We are members of this community who came to crypto only for the purpose of making money. Other questions interest us less. It would be great if people with great intelligence and big money would pay a lot of attention to the problems that the governments do not deal with.

He is correct. Trading especially futures or derivatives is mostly zero-sum.

If you got an 401K and you use it to buy stocks that you keep for 25 years then its not really zero-sum because due to inflation stocks generally usually go up in value.

However when you buy a derivative contract on Bitmex, someone has to sell you that contract. So basically one person will either have to cover with a loss or with a profit. The rest are the commissions that the brokerage or exchange gets.

I waste too much time of my life using my mind to "solve real problems".

The "Real World civilization" doesn´t care about you or your works.

You may do what ever you want with your life.

I wake now. I work for me.

That is why we need to follow the golden rule of investment, just invest the amount that you can afford to lose specially right now we all know that the market value is like a crazy having small pump then huge dump next that is why much better to keep away in trading at this moment to avoid huge loses.

I can see this rule most of the time when I read books and read comments from experts, but it seems like because of greediness
people tend to fail in following this. Most of us only improve when we make mistakes and I hope we will not make the same mistake twice before we learn.

Agree with you, they can change many people life with their ideas and hard work. I'm afraid people with skill and knowledge like that never show their works because people have negative ( mostly ) opinion and some of them against. That's why they keep stay living in garage/ room with out many disturbing. World need them but also respect their work.

That's how trading works. When someone is loosing, someone also winning the game and that is the cycle of trading. We can be on the winning side most of the time if we just trade actively, smartly and with full of awareness with the fundamental results. The goal is to earn so to achieve that, we have to be in control of our emotions and propering reading of technical analysis is a plus. I could say that most team on the winning side are those traders with over a year experience.

I agree with you just that it most be like this either we like it or not.  Someone must be losing for another to be gaining. If we keep away from that system the world may not go around as it is not everybody that can solved world problems.

Exactly. That is what I think about this. The social marginal cost curve is above the private marginal benefit which means that there is individualism rather than a holistic profit scenario. So it is like a zero sum game.

Well, in a lot of ways, you are right, but that depends on how you approach trading anyway. If you approach it as a pure gambling then you will expect to see it act that way based on the decisions you will be making, but if you see it as something you have to do right, you sure will have a good plan to always do things right as long as you know what you are doing. We are all trying to anticipate movement in the market as retail traders, and the earlier you get used to that, and know how you can handle yourself as a trader with a good plan, the better for you as a person.

Not only on crypto but on all sorts of investment that do really involved trading like forex/stocks and even traditional businesses. You would always end up to have a competition and as said only the fittest would survive.
Its good to think or to be concern about equality but life wont really be fair no matter what. If someone gains then there would be losses.Its just like that.
As said above most people wont really care at all if they do already stepped into someone as long they are gaining benefits on their own.

That is usually the thing! A lot of people enter into trading, without considering the risk and one thing is that, if you do not know the risk involved in something, how on earth will you ever be able to manage that risk? It is very funny that a lot of people have no idea what they are getting into, but they get into it anyway, with the hope of getting rich over night. However, as long as you are a normal trader in the retail perspective, you just have to understand that every move you make is a risk and you must plan ahead for every of those moves. If you do not have a trading plan which includes stop loss, reward to risk ratio, then you are just going to end up screwed anyway.

It's important to completely understand that law, to start earning at trading. 95% of people are losing money in long-term.
But i don't think that trading is "just like gambling". Traders/investors are helping the market, by taking the risk of "losing". Also traders are some sort of arbiter/judge. They are making the hole world progress faster and more effectively, by choosing the "good" projects.

You have spoken well because crypto trading and gambling are indeed alike because they both involve in risk taking and every prediction make in trading are totally not guarantee but learn to understand laws, rules and regulations of trading are the only thing which make a crypto trader understand to enter and exit the market. Besides, it will also make crypto trader to confident about the future of crypto market even though the are not looking good like this days.

Not everyone loses. I think what you’re trying to say is that for you to make profit you will have to take the risk. When taking the risk you’re not sure yet whether you’re going to win or lose, you’re just taking the risk because you know that there is a reward if you should pass.

There are people who are so good in trading that they hardly experience loss while trading, and there are those who are still novice and lose money every time.

And how exactly do you know that there are people who hardly lose on their trades? Is it based on facts or just an assumption of yours? There are too many people online claiming to be an expert or elite trader.

If you look further, they mostly try to sell you signals or memberships to make a few bucks. What expert or elite trader needs these forms of income if trading is so profitable?

There is way too much shady business going on in this industry, all to make sure newbies who don't know shit about trading or investing will sign up and put all their faith and hope into someone's basic understanding of TA.

Yes it needs experience and it needs skills to become a good trader there are allot of people are now good trades and some are now still learning. All are not bad and not good. It needs time, it needs practice and it needs money to trade so this way we can become good trader.

Try your skills right now. The prices going up with few declines. The prices are fluctuating nicely with upward trend. This situation is really good for trading.

I think spot trading is not gambling because we can minimize the risk by use management of risk and money. All kind of business has each risk, there are always in high or lower risk and trading is include high risk and high return. If we can minimize the risk that mean trading activity will be good option to make money.

Trading is a game and some one must lose for you to game.  Investments into cryptocurrencies market is not a child game but a mature man mind.  Those that has strong mind and spirit really make money from the market and the weak hands lose money.  It has been like this and that is how it will remain.

Rather than think trading as a game, you should consider trading as a profession. As in any profession, you need to understand it first and get basic and advance knowledge of it. Same is required for trading. If you want to earn in gambling, you should first learn it and they come in this field.

Trading has a lot of potential of earning, but only for those who have knowledge and experience.

You have a good idea! We should not think trading as a game. We should see the trading as a serious job because our money are on the line. We can lose it easily in just one mistake so we should not see the trading as a game.

No, it is similar to a game, sometimes we win and sometimes we loss but there is no luck inside cause all the possible results will rely on us. We all experiencing losses at first but it inspires us to take another chance and win the game.
If you consider this as a serious job, you absolutely get bored in the future especially when crisis will strike again.

trading is indeed a game, an analysis game and a game of trust, if you are caught in an error in analyzing the game will end.

That largely depends on what asset is being traded. If this asset is entirely speculative, i.e. it doesn't have any use value in real life (read, it is a shitcoin), then it is definitely a zero-sum game. However, if the asset traded has a certain application in real life which requires this asset to be actually employed for something other than trading (for example, Bitcoin as a value transfer device), then it can't be a zero-sum game as some people would be buying it for purposes which have nothing to do with the "buy low, sell high" mantra (the speculation epitome)

Hope this helps with better understanding of trading as a zero-sum game

Yes we definitely not considered trading as the game because trading is like a profession we can earn monthly income from it so a lots of people get income from cryptocurrency trading so we cannot surely say trading is a game.

I definetely wouldn't compare trading and gambling. Yes, some luck is needed for both but that is just a smaller part of it. And successful traders that you refer to know that the best. But just because they are good in finances and that field is their expertise that doesn't mean they would also be good in other areas and could help to solve the world issues. This is utopia I would say. And we also shouldn't blame them because they want to get the most for themselves out of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. It's the opportunity for the bravest and the most capable.

Well, there are different views on this matter

For example, if we assume that cryptocurrency trading is in fact a zero-sum game (which is true for most altcoins aka shitcoins), it will be gambling for the total majority of traders as you can't defeat the house. The house in this case will be institutions (e.g. exchanges) as well as particular individuals (e.g. developers) who are either earning or not trading, as simple as it gets. But this necessarily means that the odds are not in favor of simple traders and they are set to lose at the end of the day as you can't beat the house. It is kinda accounting identity which you can't overcome unless you can milk the market somehow

If we compare with gambling, trading activity has more probability to change the financial. More people was changed the life from crypto trading but less people can make it from gambling. If we have skill about risk management and trading plan, trading will be one of the good business that possible to change our financial much better.

This is a normal phenomenon, and only a high return can attract investors to join in. Nowadays, cryptocurrencies are very volatile every day, which is very suitable for short-term trading.

Call it anything but it is really a game of marketing skills and how good you manage the different factors in the market that can make you loose nerves and can make you take foolish or wisest of decisions. Before really getting into any game, you need to know about the rules of that game.

Because, these coins have huge real life applications, they could be at times down and at times very up. But here, gain or losses are not necessarily the same.

Well, it all depends on what you referred to as lost because some may Bitcoin or other coins at let say $50 and when its value appreciate to like $60 and later drop down to $55 before they sell to them is like they sell at lost which is not so.
If the market value of the Bitcoin appreciate and maybe it appreciate because there are new investors and those that bought when its value was very little sell and make profit and at the time those new investors are yet to sell theirs then one has made any lost yet. In this case, your submission that "trading trading is a zero sum game" will not stand dude.

Money talks. They are blessed and worked hard for their knowledge, and are working on what is they think good for themselves. You cannot blame them, they need to feed their dreams and family. Maybe in this lone life of theirs, after getting such wealth, they could help the society or economy for a better purpose.

If wise people prefer to trade for making money then we should blame capitalism and governments. Instagram and other social media platforms are full of pictures, stories of "successful" traders but almost all of them are trying to sell their secret strategy more making more money with sales. After reaching their goal they set another goal and it goes forever.

If you one does not  intend stealing or carrying cocaine, the best way a man can successfully and genuinely free financially is to have so many multiple source of income because it is not enough to rely on one source of income to make you a fortune and I believe majority of these wise men we talked about have other sources of income too in which trading is one of them.

Hence, there is nothing to blame government for on this or capitalism, it’s not all wise men or rich men that trades, it is just the ones that feels that they need to make more money that does.

Cryptocurrency trading is just like trading stock, forex or precious metal . You should probably go tell the traders of stock, forex , precious metal thesame thing. There is nothing new  about  trading speculative trading.