Um, wow, no—this needs some quick clarification:
I doubt that mindrusting was anything as dramatic as the arguable betrayals of Mike Hearn or Gavin Andresen or Craig wright or roger ver.. but even if any of those folks wanted to be in bitcoin or get back into bitcoin, bitcoin will not stop them.. even if they lost credibility in quite a few bitcoin circles.
Those comparisons would be wildly disproportionate. You just named four individuals whom I judge are amongst the worst scum on Earth. Total liars, actively malicious, corrupt to the core. Based on what I know of the situation, I would NOT put poor mindrust in that category—not anywhere even close to it! Wow.
Poor mindrust. I almost suddenly feel sorry for him again, as I initially did in March 2020. With such comparisons, are you
trying to invoke my sympathies towards him?
I do recall that mindrust had shown several times of weakness prior to March 2020 and usually during extensive period in which the BTC price was correcting and/or failing to go up... which were likely just signs of his having been over invested rather than him being a bad person.
Before he dumped his coins, I myself didn’t know, or want to know about his personal finances. I was vaguely aware of some of his chit-chat about his buys, but I didn’t really pay attention to that. I have never measured Bitcoiners by the sizes of their wallets, just as long as they put their money where their mouths are: Holding BTC, holding amounts that are financially significant to them, striving to increase their BTC. In my case, I am not just conveniently applying a new standard to myself; I never treated anyone else differently.
I knew of mindrust for other reasons. I perceived him as a sincerely idealistic, principled Bitcoiner. That’s why it shocked me when he panic-dumped—it probably shocked me harder than it shocked you.
I don't know. There were several of us, including yours truly, interacting with mindrust on a regular basis in this thread, because he was bringing some of his ways of accumulating bitcoin and his trepidations when the BTC price went down.. so yeah.. I doubt that his case was much if anything special.. because quite a few guys were sharing various details about what they were doing, and there have always been some guys who have difficulties with the BTC price going down and/or not going up.. so in that manner, there would not have been anything in particular that caused him to stand out in any kind of great way. and sure maybe we overly dramatized his decision to sell.. but still some of those kinds of buy and sell and doing it at the right or wrong times are part of the process of trying to manage bitcoin holdings or trying to profit, and surely historically some members have panicked from time to time.
Bitcoin is money, and it is more than money. It is a fraught admixture of entwined ideals and greed, a marriage of selfishness and altruism. That’s actually why it works so well. Some only want the “money” part of it—but many don’t. The way he talked, the way he acted, mindrust didn’t—
until he mindrusted.
He also mindrusted some of his relations with people who had been sympathetic to him after he dumped. I don’t want to drag it all out here; I would not unnecessarily rehash it in Reputation today, so why would I in the Wall Observer?
Some of that occurred in full public view, in various threads. Let’s leave it at that.
And I remind you, as to Bitcoin,
he did not only panic-dump. His panic-sell could have been a momentary weakness. Human frailty. It happens. But
after he panic-dumped, this ostensibly idealistic Bitcoiner gave Bitcoin one of the worst votes of no-confidence that I have ever seen (
some of which I quoted in a recent post):
Anyone who sells too much bitcoin too early has inclinations to talk negatively about bitcoin.. it is not unusual.
- He didn’t re-buy any chunks. Not even a fraction of what he could have! Nothing—when he had cash in hand, he re-bought nothing. He declared that he would only DCA.
- He said that he would DCA for an amount that was ridiculously trivial compared to his prior investment: $50/week. I understand if someone poor can only do $50/week, or $10/week, or whatever; as it stands, right now, I myself cannot even do that much. But when someone goes from a relatively high level of BTC investment to restart from zero with $50/week DCA, all as a voluntary decision, that is tantamount to spitting at Bitcoin. In the overall circumstance, that was a token investment (so to speak).
- Even weeks after he dumped, when BTC was firmly far up above the bottom and well on its way to recovery, he essentially declared an expectation that if Covid was not promptly cured, then Bitcoin would go to zero. Not even that we may have a gruesome bear market: That it would likely go to zero!
WTF? I know some never-had-any nocoiners who have more confidence in Bitcoin.
It is possible that some positions that BTC HODLerers take are more objectively right or wrong than others, but there are a lot of ways to deal with BTC and your portfolio.. and opinions and moods fluctuate when talking about the subject matter. In the end, we are going to have a variety of approaches.. so I am not sure about how much value comes from attempting to make assessments of bitcoin purity.
Maybe if some of us might be considering "what am I going to do now" then there could be some benefits in considering what NOT to do.. but I doubt that we end up reaching objectively correct answers.. because also sometimes when we are in the moment, it might be more difficult to figure out what to do, as compared to looking back and saying "he should have done x rather than y."
Even personally, I would not really feel comfortable with anyone telling me that they are just doing whatever I say because they believe that I have a good grasp on the situation, even though I get a sense that some members do something like that, and so part of my point remains that there is some need for ownership in regards to any approach.. and if a member proclaims that s/he accounted for all of the factors before planning and employing his/her BTC strategy, then that will be a good thing too... even if they come out with a different course of action forward..
Again, attempting to be somewhat specific, individual considerations include but are not limited to cashflow, other investments, view of bitcoin as compared with other investments, timeline, risk tolerance, time, skills and abilities to strategize, plan, research and learn along the way including tweaking strategies from time to time to consider trading, reallocating, use of leverage and/or financial instruments.
I do not knee-jerk reject a rational pessimism. To the contrary: I dislike Hopium—and right now, I myself think that we may be in for an extended bear market.
Maybe. My reasoning is quite similar to
ivomm’s short-/medium-term pessimism, which you found meritable.
I merit posts for a variety of reasons.. and not even necessarily because I agree with them
Contrast my attitude to mindrust’s:
You are talking about historical mindrust.. which may or may not be fair.. and I doubt that all of
our talking about mindrust is going to inspire him to want to come back to this thread and participate.. .. so where do we go with this?
I admit that that would be beneficial to me personally, if that happens—because as soon as I can get some new cash flow, I will be grabbing as much BTC as I can. If we go into some ridiculously worst-case crash due to massive liquidations of all the giant-sized scams in the ecosystem, then my rule is: Buy—if it goes lower, buy more. If it then goes even lower, then buy even more!
If you run out of money.. stop buying
If you run out of money borrow
If you run out of money get involved in some scam project and stake (or go to the one that pays most) so that you can get some MOAR monies
If you run out of money create your own coin and inspire others to get involved in it so that you can print coins, give it to yourself and cash out while continuing to promote that project
If you run out of money rob a bank
If you run out of money take the money from under aunt Piggy's mattress
For I have long-term optimism about Bitcoin. I optimize primarily to maximize my BTC holding—well, I try to; that is my goal, notwithstanding this recent lamentable failure to move in the desired direction. I know that I can’t time the bottom in an irrational market, amidst extreme volatility, when unpredictable events may yank the price up or down at any moment.
There are all kinds of bitcoiners, so I am not sure .. if each of these qualities is necessary to be a bitcoiner.. even though surely some of us might find some qualities as more likable in person as compared with other qualities.. but people are defective in a variety of ways, too.
What you will NOT hear out of me is “Oh my gawd, PANIC!!! It’s going to zero!” What you will NOT see is me is sitting on a pile of fiat with negligible BTC holdings. Never!
I do find it to be a better practice to never run out of cash and never run out of bitcoin.. .. but we should still be attempting to account for and figure out a variety of possible scenarios including possible extreme scenarios.. At the same time, it may well not be prudent to be preparing for extreme scenarios and forgetting the various strengths of preparing for various base case scenarios. None of the various scenarios - whether base case or extreme are locked in stone.. so in that regard, it may well not be necessary or even prudent to put a lot of resources into extreme scenarios.. while at the same time attempting to account for possible extremes happening (financial and psychological preparations), including that we might end up getting caught in a bad situation that ended up outside of our expectations.. Shit happens.
I recall that there were some periods right around March 2020 in which members were wondering if mindrust was telling the truth about actually having had sold all his coins, which then leads to questions about whether he was telling the truth about buying the coins in the first place.
We have no evidence other than his word; and I don’t wish to pry too hard into others’ finances unless there is a very strong reason, such as for a scam investigation. Moreover, I don’t see any clear motive for him to have lied about his pre-dumping purchases—much less about the panic-dump. He was in Bitcoin for—IIRC, about four years. Why would he keep up an act for that long, just to pretend that he was pro-Bitcoin?
The situation changes after he had suffered some considerable public embarrassment for his putative panic-dump. Thereafter, he would have obvious motives for prevaricating about his holdings or lack thereof.
Later on in 2020, after Saylor’s announcement boosted the market, mindrust was cagey about his status. My read on it was that he was trying to make it seem he had more than
he did. I could be wrong about that.
Sure it is possible that mindrust acquired more bitcoin after March 2020. It is also possible that mindrust might have decided to revert back to something closer to "fight club rules" and practices.
Of course members can talk in terms of percentages or in terms of actual numbers when it comes to making disclosures about some of their specifics, and I really do not fault members from changing some of the numbers, so if some points are being made about anticipated BTC price direction or anticipated personal strategies, or even proclaiming gratefulness about buying bitcoin in mid-2020.. surely there could be a quite a few reasons to raise some of those kinds of specifics.
For sure many of us could have interest in regards to whether some alternative strategies might have ended up playing out better for reaccummulating our BTC stash (in the even t that we depleted it), but there are also quite a few of us who would be repelled by talking about shitcoins, even if the purpose is to increase BTC stash.. and sure opinions vary about the relevance or even the sliippery slope nature of those kinds of topicsregarding talking about other investments (and especially shitcoins) - even in the WO thread.
Some of the shitcoiners who have a "multi-coin" approach are not comfortable posting in the WO thread, yet we know some of the active participants in the WO thread have varying degrees of involvement in various shitcoins. but just tend too not talk about their other shitcoins in this thread too often.
Overall, again, I believe in financial privacy. I don’t try to pry into what people really have, as long as I think they are behaving in a manner consistent with their own expressed ideals. mindrust clearly was not.
I hate hypocrites and cheap talkers. You praise Bitcoin? Put your money where your mouth is! Or else please, just admit that you are only a speculator.
Inevitably Bitcoin has speculators, and I believe that we should not be shocked that there are all kinds of folks in bitcoin and also all kinds of journies to get from no coiner, to low coiner, to on my way coiner, to various levels of pre fuck you status and fuck you status and various in-between levels (some of which might not be reached or even aspired to)..
I don't know if there is any one best way.. even though I frequently suggest don't fuck around with trading until acquiring a sufficient quantity of BTC first, but I recall attempting to help someone to start to employ a minimum trading status, and people gravitate towards wanting to play too BIG too soon,... so holey fucking shit people have their different ways of considering the world, and many folks are stubborn as fuck, even if they seem (or tell me that they) to be receptive to learning...
So many examples, even in real life.. and the desire to trade and the shitcoins have an ongoing pull on people.. I frequently suggest also, not to get involved in shitcoins, but really how you going to stop people? Many times they have to learn on their own.. and also many times they might even think that I am talking my book too much or that I am a boomer or that I am entwined in grandpa coin or whatever variations of the theme of getting involved in a lot of variety of kinds and levels of speculation.. and getting lured into certain kinds of supposedly more appealing (and educated) talking-points regarding how there are better investments than bitcoin..
So even if someone ends up becoming a bitcoin maxi (BIG IF), there seems to be quite a few variations in that approach, too.. including wanting to speculate or employ leverage and variations of tools to be smarter or to perhaps attempt to accelerate the getting rich quick process towards wanting to get rich even quicker than quick.
Plenty of those buy BTC, or don’t, or buy and then panic-dump. No problem: I actually prefer for mere speculators to panic-dump in a crash, because that tends to move coins into HODLer hands.
I suppose there is no
(little) cognizant dissonance in that stated preference.. and yeah there is no need for you to expand on this topic.. because I already recognize that you are capable of spinning and to distinguish what you did as compared to what others did and even admit your mistakes.. good.. great.... still ther eseems to be quite a bit of irony in there from my point of view.
From what I know, it seems to me that mindrusting could happen to any of us, and for sure there seem to be strategies to lessen likelihoods that mindrusting might happen, but any of us could end up in circumstances in which some variation of mindrusting ends up happening.. seems to me...
I will never mindrust. I am certain of that, for I have had my character tested in other on-the-spot, moment-of-truth ways that were detrimental to me. And as I have said many times here, if I were to mindrust—voluntarily to panic-sell in a crash, when I have the free choice at that moment—then I would kill myself. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
Needless to say, I do not expect that of anyone who is only in it for the money.
This repeated theme is getting a bit irksome D_W. I get the sense that I am NOT alone when I proclaim that I give less than two shits (or for variety should it be ratt's asses this time?) in regards to the distinction without a difference that you continue to proclaim and argue in regards to yourself and contrasting yourself with your snapshot view and likely ongoing overly-denigrating description of mindrust.
Several of us likely like
(maybe not adore, since peeps have their flaws) mindrust in several ways and even find him to have has some endearing qualities, even if he fucked up in several ways too including some periods of arrogance, as you mentioned.
I have seen other members already commenting on the topic that there are ways that what you (D_W) did seems even more egregious than what mindrust did, and some of those comparisons, to the extent that they even need to come up, are likely only quasi-relevant in the first place - and continuously bringing up such topic seems to purposefully striving to get into personal battles and unnecessary bitcoin purity tests, which you seem to just continue to ongoingly push in these here parts..
It seems to me that there are not too many of us who actually fall into those kinds of bitcoin purity following circles.. or even respect that kind of a view about who is in bitcoin and who is not in bitcoin, even if we also tend to be quite bullish about bitcoin, there don't seem to be too many of us who like to either be categorized as religious bitcoindogmatists or even to exclude others from bitcoin based on differing opinions, or how they employ their bitcoin.. sure we criticize no coiners quite a bit, but some of us like to refer to no coiners as precoiners, too.. so I doubt that many of us are even expecting it to be realistic to be trying or striving to exclude folks or pursue those kinds of heirarchies.. even though surely there are still likely going to be be some heirarchies that come from having more options for those who have accumulated more bitocin or got into bitcoin earlier and were able to hang onto their bitcoins..
.. eventhough surely some of thjose kinsd of ideas do come out from time to time.. but I doubt that the ajority of us want to get locked into that kind of thinking about various persons that we may well see in bitcoin or see coming into bitcoin including that everryone is likely coming into bitocin , even if not too many people (maybe 1% of the population at most) are not quite here in bitcoin yet.
Aside: I see that you made another long reply to me. I will need to look at that later.
ok
Please don’t mistake it as self-serving lowcoiner bearishness when I say, I do think there is a significant probability that we are entering an extended bear market.
Not a certainty. The bottom may already be in! But a quite significant probability. If that proves to be the case, then of course, I will take advantage as much as I can.
Note that
Sam Bankman-Fried is trying to set us up instead for a hollow recovery, and a future full of moral hazard. His bailout activity shows up in the above-linked article—it seems it is most everywhere now.
That is long-term pessimistic for Bitcoin. We need for bad businesses to be shaken out of the market, even if that crashes BTC for awhile. Otherwise, they will only do the same again—
and they will do it worse.Protip for SBF—didn’t you learn anything about finance!?—at least, get the Wikipedia overview of this basic concept:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard#moralhazardRegarding your overall point that seems to be that shaking out a lot of bad practices/actors will take a decent amount of time to play out, and I cannot really disagree with that kind of expectation including that I have been surpirsed that in the beginning of the crashening events (maybe most of May and even into early June), a vast majority of shitcoins were going down more than BTC, but a lot of the shitcoins have been retaining their value (relative to BTC) in recent times, which causes me some concern that some of the shitcoins might not be getting shaken out enough in order to really purge some of the likely additional froth that likely needs to continue to be purged.. so there could be more shoes to drop in regards to further shaking out of more to the shitcoin tree froth.. before we are ready to resume with bitcoin uppity.
We continue to be so much in the midst of this process that I am haivng difficulties in mustering up strong formulations beyond 50/50.. which is not really unusual for me, and sometimes I might have some leanings that go beyond 50/50 (depending upon how the question is framed) .. but I don't really want to disclose what my leaning is or even to frame the issue.... so in those kinds of cases, I may well find my own personal practices to wait for some schlebin this here thread (there tend to be quite a few during these kinds of periods of volatility and uncertainty) to frame the question and then plug in their numbers and to assert their aanswer, and then I anticipate that I will be able to self-righteously be able to proclaim,
"that's dumb", and then in those kinds of circumstances, I do not even need to frame my own way of seeing our current BTC quagmire.. I just assert that the claims of the schleb are: 1) dumb and/or 2) unsupported by the evidence and/or 3) unsupported by sound logic.
hahahaha
Go on I am waiting.. make a statement. Make a statement .. make a statment.
anyone?
anyone?
Poll
