elacsaplau
Registered User
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Hi Brendan,
Firstly, BTC is an ultra-high risk investment. This post is not a recommendation to buy BTC especially at current prices. The investment guru that I respect the most is Jack Bogle who believes it is a bubble.
There are so many threads on bitcoin now that I’m not sure which one to post in.
Taking all the threads and posts together (arguably, all inter-related anyway), I am a little taken aback with some of your comments and with what I feel is the adoption of an unjustifiably absolute position. I also believe that you have unfairly misrepresented me and others at various times during these discussions. I believe that I am not alone in having such thoughts - as other posters have tried to pass on a similar messages.
Previously, I have attempted employ humour to help present alternate views – so this time I think I will take a more direct approach. There are many comments that I feel are just too extreme. I have decided to choose to examine one of them in detail in order to illustrate this point rather than more briefly address multiple points. So let’s take the following example:
As I have explained I was in early on the bitcoin phenomenon. This was somewhat fortuitous as, at the time, I was based abroad and was looking for things to do in the evenings. One group I latched onto was that of the local bitcoiners.
Again, as mentioned earlier, I am probably not quite as evangelical about cryptos as many. This does not mean that I wasn't (and am not) hugely impressed by many of the bitcoiners that I have met, nor does it mean that I not enthusiastic about the vision.
My background is in finance and my primary, original interests were to both understand the thinking behind it and also consider it as a satellite investment play (with all that that entails.) I enjoy working out risk and reward and trying to calculate / guesstimate what "plays" look worthwhile. You can take it that I had visibility of the enthusiasm and momentum behind bitcoin as well as a significant awareness of its many inherent risks.
It's just a fact that many early BTC adopters ended up with a lot of bitcoins. My goal was to develop a selling strategy that was designed to maximise my return.
If I sought your advice 2 or 3 years ago - let's say at the time that Fpalb first posted on AAM about BTC, my understanding is that the strategy you would have offered would have been to sell immediately. I took a different view which, in very simple terms, involved:
- holding for some time or until certain milestones were reached; and
- then selling progressively at various intervals/milestones.
This strategy was informed by my personal experience of the dot.com bubble and research into how best to maximise returns during bubbles.
As an aside, based on my research, I believe that had your accountant friend from the original post of one of the other threads -
https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/bitcoin-is-a-clearly-identifiable-economic-bubble.206146/ - adopted a similar strategy, then there is, at the very least, a reasonable chance that he would have fared better than characterised. This dot.com example is relevant as, in my opinion, the scenario which you outlined is framed in rather stark black and white terms when, clearly, there are a lot more colours around than that.
Returning to my approach, it is very possible that this strategy will mean that if/when the burst arrives, that I will end up with some coins leftover. I do not know what residual value these coins will have or indeed whether the next "crash" in BTC will prove fatal or not.
In adopting the strategy, (which, incidentally, is regularly but not over-regularly reviewed) I accept this risk as I know that it is unrealistic for me to believe that I can get all decisions right. The essence of this strategy is that one seeks to avoid the twin potential misfortunes of selling too late or (and significantly) too early when the stated goal is, as mentioned, to maximise returns.
My sales proceeds to date in selling c. 80% of my coins has been many multiples higher than if I had sold all my shares altogether at market prices of, say 12,18, 24 or 36 months ago, i.e. the multiple changes depending on what date is used.
Let’s assume for now that BTC is indeed a bubble - the standard way is viewing bubbles is broadly as per the graphic on the link below.
[broken link removed]
All I have tried to do is to maximise my return by selling progressively during the mania phase. Of course, it is very difficult to know when different stages in this cycle are reached (in real time).
The sense I'm getting from the quote highlighted at the outset is that I am being reckless, silly. However, I have seen nothing in the various posts from you that leads me to believe that had you engaged in this debate a few years ago, that you would have written something along the lines of:
It's astonishing that clever, rational people could be holding onto something worthless when they could sell them for $200. They will read back on this forum and wonder what were they thinking.
In my personal case, had I done so I would not have benefited from extraordinary, literally life-changing, gains. Accordingly, it is simply a fact that my strategy has been more financially beneficial than your strategy would have been in this case. Obviously, a certain amount of luck has been involved – however, the precise extent of this is very difficult to quantify.
I'm not even looking for you to say something like my strategy is equally or more effective as yours. What happened to me does not mean that my strategy was right but - and here is the key point – it does not absolutely mean that I was/am wrong either as you have stated so many times. I'm just a little tired of being told that I'm flat out wrong without qualification or equivocation – especially since I have spent much time considering and studying this phenomenon and when I could quite reasonably and robustly adopt the polar opposite view in relation to this particular scenario.
I think pretty much all bitcoiners recognise that there are very substantial risks with bitcoin. In my opinion, even the current price reflects the low probability of ultimate “complete” success but I don’t have time to elaborate on this now. (It is also at least possible that BTC achieves some “intermediate” level of success – again beyond the scope of this post.)
So whilst there is a high probability that you are right in much about what you say about BTC - it is not certain and indeed some of your points are less probable than others. So, it’s the repeated presentation of things as certain (when they are not), the unabated selectivity and the outright dismissal of alternate views that I find disappointing – especially given the general complexity of the subject. To me, this approach discourages rather than encourages debate.
AAM does an awful lot of good work – however, in my opinion, there are occasions when comments are unnecessarily absolute which I personally find off-putting. Of course, this is a hard-hitting post but I have seen others try give you the same message in the various BTC related threads with seemingly little impact.
Please don’t delete this post. It has taken time to write. It should also be kept for posterity. Apologies for the tough love.
Firstly, BTC is an ultra-high risk investment. This post is not a recommendation to buy BTC especially at current prices. The investment guru that I respect the most is Jack Bogle who believes it is a bubble.
There are so many threads on bitcoin now that I’m not sure which one to post in.
Taking all the threads and posts together (arguably, all inter-related anyway), I am a little taken aback with some of your comments and with what I feel is the adoption of an unjustifiably absolute position. I also believe that you have unfairly misrepresented me and others at various times during these discussions. I believe that I am not alone in having such thoughts - as other posters have tried to pass on a similar messages.
Previously, I have attempted employ humour to help present alternate views – so this time I think I will take a more direct approach. There are many comments that I feel are just too extreme. I have decided to choose to examine one of them in detail in order to illustrate this point rather than more briefly address multiple points. So let’s take the following example:
As I have explained I was in early on the bitcoin phenomenon. This was somewhat fortuitous as, at the time, I was based abroad and was looking for things to do in the evenings. One group I latched onto was that of the local bitcoiners.
Again, as mentioned earlier, I am probably not quite as evangelical about cryptos as many. This does not mean that I wasn't (and am not) hugely impressed by many of the bitcoiners that I have met, nor does it mean that I not enthusiastic about the vision.
My background is in finance and my primary, original interests were to both understand the thinking behind it and also consider it as a satellite investment play (with all that that entails.) I enjoy working out risk and reward and trying to calculate / guesstimate what "plays" look worthwhile. You can take it that I had visibility of the enthusiasm and momentum behind bitcoin as well as a significant awareness of its many inherent risks.
It's just a fact that many early BTC adopters ended up with a lot of bitcoins. My goal was to develop a selling strategy that was designed to maximise my return.
If I sought your advice 2 or 3 years ago - let's say at the time that Fpalb first posted on AAM about BTC, my understanding is that the strategy you would have offered would have been to sell immediately. I took a different view which, in very simple terms, involved:
- holding for some time or until certain milestones were reached; and
- then selling progressively at various intervals/milestones.
This strategy was informed by my personal experience of the dot.com bubble and research into how best to maximise returns during bubbles.
As an aside, based on my research, I believe that had your accountant friend from the original post of one of the other threads -
https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/bitcoin-is-a-clearly-identifiable-economic-bubble.206146/ - adopted a similar strategy, then there is, at the very least, a reasonable chance that he would have fared better than characterised. This dot.com example is relevant as, in my opinion, the scenario which you outlined is framed in rather stark black and white terms when, clearly, there are a lot more colours around than that.
Returning to my approach, it is very possible that this strategy will mean that if/when the burst arrives, that I will end up with some coins leftover. I do not know what residual value these coins will have or indeed whether the next "crash" in BTC will prove fatal or not.
In adopting the strategy, (which, incidentally, is regularly but not over-regularly reviewed) I accept this risk as I know that it is unrealistic for me to believe that I can get all decisions right. The essence of this strategy is that one seeks to avoid the twin potential misfortunes of selling too late or (and significantly) too early when the stated goal is, as mentioned, to maximise returns.
My sales proceeds to date in selling c. 80% of my coins has been many multiples higher than if I had sold all my shares altogether at market prices of, say 12,18, 24 or 36 months ago, i.e. the multiple changes depending on what date is used.
Let’s assume for now that BTC is indeed a bubble - the standard way is viewing bubbles is broadly as per the graphic on the link below.
[broken link removed]
All I have tried to do is to maximise my return by selling progressively during the mania phase. Of course, it is very difficult to know when different stages in this cycle are reached (in real time).
The sense I'm getting from the quote highlighted at the outset is that I am being reckless, silly. However, I have seen nothing in the various posts from you that leads me to believe that had you engaged in this debate a few years ago, that you would have written something along the lines of:
It's astonishing that clever, rational people could be holding onto something worthless when they could sell them for $200. They will read back on this forum and wonder what were they thinking.
In my personal case, had I done so I would not have benefited from extraordinary, literally life-changing, gains. Accordingly, it is simply a fact that my strategy has been more financially beneficial than your strategy would have been in this case. Obviously, a certain amount of luck has been involved – however, the precise extent of this is very difficult to quantify.
I'm not even looking for you to say something like my strategy is equally or more effective as yours. What happened to me does not mean that my strategy was right but - and here is the key point – it does not absolutely mean that I was/am wrong either as you have stated so many times. I'm just a little tired of being told that I'm flat out wrong without qualification or equivocation – especially since I have spent much time considering and studying this phenomenon and when I could quite reasonably and robustly adopt the polar opposite view in relation to this particular scenario.
I think pretty much all bitcoiners recognise that there are very substantial risks with bitcoin. In my opinion, even the current price reflects the low probability of ultimate “complete” success but I don’t have time to elaborate on this now. (It is also at least possible that BTC achieves some “intermediate” level of success – again beyond the scope of this post.)
So whilst there is a high probability that you are right in much about what you say about BTC - it is not certain and indeed some of your points are less probable than others. So, it’s the repeated presentation of things as certain (when they are not), the unabated selectivity and the outright dismissal of alternate views that I find disappointing – especially given the general complexity of the subject. To me, this approach discourages rather than encourages debate.
AAM does an awful lot of good work – however, in my opinion, there are occasions when comments are unnecessarily absolute which I personally find off-putting. Of course, this is a hard-hitting post but I have seen others try give you the same message in the various BTC related threads with seemingly little impact.
Please don’t delete this post. It has taken time to write. It should also be kept for posterity. Apologies for the tough love.
