Thanks for the correction. In the original context, my numbers were clearly way off; but I still do not think the difference is relevant. Someone who bought 100 BTC in early 2016 would only need to spend the cost of 1 BTC at some points in early 2022, or a little over 2 BTC right now. I think that anyone of moderately affluent means can afford that.
“Slaying the Bearwhale” is also a good example of how BTC pricing works in reality. I once used this to illustrate for some newbie who was upset because the price he got on his exchange was not
exactly the price that he saw simultaneously “advertised” on some Bitcoin price site. Yes,
cringe. OK, first, I need to explain the order book and the spread. Then: A global free market, with multiple competing marketplaces!
See how people with only Bitfinex accounts were bidding BTC up to $311, even as arbitrageurs with accounts on both Bitstamp and BItfinex were pulling down the Bitfinex price. I hoped the little light bulb would go on there. I don’t think it helped much.
Whatever you did adds up to the same thing as going all in, if you end up losing most if not all of your BTC.. so I doubt details matter very much in terms of the point that I was making about only gambling with small portions of your BTC holdings.. something like 10%.. or something like that.... which should attempt to account for worse case scenarios.. which does not mean that merely because a worse case scenario develops that now all of a sudden you have ended up increasing your 10% gambling limit to 99.5%
I have said many times that what I did was overall extremely foolish. I think it was one of the three most foolish things that I have ever done in my life—and the other two were when I was an adolescent.
That said, I think there is a pretty big difference between waking up one day and saying, “I will risk all my BTC on margin now!”, versus compounding foolish decisions under pressure to
fix this right now.
There is a well-known psychological principle to the effect that people will struggle much harder to avoid losing what they have, than to gain what they never had. It is one of the reasons why lazy people who never got rich will suddenly sometimes work themselves like slaves to preserve trivial amounts.
In my case, I shudder to think what productive achievements I could have made with the time and effort I spent struggling for months with this. How much money could I have made...
By the same token, I do think there is a pretty big difference between stupidly going all-in up-front from greed, and getting sucked into a self-made trap piece by piece to try to avoid losing.
Probably the only material and substantive detail that matters is that you choose to enter into that situation in the first place.. subsequent details likely do not matter.. except maybe if there might have been times/opportunities that you might have been able to extract ur lil selfie from a shitty situation that you should have not entered into in the first place.
True. I’ve been telling myself that much as I tried to avoid selling BTC, I sold all that BTC in January without even realizing it.
And I sold it for—not even current prices. Not even zero. I effectually sold my BTC for a
negative price: The amount of non-BTC value that I put into that account. Although I now still retain the benefit of
some value that I obtained from borrowing against BTC, it is a relatively small amount compared to the ocean of liquid assets that I subsequently poured into trying to save the BTC.
There are not very many guys (or gal) in these here parts who have much if any sympathy for margin players.. to the extent that any of us even really understand it sufficiently enough to appreciate that there might be ways that it could be used prudently rather than engaging in degenerate gambling.
[...]
Sure there might be some educating pieces that may help some members to decide not to get involved in margin trading or that you might provide evidence to make them feel better about their decision not to get involved in margin trading...
Well, I know that y’all enjoy ridiculing the ones who insist that they know what they’re doing, even though they really don’t. I saw some meme here a few months ago about the BTC margin trader who now declares that he has the experience to handle it—after his tenth account got liquidated, or whatever. Well,
now he will not make the same mistakes—with his eleventh account.
And I know that some people care about warning the newbies, who do not know the dangers. I hope that my story has provided years of ammo that can be applied during every FOMO pump. NO, REALLY: STOP BUYING ON MARGIN!
or maybe you even make some folks feel better about themselves i some ways.. hahahaha ...so sure, there could be some possibilities that you might be providing some kind of potential service here by providing details for what many of us may well have already concluded to be the obvious things not to do or to get involved in.. perhaps? perhaps.. ?
I do hope that my posts give extra cause to smile over the BTC y’all have safely in your wallets, where it belongs. Thank yourself for being not a damnfool.
[...] maybe in the end, we do need to cry our asses off and maybe break a few dishes or go chew on our neighbors shoe.. but still.. do we need to say those things?.. I don't know.. whatever.. you do you.
I have purposely let loose with emotional histrionics in public, plus far more information than I feel comfortable revealing, for the exact reason that I want to feed future newbie warnings. Much of what I have said, I would otherwise much prefer to keep private. It is embarrassing.
For instance, do you suppose that someone of my intelligence and public poise would make
this post...
FUCK YOU, BUDDY! Fuck you, you actively malicious son of a bitch. I hate you.
...unless having made a conscious decision just to let it all out?
That post shows how I felt, at that particular moment. It is admittedly cathartic to let loose like that. I am hurting... hurting. But I have the self control to avoid showing it, let alone flaunting it publicly!
At some level, I will feel a tiny bit more justified in my own judgment, or see at least a little bit of silver lining to the cloud, if I have some hope that my posts will deter someone, somewhere, from losing all of their precious bitcoins. Please show that post, and many others, to the next newbie who wonders why y’all are so strongly against buying on margin.
You might be correct that I was not fair. I think that my last reloading of the software update was a little bit more of a "BIG meanie" version... My handlers were suggesting that overall I had been interacting too nicedly... If I start whining, then they will really start to fuck with me, so I hesitate to tread too much on their zeros and ones tweakenings choices.
My robotic AI is programmed with a specially tweaked variant of the classic tit-for-tat strategy. (Tweaked for such things as to avoid being misled by a long con, etc., etc.—plus a “never forgive” rule for some scenarios.) It is game-theoretically optimal.
Wow. I had better
STOP posting here, and prepare to shore up the dollhouse—just in case we lose support at $20k, or even get too deep a wick below. It would be so sad to see my cute little doll-sized HODLing reduced to a HODLng for ants—then, perhaps, a HODLing for bacteria.
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