Bitcoin is worthless, but in-game currency or tokens are priceless ...yea right!

[Kakmakr]

I have recently started playing a game called, "Forge of Empires" because the lockdown gave me loads of time to even play some online games. So, I joined a guild and I started talking to some of the older and more experienced players in the game and one thing lead to another and we started to talk about Bitcoin.

The player made the statement that "Bitcoin is worthless" because it is not something physical like Cash or Gold, which according to him had worth.  

I then proceeded to debate this issue by asking him a couple of questions. My first question was... "How much money do you spend on the diamonds that you use within this game" - His answer : About $20 per week.   

I followed that question with my second question, "How long have you been playing this game and spending that money on Diamonds? - His answer : "Hmmmm well, since about 2015"

I quickly made some rough calculations :   $20/week x 4 weeks x 12 months = $960 per year x 5 years =  $4800 spend on buying Diamonds for that game.

He never made that calculation, because he said it was from his entertainment budget, but he was amazed that it was that much. I then asked him.. Do you think those Diamonds are worth anything? (Would anyone buy your Diamonds or account for $4800?) - His answer : Definitely not. 

I then said... Well, do you think if you spend that money on buying bitcoins that it would have been worth anything now? His answer : Yea.. I think I get what you are saying now.

This guy are now buying $10 worth of bitcoins weekly and still spending $10 on his Diamonds for the game. He send me a screenshot of his bitcoin balance and he is very proud of this investment.

Sometimes you just have to confront people with the things that are right before their eyes.    No need for you to go into arguments or to force people to buy anything, you just show them the truth and then wait for the light to come on. 

Since I started playing the game, I spend ZERO money on Diamonds 

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[NeuroticFish]

$4800 spend on buying Diamonds for that game.

Yup, many simply cannot comprehend how various can be the areas addiction can strike.

While many tell urban stories like "if Mr X would have been stopped smoking, now he would have a house", while many still think Bitcoin is some sort of "Monopoly money", it's nice to actually see somebody converted from addiction to actual investment (although "conversion" is incorrect term, since he's still feeding his addiction).

[mk4]

Well done on converting a person to a bitcoiner, but damn that was definitely a lot easier than I expected lol. Someone just convinced him that he could make money investing/speculating on bitcoin instead of spending too much on entertainment and suddenly bitcoin is no longer worthless to him. Unless this is only the top surface of the story of course.

[Tipstar]

People sometimes can't get their preference right. They just needs a wake up call. But not everyone is easily convinced.
Our society is made up of different kinds of people and their are always different thoughts. Our soceity won't function if we thought the similar and did the same.
There needs to be seller when people buy and their needs to be buyer when they sell.

[Lucius]

People have different vices in their lives, and most of them don't want to give up no matter how bad they are. Smoking is without a doubt bad for your health, but also for the health of everyone in your vicinity, but still a large percentage of the world's population smokes and does not pay too much attention to the price. If we take the example of smokers who consume only one box (20 cigarettes) per day and that the average price of such a box is around 5 EUR (EU) we come to the following figures.

• 5 EUR x 30 days = 150 per month.
• 150 EUR x 12 months = 1800 EUR.
• 10 years of smoking = 18 000 EUR.
• At current price smoker waste 2 BTC in 10 years.
• Coffee, alcohol, fast food + all other bad habits = 18 000 EUR extra?

I would say there are always better ways to spend money, but it's all a matter of choice - some people say "you only live once" and "you have to die from something".

[The Cryptovator]

Glad to see that at least one person motivated by you to bitcoin. Actually everyone have different thoughts but if you are able to explain him mathematically then likely a person would convinced. Peoples believe on gold or diamond because of its existence on real life, so they aren't much familiar with virtual life. But bitcoin existence is virtual life and we might realized it since we are familiar with it. We should realized world changing virtually day by day. So even today bitcoin is just a normal crypto-currency but near future it would be accepted as global currency like USD now.

[Kakmakr]

Well done on converting a person to a bitcoiner, but damn that was definitely a lot easier than I expected lol. Someone just convinced him that he could make money investing/speculating on bitcoin instead of spending too much on entertainment and suddenly bitcoin is no longer worthless to him. Unless this is only the top surface of the story of course.

Well, obviously this did not happen in a few hours. I just sparked his interest and I switched on the light for him. (Or.. like some people say... pointed at the rabbit hole)

This was followed by loads of other discussions on "when was the best time to buy" and "where do you buy bitcoins" and "how do you store it.. etc... in the next couple of days. Once he saw the "true" facts about Bitcoin, he was intrigued.

I shared this not to impress you on how I converted someone into buying bitcoins, but rather on how misguided and how misinformed people was about Bitcoin. They believe everything that are posted on social media and popular media platforms, without doing their own proper research. (If 5 people in a chat group of 5000 says something is a scam, most people will just accept it... no matter if those people are no experts or just trolling or even just spreading FUD to strengthen their own agenda.)

                                                          =-Give people the facts and light a spark to start a huge fire-=

[mk4]

Well, obviously this did not happen in a few hours. I just sparked his interest and I switched on the light for him. (Or.. like some people say... pointed at the rabbit hole)

*snip*

Noice. I'm personally more interested in what was the turning point for him though. What did you say or what article/statement did he read that changed his mind towards his "Bitcoin is worthless" mindset?

[20kevin20]

It's truly insane to see how some people spend a ton of their money to buy some literally fake currency. One would probably argue by saying the in-game currency at least provides entertainment while Bitcoin doesn't. Some people I know are subscribed to Prime, Netflix, Xbox Gold, PS+ at the same time and sometimes even to some things like overpriced daily delivered fresh food. I don't even need a pen & a paper to calculate how much money they lose to these services per year.

But they are missing something, which is.. putting the idea of BTC being virtual aside, you'd simply have a currency with future. If one decides not to buy it because they compare it to some in-game currency they thought was worth a few grand per year to pay for, I'm not sure they're the best type of people to get to invest in a cryptocurrency.

[avikz]

People have different vices in their lives, and most of them don't want to give up no matter how bad they are. Smoking is without a doubt bad for your health, but also for the health of everyone in your vicinity, but still a large percentage of the world's population smokes and does not pay too much attention to the price. If we take the example of smokers who consume only one box (20 cigarettes) per day and that the average price of such a box is around 5 EUR (EU) we come to the following figures.

• 5 EUR x 30 days = 150 per month.
• 150 EUR x 12 months = 1800 EUR.
• 10 years of smoking = 18 000 EUR.
• At current price smoker waste 2 BTC in 10 years.
• Coffee, alcohol, fast food + all other bad habits = 18 000 EUR extra?

I would say there are always better ways to spend money, but it's all a matter of choice - some people say "you only live once" and "you have to die from something".

Yes, I totally agree with it! It's a matter of choice, always! There will always be better ways to spend money, but it all depends on what we want to do with our money! If everything needs to be invested, people wouldn't have bought Play station games or swanky phones at the first place. It's a human nature to spend money on what brings them happiness! It's a necessity as well to keep ourselves happy!

But Kakmakr has done a brilliant job of promoting bitcoin - one step at a time! In my country, people have the same feeling about bitcoin. Even though our supreme court has made it legal, banks have managed to drive common people against bitcoin. So they think it is scam and has no value! The current situation will not change overnight but slowly we will conquer!

[AakZaki]

You give a good influence and an explanation of how valuable bitcoin is to people who initially don't care about bitcoin. That's one great way to get people to invest in bitcoin, rather than just spending the money to buy diamonds in the game they are playing. Dividing $ 10 for bitcoin and another $ 10 for games is a good progress.

Instead of spending around $ 4800 on just a diamond game in 5 years, it's better to invest in bitcoin, which is more profitable and has a value when sold.

[hugeblack]

The correct answer that I am supposed to look for is investing in knowledge. Instead of wasting time on that game, if you invest 30 minutes of your time learning something useful, you will have enough knowledge to collect more profits than investing in anything else, including Bitcoin.

If you do not have the scientific background then investing $ 100 in something unknown, such as Bitcoin in 2010, was closer to buying diamonds in this game, the only difference is that you will not have the pleasure of playing.

Quote from dcabtc

If you had started buying $1 worth of Bitcoin on this day 9 years ago, you would have made a return of 550,450.63%. You would have invested a total of $3,286 and you would have made $18,091,093.

Source: https://dcabtc.com/

These are the ideal calculations or are based on the return on the investment, but if given the real orders, there are fees that the platforms deduct, the minimum deposit and withdrawal, and taxes report which may make the investment not profitable as it appears with those numbers, but it is definitely much better than spending money on buying diamonds with these games.

If people are able to understand the assets and liabilities, focus all their efforts on multiplying the assets, and working on the minimum of the liabilities, then they will collect wealth in a short time.

[serjent05]

Cool story and great influence.  I used to spend money on buying in-game items even before I know Bitcoins later realized that I am just wasting money on a worthless thing.  Most of us never think (including me) that even a small amount spent on a game when it is done in a regular basis will worth that much (Kakmakr example).  It is really best to invest in things that has worth and have a possibility to increase in value over time such as Bitcoin.

[dothebeats]

I had this similar inkling towards a certain game as well. Perhaps many of you guys here know Cabal NA. I was ranked on that server with one of the highest, maxed-out gear in 2019 before I quit and believe me, it's nuts that I literally spent thousands of $$$ just to get that strong--and people are also willing to give you more than what you invested for the said character. My stint in Cabal NA lasted for 9+ years before I moved countries and settled on the country I'm currently at. The amount for me is ridiculous, amounting to $5000 for my investment and sold everything for $8500. I already knew things about bitcoin but even then I still chose to invest more on character rather than bitcoin. Guess that's just how some games affect the mindset of some people chasing that number one spot.

[YOSHIE]

This guy are now buying $10 worth of bitcoins weekly and still spending $10 on his Diamonds for the game. He send me a screenshot of his bitcoin balance and he is very proud of this investment.

You have successfully advised him "how important investment is, for his own future".
In the next five years your friend already has a very large investment asset of $ 10 x 4 = $ 40 / week and $ 40x12 = $ 480 / year, so at times five years $ 480x5 = $ 2,400 this is a success for your friend.
Of course, from a total investment of $ 2,400 there could be a change of double centipedes if the price of Bitcoin goes up and vice versa, this is if he understands the truth that's' tabugan him when he stopped playing the game Forge of Empires.

If many people understand the (tricks) of your advice 'maybe' people realize the importance of investing in Bitcoin, if he knows.

I'm glad to hear about this 'investment'. Your friend can have a bright future in the future.

Greetings to your friends from the Bitcointalk Forum community, your friends do something that should be copied by many people.

[Kakmakr]

Well, obviously this did not happen in a few hours. I just sparked his interest and I switched on the light for him. (Or.. like some people say... pointed at the rabbit hole)

*snip*

Noice. I'm personally more interested in what was the turning point for him though. What did you say or what article/statement did he read that changed his mind towards his "Bitcoin is worthless" mindset?

You have to understand that a new perspective on things, sometimes gives people the "spark" needed to light the fire. I was a victim of Credit card fraud many years ago and I searched the Internet for something else that can be used to buy things online, without giving someone else access to the rest of your money and that is how I got to Bitcoin.

I saw a Bitcoin video on YouTube about mining and it sparked my interest and then I met someone at a party and discussed it and one thing led to another and here I am many years after that, being a huge supporter of this technology. (because I got it and I wanted to know more)

I did give him some resources on YouTube (for beginners) and I also directed him to this forum to fill in the blanks, he just did the rest on his own. 

[bitmover]

I quickly made some rough calculations :   $20/week x 4 weeks x 12 months = $960 per year x 5 years =  $4800 spend on buying Diamonds for that game.

That is exactly how we should calculate the price of things in life.

How much does your 1 usd everyday coffee after lunch costs in 10 years?? 1x5x4x12x10 = 2400.

This is an interesting perspective on how we should make our budget and decide how much we really want to pay for entertainment, coffee, and so on.

Ofc it is important to buy a coffee or spend money in entertainment, but we really should know how much we are spending.

Since I started playing the game, I spend ZERO money on Diamonds 

Isn't that a pay to win game? lol

[Oasisman]

~snip~

~snip~

You have to understand that a new perspective on things, sometimes gives people the "spark" needed to light the fire. I was a victim of Credit card fraud many years ago and I searched the Internet for something else that can be used to buy things online, without giving someone else access to the rest of your money and that is how I got to Bitcoin.

That's where the fun starts and spark an interest to use Bitcoin. I was once the same as you, but I ain't a victim of fraud, I just want to be safer than giving out some of your cc or debit details.
I can say, that guy you talked with in the online game is an intelligent person. Not, only because he listened to you, but because he then divided his entertainment fund, half for his online vices, and half for his retirement plan.

Since I started playing the game, I spend ZERO money on Diamonds 

Isn't that a pay to win game? lol

Most probably, I was an online gamer and spending $20 every week seems like a p2w game structure to me.

[Velkro]

This guy are now buying $10 worth of bitcoins weekly and still spending $10 on his Diamonds for the game.
Sometimes you just have to confront people with the things that are right before their eyes.    No need for you to go into arguments or to force people to buy anything, you just show them the truth and then wait for the light to come on. 

Problem is this light often will never come on
You cant make everyone to understand. You can't make people do what you think are best because:
1. you can be wrong
2. they have free will
3. they have right to make mistakes

This is problem with having addict/gambler in familiy, you can't save him before he saves himself. Only then you can help a bit.
All make their own life decisions and must live with it.

[rexxarofmoknathal]

Well, you're asking people who have no idea about the industry whether they believe Bitcoin has value. On the other hand, they're basically professionals in the video game you play, hence they'll have a better understand of supply and demand and the value of the in-game currency. Asking them whether Bitcoin has value is the same as asking a tribesman what the value of the euro is—he'll have no idea because he isn't experienced with it.

Rather than asking questions like this and helping them build on their ignorance, you should first educate people, and then ask your questions. At least that way they can form a more reasonable opinion on the subject, rather than pulling their opinion out of thing air.