When former world leaders are turning up and crypto conferences and the industry remains largely unregulated, then can you really blame people for investing?
Yes, you can. You don't have to dig very deep into the crypto world to realize that a lot if not most of the participants have are not plain ol' honest folks making a big ol' mistake giving their hard-earned savings to a slick-talking salesman. They are conscious participants in what they know to be a get-rich quick scheme. They know it is shady, and they don't care, because they think they're going to get out before it crashes. They're motivated by greed, not innocence.
You can recognize this and still support regulation of the industry. One of the big reasons you need regulation is to protect people from their own stupid greed.
What do you think the slick-talking salesman was peddling back in the day?
Not if it was investing. But they are not investing. Investing requires restraint, calculated risk-taking, and understanding of what it is exactly that you're buying.
"yolo all in on Terra" is not investing. It's gambling.
Would you feel sorry for someone who put his entire monthly salary on a single spin of a slot machine? I certainly wouldn't.
Thr only way to do this effectively is blanket regulation on all cryptocurrency, as otherwise you'd end up with an endless cat and mouse game chasing new coins people use to trick people into entering the market and exchanging entrycoins for the latest scamcoins.
This is all pretty terrible in my opinion, because cryptocurrency could've been so much better. Sadly, the idealists who wanted an independent currency were drowned out by the ruthless speculators who are only in it for their personal profits.
There are real victims, but the people dismissing those who constantly warned them, they're not victims, they're idiots.
75 cents on the dollar were recovered. When a crypto scam finally gets pulled off, the suckers get closer to 0 cents on the dollar.
They’ll listen to you next time, won’t they?
Obviously not.
The weird thing about having been on the internet so long is how nobody listens any more - for any idea, no matter how bad, you can find a community built around it, defending it against outsiders. A million micro-cults.
It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't serious negative externalities to the rest of us from this.
No, but they won’t have the capital to spawn another drain on our economy either.
Well they tried to exploit, rob or otherwise me, that is, getting money from thin air without creating any value. How is that fair in any moral system?
(That wasn't what GP said tho.)
It's like if you burn your money in a Las Vegas casino.
I’m not saying people getting suckered aren’t ultimately responsible for their actions, but at the same time just like a drug addiction, an objective and problem solving perspective is more productive than just judging that person for simply being weak, stupid, gullible, greedy etc.
Gambling is not an addiction. Gambling might become an addiction for some people, like many other things might.
The vast majority of people who 'invested' in crypto (or who go to Las Vegas for that matter) are not addicted. They think it's a way to get rich quick, and some did. They may also not have done their homework.
Sometimes when people make bad decisions and lose there simply isn't anyone else to blame. That's life.
You need to watch "Being Ned Devine" if you have never seen it.
Aren't there some fairly good reasons for finance to be highly regulated?
So what you're saying is people shouldn't expect to be able to massively multiply their wealth, but that directly contradicts the narrative that "anyone can make it" instead of the wealth and opportunities you're born into determining the likely upper limit of what you can hope for.
I'm not disagreeing, but it's absurd to condemn people for falling for "get rich quick" schemes (and as far as those go 20% is unusually low) when the entire society is built around maintaining the lie that getting rich quick is possible as long as you "work smart" (i.e. don't rely on your own physical labor to make money).
It depends on what we understand by "anyone can make it". I would argue that, if understood in terms of "anyone can [become orders of magnitude richer just by picking the right investments]" then that indeed is a narrative that is harmful and should be contradicted. Yes, of course outliers happen, and anyone may become stupidly rich from a low income if they're lucky. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to try, and people on an individual level should be discouraged from taking such huge risks unless they are very consciously aware of the consequences of their likely failure.
The other side of the issue is a systemic one. If a society finds it traumatic to accept that there is a likely upper limit as to what people can hope for based on their wealth and opportunities at birth, there is deeper problem. The problem may be cultural in that a society's members are too instilled with self-centred and unrealistic expectations (i.e. a culture of temporarily embarrassed millionaires), or it may be a deeper economic issue regarding inequality of incomes that makes surviving at certain levels of income without any hope of the smallest improvement leads to greater desperation and dreams of "breaking big". It may be a mix of both.
Coming back to "anyone can make it", it should be defended, but in the sense of "anyone can [reach a level of economic security to live a fulfilling life]". That however is not a principle to encourage the individual through dire straits. Rather, it is a principle that should guide public policy and cultural attitudes as a whole, so as not to have a society like I described earlier. In such a society the population won't feel the need take unrealistic risks only for a chance to get out of a rut or satisfy cultural fantasies. That's not to say it won't happen, anyone can be an outlier.
Maybe the part of society that contains the crypto enthusiasts. Every part of society with a shred of financial experience has been pointing out that 20% is really really high compared to the risk free interest rate. Of course, pointing out that something is unsafe will not make you popular with the people dreaming of getting rich.
Are you saying that the poor are just destined to remain poor?
I'm not saying the narrative they're told is correct, I'm saying the wealth disparities in society are undesirable and if just telling poor people to pull themselves out of poverty is not viable, we need other solutions to address those disparities.
Like you I think large wealth disparities in society are undesirable, but if those come from the way society is set up then society is what is going to have to change. If you really want to change society then set up a movement and convince large groups of people about your viewpoint, but be prepared for hostility from anyone with a vested interest in the status quo.
Or a desperate person.
I think there is more nuance that this. People have been burned by many 'safe' investments over the years (housing, stocks) that they incorrectly view the risk profile as similar so look for higher returns. Much has been written on how we under appreciate actual risk, especially in 'safe' investments.
There's also some YOLO here, but in a calculated way. A safe investment making 1% still means the wealth gap is widening and that person is still eating ramen. Why not swing for the fences, otherwise it doesn't matter anyway.
I've got extremely financially literate friends who are adamant that 30-year variable rate mortgages are 0 risk.
It's not that they don't assess the risk, but the excuses are always "Inflation will eat it away", "There's no way EURIBOR can climb so high I won't be able to afford payments" and "Negative equity? In this housing market?"
Makes me shiver. Especially now that 12 Month EURIBOR rate is above 0%.
Sure, a mortgage is 0 risk if you're buying yourself a home for the next 30 years AND have the cash to buy it outright. If you're buying a financial product, perhaps you should reconsider, because it shouldn't be both. Your primary residence is not an investment.
Buying high and selling low is a sure path to being poor.
So many people just lack the basic literacy to recognize when something sounds too good to be true. And in the crypto market it's worse than that, because all of the memes and in-group behavior functions to drown out warranted skepticism.
This is victim blaming. Nobody deserves to be exploited, robbed or otherwise for any reason.