Do You Envy Those Who Got Rich on Bitcoin?

By envy i mean i am happy for them but i have a massive regret feeling of why da faq didnt i jump on this earlier

Bitcoin is now worth ~$40,000 USD (~$51,000 AUD) - I cant help but feel like a missed out on the ultimate golden ticket in which bitcoin started a $0.08 USD ($0.11 AUD)

I know a few people that sold out around- the $10,000-20,000 AUD mark and are now kicking themselves

But for me personally i am just like the ultimate missed opportunity - I am someone who plays the lottery, home raffles, takes a guess on speculative shares etc Not once has it ever paid off.

But the biggest gains in history has slipped right past me and i cant help but feel shattered ….

I guess a lot of people dont mind and good on you, perhaps I can learn a lesson for that thanks.

Comments

  • I regret not buying enough of Crypto in 2017 but hey, I put it in what I was ready to lose. The money has 10 folded now and I have no idea how - but I might lose this gain and get nothing than finding out 10 years later that I could have been a millionaire :D

    So yeah, regret is a part of life. What you do today matters, not what you could have done yesterday!

  • Now imagine how this guy feels. Almost 70 mil now.

    https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/05/i-threw-away-4-8-million-…

    • Now $82 Million.

      • He should have put the money in buying more Bitcoin instead he spent trying to find the lost ones …

  • +4

    I’ll give you a perspective from someone who ‘lost’. I’m sure I’m not the only one, but you don’t hear many stories like mine. No, I wish I never got into crypto, it’s been nothing but stress. I first heard about crypto/Bitcoin from an Ozbargain post in 2017. Thought it might be fun and invested a small bit of money. Then got talked into the hype of ripple by a friend. I was up about 6k at one point, thought it was easy money and put more in, also to various other altcoins (around 50k all up). Didn’t sell at ATH as it all crashed down very quickly. Was probably down about 40k or more at one point, and tried to block it out of my mind and just took it as a life lesson.
    Made me think about the positives I have in life to make myself feel better, a great husband and the best child I could have wished for; things money can’t buy. We also both have good stable jobs and income, and several properties, so can’t complain. Still hurts as I am normally very frugal.
    I’m still down about 15k, would have broken even if I didn’t sell my bag of Aave for Eth few weeks ago, but who could have predicted the future. I’ll be happy if I can just break even, get my money back out and never have to look back. Here’s to hoping.

  • +1

    Some people gambled, and got lucky. That's about it really

  • +1

    You play the lottery - when you see the numbers drawn do you regret not choosing those numbers?

    Same thing with Bitcoin, you missed out because you didn't know the lucky number to choose (Bitcoin). Only thousands of people were in it in the whole world when Bitcoin was that cheap, those were the 'winners'.

  • NO. I just tried to read about it and bought some myself. couldnt be happier. Those who held through from sub dollar levels deserve all the glory and profits. Its not easy holding this shit.

  • By envy i mean i am happy for them but i have a massive regret feeling of why da faq didnt i jump on this earlier

    Most people envy Bezos. He took Amazon to the moon. You need to hold then you need to work the business. It isn't easy not giving up.

    For everyone one who made big money on bitcoin I am sure there is ones who lost a lot of money off another investment.

    Maybe just regularly invest into Index ETF. At least you can enjoy the fruits of the long slog. Most people who win the lottery end up being broke pretty quickly.

  • +2

    Nah I feel happy for them. People who got into Bitcoin early on were the nerds that got laughed at and ridiculed. But they kept the faith and here we are today.

  • +8

    To be honest, I got rich on crypto, but I admit, from time to time I still envy some I know who have gotten even richer through it - should've, would've, could've

    Life is not a competition. Otherwise you will never be happy regardless of how much you have

  • There are other cryptycurrency that is interesting. Bitcoin value is overvalued due to lack of knowledge in the market.

    For example Monero is privacy focused currency that looks promising due to its privacy focus. But ethically maybe questionable.
    Then there is also Stablecoin like Tether that is removes volatility of other coins. Meaning it is more useable on daily basis.

    When more people understands the position and value of Cryptocurrency, the best one of these kind will rise. Or all will sink, nobody knows.

    • For example Monero is privacy focused currency that looks promising due to its privacy focus. But ethically maybe questionable.

      I tried buying some coke the other day but the dealer said: "XMR is used by criminals for money laundering, I only take cash". 😉

    • No know truly knows if BTC is overvalued or undervalued.

      • It's speculative commodity.

        The aim of it was to provide a currency, like cash, but not governed by any countries.

        As it is now, it can't be used for trading, since it is too volatile.

        So how can it be used will determine its value.

        • Thus my point. No one knows.

  • I've made money off crypto but like everything else, it was a speculative gamble.
    I even lost the 30 bitcoin that I mined in 2011 but not a chance in hell I would've held until now, I would've for sure sold them in 2012-2013.

    Sometimes you need to take gambles in life and have a shot at something.

    Investing in crypto when its pumping and is on the ninemsn news feed is not a good example of having a shot at something, that's just FOMO.

    Some of my friends laughed at me when I had a rig at home and in my work site office mining 24/7 but not because they are stupid or anything but perhaps because they are more risk averse or didn't see the value or point of a cryptocurrency.

    Everyone has different appetites for risk and there's nothing wrong with that.

    One thing I've learnt as a small business owner and a speculative investor is that there are always opportunities, you just need to be actively looking for them.

    • Bro 30 crypto is $1.5m!!!!

      Credit to you for being so positive about it!

      • no way 30 bitcoin is worth $1.5mil…
        if 1 bitcoin is valued AUD$50K, 30 bitcoin should be $150K 😉

        • notsureifsrs

        • sorry I was wrong with my math - need a beer after work.

  • +1

    I was down about not winning the 30 million dollar lottto last week :/

    One winner in WA

    lol

  • +1

    It's all a risk and a gamble, you could have gone in and watch it crash and lose everything. At least with a steady income you have security and predictability

    • -2

      At least with a steady income you have security and predictability

      Is that why 600,000 Australians lost their jobs in 2020?
      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-14/unemployment-jobs-abs…

      Key points:
      Nearly 600,000 people lost their jobs last month, while a further 600,000 saw their working hours cut back
      Unemployment jumped 1 percentage point to 6.2 per cent, which would have been much worse except that many people did not look for work
      In all, the ABS said 2.7 million Australians either lost their job, had their hours reduced or left the labour force last month

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-30/job-losses-coronaviru…

      According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 594,300 people lost their jobs in April. This drop was predominantly due to restrictions put in place to protect Australians from the coronavirus.

      The ABS estimated another 227,700 jobs were lost in May.

      • This is a global crisis that happens once a decade, not a threat that happens every day with crypto

        • Historical data shows that bull runs happens every 4 years. Go all in 2020 to 2022 and then take a 2 year holiday.

    • Job security is unpredictable in times of crisis.
      https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/gfc-killed-250000-austr…

      A QUARTER of a million Australian jobs have vanished since the start of the global financial crisis - with 22,000 jobs lost last month alone.

      The chance of another interest rate cut faded yesterday, when shocking unemployment data drove the Australian dollar to its lowest level in more than three years.

      Job-creation in Australia during 2013 was the weakest in 17 years - and all the extra jobs were part-time.

      Australia now has 722,000 people out of work - 45 per cent more than at the start of the global financial crisis.

  • +2

    The problem is you only hear about the success stories, and that this is all a gamble. It's all about your risk profile. I personally don't care, it's as others have said a big gamble and way too high risk for my risk profile.

    I've had friends who've lost 10,000's of dollars on Bitcoins (Bought at $20,000 or so, and decided to sell when it dropped back to lower $10,000's). I have professional gambling friends who've lost 100,000's of dollars in single sessions, but you mostly hear about the sessions where they win $250,000 or so.

    You can invest slowly but surely, and you'll end up a millionaire. Or you can gamble on things like Bitcoin and shortcut your way there, while also potentially losing all your money.

    • I know someone who boasted they had a friend who "always" won on the pokies. I asked her if this friend ever boasted about her losses, and when did this friend quit her day job because clearly they should be sitting at a pokie machine pulling in the big bucks all day. She got the point. Many people don't.

  • +1

    Not at all. I have a mate who made about a million through crypto.

    The way I look at it this.
    I didn't have the money to invest back then, and there's no way I could've known. Second, even if I did invest what small amount I may have had (e.g. $1000 tops), there's a huge chance I wouldve sold way back to improve my then financial position. Unless you were in a position to gamble your money, don't beat yourself up.

    • +1

      This is a good way too look at it

      thanks

  • -3

    I dont want to start a bumfight debate about BTC, but technically it's a pyramid scam.

    It's only worth what people deem it worth, there is no hedging like Gold (not that the Fiat of today is, but its suppose to)

    The whole thing is a gamble and people buy these alt coins waiting on some celebrity or millionaire to tweet about it and see the price sky rocket, besides that it's a bunch of numbers on a computer. So many alt coins failed and were not seen again, in contrast paper money only 'fails' when inflation skyrockets due to Government and Treasury mishandling.

    Unlike Stocks which represent real companies with profit/loss + you get voting powers, with BTC you just own a hash which can be $0 or $1,000,000 - the majority decide based on a bunch of investors and average miners.

    • I would agree with you, but times are changing - more and more alt coins are actually being turned into meaningful products thus making it an intrinsically valuable resource.
      If you spend more time delving into the use cases for many of these alt coins you start to realise a lot of them have big visions. Some will eventuate, some will not. Those that do will deliver unparalleled intrinsic value, much like the web itself.

  • +6

    I envy the retired couple i see walking while still holding hands.

    That right there, is whats its all about. More rare than your bitcoin.

    • +1

      This guy F**ks

  • +1

    Why does every idiot only know about Bitcoin yet there are many stocks that actually did even better than Bitcoin in the last year or two.

    Take Afterpay for example. Was at $4 (over a year ago) and is now borderline $160.

    Yet I never rarely hear anyone say "DAMN I should've bought Afterpay at $4!!!!" but it's always something like "Damn I should've bought Bitcoin when it was $1000!"

    There are probably hundreds of other examples. The most recent one being Gamestop.

    • No no no i have heard many people say this as well

      Myself being one of them…

      I also have heard people say I wish i never sold after pay when it had a big drop in value

      • I must be hanging around the group of people. Most people I know don't invest and they will only find out about it when it hits the news.

        That's when their regret and FOMO kicks in.

    • -2

      It was never $4. The lowest it's been is $12.44.

      • Yeah my bad. Time flies. $4 was back in like 2018 but my point still stands.

        but 52 week low of afterpay was $8.01

        • +2

          It was definately in the $4's and was in the $2's after IPO. I know because I had an order in at $4.50 but it popped to $4.65 back in late 2017 so I waited for it to come back down… Didn't so I bought something else that lost money instead…

          They during the crash I had a trigger at $8 that never went off (also at $6 and $4) but never went off… Yep… At least I then went and bought other things that went up pretty well to soften the blow this time.

          Lesson is when you are looking at potential multi baggers don't get caught up over a few cents.

          • @souljah: Good point, was checking the historical prices. Must have been end of day prices. You're right about not worrying about the dollars and cents thing too.

            • @Ilikeozbargain: Yeah the historical price charts can be misleading as it only shows closing time price. During trading hours, it can dump or pump but unless it stays at that price at closing time… 😜

  • +1

    Buying lotto tickets …anyone with a basic knowledge of maths would realise that it is pissing away your money…it is certainly not an investment method.

    There are a million and one things that you, I and everyone else has 'missed out' on.

    Instead of stewing about that, create your own opportunities in life, start a business and work your ass off to make something of yourself.

    Invest in you and your knowledge, it will pay you back in spades.

  • +1

    What inherent value does bitcoin currently provide? The premise was that it could replace standard fiat currency. Yet:

    • It has extreme volatility which makes it impractical as a replacement for fiat currency for conducting transaction,retail or to store wealth with stability.

    • It's value can be drastically manipulated by a single individuals with no regulation or oversight e.g. A one word tweet from Elon musk can have a huge effect

    • It is inherently pointless entropy generating system wasting vast amounts of energy on useless, Goldbergian computation. The energy efficiency of information storage seems to be heavily in favour of fiat currency.

    The only real current value seems to be as a way of zero-sum wealth transfer from FOMO investors to bigger more established fish in the crypto get rich quick scheme.

    If I am wrong, please enlighten me.

    • What inherent value does bitcoin currently provide?

      A Model 3.

    • That's what I said above, it's a useless digital hash of numbers aimlessly mined to create value in form of $.

      The centrepiece is an algorithm created by a Japanese bloke which now somehow holds value. Rather than go work and boost the economy to earn $50,0000. This currency means you can leave a computer on mining for 12 months to 18 months to get similar results all while smashing the power grid

      • +1

        It sounds even better when you put it like that. Passive income. 👍

        • Yes and hyper inflation.

          Because digital Mining is creating wealth without value.

          • @frostman: Coiners are waiting patiently to buy a Model 3 as a daily driver and/or a Cybertruck for a weekend warrior paying with a currency that has not value. 👍

    • Firstly I'll state that I have no position in Bitcoin. While I agree it has failed to replace fiat currency, it has found another niche as a store of wealth.

      It has extreme volatility which makes it impractical as a replacement for fiat currency for conducting transaction,retail or to store wealth with stability.

      Agree Bitcoin a terrible as means to conduct transactions, however it has proven some worth as a store in wealth. Stability is not the only desirable property as a store of wealth. Also need to consider its ability to combat inflation and potentially grow in value, which it has proven for a number of years. It is also not tied to any government so a collapse or policy change of any particular government will not bring it down.

      It's value can be drastically manipulated by a single individuals with no regulation or oversight e.g. A one word tweet from Elon musk can have a huge effect

      Any one with power and influence can use social media to bump up crypto, stocks or any other investments this is nothing new or unique to crypto. Financial regulators have the power to investigate and charge people if they break laws. (Maybe they dont to their jobs, but still…)

      It is inherently pointless entropy generating system wasting vast amounts of energy on useless, Goldbergian computation.

      The computing hardware for banks, corporate offices and branches also consume power, not to mention the resources these human employees of the banks also consume energy and resources. This could is probably comparable or exceeding Bitcoin "wasting vast amounts of energy on useless, Goldbergian computation".

  • +4

    Just gonna leave this here :-)

    Tesla invests $1.5 billion in bitcoin

    • Where is Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg? Don't let Musk hanging.

  • its great and all. but wouldnt it be better to envy those who are born rich? lol

    • +2

      OP already has you covered there. There also appear to be a few other threads about whether the lottery is rigged, GME stock price, and hating his job. I genuinely hope the OP takes a step back, looks at the big picture, and stops fixating on could've/would've/should've, because this sort of thinking is unhealthy. And stop buying lottery tickets.

      • ..if only the OP put his money from lottery tickets into crypto when there was blood in the water.. he'd have made a 10x return! :P

      • Yeah, fantasising about winning the lottery is just that, living in a fantasy.

        Probably most of us have spent time at some point, imagining all the good things we would do, people we would help, life we would live if we won 80 million or something.
        And that's fine, but if you genuinely start thinking of it as a possibility, then you are avoiding the responsibility and opportunity to do something to increase your financial stability.

        Not everyone can start a business or pull themselves up, and sometimes you get smashed when you try to. It's a harsh world, but dreaming about winning the lottery or getting lucky on bitcoin is time that is better spent making a practical plan to improve your lot, however good or shitty it might be.

        It sucks, but the world is imbalanced financially and you just have to do what you can.

  • +1

    Do You Envy Those Who Got Rich on Bitcoin?

    I'm waiting for ByteCoin…

  • -3

    For what it's worth, I invested in BTC back in 2013, and am looking at BCH now with the same excitement as back then. There are always opportunities, the question is are you willing to do the research or is it all too hard?

  • With your mentality you will never be happy.

    Even if you bought in at 8c and make crazy profits, you'd probably be making posts asking if we envy people who bought apple/google/mcdonalds/microsoft shares and feeling hard done by because you didn't max out your profit possibility.

    Truth is there will always be opportunities for big gains. The thing is people don't have the foresight or education.

  • +2

    A friend of mine once told me about a friend of his - was setting up a business in the UK and asked my friend if he wanted in… my friend said "hmmm nah". Long story short, business is hugely successful, guy is filthy rich hire islands for parties private jets etc. I asked my friend if he regretted not going in and he told me "nope - somehow, I'd have managed to stuff it all up".

    Re bitcoin, I had a few friends who got into it early, I had one that lost massive amounts of cash (didn't have his own wallet, was using some crypto exchange that got "hacked") - others who made lots. My feeling is a bit like my previous story, I'd have managed to stuff it up somehow probably.

  • I tried to buy $100 worth at 0.12 USD. Couldn't work out how at the time and didn't think my machine was up to mining it so gave up.

  • +1

    A bit like saying you regret not backing the winner of last year's Melbourne cup. Easy to say after the event.

  • Price going up!

    • +3

      Thank Elon for that.

  • +3

    Imagine being the guy who bought 2 pizzas for 10000 bitcoin in 2010

    • Any purchase using bitcoin throughout the last 11 years can be accurately described as a "You fool! What were you thinking!" type purchase. Who knows, maybe bitcoins will be a million dollars each in 2024 and anyone cashing out now is a fool. Just need Elon Musk to tweet a few more times.

      • Well the early players needed to drive interest into Bitcoin it somehow.

        If they all just sat on their coins they would still be worthless.

        • +1

          The best strategy over the past 11 years was to sit on your coins and do absolutely nothing. Anyone who spent a bitcoin lost value, so the winning move is to accumulate and never spend.

          This is the paradox of bitcoin. It's the currency you want to receive, but logically no one should spend.

          • @Cluster: unless its going to infinity, it has to counter this historic trend at some point though ;)

            • @SBOB: That is true. However, we haven't seen that point at any time during bitcoin's history. We might not see it for decades to come.

          • @Cluster: I'm talking about the real early players.

            If those early miners never gave away, traded for pizza, or sold any coins then they would still be worthless.

            The general public wouldn't even know what a Bitcoin was.

            10,000 bitcoins at 50k a pop is worth a lot more than 100,000 coins at $0 a pop.

            • @trapper: Trades and purchases needed to occur back then in order to show that such transactions were possible. In a lot of ways that guy made history. In the end if those pizza purchases represented a minor amount of his bitcoin holdings and he held the rest he would still have done extremely well.

              But still in hindsight those became some exponentially expensive pizzas

  • +1

    A whole lot of what-ifs here.
    Live in the present, my friend.

  • +2

    Tesla just announced that it purchased US$1.5B of Bitcoin in January! Wow

  • +1

    The current prices are AUD 61k per BTC

  • In 2010 or 2011 or thereabouts I was at a friends house having a few drinks, asked his flatmate what was with all the computer equipment in his bedroom (took up more space than his bed). He said he was a 'miner', using the computer to create this thing called 'BitCoin'. He'd been doing it for a fair while, was pretty bummed out actually as apparently he had about 1000 bitcoin and there had just been a spike and fall in the price, but he didn't sell in time.
    He was wanting to offload them for about $1 each but wasn't getting any buyers.

    Now he didn't specifically offer to sell them to me, and I didn't really think twice about it at the time. But I did have some spare cash about that time that I probably blew on something stupid, and I'd be lying if I didn't cast my mind back every now and again and wish I'd taken them off his hands!

    But as others have said, I would probably have just sold them once they got to $5 or something, let alone $40,000. And I'm content with my life. Can't live in regret. And there are many, many more losers than winners when it comes to speculative stocks/bubble items/gambling etc

  • There is another group who are about to get rich: the scammers.

    Your parents and grandparents are about to be flooded with calls telling them they must invest in this bitcoin thing. Elon Musk from Tesla just put $1.5 billion in! Elon Musk! The smartest man on the planet. He's in on bitcoin, so you should be too. Give me your credit card details and let me set up a wallet for you…

    • +1

      I would love to get one of these calls just to say well then I'll take 1m worth give some fake credit details and block the number know they will spend a good couple hours trying to re-establish contact

    • Unfortunately, some people may be taken advantages of by other people.

      Technology waits for no man. Better education in the use of technology is more important now than ever as our society moves into a digital age.

  • Wanted to buy bitcoin long time ago but I had no idea how it worked. I still have no idea how it works. lol

  • -1

    I'd be taking my profits if I had Bitcoin. Local laws will become more of a danger to it the more important it gets. Nations will eventually want to protect their financial and tax systems from it. Also, pick a disaster and apply Bitcoin to it: everything is dead after a cyclone or earthquake and you're clinging to an $8 USB stick holding your Bitcoin? Nobody will even give you $8 for it.

    • +3

      Why do people need a USB stick?

      The device is just a tangible representation of the wallet that holds the key. The assets itself is stored on the blockchain.

      • Ultimately the blockchain doesn't exist without data and connectivity. Obviously you don't need a USB stick - I was trying to create an (ultimately poor) example of someone offering up their worldly goods in an offline crisis.

        • +1

          I get you, you mean in a SHTF scenario its even more worthless than regular currency.

      • +1

        Although your assets are worhtless without that key even if the blockchain is still accessible.

        • -1

          Memorise them.

    • +1

      lmao yes, every single developed country got hit with a cyclone at the same time and all computers are down. Then yes, it would be worthless. But at the same time, what the hell is your precious cash/fiat going to do for you in a disaster anyway?? Do you think people can eat and drink the money you're holding? It isn't going to be worth shit, so you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

      • I wasn't referring to fiat. I was referring to tangible goods and precious metals. Things deemed of value that aren't digital.

      • I had lived half my life before there was an accessible global network. My grandparents didn't have easily accessible electricity. Without the certainty of those, there is no practical use for cryptocurrency. Relying on forms of government continuing carries a risk. It's easier than ever for those with the power to turn computers back into islands. See Myanmar last week.

    • Also, pick a disaster and apply Bitcoin to it: everything is dead after a cyclone or earthquake and you're clinging to an $8 USB stick holding your Bitcoin? Nobody will even give you $8 for it.

      This is the same with all financial assets. In a serious enough disaster where we're all marooned on some island, your bitcoin, AUD, USD, shares, bonds whatever will all be worthless.

      • Agree, although we can probably agree there are more 'disasters' where bitcoin becomes worthless and your other stuff may not.

        I think the bigger worry is in a more realistic (but not financial system ending) disaster is it may be harder to extract the value from your bitcoin holdings.

  • +4

    Seriously, be honest with yourself mate. If you had bought it at $1, then when it reached $2-$10, you probably wanted to cash out given the volatility, cuz it would have been a massive win. Why not secure your profit while you still could and risk it dropping below $1?

    This is literally the mental process we who do crypto go through cuz you could be 5x one day and 0.5x shortly after.

    I don't think you understand the the amount of stress even when I spell it out for you. You'll have to experience it yourself to truly understand it.

    Now, if I tell you, put a decently sized order for, say, MahaDao(https://mahadao.com/), would you do it? You'd think it's stupid, cuz it's a project that has just launched.. Not saying it will definitely be successful, but betting on something like this in its early stage is not something majority of the people can bear, unless you put in like 0.5% of your portfolio. Then after a few months, you see the gains are minimal, you think where could I put this exact 0.5% to somewhere that can net me more gains? Been there, done that.

    So don't regret, cuz you wouldn't have been able to do it anyway.

  • +2

    The time is ripe to invest in ETH instead of BTC.
    It has more use cases, and more potential. Too bad a lot of people relate only BTC to cryptocurrency.
    (Anyway, my strategy to who is bothered to hear- hold a majority in BTC 40% and ETH 40%, and experiment with ALTS with the remaining 20%).

    • +1

      You can see this exact comment on similar threads going back like 3-5 years.

      ETH i think does have more use cases. I'm not convinced any of them are actually particularly useful.

  • +1

    Hey hey, guess which dude had thousands a few years ago and sold them at a dip due to FUD? That day I learnt gay bears ain't ever getting paid - STONKS ONLY GO UP!

Login or Join to leave a comment