Here come the accusations of "You were just lucky!" [crosspost to Reddit]

[moni3z]

Before you all gloat up a storm being bitcoin 'millionaires' you really should watch what you say on reddit and here because there could be federal tax authorities watching, your ex wife who doesn't know how much money you now have who's lawyer would love a copy of these posts, or jelly trolls who want to rat you out to federal tax authorities. Not to mention criminals who may find out where you live and beat you until you cough up the coins, or the Chinese 'red team' hackers who decide they want some extra money and use their government provided 0day library to loot your wallet next time you open it.

[1714132612]

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[tvbcof]

Before you all gloat up a storm being bitcoin 'millionaires' you really should watch what you say on reddit and here because there could be federal tax authorities watching, your ex wife who doesn't know how much money you now have who's lawyer would love a copy of these posts, or jelly trolls who want to rat you out to federal tax authorities. Not to mention criminals who may find out where you live and beat you until you cough up the coins, or the Chinese 'red team' hackers who decide they want some extra money and use their government provided 0day library to loot your wallet next time you open it.

I've every intention of paying my taxes, 99% of my stash is in very deep storage and even I cannot get at it without a trip to my safe deposit box, and anyone who might be under the misconception that they could extort me physically and made it part way to my home would likely realize what a terrible idea it would be to continue.

That said, this is outstanding advice which people should heed well.

[Elwar]

Before you all gloat up a storm being bitcoin 'millionaires' you really should watch what you say on reddit and here because there could be federal tax authorities watching, your ex wife who doesn't know how much money you now have who's lawyer would love a copy of these posts, or jelly trolls who want to rat you out to federal tax authorities. Not to mention criminals who may find out where you live and beat you until you cough up the coins, or the Chinese 'red team' hackers who decide they want some extra money and use their government provided 0day library to loot your wallet next time you open it.

I lost all of mine on SatoshiDICE.  Sorry Feds.

[Narydu]

I had $1k to spend and I went on Google and typed in 'money' and clicked on Google's "Are you feeling lucky" button.

That took me to MtGox which I had no clue about but I went ahead and put my money into this "Bitcoin" thing out of random chance.

Then to my luck, this random thing called Bitcoin gained 10X in value.

Boy was I lucky.

HAHAHAHA boy by far one of the funniest anecdotes to tell!!!

[Severian]

federal tax authorities  

Are they like miners? What are these "taxes" that fiat users keep speaking of? Are they like transactions?

These federal taxes sound like a ponzi. I'd stay away were I you.

[moni3z]

Also check OPs signature with his location and ad on localbitcoins, and imagine somebody like this guy reading about his bitcoin wealth gloating and setting up a meeting for a big untraceable payday.

[enquirer]

I lost all of mine on SatoshiDICE.  Sorry Feds.

Not so easy. Every satoshi you spent is on the block chain.

[freequant]

I was late to the game.

That's a very common misconception that has been around for years literally. People who invested in Bitcoin 1-month ago and enjoyed a 3-fold increase of their investment value are not complaining that they were late in the game. There is no such a thing as being late to the game, because the game is far from being over. Yes, it takes balls to sink thousands of dollars to invest in Bitcoin at that point, but the truth is that it took as much if not much more balls to invest in it one year and a half ago just after it crashed and it looked more than ever like the nay-sayers were right from the start and Bitcoin was over. Doing something when the whole world is laugthing at you and calling you stupid isn't something easy. People who say "I was late to the game" today and fail to grasp that we are still very early in the game will kick themselves one year from now.

[franky1]

bitcoin and luck do go hand in hand.

i told a girl i met at a bar that i was an international currency trader (technically not a lie)

short story.. i got lucky

[Dabs]

I find it interesting to talk about physical security. How about if I am in some 3rd world country, live in a gated community, live in a compound with high walls and have armed roaming guards (or even just armed stationary guards.)

With no other information, no one is just about to attempt to do anything violent on me, at least not in my house.

Better scenario is if I live in my own little island, but that's kinda too far fetched already.

[sunnankar]

Browsing using TOR, JavaScript is off, no plugins, all 3rd-party content is filtered. Come and get me!

You asked for the attention of the ghosts. You are going to get the attention of the ghosts (don't worry; it is just a YouTube).

[moni3z]

I find it interesting to talk about physical security. How about if I am in some 3rd world country, live in a gated community, live in a compound with high walls and have armed roaming guards (or even just armed stationary guards.)

With no other information, no one is just about to attempt to do anything violent on me, at least not in my house.

You have to leave your Osama fortress sometime, or your kids/wife do. Here's a typical gangster crew bust running a kidnapping for profit ring. It's a growth crime industry here, especially now that there's untraceable ransom payments through bitcoin. If I'm a thug with a gun, I'm going to be paying attention to people bragging about their cryptocoin wealth on reddit or looking on localbitcoins for big traders. Bitcoins can all be transfered at once in a huge million dollar pay day for these guys, wired money has limits to what you can launder.

[Timo Y]

[also crossposted]

I've taken a lot of risks in life. Most ended up in failure. Only a handful paid off.

I know people who never take big risks and rarely have to deal with failure. In some ways, they have a much happier life than me. Failure hurts.

Perhaps they see me as lucky because my failures are invisible to them.

[Dabs]

I find it interesting to talk about physical security. How about if I am in some 3rd world country, live in a gated community, live in a compound with high walls and have armed roaming guards (or even just armed stationary guards.)

With no other information, no one is just about to attempt to do anything violent on me, at least not in my house.

You have to leave your Osama fortress sometime, or your kids/wife do. Here's a typical gangster crew bust running a kidnapping for profit ring. It's a growth crime industry here, especially now that there's untraceable ransom payments through bitcoin. If I'm a thug with a gun, I'm going to be paying attention to people bragging about their cryptocoin wealth on reddit or looking on localbitcoins for big traders. Bitcoins can all be transfered at once in a huge million dollar pay day for these guys, wired money has limits to what you can launder.

Let me add, that I wasn't going to advertise that I had a lot of coins. Of course, if I had the money to live in my fortress, you'd think I'd also have the money to employ at least one bodyguard. Not to mention that I myself personally carry a gun all the time. (It is legal in my country and/or I have the papers for it.)

[ManBearPig]

Before you all gloat up a storm being bitcoin 'millionaires' you really should watch what you say on reddit and here because there could be federal tax authorities watching...

I've every intention of paying my taxes...

Yep. I for one have tax losses to offset my (perhaps imminent) Bitcoin gains. I pay my taxes and always will. If your government REALLY wants to track you down and see how much you've made - they can. Hence no cloak and dagger from me.

It's certainly not greedy to want to make a profit, but what you do and don't do with that profit can be.

[kgo]

I lost all of mine on SatoshiDICE.  Sorry Feds.

At least you had some fun.  I lost all my bitcoins in a boating accident...

[Gordonium]

bitcoin and luck do go hand in hand.

i told a girl i met at a bar that i was an international currency trader (technically not a lie)

short story.. i got lucky

I have to try that one!

[Rassah]

bitcoin and luck do go hand in hand.

i told a girl i met at a bar that i was an international currency trader (technically not a lie)

short story.. i got lucky

I have to try that one!

I'll try telling that to Phinneas Gage when I see him at the Bitcoin 2013 conference. I'll let you know what happens.

[Isokivi]

Reading this, unfortunateley agreeing with it, being someone who has talked and taught bitcoin for the past 14 months to anyone willing to listen and ask. Im seriously considering getting a huge tattoo over my chest:" THIS WORLD IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME." or "BTCecause this world is not good enough for me." Please talk me out of it.

[Lethn]

Let's be honest, everything we do well has a measure of luck to it, hell even Bitcoin mining has a luck factor in, however, when I look at the kind of comments you described I can't help but be reminded of the sort of bullshit I have to put up with being an Artist. Everyone who looks at other artists immediately comment when an artist shows off a good piece of work about how 'talented' they are as if there's some kind of mystical force behind the quality of their work and that there's no way they'd be able to get as good and you sometimes even say something similar to that themselves! Utter bullshit! All it is is putting the time and effort into it, just like with Bitcoin I wouldn't be surprised if you guys made more than a few losses to get where you are now, in fact you often see people ranting on these forums about scammers.

All that people do most of the time to be successful I've noticed is keep trying, no matter how many times they fail and they just keep calculating for every possible failure so they end up pleasantly surprised, it's slowly happening even to me now, I just wish my art skills would improve faster. I think the only truly lucky people are those guys who end up beating ridiculous odds like for instance lottery wins, all Bitcoin users are doing is taking calculated risks as are those rich traders on wall street and so on.