rpietila Calling the Bottom

[rjclarke2000]

...
Why is everyone being funny about this?

We all want to be successful right?

In that case, you should take advice from every lotto winner and every hobo who finds a diamond tiara in the gutter.  They are, after all, successful, and worthy of emulation.

My post is addressing just that: Is this a person whose judgement should be trusted, since his success was based solely on intelligence, or did luck play a role, as it did with the successful people described above?

Mr. rpietila seems to suggest that luck is not a factor here, I'm merely trying to understand his position.

Surely researching something such as Bitcoin and then after taking into consideration what it has to offer isn't luck.

i understand the luck bit by hearing about it before a lot of people but correct me if I am wrong, I believe Risto has had success investing in the past before Bitcoin.  He says 17 years experience so if he bought Bitcoin 5 years ago that means you are saying he has made no money investing in the 12 years prior.

I find this hard to believe.

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[fisheater22]

...
Why is everyone being funny about this?

We all want to be successful right?

In that case, you should take advice from every lotto winner and every hobo who finds a diamond tiara in the gutter.  They are, after all, successful, and worthy of emulation.

My post is addressing just that: Is this a person whose judgement should be trusted, since his success was based solely on intelligence, or did luck play a role, as it did with the successful people described above?

Mr. rpietila seems to suggest that luck is not a factor here, I'm merely trying to understand his position.

Surely researching something such as Bitcoin and then after taking into consideration what it has to offer isn't luck.

i understand the luck bit by hearing about it before a lot of people but correct me if I am wrong, I believe Risto has had success investing in the past before Bitcoin.  He says 17 years experience so if he bought Bitcoin 5 years ago that means you are saying he has made no money investing in the 12 years prior.

I find this hard to believe.

Please read my previous posts.  I am not discussing Mr. rpietila's general credibility, but rather a different matter--Crypto Kingdom Gold, and whether luck played a part in his friend's investment in it.  His credibility only came into play with Mr. rpietila's claim which amounted to "i'm smart, thus my friend was smart by listening to me."

If that was the case, BTC would be way over $30k Mr. rpietila promised us a while back.

Also, claims such as "Buying CKG when it was depressed was smart, because it can only go to zero, but the upside is not limited." got my attention.

Regarding the "17 years [of internet trading] experience," same claim could be made by many gambling addicts in the Investment Based Games section of this forum.  I also have zero evidence of said [successful?] experience, and tend to take the things I read on the internet with a grain of salt.

[Erdogan]

...
Why is everyone being funny about this?

We all want to be successful right?

In that case, you should take advice from every lotto winner and every hobo who finds a diamond tiara in the gutter.  They are, after all, successful, and worthy of emulation.

My post is addressing just that: Is Mr. rpietila's a person whose sound judgement made him wealthy, or was it something else?  Should his advice be considered valid without further questions, or did luck play a role in his success, as it did with the successful people described above?

Mr. rpietila seems to suggest that luck is not a factor here, I'm merely trying to understand his position.

Question everything. His silver investment may or may not have been sound, I did not own silver at the time. But the bitcoin investment was a result of vision, knowledge and action, with a side look to the betterment of humanity. Luck was possibly a factor, because at the time the success of bitcoin was far from certain.

You should know that luck is often overemphasized, from the outside because people do not want to know that some other could have better skill, and from the inside, because the doer wants to appear humble or just conceal the reasons for his actions. In practise, an investor positions himself to take advantage of good things that may happen, and positions himself to avoid catastrophe. The appearant luck may be his knowledge and actions. And since the reasons may not be expressed or even rational, it could have been intuition, you can not decisively discern luck from well thought out action.

[fisheater22]

...
You should know that luck is often overemphasized, from the outside because people do not want to know that some other could have better skill, and from the inside, because the doer wants to appear humble or just conceal the reasons for his actions. In practise, an investor positions himself to take advantage of good things that may happen, and positions himself to avoid catastrophe. The appearant luck may be his knowledge and actions. And since the reasons may not be expressed or even rational, it could have been intuition, you can not decisively discern luck from well thought out action.

Conversely, you should know that luck is often underemphasized, because people wish to attribute their success to intelligence and skill.  As for excessive humility, I doubt that a man known for singing his own praises, posting pictures of self next to 70s Rollses and regaling us hoi polloi with tales of cigars he smokes, booze he drinks & castles he buys... I doubt he suffers from that.  Call it a hunch.

Regardless, none of this s relevant to his investor-based game, which I tried to address in this part of "rpietila [falsely] Calling the Bottom" thread.

Do you, perchance, have an answer to my Crypto Kingdom Gold question?

"In this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=966001.0), there's a claim stating 'CKG has been actively traded in the ingame exchange and now is moving to a leading Crypto exchange.'  May I ask which leading exchange?"

[rpietila]

Poloniex is the exchange that promised to list it. Now however they apparently changed that it will not be listed simultaneously with the game going online (to save their effort of course, if the game flops). Once I heard about this, we started our own trading system with market making, which enables speculation with small sums, max trade is 10,000 CKG (about BTC15), see more in the game thread.

[fisheater22]

Poloniex is the exchange that promised to list it. Now however they apparently changed that it will not be listed simultaneously with the game going online (to save their effort of course, if the game flops). Once I heard about this, we started our own trading system with market making, which enables speculation with small sums, max trade is 10,000 CKG (about BTC15), see more in the game thread.

Ah, thanks.  So Crypto Kingdom Gold is not traded on any exchange, and could be exchanged (on your website, with fees and, in case of non-trivial amounts, slippage) for Monero, another coin you yourself are promoting.

I can see why you think yourself savvy, credit where credit's due!

[rpietila]

Poloniex is the exchange that promised to list it. Now however they apparently changed that it will not be listed simultaneously with the game going online (to save their effort of course, if the game flops). Once I heard about this, we started our own trading system with market making, which enables speculation with small sums, max trade is 10,000 CKG (about BTC15), see more in the game thread.

Ah, thanks.  So Crypto Kingdom Gold is not traded on any exchange, and could be exchanged (on your website, with fees and, in case of non-trivial amounts, slippage) for Monero, another coin you yourself are promoting.

I can see why you think yourself savvy, credit where credit's due!

Yes I think it is quite remarkable that for a project <$1 million in size, there actually exists a 24/7 market for the shares, so that all except the 10 largest owners can enter or exit their whole position without needing to resort to any negotiation.

[fisheater22]

Poloniex is the exchange that promised to list it. Now however they apparently changed that it will not be listed simultaneously with the game going online (to save their effort of course, if the game flops). Once I heard about this, we started our own trading system with market making, which enables speculation with small sums, max trade is 10,000 CKG (about BTC15), see more in the game thread.

Ah, thanks.  So Crypto Kingdom Gold is not traded on any exchange, and could be exchanged (on your website, with fees and, in case of non-trivial amounts, slippage) for Monero, another coin you yourself are promoting.

I can see why you think yourself savvy, credit where credit's due!

Yes I think it is quite remarkable that for a project <$1 million in size, there actually exists a 24/7 market for the shares, so that all except the 10 largest owners can enter or exit their whole position without needing to resort to any negotiation.

And this is different from every ponzi currently running in the Investment Based Games subforum... how?
... other than fees and the fact that Crypto Kingdom Gold can not be exchanged for BTC, but another coin you have a stake in, I mean.

P.S. Please take this as a compliment, I am (unironically) impressed.

[rpietila]

A Ponzi is a scheme that takes investor money and pays out fixed returns until the payouts exceed the incoming funds and the perpetrator disappears with the money.

A pyramid is a scheme where people buy in in anticipation that "since the thing is so good, others will also join, and my share will be worth more". Almost all investing is based on pyramid. If the thing actually is good, or more people join in, then the value rises. Otherwise not.

The difference is whether there is a promised fixed payout.

[Erdogan]

...
You should know that luck is often overemphasized, from the outside because people do not want to know that some other could have better skill, and from the inside, because the doer wants to appear humble or just conceal the reasons for his actions. In practise, an investor positions himself to take advantage of good things that may happen, and positions himself to avoid catastrophe. The appearant luck may be his knowledge and actions. And since the reasons may not be expressed or even rational, it could have been intuition, you can not decisively discern luck from well thought out action.

Conversely, you should know that luck is often underemphasized, because people wish to attribute their success to intelligence and skill.  As for excessive humility, I doubt that a man known for singing his own praises, posting pictures of self next to 70s Rollses and regaling us hoi polloi with tales of cigars he smokes, booze he drinks & castles he buys... I doubt he suffers from that.  Call it a hunch.

Regardless, none of this s relevant to his investor-based game, which I tried to address in this part of "rpietila [falsely] Calling the Bottom" thread.

Do you, perchance, have an answer to my Crypto Kingdom Gold question?

"In this post (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=966001.0), there's a claim stating 'CKG has been actively traded in the ingame exchange and now is moving to a leading Crypto exchange.'  May I ask which leading exchange?"

No.

[mrhelpful]

just curious are you still calling bottom? since the twins have already been heavily invested into their projects, gemini exchange about to launch this coming year like 2016 i bet.

then we got their etf, and its a matter of when so once people see the exchange. I believe others will share the same faith for the etf as well.

[fisheater22]

A Ponzi is a scheme that takes investor money and pays out fixed returns until the payouts exceed the incoming funds and the perpetrator disappears with the money.

A pyramid is a scheme where people buy in in anticipation that "since the thing is so good, others will also join, and my share will be worth more". Almost all investing is based on pyramid. If the thing actually is good, or more people join in, then the value rises. Otherwise not.

The difference is whether there is a promised fixed payout.

from Wikipedia:
"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator."

Fits fine, let's not split hairs.

A Ponzi scheme needs not have a promised fixed return, merely a promoter who stands to gain without himself risking anything.

Anyhow, I'm glad that you, as a minimum, acknowledge that you have initiated a pyramid scheme, and that "your friend" wisely invested in it.

Edit: On second read, that came off sounding accusatory, not meant to be.  I am genuinely fascinated by this sort of thing, and am enjoying what you did, albeit from the bleachers.

[Erdogan]

A Ponzi is a scheme that takes investor money and pays out fixed returns until the payouts exceed the incoming funds and the perpetrator disappears with the money.

A pyramid is a scheme where people buy in in anticipation that "since the thing is so good, others will also join, and my share will be worth more". Almost all investing is based on pyramid. If the thing actually is good, or more people join in, then the value rises. Otherwise not.

The difference is whether there is a promised fixed payout.

from Wikipedia:
"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator."

Fits fine, let's not split hairs.

A Ponzi scheme needs not have a promised fixed return, merely a promoter who stands to gain without himself risking anything.

Anyhow, I'm glad that you, as a minimum, acknowledge that you have initiated a pyramid scheme, and that "your friend" wisely invested in it.

Edit: On second read, that came off sounding accusatory, not meant to be.  I am genuinely fascinated by this sort of thing, and am enjoying what you did, albeit from the bleachers.

It is a pyramid scheme, but note that all money are pyramid schemes. People want to have them, not for the money itself, but for the vision of being able to exchange them for something useful in the future. Fiat money could also set out to be appreciating for ever, that depends on the money manager. But at the incursion of a new fiat system, the value has to start from zero, and appreciate to the money managers preferred level using progaganda and prudent printing.

[fisheater22]

But at the incursion [inception?] of a new fiat system, the value has to start from zero, and appreciate to the money managers preferred level using progaganda and prudent printing.

And yet again I'm placed in a position of having to explain something so basic... nvrmnd.

No, money is not a pyramid scheme.  A nation state does not start out by printing money and hoping that someday, it will also have stuff (land, economy, factories, gold, cows, houses) for that money to buy.
Doesn't work like that.  "Stuff" will not magically appear just because someone decided to print some fiat.

There's already an initial pile of stuff [which is presumably] equal in value to the "printed" fiat.  If a disparity exists, the currency either grows in buying power, or is devalued.  If the disparity is too great, the economy collapses.
Caveat: But first, there must be stuff to buy.

That's why you or I can't start an economy by printing a bunch of fiat ourselves--it would be worth nothing.

Crypto Kingdom and other ponzi schemes capitalize on people's tenuous grasp of basic economics.  Let's be honest, most folks aren't even too swift when it comes to basic math, or, for that matter tying own shoes.  Forget fancy book-learnin' like "ex nihilo nihil fit."

[techgeek]

A Ponzi is a scheme that takes investor money and pays out fixed returns until the payouts exceed the incoming funds and the perpetrator disappears with the money.

A pyramid is a scheme where people buy in in anticipation that "since the thing is so good, others will also join, and my share will be worth more". Almost all investing is based on pyramid. If the thing actually is good, or more people join in, then the value rises. Otherwise not.

The difference is whether there is a promised fixed payout.

from Wikipedia:
"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator."

Fits fine, let's not split hairs.

A Ponzi scheme needs not have a promised fixed return, merely a promoter who stands to gain without himself risking anything.

Anyhow, I'm glad that you, as a minimum, acknowledge that you have initiated a pyramid scheme, and that "your friend" wisely invested in it.

Edit: On second read, that came off sounding accusatory, not meant to be.  I am genuinely fascinated by this sort of thing, and am enjoying what you did, albeit from the bleachers.

It is a pyramid scheme, but note that all money are pyramid schemes. People want to have them, not for the money itself, but for the vision of being able to exchange them for something useful in the future. Fiat money could also set out to be appreciating for ever, that depends on the money manager. But at the incursion of a new fiat system, the value has to start from zero, and appreciate to the money managers preferred level using progaganda and prudent printing.

Well then all schemes have a deadline some are longer to predict then others.

And the us dollar itself is then a pyramid scheme since its based off owing more money then it can actually issue out. The thing is, the scheme wont die unless people are educated knowing that its scheme.

If you ask someone on the street today, and ask them what fractional reserve lending was they would be clueless.. lol.

[Erdogan]

A pyramid scheme collapses when people outside the scheme does not want to add on it. The point with money, is that the pyramid can stand for a long time, as long as it is the best money.

So if there were no inhibitors to the transport and conversion of the different fiat types, legally, border control, legal tender stuff, state power requiring solely one type for payments and also pays out only in one type, cultural legacy, other people in the area having mostly one type (liquidity)...then the situation would be highly unstable, with the market converging into one type. All other types would then implode, making them indistinguishable from pyramid schemes. The last standing money type will still be a pyramid, but it will live for ever (or until a new, better, money type takes over).

[rpietila]

Well, CKG is actually quite little pyramidal, and more like a share. It receives dividends (from the Town surplus), same as every stock in existence. Every game company should pay dividends to its owners.

CK (the game) is pyramidal in the same way real world is - things only have value as long as someone is interested in buying them. The game has everything, and if all the people suddenly decide that they don't want to play any more, the prices collapse. This may happen in the real world as well.

[fisheater22]

Well, CKG is actually quite little pyramidal, and more like a share. It receives dividends (from the Town surplus), same as every stock in existence. Every game company should pay dividends to its owners.

CK (the game) is pyramidal in the same way real world is - things only have value as long as someone is interested in buying them. The game has everything, and if all the people suddenly decide that they don't want to play any more, the prices collapse. This may happen in the real world as well.

Let me see if I understand the gist of your argument. Is this, essentially, it?

1. My company prints money I call Crypto Kingdom Gold, promotes it, and sells it to smart people, who, in turn, also promote it. These smart people happen to hate fiat and bankers, which only adds to the fun.

2. These smart people (like my smart friend, who bought 60k's worth) can, in turn, buy imaginary items with this money, or convert it into another "coin" created by me and my friends, after paying me a fee for the privilege. I like to call this "a closed economy."

3. I freely admit that this is a pyramid scheme, since, while it produces nothing of value,* neither does a car factory,** or the world itself--a pitiful accident, flotsam and jetsam, illusory ripples in the wake of Maya's ridiculous dance (who Herself is but an illusion).

4. Life is meaningless, the world an illusion, nothing has value, neither do the imaginary castles I sell you, where's the problem? Got some issues with reductio ad absurdum?

The so-called "real castle" I bought with your money isn't any more "real" in the great scheme of things, read some Schopenhauer, buddy, and educate yourself. Nor are the overpriced cigars I smoke, or the exquisite-yet-equally-unreal booze I drink. Thanks for making my illusory life a bit posher tho.

*Excluding, of course, comedic value
**If no one wants cars, cars have no value

Again, I'm here as your admirer, with tremendous respect for what you do--punish people using their own greed and ignorance.  GG!

[farting_shot]

Admit it, rpietila got pwned.

[rpietila]

If the definition of "pwned" is that he is so puzzled about wth is the point of discussion, that he considers that spending the time in the important ongoing projects might be more important than this, yes you are correct.

Have a nice day!