Why people don't adopt Bitcoin - they don't understand Expected Value

[hatshepsut93]

First, check this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBX-KulgJ1o, it's a social experiment where the guy offers random people on the street to take a bet where they have a decent advantage, and almost all people refuse it. Why? Because they don't know math and can't calculate that the expected value of such bet is big and positive. Instead they are being guided by psychology - human mind feels negative emotions more strongly than the positive, and negative memories are stronger than the positive. Fear of losing is stronger than the desire to profit.

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin adoption is so low. Everyone is aware of volatility, of big rallies and big crashes. Avoiding big risks is the default course of action for most people, even if big risks have positive expected value.

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[Hispo]

I agree there is a strong psychological aspect on the adoption of Bitcoin,specially by those who do not necessarily share the core values of decentralization and deflation.

It is easy to be aware of volatility and crashes as you said, but it is harder to realize at the same time that for a successful asset to thrive in long term, it has to survive several crashes and bear cycles. It it something that even happens with traditional assets like stocks.

Still, I expect the adoption to continue increase in the future as more people get informed and abandon their fear.

[Mr.suevie]

Hmmm i don't know,  but i feel if that video were to be done in my locality,  i bet you will probably see more going for the first time risk rather than reasoning the losses that is involved in it.  Same feat applys to the adoption of bitcoin in my locality most people just like taking the chance of new means of possible making profits even if it involves them not knowing much about the platforms. I guess that's why bitcoin adoption and awareness  is growing massively in my area.

[dansus021]

Yes but in the video its total bet  If they are wrong their pay 10$ if their guess was right they take the 10$ its a pure gamble in my opinion even tho is 50:50 chance. They cant predict the value. But one of the reasons why people doesn't like bitcoin is volatility but even tho their gues is wrong they still get the value of bitcoin until it reaches zero right.

In my opinion who know bitcoin must know at least a little knowledge and decide if they want to their money on.

[noorman0]

I don't think that's an appropriate approach to compare to bitcoin adoption. The fact is that nobody loses anything (in terms of ownership) even in a minus portfolio condition.
I'm interested in quoting one of the responses in the video, "I'm thinking more about what I lose than what I win". How about a little fairer, changing the conditions of "the coin will be flipped a certain number of times so it wins your choice",  like the way holding works.

[aseev]

The video talks about objectively favorable results. With Bitcoin the possible outcomes are unknown. Expected Value has little to do with this.

[franky1]

even at a 10:10 or a 10:20 people are not willing to bet. the main reason is logically people feel that if something sounds too good, said by someone they just met and dont know, there must be a hidden trick behind it where there is more risk at play that they have not been told about

people only try bitcoin once they have done more research.. rather than hearing a guys investment idea 30 seconds after meeting them

in short.
dont introduce bitcoin in some investment sales pitch. teach them about the functions and features that bitcoin offers that meet the persons interests. explain it in ways they will understand and then explain if bitcoin is at a value dip or a hype tip so they can make a better judgement of desire vs risk of bitcoin the utility and bitcoin the investment

[Darker45]

I doubt the reason for those people not taking the bet is that they don't know math. That's too much of a leap. It seems obvious all those people perfectly understand that their $10-bet versus another person's $20-bet is advantageous on their side. They just don't want it.

Factors like they're not in the mood to be betting against a stranger in the streets, they're on camera, they're feeling awkward, they're conscious, and so on are involved in this social experiment. There are so many external factors involved. The environment and circumstances are not really conducive for people to be thinking of winning a bet.

If in those same streets that same vlogger would call out strangers and say, "hey, come on, take my $20; it's all yours," I guess a number of people still won't have it.

[Solosanz]

even at a 10:10 or a 10:20 people are not willing to bet. the main reason is logically people feel that if something sounds too good, said by someone they just met and dont know, there must be a hidden trick behind it where there is more risk at play that they have not been told about

people only try bitcoin once they have done more research.. rather than hearing a guys investment idea 30 seconds after meeting them

You nailed it @franky1

I never trust any random stranger offering to good to be true, you know we've seen so many magician which mastered a trick to make we think it's real, but it's not. It's possible the stranger flip the real coin and then he switch with his customized coin where the both side contain only number or image, depends on the situation.

Bitcoin on other hand, we don't need to trust someone because we can trade it using P2P or DEX, then we can hold it on our non custodial wallet.

There are a lot articles discuss about 4 year cycle and Bitcoin bullish season, I don't think people are dumb and not understand about it, they just choose to not invest in Bitcoin.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

even at a 10:10 or a 10:20 people are not willing to bet. the main reason is logically people feel that if something sounds too good, said by someone they just met and dont know, there must be a hidden trick behind it where there is more risk at play that they have not been told about

people only try bitcoin once they have done more research.. rather than hearing a guys investment idea 30 seconds after meeting them

You nailed it @franky1

I also agree with franky1.

Apart from that, I don't think the concept of expected value can be applied to bitcoin unless we take it too broadly. For that, we should be able to assign an 'objective' value to bitcoin and then be able to measure the difference between the current price of bitcoin and its supposedly real and objective value. Some models such as S2F tried to do something like this, but in my opinion they failed miserably, no matter how much the author claims not to have failed and keeps reformulating the theory.

It is easy to talk about expected value in gambling, for example. If the RTP is 97% and you bet 100 USD, the expected value of return is 97 USD, regardless of whether you lose it all, i.e. the return is 0, or you win more than 100.

In the stock market, value investing tries to do something similar, but here we are moving in a field where there is not so much certainty, and I would say that with bitcoin even less so.

[wxa7115]

First, check this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBX-KulgJ1o, it's a social experiment where the guy offers random people on the street to take a bet where they have a decent advantage, and almost all people refuse it. Why? Because they don't know math and can't calculate that the expected value of such bet is big and positive. Instead they are being guided by psychology - human mind feels negative emotions more strongly than the positive, and negative memories are stronger than the positive. Fear of losing is stronger than the desire to profit.

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin adoption is so low. Everyone is aware of volatility, of big rallies and big crashes. Avoiding big risks is the default course of action for most people, even if big risks have positive expected value.

There are too many factors to consider when we think about the rate of adoption, one of the most obvious is that people in general are afraid of change, and new technologies can be terrifying for most people.

Now some may suppose that things would have changed as now we live at an age where information moves at an incredible speed but this is not true, if you take the time to search for articles about the internet you will notice that many experts thought the internet will never succeed and eventually it will disappear, and look at how wrong they were, this is similar to what we see with bitcoin which has been declared dead hundreds of times and bitcoin is still prospering.

[AicecreaME]

First, check this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBX-KulgJ1o, it's a social experiment where the guy offers random people on the street to take a bet where they have a decent advantage, and almost all people refuse it. Why? Because they don't know math and can't calculate that the expected value of such bet is big and positive. Instead they are being guided by psychology - human mind feels negative emotions more strongly than the positive, and negative memories are stronger than the positive. Fear of losing is stronger than the desire to profit.

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin adoption is so low. Everyone is aware of volatility, of big rallies and big crashes. Avoiding big risks is the default course of action for most people, even if big risks have positive expected value.

Or most of them just don't have any idea about it either. People don't want to risk on something they don't know, fiat is the only thing they wanted. Cryptocurrency for them is like it never exist, they don't want to get out of their comfort zone. We can't blame them though, since we have our own choices in life. Those people who don't want to risk their money on Bitcoin for sure will regret it big time once it soar up high even more.

[Upgrade00]

Firstly that was a great video, I usually judge videos by how much I don't notice the time go buy and the 7+ minutes of the video went by without any notice at all.

Also, the concept in the video is technically correct, people are averse to taking risks and feel losses more than they feel gains.
Even if you consider the analogy of this being a stranger those people just met and then flipped it, offering them ten bucks to take a gamble, while risking nothing, people would take the bet with the said stranger.
That is still a too good an offer to be true and it's still a stranger they just met, but with no apparent risk of losing, the would take the chance at winning.

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin adoption is so low. Everyone is aware of volatility, of big rallies and big crashes. Avoiding big risks is the default course of action for most people, even if big risks have positive expected value.

Bitcoin adoption is not low for how long it has existed.
It's more than taking a random bet, it's accepting a new way of doing things, a new way of transacting and a new form of value. It would definitely take time to be fully adopted

[tabas]

The interviewer keeps on talking about the potential win that the risk takers will take. He's keep on highlighting that but he could be on the wrong place where people were conversative with their 10 bucks. He chosen those people that are not into risk taking and I understand his point of explanation about gaining potentially more than the expected value that the bettor shall lose. But he should have tried to go to casinos and ask people from there and for sure, they'll take the bet.
And relating this loss aversion with the bitcoin adoption is that, people might be relaying to their experiences in the past, it could possibly be that they've been a victim of sort of online scam and that's why they're no eager to know more about it. Whether it's going to be profitable as an asset or not, what's on their mind is only thing and that is they'll never be a victim again of anything that's related to online investments.
They'll only be interested on it if they see people who tried it first that has became profitable and then that thought of losing might change later on.

[Kakmakr]

OP, your focus on expected value or profit are misguided, when it comes to Bitcoin. The primary goal for Bitcoin adopters should not be "profit" ..but rather the value of financial freedom. Yes, even if the reward is financial freedom, the same concept still exist, because people first need to lose their financial freedom.. before they know what it is.

A simple example is this : The ATM is not working and you need money to pay for something important. Your account is blocked for some reason and your Bank only operate from 9 to 5. You want to donate money to Wikileaks, but Banks block all transactions that are linked to Wikileaks... etc. etc. 

[348Judah]

First, check this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBX-KulgJ1o, it's a social experiment where the guy offers random people on the street to take a bet where they have a decent advantage, and almost all people refuse it. Why? Because they don't know math and can't calculate that the expected value of such bet is big and positive. Instead they are being guided by psychology - human mind feels negative emotions more strongly than the positive, and negative memories are stronger than the positive. Fear of losing is stronger than the desire to profit.

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin adoption is so low. Everyone is aware of volatility, of big rallies and big crashes. Avoiding big risks is the default course of action for most people, even if big risks have positive expected value.

People want a financial freedom but they never had an insight through how they can achieve this in success with bitcoin, they were afraid of missing out due to how the ponzi schemes had previously gone rampard carting away millions worth of asset all on this social media and digital networks that involves the use of the internet, they never try it out with bitcoin for these reasons and yet those that have experienced bitcoin can't convince them enough not until they decided from their end to give a try, digital network may be hard to learn but worth taking the risk especially in dealing with bitcoin.

[Wapfika]

I’m a financial advisor for a long time and we often assess first our client before we offer a plan for them. There’s different risk appetite in everyone of us and more people  preferred less risk investment because they have a sustainable source of income from job and they don’t want to risk everything because their money is hard earned.

It’s same scenario with Bitcoin. People with stable job income that can sustain their daily life will surely avoid any risk in life because they are ok that way. Maybe consider us here as lucky for being open minded on the risk involved of our investment and don’t bother convince everyone to take the same risk we are taking despite expected value here is pretty high.

[Yatsan]

There are many possible reasons:

Some businesses choose not to simply because they'd be hesitating to use Bitcoin to keep their business alive especially whenever the market price is falling. Same thing goes with individuals wherein they'd be in guilt to use Bitcoin on daily transaction simply because of the profit potential if they will just hold it until bullish market occur. It's volatility is the main thing which gives doubt to users. Another reason is the risk involved from doing so. There will be downfalls on its market value without certainty of when will the market recover. I'd say people are either just lacking the knowledge in this technology or simply they are not into investments.

[Lucius]

~snip~

I think the video is a bad example when it comes to investing in Bitcoin regardless of the math behind how many times the coin will fall heads/letters and how much money is in the game. Some people just don't like gambling (regardless of the odds), and we all know that the house always wins in the end and that only a few can boast that they made money gambling, while more than 95% of gamblers lose far more than they win.

Therefore, I don't think that the fear of loss is the main reason why people don't want to invest in Bitcoin, because the reason can also be that someone simply doesn't have the money to afford any kind of investment, while others think that it's all a big scam which will collapse sooner or later. It should be kept in mind that public opinion is not shaped by this forum or a few more significant sources that provide information about Bitcoin, but by the mainstream media, which is mostly owned by those who want to preserve the system that allows them absolute control at all costs.

In addition, Bitcoin was never supposed to be the kind of gambling you are talking about, but something completely different that most people either don't know or deliberately ignore.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin adoption is so low. Everyone is aware of volatility, of big rallies and big crashes. Avoiding big risks is the default course of action for most people, even if big risks have positive expected value.

you are definitely correct, it is said that a billionaire would rather maintain his billionaire status than venture into a risky investment all in the quest of trying to become a trillionaire, the fear of losing something we already own is indeed stronger than the desire to get something new, most especially, when getting something new involved us risking that we already have.
This confirms the saying that one bird you have in your hands, is worth millions of birds in the bush, and it is also said that the devil we know, is better than the angel we don't know.

Adoption will come to bitcoin, but it will happen gradually, it is not something we should expect to happen overnight or at once, it will take years for sure, but it will happen.