[2020-01-19] Peter Schiff Says Owning Bitcoin (BTC) Was 'Bad Idea' After Losing

[DooMAD]

In a sense, he's not wrong.  It's all well and good saying he's just a Bitcoin hater and dismissing him, but it's important we get our response to this correct.  People (the ones on the outside looking in, who might be persuaded by Schiff) need to understand what happened and why.  So far in this topic, I don't think we've placed enough emphasis on that, so here goes:  

If you're a complete fool who isn't even prepared to try and understand the first thing about Bitcoin (but somehow still think you're qualified to give an opinion on it), it is a bad idea to dive straight in without knowing what you're doing.  People generally aren't accustomed to being responsible for digital keys.  It's a new skill set for the average person to learn.  And if they don't learn it, they can quite easily lose their funds.

Owning some bitcoin is a good idea if you have taken the time to understand how to use it safely.  If you are too ignorant or lazy to do that, then Bitcoin is not suitable for you.  Personal responsibility is a fundamental requirement here.  Chances are, no one is going to bail you out if you screw it up.

How many of you would go out and buy a firearm if you didn't even know how to use one?  That would be a bad idea too.  People don't tend to buy a car until they know how to drive one.  It's basic common sense and Peter Schiff clearly has none of that.  Even if it was a gift, the person who gave it to him should absolutely take it as a sign of ingratitude that he didn't take the time to learn how to use it.  

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[Lucius]

It's honestly beyond stupid. It just shows how incompetent he is, treating his investments with such negligence.

How many times should it be written that this is not an investment but a gift. Accordingly, we can apply the saying "Easy come, easy go". Much more stupid than himself are the ones who donated him BTC, and apparently they did not bother to explain to him that BTC was not the same as gold.

It's amazing the fascination of people who are involved with crypto with people like Schiff, as if everyone's future depends on him. He should be allowed to play with gold, he knows it and is successful in it.

[sureshverma]

I laughed for a long time when I read about it. Why does he blame everyone around him for his mistake?

[DaCryptoRaccoon]

He's just trying to stay relevant I noticed Blockchain.com sent him a message offering to help him recover his funds.
Funny they don't do this for other's who lose coins there.

[darkangel11]

Why is he even complaining? He only received $1k in BTC and all those money were gifts!
Am I the only one seeing this as Shiff's total failure on many levels?
-He got it for free (should be grateful instead of complaining)
-He did not know how to protect it (not very smart)
-He forgot his password (what a loser)
-He told the public about forgetting his password (nobody cares)
-He's trying to blame a computer program for his own inability to operate it (childish)
-It's a very small loss compared to how much money he has and he makes a big deal out of it. (again immature)
-Uses it for his own agenda (bitcoin is bad, buy gold)

[cr1776]

Why is he even complaining? He only received $1k in BTC and all those money were gifts!
Am I the only one seeing this as Shiff's total failure on many levels?
-He got it for free (should be grateful instead of complaining)
-He did not know how to protect it (not very smart)
-He forgot his password (what a loser)
-He told the public about forgetting his password (nobody cares)
-He's trying to blame a computer program for his own inability to operate it (childish)
-It's a very small loss compared to how much money he has and he makes a big deal out of it. (again immature)
-Uses it for his own agenda (bitcoin is bad, buy gold)

Agreed.  It would be like if my grandfather gave their 13 year old grandchild a 1/10 ounce of gold and then the kid went outside and it fell out of her pocket in a lake.  Then they said, "I didn't lose it, my pocket it."

Blame the gold or blame the person who didn't take care of it?  It is like blaming forks for making people fat and guns for shootings.

[magneto]

Ah, yep. Mr. Schiff is back again with some derogatory news on BTC. Glad to know the world is still running

It's obvious that this was nothing but his own fault. If he's not willing to invest some of his millions of dollars from shilling gold to his clients with little to no returns into a hardware wallet that can secure your holdings 99.999% of the time, then why did he invest in BTC in the first place? I've even used Electrum for a few years before I got a hardware wallet, and even then I've never had issues with losing coins.

Does he not know the importance of backup? I wonder when his supporters will finally start waking up to realize how incompetent this man is

[secone]

Typical boating "accident" for which Gold bugs are famous.  I guess it scales to Bitcoin as well

Aye. It's a great way to keep dissing Bitcoin and simultaneously cover them track. Since his father was a fanatical tax dodger it fits the mould rather nicely. Is there actually a wallet these days that lets you open it without recording and inputting your seed? I haven't come across one for a long time.

Edit - it's all Erik Vorhees's fault - https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees/status/1219046141028982784

And it's... 50 bucks worth?

i follow this twitter   
whats make me laugh is this twitter
I did not forget my password.  Read my tweet.  My wallet forgot my password.
https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1218919039373701123

i never hear about machine forget our password 

[hatshepsut93]

How many of you would go out and buy a firearm if you didn't even know how to use one?  That would be a bad idea too.  People don't tend to buy a car until they know how to drive one.  It's basic common sense and Peter Schiff clearly has none of that.

It's actually worse than that, with cars and guns everyone understands how dangerous those things are, as everyone heard some stories about deaths caused by them, but it's not immediately obvious that Bitcoin is dangerous too. Yes, wallets warn users about the loss of private keys, but people usually don't pay much attention to such warnings. People who introduce others to Bitcoin should bring closer attention to this issue, but they often don't do it, because they themselves are newbies, so we have a closed circle - careless newbies create new careless newbies, and if someone spends little time in Bitcoin community, despite owning Bitcoin, chances are they are sitting on a time bomb of losing their keys.

[1Referee]

Agreed, however. Everyone should be helpful to the newbies who sincerely want to learn and ignore the people who say anything bad about bitcoin to try to trick us to get our attention.

Aren't we already doing that? I mean, there is no shortage of help here or on other social media platforms that people can seek.

The only problem I see is that newbies aren't really able to seperate people genuinely trying to help them from scammers trying to steal their coins. In most cases, as long as you use common sense you should be able to dodge most scammers, but newbies desperately trying to recoup their coins might still fall for it.

I once helped a friend with his wallet configuration/setup, and he legit sent me a screenshot of his recovery seed. I told him to remove the wallet and re-install it and generate a brand new seed he shouldn't show to anyone. A scammer would have just kept his mouth shut and waited for an opportunity to steal coins.

[DooMAD]

How many of you would go out and buy a firearm if you didn't even know how to use one?  That would be a bad idea too.  People don't tend to buy a car until they know how to drive one.  It's basic common sense and Peter Schiff clearly has none of that.

It's actually worse than that, with cars and guns everyone understands how dangerous those things are, as everyone heard some stories about deaths caused by them, but it's not immediately obvious that Bitcoin is dangerous too. Yes, wallets warn users about the loss of private keys, but people usually don't pay much attention to such warnings. People who introduce others to Bitcoin should bring closer attention to this issue, but they often don't do it, because they themselves are newbies, so we have a closed circle - careless newbies create new careless newbies, and if someone spends little time in Bitcoin community, despite owning Bitcoin, chances are they are sitting on a time bomb of losing their keys.

Indeed.  Short of putting more warning messages in the wallet software, it's difficult to know what more we can do to make sure the message gets through.

Agreed, however. Everyone should be helpful to the newbies who sincerely want to learn and ignore the people who say anything bad about bitcoin to try to trick us to get our attention.

Aren't we already doing that? I mean, there is no shortage of help here or on other social media platforms that people can seek.

I think the problem is that newbies don't necessarily seek help until they have a problem, which, by then, could be too late.  So we need to ensure, wherever possible, that newbies are aware of the importance of backups so they can recover their coins in the event something goes wrong.  For all his pomp and arrogance, Peter Schiff was a newbie.  So evidently, either:

a) no one stressed the importance of backups to him
or
b) someone did tell him, but he was too much of an asshat to listen.


It honestly wouldn't surprise me if it was b), but I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

[buwaytress]

I'm with DooMAD here. He's not wrong, in a sense. I used to think it was really strange that the suits I knew who invested in Bitcoin actually didn't own btc. They paid for an amount of Bitcoin, sure, through an app or some other platform that gave them an account with a balance that updated with bitcoin price. Not even an actual wallet, never mind ownership of the private key. I explained this to them. They got it. But they didn't want that. They can't even trust themselves to remember their email password or phone SIM password, why would they want to risk that with money? So leaving it in the hands of a custodial service that protects their money for them, and reminds them of their password if they forget it, makes sense.

To put this in an actual real life example of my own, I gifted two children a small amount of bitcoin some time in 2018. Just recently, curious to see what they'd done (and to show them actually it's worth more than double now), I checked back. Guess what? The older kid, already 16, lost his private keys (printed). So, my lesson was, Bitcoin -- or at least, in the true sense it was meant to be -- isn't for everyone. Or, people aren't ready for it yet and need to be before they use it in the sense it was meant for.

It was, arguably, irresponsible of me to give it to a child and explain he was fully responsible for it without demonstrating the consequence. Perhaps it was the same for Schiff.

[cr1776]

In a sense, he's not wrong.  It's all well and good saying he's just a Bitcoin hater and dismissing him, but it's important we get our response to this correct.  People (the ones on the outside looking in, who might be persuaded by Schiff) need to understand what happened and why.  So far in this topic, I don't think we've placed enough emphasis on that, so here goes:  

If you're a complete fool who isn't even prepared to try and understand the first thing about Bitcoin (but somehow still think you're qualified to give an opinion on it), it is a bad idea to dive straight in without knowing what you're doing.  People generally aren't accustomed to being responsible for digital keys.  It's a new skill set for the average person to learn.  And if they don't learn it, they can quite easily lose their funds.

Owning some bitcoin is a good idea if you have taken the time to understand how to use it safely.  If you are too ignorant or lazy to do that, then Bitcoin is not suitable for you.  Personal responsibility is a fundamental requirement here.  Chances are, no one is going to bail you out if you screw it up.

How many of you would go out and buy a firearm if you didn't even know how to use one?  That would be a bad idea too.  People don't tend to buy a car until they know how to drive one.  It's basic common sense and Peter Schiff clearly has none of that.  Even if it was a gift, the person who gave it to him should absolutely take it as a sign of ingratitude that he didn't take the time to learn how to use it.  

I would also add this is true for anything digital.  If you don't back up your Office files, eventually you'll lose something. If you don't back up your photos, you'll lose them. In short, if you don't back up electronics eventually something will go wrong.

If he had either backed up his device that had his wallet or backed up his password, he'd have been fine.

Bitcoin is not to blame for user error.  At best the device should automatically back your.

[hendra147]

I'm with DooMAD here. He's not wrong, in a sense. I used to think it was really strange that the suits I knew who invested in Bitcoin actually didn't own btc. They paid for an amount of Bitcoin, sure, through an app or some other platform that gave them an account with a balance that updated with bitcoin price. Not even an actual wallet, never mind ownership of the private key. I explained this to them. They got it. But they didn't want that. They can't even trust themselves to remember their email password or phone SIM password, why would they want to risk that with money? So leaving it in the hands of a custodial service that protects their money for them, and reminds them of their password if they forget it, makes sense.

To put this in an actual real life example of my own, I gifted two children a small amount of bitcoin some time in 2018. Just recently, curious to see what they'd done (and to show them actually it's worth more than double now), I checked back. Guess what? The older kid, already 16, lost his private keys (printed). So, my lesson was, Bitcoin -- or at least, in the true sense it was meant to be -- isn't for everyone. Or, people aren't ready for it yet and need to be before they use it in the sense it was meant for.

It was, arguably, irresponsible of me to give it to a child and explain he was fully responsible for it without demonstrating the consequence. Perhaps it was the same for Schiff.

it's remaind me when my friends forget his litecoin private key, he mining litecoin in 2014, then giving his computer + hardisk to someone, when he remember his litecoin, the hardisk has been seling to other people, it's a pity .

now I know when you choose to use full controll wallet ( can acces private key ), you must save it carefully, but when you save your bitcoin in exchange or something like thats, you must ready too the service can be like MtGox.

Bitcoin is unregulated asset, also a decentralized asset even though government regulate it, govermant can't recover your  funds lost due scam exchange, scam investment etc.

[franky1]

peters problem is not a bitcoin problem. its a custodial service problem

i think if someone bought some of peters digital gold. but lost their email access or verification. they too would not have a easy way to get their gold back.

though custodial services are made to make things easier. they are not good at communicating the important parts.
many banks reqire people to submit ID and email and home address. not just for KYC regulations. but as a backup proof of ownership should someone forget their password.
yet some online FIAT services just ask for username password and email.
and yes people have actually lost money in paypal by losing access to their email and then forgetting their password.

as for crypto custodial services, they need to make saving seeds as a critical function of application/signup. with occassional reminders. and not just be a 'username''password''pin' system

i would much prefer custodial services to use KYC for the personal safety and service of its customers, rather than just a regulatory overwatch policing against its customers.

i think the best way to achieve such tasks is to simplify and buzzzword the things like 'keys/seeds' into something much more common.
EG: seed/key=crypto social security number or crypto birth certificate. to emphasise the importance to hold onto it for life and not hand it out freely

[hv_]

I'm with DooMAD here. He's not wrong, in a sense. I used to think it was really strange that the suits I knew who invested in Bitcoin actually didn't own btc. They paid for an amount of Bitcoin, sure, through an app or some other platform that gave them an account with a balance that updated with bitcoin price. Not even an actual wallet, never mind ownership of the private key. I explained this to them. They got it. But they didn't want that. They can't even trust themselves to remember their email password or phone SIM password, why would they want to risk that with money? So leaving it in the hands of a custodial service that protects their money for them, and reminds them of their password if they forget it, makes sense.

To put this in an actual real life example of my own, I gifted two children a small amount of bitcoin some time in 2018. Just recently, curious to see what they'd done (and to show them actually it's worth more than double now), I checked back. Guess what? The older kid, already 16, lost his private keys (printed). So, my lesson was, Bitcoin -- or at least, in the true sense it was meant to be -- isn't for everyone. Or, people aren't ready for it yet and need to be before they use it in the sense it was meant for.

It was, arguably, irresponsible of me to give it to a child and explain he was fully responsible for it without demonstrating the consequence. Perhaps it was the same for Schiff.

it's remaind me when my friends forget his litecoin private key, he mining litecoin in 2014, then giving his computer + hardisk to someone, when he remember his litecoin, the hardisk has been seling to other people, it's a pity .

now I know when you choose to use full controll wallet ( can acces private key ), you must save it carefully, but when you save your bitcoin in exchange or something like thats, you must ready too the service can be like MtGox.

Bitcoin is unregulated asset, also a decentralized asset even though government regulate it, govermant can't recover your  funds lost due scam exchange, scam investment etc.

Sure there are legal ways of seizing Bitcoins. We ve been watching such after big crime like Silk Road happened. Why would you guess some of the whales wanted to skew Bitcoin more 'private' ? Surely not for good old Peter or average Joes...

[BitHodler]

now I know when you choose to use full controll wallet ( can acces private key ), you must save it carefully, but when you save your bitcoin in exchange or something like thats, you must ready too the service can be like MtGox.

That's what hardware wallets are for. It's a noob friendly way of using crypto without worrying about too many attack factors. It still requires you to hide your recovery seed, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

The only problem I have heard of from people I know using a Ledger was that it took a looooong time to update because of how slow Ledger's servers were at that point, but that's a minor annoyance in my opinion.

It might also have been related to how active the market was and for that reason more people were updating/setting up new devices, so it might very well be that Ledger has upgraded its servers to meet the increased demand.

[Slow death]

things that happen in the crypto world become things worthy of some Hollywood comedy movie.

- When the price increases a lot we have all the news channels talking about very exaggerated forecasts

- When the price is stagnant in the same place we have all news channels saying that the price will fall a lot

- When the price drops a lot, the news channels post news as if it were the end of the world

and the most ridiculous ever:

- When a character of the financial world loses access to their coins, regret on social networks