Bitcoin Forum

Ever since I've got into cryptocurrency, I've had several experiences on the  prices on some of my holdings achieved ATH's in a matter of months alone especially on the 2017 bull market and was thankful I didn't sold out early when I got them. Having had a positive feeling about it, I became reluctant to sell some of these cryptos even at the height of its price thinking that I may gain more from them in the future and also believing that this projects have very good fundamentals and does have a room for growth!

Then at the beginning on the 1st quarter of 2018 (which started the period for bearish market), crypto prices nosedived sharply and in a matter of weeks my portfolio begun to shrunk and was reduced significantly but then again I was overpowered by my belief that crypto will have an eventual rebound in which I was wrong! Over a period of short time, I was forced to sell those cryptocurrencies at a significantly lower price and accepted my loss which led me to believe that hodling is indeed a form of gambling and thus has a risk / reward factors associated with it.

Until now, I don't have any regrets but only have lessons learned from this experiences and will remain having a positive outlook on cryptosphere because I know gambling will let us "win some and also lose some".  :)

I know some of you had already been on the same kind of experience just like me. :)

Yes crypto holding is like a gambling because you wait for the price increase of your token, which you just hoping in the future for a price increase. Its really hard to wait, you bet for the coming price increase or not coming.So it's really difficult but if your money wins wow it will multiply according to the value of token you have.

I won't consider crypto as a gambling in any form or shape! If I have to go by your saying, then I will have to consider every market-linked investment as gambling as well! Crypto is essentially a currency system but due to less adoption and confusing legal status in many countries, people consider it as an investment! Yes, it is true that the crypto investment is more riskier than many other conventional investment, but it is not gambling in any sense! You are not entirely betting against your luck! Considering crypto as gambling is a very wrong way of looking at it! 

Some sort of gambling yet we cant be sure on what would be the future of crypto that we had invested in specially if we throw up money into some alts which doesnt have a clear future even this one also applied on Bitcoin itself.We cant be sure on whats ahead yet nothing do last forever but somehow those presumptions we had made in means of investing can really give out significant benefits if we do able to hit it right.

Holding crypto is indeed a gambling. The worst type of gambling - similar to roulette but without even knowing the odds. There is no indicator that you can relay on to increase your chances (every indicator can be faked - see below). You are condemned to the grace of the whales and their vision of price changes.


Trading is more like poker. Its gambling too but you can use your skill to take advantage over others.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5122226.msg50225995#msg50225995

We can surely say that Hodling Cryptocurrency has risk but it will surely depend on your understanding of things and the project of the given coin you had invested on, But my perspective in Hodling is not the same as yours because I don't consider this as gambling because I haven't settled a large amount in gaining my hodl coins, But with existing project in the forum on the recent years when Airdrops are still profitable and bounty campaigns had a promising deal in supporting their projects, Well in these sense I am not considering it as gambling in my opinion, but surely it is your experience and your opinion regarding the matter.

yes it is because when you hodl a crypto there is always a chance that you can loose but there is a chance that you can earn a profit  but not unlike to a real crypto gambling , hodling a crypto do only have a minimal risk because the price can recover and you will regain your losses as long as you dont sell  yet .  its a good idea if you will keep your self updated here on the forum or on outside this forum to look for crypto related news so that you will know if the price well fell or not  .

Undeniable truth mate.because like gambling we don’t really have any assurance if the currency were holding will get profit or growth in span of our dedicated time.of will go another way around

We have been holding for months.years or  more than until now but still the promise of profiteering in not involved so basically ,this is a form of gambling that takes longer time than normal gambling to happen

On a normal sense, cryptocurrency holding shouldn't be regarded as gambling.
But when one start selling impulsively or selling emotionally, because of FUD or price speculation, then it's more like gambling.
Moreover, you are not alone in this, as many hodlers have experienced this before which has lead to many quitting.

I may not consider that holding my portfolio is gambling, because when you say gambling and bet in gambling platform that is 50/50 of having the chance that you will win or might be a loss. But in holding your bitcoin, as long as you did not follow your emotion and sell it earlier, there's nothing had a loss. You can hold your bitcoin for the long term and the amount was still the same nothig had lost. Only strong hands will survive in holding not just like gambling that is totally risk. So, I won't consider crypto holding is a form of gambling, the fact it will depend on you.

I only hold BTC so I don't consider it much of a gamble. If the price is too low then I just don't touch it, nothing lost, I still have the same amount of BTC.

I do feel holding anything else a gamble. There's no way to if the prices of a cheap crypto will ever go up or if a dumped crypto will ever recover.

Holding's obviously got some level of risk involved and even more so if you're holding altcoins as many of them fail and have failed in recent months. Alt ratios have continued to sink farther and farther in the last few months, but you're generally going to get better returns holding coins (especially Bitcoin) than trading (as most people just aren't successful trading at all). If you're using a good method of managing risk and you're not using money you can't afford to lose like with anything where money's at risk, holding's really not that bad at all.

My experience has been the exact opposite, once we've reached the all time high, I've sold just about everything, minus some Bitcoins I was holding since 2013.
Then I just started buying again when the price hit around 4k - 5k.

Mind you, I've also started buying altcoins, despite the fact that we've not seen them rise significantly at all.

I think I'll just keep following the "strategy", whenever I see the word "all time high" pop up, I'll just get ready to sell them.

I don't think you can call it like gambling when you are just hodling, where in fact you are not doing anything yet.

Maybe if you do trade your crypto i might call it as gambling since someone must have to win and someone must have to lose.

Hodling is a form of gambling but it secures profitable gambling if you invest in the right utilized coin and I want you to understand that your heart doesn't lies when it makes you to strongly believe that the crypto market will rebound back to it the bullish state. But, that doesn't mean it will happen you a couple of months or a year and the part of you selling your hodling lower price was what makes you lost cause you can actually make a huge profit when it bitcoin halving next year.

I agree into this in some other point, but it doesn't totally fall on that criteria were it is fully considered as a gambling, like sort of it doesn't have a sort of killing time, a leisure, a moment of your life being drag into something that you enjoy. On the other hand in holding All you have to do is wait or somehow trade and it requires some skills. Unlike in a gambling game, it only wants you to choose between numbers and the moment you hit the button win or lose, you can see it instantly.

Bottom line:

You consider hodling as a form of gambling since you are playing with the risks of holding BTC or any altcoins on a chance that someday that effort will be paid off or not. But for me, don't take hodling as that since even we are risking money holding our crypto, we don't literally play gambling here.

Unlike in gambling where you are bound to rely on luck (house edge gambling games) and strategy+luck (on a strategy-based games) then wait for the final result, hodling and selling is pure of strategy on how to deal with volatility and that depends on how "YOU" managed it along the way. You are the one who will make the result here. Of course to take your hodling into worth thing to risk, then only hodl those coins who are proven to have a strong foundation which is BTC is the best example.

It is true that there is risk associated in trading and because of that many are looking to that factor as an opportunity to invest and make money from it. The volatility of bitcoin/cryptocurrencies has been one of its best character and at the same time others cursing it.

Because with the same experience that you had. I think that this has been tackled few times before and has been compared many times.

Good to know you later sell some of your holdings as at the time the market has gone to the current level it is now. I have had same experience and up till now am still yet to recover from the lost. I have been holding ethereum since the year 2017 till now with the hope that market its Market will return to where it was but to avail up till this moment, but my decision now is that I rather lose all my ethereum than to sell at this ridiculous value at the moment.

Hodling and gambling may be similar at some point like; wagering of money, involves risk, uncertainty of gaining or losing, primarily aim to gain money. But I don't consider hodling as a form of gambling since you don't play in order to win. And hodling is for long term while in gambling, playing a specific game only lasts for minutes. For me, hodling crypto is just like investing in a company, waiting for it to multiply depending on the performance of the entity in the ecomomic.

I would think of the same due to the fact that crypto market is a high risk investment.
However, if we will categorized this kind of gambling, I should put it in skilled based type of gambling because we analyze and do planning prior to investing, and if we continue to hold, we will never loss even if the price will go down and we will only be holding a small percentage of our investment.

Once we invested here and hold, we already gamble for the possibility to loss, the good thing with crypto is that it's proven profitable for those who knows how to hold, so holding seems to be a never failing strategy as long as you hold a legit coins.

You have valid points, although many would not agree with me, I still treat them as the same and even though are of different subject matter, my argument is that they  both share common characteristics which in my opinion has striking similarities as listed below:

1. Both gambling and hodling crypto  offers some kind of wager (e.g. gambling = bet /money , hodling = crypto)
2. Both has risks / rewards associated with it. (would result in a win or loss situation)
3. Both needs some form of strategy. (gambling strategy / holding strategy)
4. Both are also bound by luck.  (hodling is also bound by luck since we cannot foresee what will happen along the way)  :)

Lastly, though many of us treat these matters differently according to our point of view, its vital that we have learnt important lessons from it whatever the outcome will be. :)
 

If you do it blindly without doing any researches about the coin you are going to hold then yes it is a form of gambling, if you do researches as well as doing it with a plan then I cant say it as gambling but investing. Obviously there is always a risk of holding crypto as there is no guarantees that holding = profit. I'm quite sure there are many people have the same experience as you including me and I do not regret it too as it is a part of investing where we need to be ready for all possible result especially a lose.

I think almost everyone had that moment where you have your holdings and upon reaching the ATH of Bitcoin, people didn't cash out (just like me). In my mind, I thought it's just going to keep on continuing increasing forever and I'm not aware of what are the types of mindset that I should've. Back then, all of it was making myself regret that I didn't cash out, asking myself why I didn't do it but in reality, you could've never have known that. It's always going to be the point where you would regret something. I think It's just one of those moments that you need to actually keep yourself informed in what could happen and believe in one.

I don't see as HODLING is a gamble, it's the price on what you have on it. Maybe the mindset of HODL should never be associated with how much it is because you might think that you gambled it because it lost its value.  Right now, you just have to focus on yourself and believe that you can get it soon. Once you are satisfied with the value or believe that it will be, then go. It depends on the attitude.

Looking at your stories i think in my view it's not more than you were losing your chance to get better price to sold your crypto assets because back again you were too greedy and thought the price of crypto always be good which is near to impossible and for me your hold is not a gambling because there is a chance to sold your assets but indeed you missed that opportunities and got false predictions and i think there are big difference between gambling and crypto holding that gambling required luck to get the money but for holding the particular coins i think patience is the key to get right opportunities to sold

"Hodling is a form gambling?" I don't think so, but it depends on how you manage your trade, how you hold a coin. If you hold and then greedy, then it can be called gambling, holding also requires TP and SL, only with targets far high from daily trading.

well, but I'm quite impressed with you because you don't feel least bit sorry for your greed. That is exemplary, because we should be, making decisions and accepting all risk.

If you pick the wrong coin, then that will be gambling, but as long as you can select the right coin with analyzing the coin, I don't think that will be gambling. But yes, at this time, maybe some of us are gambling to buy any coin at the market, and we hope that one of the coins will be increased later. The percentage of the increase of the coin will not too bigger as we don't know which coin will increase. We only predict as what we usually do in the gambling, but we have less information about the coin details.

Indeed! a little bit of greed in me might be the culprit behind these experiences but at that time, all I feel was euphoria and a great sense of optimism for cryptocurrency and all - having had experienced the benefits of joining the crypto rush!

Honestly, I feel no remorse on my past decisions, after all  its all just part of being a human being! I hope this should serve as a reminder to our fellow crypto enthusiasts.:)

Probably it will depend on how you manage your crypto holding. Yes, the crypto market movement is so unpredictable and fluctuate every now and then. You don't have a loss if you keep holding on it while the price dragging down sharply, there's possible that it will pump again and sell if your profit was there. Following in emotion will lead you from a massive loss, you should also control this attitude.

Not like gambling, it required luck for those based on luck game and pure skills on gambling that based on skills game. For me, they are both different concepts and I won't consider that holding in bitcoin is a form gambling, only weak hand can say that word and can't wait to hold for a long term.

Thats right, without a deep calculation then trading and holding that you do will be the same as gambling, because you only depend
on your luck to profit because you can only hope, hoping in a trade won't mean anything, hoping only for gambling.

Some of us too have undergone that and still going too. Some of our coins are totally worthless now while some have been delisted too. Is sure a real gamble to hodl.



Yes, in your own case with etheruem, I will also hodl if I had the coin until it starts getting profit and I can sell then if I want to because etheruem is a valuable coin and will still bull.

Good way to stay in the right position whenever you have optimistic approach and not to allow yourself to think that you are gambling with your fate, in some manner people thinks that because of this never ending sways the market been considered as playing a gambling types of investing though you should be calm and not to be bothered, continue with how you understand the industry and draw your own results.

The main reason why I do not like to bet on casino games and Sports betting is simple for this reason alone
We are gambling 24 hours a day when we hold on to CRYPTO
This is not like a currency or something else of value because of its volatility we are always at risk of losing

Now you realize that this certain point of your crypto life was a lie. Well, it's normal for a beginner to get deceived by these "promising" projects (I think so) so don't fell that you're a big loser because even me experienced the same thing. Anyway, past is past and since you already learned your lesson from this then that's already enough, what important is that you became a better investor now :).
Yeah! Sort of. For me it is a form of gamble in a sense that you are risking not only your money but mainly your time and hopes to a place full of uncertainties. I'm pretty sure that hodlers like us have the same question inside our heads such as "Is this coin really have a future growth?", "Should I continue waiting or sell now?", "Probably this is a shitcoin..". Those things inside of my head makes me really uncomfortable, it sucks but fortunately I can still handle it or let's say I'm used to pressure already lol :D.

Yhup i agree because holding is very risky like gambling. The activity are quite the same .wherein we are making certain strategy and at the same time we are hoping for better results after.. Actually it's not Almost the same but we can call it as like that because indeed in holding crypto we risk money as well s right? So its like gambling and i believe all the things that we needed to risk a money is always a form of gambling....
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Holding is risky but somehow you can predict the future of your coins depending on how good and well-established it is. Sometimes its our lack of patience why we are losing, we didnt wait so we decided to sell but you have an option. Its just that you chose to end waiting because of no assurance if your coins will recover or not.

Unlike gambling that is mostly about luck, investing and holding is different because you can do something to avoid making a wrong decision, you can choose a good coin like btc and wait for price pump. Though I also have coins that are slowly losing its value I dont sell yet even im aware of the consequences if ever the price didnt bounce back, its because im prepared for the outcome whatever it is.

Well, nothing goes up forever. Prices of cryptocurrencies are expected to fluctuate. The "nose-dive" and long bearish market came as a surprise to many. So it is safe to say that they are rare events. What we are going through at the moment is unlike Crypto we were used to. .

However, cryptocurrency trading doesn't really qualify as a real gambling, maybe the right word  should be skill-based gambling? But it is still more predictable than skill-based gambling though.

Well i kinda agree here cryptocurrency hodling is a gamble especially at this stage where the price of cryptocurrency especially bitcoin goes up and down but the real winners here is the early adopters they almost profited 20000x when the price of bitcoin is surging really fast back in 2017 also, the were some investors who lost a huge amount of money when the price of bitcoin start to go down in 2018. The stock investing is also a gamble too since your money depends on how good your company which you've invested in performs so, in other words, investing whether in cryptocurrency or not, is a gamble where the winners, gain profit and the losers lose their money.

Whether you chose the right or wrong coin, in the very first place you have already took the risk and that makes it look like gambling for others.

I think that's also my take on this matter although it does have risk taking but classifying it as a form of gambling, it's a different thing. If the classification of trading or investing into something such as holding cryptocurrencies is considered as gambling then investing to stock market should have been classified first as real gambling.

You're not alone on this, people are expecting for a big rebound but unfortunately, it did not come, now people are still waiting for another all-time high that should have come but it's not coming, part of  being a good investor is to know when to buy and also when to sell your coin, timing is indeed everything.

You are not the only one that witnessed that episode at the time but outrightly saying holding means gambling is to the extreme. Everyday we take risks even outside crypto. For stepping out of the bed in the morning is a risk because you don't know whether you will miss your steps or even have an accident along the line. You go to work, its a form of risk because you might get injured, arrested, accused of something you didn't do but that does not mean you stop going. Its a risk but it doesn't mean you have been gambling with your life.

Gambling on its own is a conscious activity carried out because you want to increase your returns by wagering some amount of money in return. In the case of holding, you are not risking any fund, you only have unrealised profit or losses by the funds in your wallet which does not increase one bit. Its the circumstances that surrounds it that makes it look like gambling but its simply taking a risk.

Not only hodling but investing in Cryptocurrency is a form of gambling, this is the reason why you should only invest what you can afford to lose, I also experience that not selling some of my coins in their all-time high, I have a lot of opportunities to sell some of my coins and make huge profit, one of these coins is Kucoin it reaches $15, and was hoping that it will reach $50.
Unfortunately, it drops I was on vacation and only find out that it drops significantly after coming from vacation, it's really important to sell some at the right time.

It might be a form of gambling, the only difference is that...it doesn't need luck but it needs well-defined strategies and good choice of coin. Not only just seeing "we can afford to lose" cause we never think that and in our mind we must earn something and pushing ourself to face the risk in crypto.
People hold their coins cause they want to save from losing and it is a good idea. Only it sad that many don't get it, instead they lose their patience.

in my opinion, the name can multiply can also be called gambling, but not all of it can be called gambling like investing. in my opinion investing cannot be called gambling, because many people and entrepreneurs do it transparently.

Crypto holdings is a form of gambling, because we don't know what is the peak price of the respective assets. Some get lucky to earn big predicting the ath price. I missed the days of 2017, and fed up as there is no big growth till days. Finally sold all my crypto holdings losing hope. Looking upon few of the posts I too get to be positive about the crypto holdings.

Holding crypto is static because, you as the holder isn't trading with it while gambling with crypto is dynamics, because there is the tendencies of doubling the coon, then  how can we call holding as a form of gambling? The two are significantly different and are different entity.

You can think off on other way like on the money invested on the said crypto you are holding.You cant be sure if those tokens will have that rising value into the future even if you are just on static you are still risking up money and tendency on losing it and we know that any investment is just like a gamble since we wont know if it would succeed or not but the difference on here is that you do able to know and analyze on where you do put up your funds.

In the area of risk I do agree with you that holding some coins is a form of gambling. I have been trading and hold since 2016. Both are very risky but remember that life itself is a risky thing and gambling! If some people know that going out they are going to die they will not go out that day but people go out daily with the hope that they will be back home safe. That is how buying and hold cryptocurrency is. It is not fully safe!.

Because of ignorance about coins being hold for a long time and putting the money there then indeed, holding can be said to be a form of gambling because there is the same thing there about risking your money and also, making analysis and predicting it in the beginning shows that activities like this the same as gambling but basically holding and gambling will be different if you look at it from the other side like luck.

Exactly, this is not a gambling like playing a luck based games like dice, roulette and other forms of luck based gambling.
We invest because we are confident with our analysis that we will be profitable in the future, in short, we are betting on the future of the coins we are investing and we can afford to loss the money invested in case our investment fail.

Holding gives more chances to gain more profit than gambling because the percentage of winners in gambling is very small and that's stressful enough compared to just holding and waiting for the right time to sell.

The topic goes back the the same argument which has been discussed a lot of times already. If trading and gambling is the same. If you hold Bitcoin or Alts yes there's a risk that the value of Bitcoin is different after a few days or even weeks but in Gambling if you placed your bet on the wrong color, you loose everything not a fraction. That's why I don't think its a form of gambling.

If the other people don't know why we pick that coin, then they can say that it is gambling. But if they know the reason, I don't think that they will say that is gambling because if we decide to buy that coin, we already analyze from many things, so we pick that coin to buy.

If we buy any coins without analyzing, then it will be gambling because we don't know when we can make a profit. But the risk of trading will be almost the same as gambling because we can get lose the money that we use to buy that coin.

that is if you max out all your balance but if you only bet half you will still have some balance left on your gambling account if ever you will loose . that half balance left on your account can still make a comback and give you profits as soon as your luck gets you  .

gambling is called a gambling because its a form of gambling  but holding a crypto is i think not a form of gambling because your only hodling it at the first place . your not using it to play a gambling . you can also convert it to a stable coin to prevent the price from fluctuating 

For me, yes you might consider crypto holding as a form of gambling, holding your crypto and waiting to a much sufficient amount is like playing poker if you are a safe player and waiting to a great card to make sure the money it's like trading or holding. But the game is much different like in gambling, holding your cryptocurrency has a different risk, you can't tell what time will be the most profitable moment and also its difficult to predict if the price will increase or decrease unlike in gambling that if you hit the jackpot/ win you will know that amount that you have won. :)

 

Yes holding is like a form of gambling because youre expecting in the future to multiply your money or No value at all. Its really hard to live in crypto but if you got luck this only have the chance to be rich instant if you are a token holder. Bigtimers are going to be more richer also. 2

It is indeed gambling but compared to gambling, time is your enemy, you have no idea when are the coins that you are hodling will reach their all-time high, and every day you have to follow the market and how your portfolios react, one thing that you need to study or to plan is when is the right to sell your coin.

Hmmm sounds like that. For someone who has a mentality of YOLOing with his crypto investments and just choose coins whatever he wants even without valid research and study, it can be said as a gamble.

Emphasizing that it's a sort of gamble but in others perspective, they'll say that it's still different.

It can be done properly when you take your time learning the basic understanding regarding to this industry, it will not be a gamble if you're going to focus with every possible potentials, know what you are dealing with and keep increasing your skills, knowledge will be your tools not to gamble with fate but to address proper pathways to take to work with your investment.

I don't agree, investing for me is still gambling, check out those people who lost a lot from investing in ICO, some of them lose their effort time and money because they thought if they are going to hodl this new coins they are also going to make a profit in a long run, just all the other that came before them, but these people invested in Bitcoin and other coins that have real value.

Well, that is a typically yes, investing in bitcoin or in general, the whole crypto is very risky and that is can consider a form of gambling due to the market is unpredictable movement. Just like OP said he invested when the market was in a bull situation back then but after a month it was suddenly going down and he loses what he invest. Indeed, we lose if we sell and can't wait until it back to the normal situation, unlike if you can wait and make a better profit.

I don't think that holding crypto is a form of gambling. Because in the long run, crypto prices are bound to surge because of growing demand and limited number of availability ;) also, the growing population will also make its demand surge!

Unpredictability can be called as gambling so holding the cryptos is also kind of unpredictable outcome so we can never satisfy ourselves at what stage we need to come out of it.But this is not pure form of gambling and also we cans ave us from total loss when we are actively involving in the crypto related things which is the think decide what is going to happen for the cryptos in future.

All investment is sort of a gamble including those altcoins you bought.  I stand the test of time actually, some of the coins that I hold which was worth more than $60k during the bull market is now just worth $1k+. I forgot its wallet password already due to it. I guess I can consider it lost. There were regrets but I'd just focus on making money after all it already happened.

It's not gambling. You let greed and emotions over ride your judgement. Of course, after the All Time Highs, price reversals we expected. It always happens unlike in gambling where you don't usually know the outcome.

Now after missing that time of selling of at the ATH, you just had to wait for 2-3 years before we get back highs. If you bought ICOs and shitcoins and held them then of course it was a mistake.

Let me give my views on cryptocurrency as a whole from two perspectives

1. Bitcoin as a form of Payment/Currency :

   When satoshi created bitcoin, he thought of using it as a global currency without any middleman handling out the trades, escrows etc. But with alternate coins came into practice the whole market changed enough such that bitcoin and other coins are considered as an investment rather than being used as a currency. You can see to it in the whitepaper that satoshi mentioning of a e-commerce sort of marketplace which can be accessible globally and the payments can be made through bitcoin. The primary goal has changed completely with trading taken into practice. I am a believer of bitcoin as a secure currency rather than a trading investment. Of course I do buy btc during lows but never sells them during price hikes. I would buy more products during ATH so that practically I am spending very little money on the product. Apart from btc, I am a fan of Ethereum and Monero both having a good development and help in solving various real world problems.

2. HODLing/Trading Shitcoins is an absolute Gamble :

   Hodling and trading shit-tokens/coins is considered as a absolute gambling sort of strategy. Shitcoins have some of the worst scam teams in the whole internet and people tend to believe in those with a speculative nature such that this might become the next Ethereum/Monero and they would become millionaire sort of. Investing in a luck based pump and dump game can be considered as gambling with your money rather than considering it as an investment. My friend is a believer of get-rich-quick schemes right from 2017 Q4 and has invested around $1100 in various shitcoins. Though the coins had a strong team, they were not able to recreate the pump from 2017. Eventually he lost around $800 in 1.5 years and currently he is having a portfolio of $300. The luck based shitcoin pump is a once in a lifetime opportunity which will either make you rich or simply make you poor with all the money being burnt.

The comments appear to be split between those who are of the opinion that cryptocurrency hodling is gambling and those who think it isn't.

In concept, any venture where you do not wield sufficient control over the outcome is a sort of gamble. As you are not certain of the result. But this would classify any financial investment as a gamble, which it is in a way.
But the absence of odds and bookmakers and a wager or stake, make it white different from a conventional gambling concept.
I would say not, it is a gamble but not a form of gambling.

You are right there should be fair and positive hopes about things related to crypto. Websites are now working in trend in different ways but only fair and good people can give you positive result at the end. Just be confident and don't try every new websites just stay with the only you trust the most and enjoy holding and gambling both.

You are right. We never have full control over crypto bringing this into a way of gambling. But some people had never clearly understand this cause they only know that gambling is just by putting bets. The same thing that it happens to holding either we end up losing or gaining.

Another thread where investing is mixed with gambling. Investments are not gambling because with gambling you can lose everything. Buying bitcoin will never result in a 100% loss and does not depend on luck which makes it very different from gambling.

Gambling is very similar to trading with leverage because it also can end with a total loss.

I have to agree with you because gambling is different than investing gambling may drain your entire bankroll if you keep on losing. Investing is a different story since you are about to hold then sell later and you will have the chance to choose what price you want to sell it.

I also experienced the wrong time of selling and buying a coin, hodling can be considered gambling, because you have little idea or no idea if the coin you are holding will have a chance in the market, I have some coins that I hodl that I thought will have a good potential in the market, and I end up one of the last hodlers to sell those coins.

Until now, I probably agree with you that cryptos are some kind of gambling because it's so hard to predict any price or movement, that even real good analysts are wrong almost all of the time
Maybe with market evolving and growing, the times of gambling will end, and we will be something like stocks market

Even if the market evolving and growing, it will not stop gambling to grow too. People will still like to gamble because they know that gambling can make their life better. But that is not the gambling in the games, but gambling with something else out of the gambling games.

The gambling games itself will still exist for a long time. People are like to spend their money to get fun in another thing. So they will come to online gambling or offline gambling to play the games.

Somehow it can really be compared from gambling. Like on my case I am a hodler since I learned about bitcoin and only spend some of them when I really need to. It isn't that much but I depend my future to it that it will help me to have my own business and quit my office job. The risk is lower if you hodl a crypto that has really a potential in the future but if you hodl those called shitcoins then don't expect that it will give you profit.

It seems the community has differing views about this topic and I'm glad you guys shared different insights about it. In this sense, I think

I'm going to tabulate all the responses five days from now and quantify the data on those who agree or disagree with this idea so that we

may have a better picture on the community's overall responses.

I could accept that holding crypto is a one kind of gambling. Because I haven't sold my crypto during last bull run. Unfortunately I have bought some alts during last bull on this year. I just hold during dump of alts and still holding. I had not sold thats coin since I am still believing that alts will recover eventually and my fund will recover that time. Because it's too late even if I want to sell on loss. That's why I believe holding crypto also one kind of gambling because we don't know exactly what is going on near future.

As long as they are both full of uncertainty then they can be referred to as gambling just that one is still better than another which is normal even with other gambling’s because some people believe sports is safer to play than poker and so on but I personally see crypto holding as another form of gambling, since one can never tell what happens the next seconds

I bought btc when is was far below 13k plus and I watched it grow till it hit 13k, at that moment I had made over x5 of what I invested, I thought of withdrawing and then I was hoping it was going to 20k based on the speculations and predictions by some so called experts,  shortly after then bitcoin started going down and until this moment, I am still waiting. This is just like gambling but safer because I know my I would definitely get back my money no matter how long it takes.

It can be considered as gambling since when you hodling your crypto you may lose profit or earn profit just like playing gambling in casino sites. If you have weak hands in hodling then there is a chance that you won't earn profit and it is risky. When there is risk in doing something related in money is considered as gambling.

This is good strategy and gamblers should share their own important points of gambling  with other gamblers. Crypto and gambling both are not the same both have different qualities. We can gamble with crypto but storing crypto in form of gambling is not correct imagination but one thing that we can earn allot of crypto by gambling

Every investment is a gambling but in stock investment we have data to analyse the market if huge so we can do better predictions compared to the cryptos which was pretty new with stocks.If the price of cryptos reaches some stable region price then it maybe used for the right intention as means of payment rather than to be considered as gambling.

Keeping the cryptos as form of gambling will hurt the market at some stage and people might move around due to losses for this investment.

It’s completely different, the only thing that would make it a bit looking similar is the fact they both involve risk but aside that, they are not the same at all.

Gambling is purely a game of luck and full of uncertainty while crypto holding is just a mini risky investment and anything investment is and will always be safer compared to gambling. The only reason some people compare gambling and crypto holding is because they are both unpredictable but still we all know that money I kept in bitcoin will never get exhausted no matter how down the market might go, it could go down and the next minute bull run but in gambling, once the money is gone, it can never be recovered.

Anyone with enough data could predict things alittle bit in crypto market. This is not possible with typical (luck-based) gambling.
You could even predict the worst coin if you have sufficient data on the coin.
The problem with crypto trading is that we trade to many coins and don't specialize in few. If we could pick one or two coins and understand enough things that make them go up or down we could comfortably predict their prices

I can consider holding as another form of gambling since it is another form of investment and we all know that all investments have risks.

Although crypto holding is not as the same with the gambling (composes of casinos and different games etc), the risk on it is always there so you are still gambling into when you will sell your coins and when to buy them again.

Just like gambling holding is risky also because they both give no assurance on  what will be the prices or outcome tomorrow so basically both needs luck and instincts to gain or win
Online investing is not like physical business that you can push the profit by adding more action to sell.in crypto we only wait for the demand of currency to grow

I still consider any kind of investment a gambling and more so with investment and especially in Cryptocurrency, it's a different kind of gambling that you never know what you are going through, even if you done proper analysis, that is the reason we have this saying only invest what you can afford because any investment has a risk attach to it.

I can relate on OPs sentiment I have very the same experience my 2.87+ btc are gone like a bubble when I convert it to altcoin in the beginning of 2018, about cyrptocurrency hodling we are all victims of this but the lesson is hodling means storing it for a long period of time like 3-5 years thats what I think for now because if you only hold for a year many unexpected things will happen like bear market.I agree once you hold it you are gambling just like any business if you going into any business with huge money you dont know if you will succeed or not. 

btc is known to be like a bubble because its value can go down unpredictably and you shouldnt be surprised for that . also you did a wrong move for converting your btc to alts  . why would you do that when btc is already a good investment? arent you contented with your btc ?  also the year 2018 was a bad year for all cryptos not just on bitcoin   .

why did you say victim ? do you think holding a crypto is bad ? no  .  we arent force to hold a crypto and not all are hodling a crypto and lastly hodling a crypto is beneficial .

As long as you can accept the risk, then I think you don't have to worry about the bad things that could happen in the future. Maybe it's difficult for the first time, but after you can get the profit from the investment, you will want to do more and more. And who knows you will use bigger money as the investment because the profit will be bigger.

But yes, the investment in the cryptocurrency will be gambling if you don't know the right coin to select. And you only risk your money without a chance to make a profit in someday.

1 thing gambling though me about crypto holding is i actually not really know or actually can't analyze about bitcoin price. Maybe it will like play gambling because i hold and don't know price will up or down. If up so i take profit, if down so i get lose. Maybe that is what i do although i only use bitcoin halving as something that make me really confident to hold my bitcoin.

During that time, we thought that was the best decision as we just like to diversify.
I can feel you mate, I also made a decision like that I know it's a bad decision with the value of the altcoins it has become now, it's almost worthless but we don't look at its value now, we just try to convince ourselves that crypto will recover and we will hold it until the right time will come.

Most of my holdings were ETH tokens as they are the most promising coins that time, but they suffered the long correction and now its still sleeping.

Yeah, it's not different from gambling, there is no need to directly gamble on website to call it gambling. Let's compare hodling to bustabit, you hold it until it reaches your aimed price but difference is that you are the only one who crushes there, if you can't afford to wait for price rise and fall makes you afraid, then holding isn't for you because you turn yourself into loss instead of profit. There are some people whom don't have self-control in gambling and so is the same in holding.

Crypto is mostly controlled by the whales. Until the volatility in crypto reduces, we can relate crypto trading with gambling.
For the bitcoin prices to be stable, there needs to be a lot more users holding the crypto as more the crypto is disturbed among many people, the whales will not be able to manipulate it for their own benefit as they are doing it right now. Also as the volume in crypto increases, it will hard to manipulate it.

With all the guessing, and predicting, and waiting on what will be the price this time to the next minute or hour, hodling is really somehow like gambling. In gambling, you don't really know if you will win or lose; and same here while hodling. I mean, one don't really know how much cryptos like bitcoin will cost. That explains all the price prediction threads here in the forum. However, they also have difference in the sense that, in gambling, it depends on either luck or strategy but in hodling, it needs more strategy and wise judgement on when to buy or sell.

Indeed, gambling and holding crypto have a lot in common when before decisions, everything is just a prediction, no one will guarantee what will happen after their decision, however, holding cryptocurrencies as a form of gambling is probably at a higher level, depending heavily on strategy and skills while casual gambling games rely almost on luck. And the obvious result is that when we rely on calculations, the chances of profitability are higher when we only rely on luck, smart gambling is always a good choice

Honestly, the industry has become mostly a gamble now, especially when it comes to investing in ICOs and IEOs. You pretty much need to get lucky to see a positive ROI.

Similarly, holding altcoins for any reasonable period of time is tantamount to gambling, considering the VAST majority of these decrease in value over long time-frames.

People can avoid the hassles of holding for this purpose though, since there are websites that actually allow you to bet on the price values of certain coins at X date, these are known as prediction markets

https://www.predictious.com/ is one of the most popular, but there's a few more too.

Good judgement inside this industry will allow you to decide whether to take a risk holding your coin its similar like gambling with your fate, as there's no certainty in terms of market movements and exact time frame when the volatile market will hit up, understanding the sway to keep you from dealing as the same way as playing like gambling, but instead treating it as an investment form that will increase its value after some time of holding.

The business shouldn't be a gamble, its a risk based on a market demand that the company should be meeting.   If they are incorrect in that market being capable of sustaining the business then it will not succeed but I dont see crypto itself is at fault for that lack of success.    Its upto the company themselves to balance all their assets so they can meet all costs and requirements for liquidity, in FIAT, Crypto and tangible and intangible assets.
   The variation in Bitcoin at least has been quite calm compared to previous years that I remember, it varies a fair bit but also its tending to meet averages quite often which means previous prices set are still in the region many months later.  Some countries fail in this regard even and BTC doesnt even have anyone to try and force a price it just does its job every day anyway.

I'm so sorry but I don't get it.
Besides, we used already crypto for gambling and I know you are aware of that.
Not just literarily we understand gambling and not just all about games. We could also consider the investment as a form of gambling cause we don't know what will be the outcomes. And also to say that in holding crypto, knowing the fact that we don't have the assurance to become profitable or not. That's all be like.

Even though crypto market was manipulated by some of the people you mentioned before, price changes can be predicted with technical analysis, with a high probability of True in that prediction, and a big chance of profit from your skills. trade is not the same as gambling. with even great skill you cannot increase the possibility of profit in gambling

Everything in this whole scene is technically a gamble because of the risks it bring and the uncertainty that comes with it. Don't get me wrong, cryptocurrencies have already established its footing in the world economy, but still there is this slim chance of it failing along the way even though it's arguably one of the most sought-after fad in contemporary times. Add to that fact the volatility of its pricing. It's entirely a gamble as a whole; heck, everything including money is a gamble be it direct or indirect!

I TOO ENJOYED READING THE DIFFERENT VIEWS SHARED ON IT and it looked to me like a great number of members are in support of crypto holding as a form of gambling but I will be waiting to see your compilation on this but for now I am also of the opinion that crypto holding is nothing different from gambling.

If you have your cryptocurrency, its better to trade or do better things with it than to hold since its uncertain what happens next if it appreciates or depreciates and to avoid all this, it is best to withdraw and trade or even gamble with it because at the end of the day, gambling even pays more. There is a great chance of winning especially if you play a skill based game.

HODLING is gambling because you know that in time you are going to win ;)
Look at price charts since the first block was mined, bitcoin goes in one direction overall - up.

I honestly believe some people that are against bitcoin as the same as gambling have never had any horrible crypto holding experience and it seem so many people are mistaken crypto for Bitcoin alone because most example I have read are people referring to how long they have been holding unto their bitcoin and haven’t lost ,is it that they do not consider other smaller coin as crypto? Or they have never had a bad experience with the coins.

In 2013, I invested a lot of money buying some very small coins with the intention that it will grow to later become big like Bitcoin and the hype on this smaller coins that year was really huge but to my greatest surprise it all crashed, and coins worth 20,000 dollars as at then is now left with less than $200. Isn’t that worse than gambling?

That is because the team behind that project only wants to get money from investors. If you really want to earn on investing in IEO and ICO you must review well their team. Unlike the ICOs in the past years where the advisor of the team's project are famous and well reputated in the crypto community.


Looking at the top altcoins in the coinmarketcap its USD value didn't change that much but if you base on the altcoin-btc value it really depreciates but I guess it's normal, imagine ethereum's price is 0.1btc at $10k/btc then the price would be $1k each which is too expensive imo.

You are talking of a successful coin which is bitcoin, the crypto market is a big market with thousands of coins, therefore, when choosing the right coin, that is the part where were are gambling because we never know that what we are holding will be successful.

Moreover, people hold with different target of profit, bitcoin is no doubt profitable but if we will hold it now and will focus only in btc, can we maximize our profit? that's the big question as majority of investors does not have big money to invest, we invest small and aim for big return.

In every form of investment, it means you are a risk taker were you are willing to gamble you capital. Therefore, if you are holding the alts for long term the risk was very minimal if the coin you bought are really promising and has a potential in the market, but if you choose the wrong coins even you hold it for long term, in the end you loss will loss it.

Crypto holding can be considered gambling because you take risk in spending on something that you don’t know the odds will be. Crypto market is very unpredictable that we can’t really determine when the price is going to rise or go down but like gambling if you become lucky when holding then you can win big time.
On the other hand, in crypto holding it may take some time waiting and it’s tiresome to wait so if you want to earn while waiting for the price to rise why not enter trading, you can scalp a few some of your coins and invest in trading it’s a little better rather than just doing nothing and just waiting.

Even investing on Bitcoin itself doesn't guarantee profits because no one can predict on what would be the future looks like but somehow

looking at the current situation of bitcoin which is mainly being supported as the main crypto then we can presume that it would really have that
bright future for longer runs.As an investor it isn't really avoidable not to think about alternatives to have the possibilities on earning more that's why
we do end up on risking into other choices of coins in the market.

^ It is a different thing I guess. Investing and holding for a long term are yet very risky but if you are monitoring on it you can cut your lose and keep the capital. While in gambling, I guess this is more worst than holding coin in your portfolio. If you can't control your self and probably all your money will lose. Nevertheless, this statement that I consider that investing and trading is just a sort of gambling but not too risky if you are monitoring the market price.

No doubt to win in crypto it’s really very important for you to have promising coin now a days all coins are good but the most promising Altcoin to hold for long term is bitcoin and Eth. In gambling it takes time to search decent website but the holding is good for bitcoin and Eth the most. Risk is the part of our life so never be afraid of taking risk.

I participated in a funny experiment that lasted for 2 rounds, 10 months each, with some of the forum regulars. I don't remember exactly how it turned out in the first one but we all lost money (buying for bitcoin and holding alts for 10 months). Didn't stop me from playing again, as it really was just for fun. This time, we were mainly in profit, right until the 9th month. As soon as we hit the 10th month, prices dived.

Lesson, gamble against btc at your own risk;)

Before we invest in anything, we should know and learn about the risk so we can know what we should do if something goes wrong. But I agree that crypto holding is part of gambling if we don't have any tutorials or guide in selecting the coins. That could lead us to get a lost in the money because we cannot buy and hold the right coin.

Whenever you want to do something, you should think about the risk and if the risk is not too big or it is too big, but if you agree with that, then you should prepare for the worst thing and keep everything runs properly. Besides that, I think with managing risk, you will know how to manage what you did so you can reduce the risk.

Gambling is referred to differently in this story. Gambling here is referring to the possibility of being rewarded or losing in the end but there is no game involved, thus is it is different than the gambling that we might refer to in this section. If we think broadly of the word gambling, it could actually be used in so many things. Even life is a gamble somehow. Marriage is the same.

You have a point. If there's no assurance for the outcome then its gambling.

Holding crypto is like gambling as well because we dont know the future of our holdings.

Just like now all of my coins in my portfolio is slowly losing their value but I keep holding because I know the risk if you invest in crypto.

Yeah, there's no guarantee you will profit or be happy. then you do gambling. but if you do something that can affect the final result then it's not called gambling. we know that a lot of people are starting to adopt bitcoin, there is a guarantee that prices will definitely rise in the future, so I don't call that gambling.

I think we are confuse with the meaning of gambling and gamble, just for clarity, I made some research on the difference between the two.

Based on https://wikidiff.com/gamble/gambling.


Therefore, when you are into marriage, you did not do gambling but you gamble since you don't know what your marriage will come out.
Gambling involves money, and crypto holding although easy to do, this also requires a skills when selecting the right coin to hold, so it's similar to gambling.

I don’t think you know so much about Bitcoin if you do and if you have followed the history, you would know that it the best, safest and most profitable form of investment.  The only requirement for Bitcoin is patience and this is where a lot of its investors miss out. Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme, you can’t put in your money today and expect it to have multiplied in the next few weeks, only few people get lucky with such, when they buy low and it starts to increase immediately.

Smaller coins are risky, I would prefer to buy the smallest of Bitcoin than to buy coin that I cannot be sure of its tomorrow. Bitcoin might be volatile but profit is always guaranteed.

Couldn't agree more with you, if you describe gambling as risking something in hopes higher return and you know the process itself is so uncertain & unpredictable then yeah it is what it is.

But at least if you educate yourself about the whole thing about bitcoin / cryptocurrency... you might would feel better... feel better than it's just gambling but there's a lot of math factors behind bitcoin ... that runs the ecosystem, it's indeed still uncertain but won't lie / cheating like what most people accused on casinos.

So better to educate yourself and you won't feel that way anymore.

At hindsight, people may be confused about the distinction between hodling and gambling, although they are different in nature. The results may be the same but in hodling, the risk is relatively lower compared to gambling. Not to mention, the turnover of resources is faster in gambling which has the potential of either making or breaking your whole investment.

As a general rule, hodling may be profitable depending on the amount of your capital and the amount that you are willing to risk. There are also factors that can be considered to decrease the chances of losing your money. But in gambling, relying on such luck and odds may be your only scapegoat. If the odds are against you, no matter how much you deposit, then you are really bound to lose.

You are betting with your fate and it's gambling in some point. You have to face reality that inside this industry, there's no certain, and any assurance that you'll be able to earn or lose your money after taking your position. The moment you invest inside to  any projects, you are already considered gambling.

Holding and continue working even it takes time, you'll never know what future will bring you. It takes some guts to patiently wait for any results

I don’t think you read the topic and if you did, I believe you didn’t get The story very well, the OP only explained how he held his coin for a while and then decided to sell lesser than he got which is the reason he considers crypto holding as another form of gambling which plainly means  risk and uncertainty. So basically, gambling in the context is basically talking about risk and uncertainty.

I agree with what the OP has said because I have suffered a similar experience and mine was even worse because I bought a very trash coin and I waited for a very long time, eventually when I considered selling, it was far below cost price, so I can relate with the post but not cryptocurrency in general is like gambling.

good analogy about the major difference of gambling and hodling. in hodling, you can prolong the outcome of your decision but in gambling, you can see the results of your decision much much faster. so you know where your money is heading in gambling.
 but yeah the end results might be the same but somewhere in between the process, the person have different approach in dealing these 2 = gambling and hodling. hodling might be considered as long process of gambling???

I guess it might be yes. If you are not monitoring the crypto market price then it would be gambling but if you know you can simply sell your holding coins in order to cut your loses. However, this is a case to case basis. If we compared both these holding and gambling, the worst I guess is gambling rather than holding. But when it comes the whole concept and outcome they are both gambling that risk money.

Point of correction, not all coins is okay to purchase and all coins can never be categorized as been well simply because they are all cryptocurrency. It is very important to look into the very promising coins and be sure they have existed for quite some time.

I invested in a lot of new coin some time ago and I lost really bad, in short, I think I can no longer account for some of them now, this is because I believed all coins are safe and promises to be great but I made a mistake, now I have realized that Bitcoin and Ethereum is really the best, it’s just that they are expensive to afford but it can be bought in bits. It’s not necessary to own a Bitcoin; there are options of buying in smaller units. This is what I do and I believe quality is far better than quantity.

Well said which is definitely true.When we do talk about essence of risking money then they are similar but talking about the level of risk then they can be differentiated.

You can lessen up the risk on hodling if you do know on what you are doing not just randomly buying some stuff or coin and wait for its price to rise up.Always rely into those being mostly supported like BTC or ETH.

Both of you are right, and I don't have any doubt about that. Holding crypto is not gambling because we know how to analyze the coins price moves so that we can prevent losing money. And we have so many coins that can give us a way to make a profit in the future.

Crypto holding will be gambling if he can not watch and analyze the market and only depends on some people strategy. He will lose his investment value, and he cannot make a profit from gambling. But if he can know what decision he should use so he can have a chance to win the money.

If that person in the marriage, they need to open or share what they did to their wife or husband, so there is no miscommunication between them.

They are indeedly both risking money that's why they have similarities and also differences. To explain the difference in a simpliest way, investing is a boring way of risking your money while gambling is the opposite which is why gambling is fun but more terrible for outcome for every mistake you make than in investing. You could be a millionaire and poor in gambling within a minute while in investing, that's not going to happen since it acquires a lot of time to see the outcome.

When you invest in a solid project and hodl for the long term, then it's not a gamble, BUT when you invest in a worthless shitcoin with a scamming CEO, then buying & hodling for any length of time is a pure gamble with the odds stacked very much against you.

The problem is sometimes we select the wrong coins to hold, which make us wait for a long time. Besides that, sometimes we don't know which coins that can be the potential coins in the future. But as long as you hold bitcoin as the investment, I think that will worth for you to wait in a long time.

That is not a gamble if we can analyze although it still no guarantee to knowing of what will happen in the future. We could hope that what we buy at the market can increase higher in the future, so we don't waste our time to hold the wrong coins.

I think you deserve a lot of accolades, really many people are always very patient when it comes to Bitcoin and they need quick increase, this is where trading platform comes in. Those who want to make it quickly in Bitcoin world are advised to learn how to become very successful traders because I know there’s is a lot of money in that area.

Talking about Bitcoin, and like you have mentioned above, if it has to buying a coin to keep or hold, this the best, those who invested in buying BTC when it was less than 1 dollar, you can imagine what they are worth at the moment. If takes those who have an in debt knowledge, believes in the coin and also have patience to make profits in bitcoin investment.

I think it is too difficult to know the right coin, especially when it has to do with this new coins in the market. The only coins that are trustworthy which I think is still quite on a high side is Bitcoin, and Ethereum and buying this ones to hold isn’t so easy for everyone because it a bit on a high side and not everyone can afford.

To those who can afford to Buy BTC, I don’t consider holding it as gambling because there is always potential for increase but when it relates to buying the new coins with the hope of increase or because it looks like the future is bright, I would say that is a very big risk. A very big one because from what I have experienced a lot of new coins are scam.

I don't think so that holding is a form of gambling. Gambling involves game wherein you can win or lose. Holding is just your strategy to make profit so with this you need to always check the market to monitor it's price not like in gambling. In holding once you can't sell your bitcoin during its high price only the profit will lose not like in gambling that if you lose the game you don't have profit and you lose also the capital so you need to go back with nothing. So gambling is worst than holding.

Gambling has it's different ways of dealing to it, it doesn't mean you'll have to always play Gambling literally. Sometimes its applied to our daily living so as with holding long terms, because we don't know what future awaits us. Sometimes we fail and loss without knowing once you can't decide selling your asset to its best price.

For me, gambling is anything that includes risk. Holding is also risky hence we can say that it is gambling. Let's say you are holding a crypto currency and you never know whether it will be profitable to in the future or not, so you hold it risking it. Investing in a crypto currency is always a risk since we are dealing with the most volatile investments in the world.

We don't gamble if we hold some coins, especially if we hold some potential coins that can increase anytime. Gambling itself is a game with the money involved, and it's not the same as holding. Holding is something that we keep for a while, and we are waiting for the price increases. If we hold for a long time, it doesn't mean that we are playing gambling because we know what we did.

Yes, it is extremely difficult for us to forecast or know the fate of any coin and there is no need doing trial and error with money.  If one is financial buoyant,  then it’s advisable to go straight for bitcoin investments, but in a situation when there is no money, then understand that buying smaller coins to hold is just like gambling and most of those smaller coins are the ones below the top market coins.

I know someone that bought so many small coins some years ago but today nothing to show for it. The money has all gone. It would have even been better if he used the money to bet on a sports site.  He would have definitely made back his money by now.

That's a wrong statement, anything that has got risk in it can't be considered gambling. When it comes to gambling we risk our money to get back a bigger earning. Crypto holding can be considered gambling because we make an investment and wait for the profiting, but we don't know whether the holdings will get us with profit or loss.

Well there seems to be the same form from Holding and Gambling because the volatility of cryptocurrency is what made this area the same
In gambling you seek for luck to win,while the Holding needs also luck to profit(though the chance is large if you can afford to wait longer and not panicking)
Either way th important here is our capacity to risk what we can afford to lose

Here i am after with you I also don’t see gambling and crypto holding a same thing. We can gamble with games and crypto coins are profitable if you hold them. Now a days people are buying crypto at low price so they should hold them instead of using at low price. With time crypto is gona be high and you should carry gambling as well.

it can be very gambling if the invest in unknown project. everyone has belief in a particular coin before buying a coin, if all wrong predictions back again to the coin holder. because basically what determines from the beginning is that the holder should have his own commitment and belief in what will happen in the market. different from ameteru trader who only bought without knowing the purpose from the start and only guessed the fate of the coin.

Only it makes the two similar is just because of luck but some of us just literarily think gambling is purely all about games. And even our future is a form of gambling neither, just the same the way we hold crypto cause we even don't know what will happen next.
May our luck will be with us all the time but it doesn't and that it makes that we sometimes lose and sometimes gaining.

We don't need to select the unknown project because that will not give us a profit in the future. We need to search the solid project in out there, but I don't think that will be easy to find. But if we still invest in the unknown project, then I will call that is gambling because we don't know what the prospect in the future is. But if we can hold the potential coins or at least, we hold the strong coins at the market, I think that will not be gambling because we know that the coin will be increased in the future.

But can you fully say that you will earn from it?

Holding coins means you are investing, right?

And investing is also considered as gambling, that is why you are still gambling. Gambling doesn't always involve money, but as you said, you are holding coins, cryptocurrencies which can be considered as money if you will be thinking of it since some people accept it as a payment method. Gambling do not ensure winning, it is as a risk. What is the difference between analyzing a team for sports betting from analyzing a price chart for your investment? You do the same, you put your money into it, you may lose you may win, how is that different from gambling?

But it's not, holding your crpytocurrencies in your portfolio doesn't look like you are playing gambling at all, because there are two different meaning of gambling, and I assure what you were trying to say is like when you are playing gambling since you have posted this topic here in this section. Holding your cryptocurrencies is different compare when you are playing in any gambling site, why, because at least in holding your crpytocurrencies, you know that there will be the time when you could sell the coins you wanted to sell at the price the you desire to gain profits, and that is for sure, all you have to do is to be patient.

Unlike when you are playing in gambling, there is no assurance at all that you are going to win, you just don't know, you don't have any proof that you could win when you play in gambling, but when holding cryptocurrencies, you have your portfolio as a proof that you could earn big profits when the bull market comes.

That’s a gamble for life and not a gambel for greed, we do take a lot of risk because we believe into something. Now consider this as your good gambling decision because if you do support this decision, you can be more successful in the future.