
What If Bitcoin – Shoot I didn't invest - AshishGupta93
http://whatifbitcoin.com/
======
TekMol
But does that mean anything? You could have made this kind of ROI with many
assets. For example with stock options.

I have been telling people for years that "I am sure Bitcoin will grow a lot.
I probably should invest. I'm just too lazy to dabble with the tech.".

And I have not invested even though I thought it would be a great investment.

But what if I did? I would not have invested more then $10k. Because it's such
a volatile asset. If I did that 3 years ago, I would have made $60k or so.
Nice. But I made more with less volatile investments in the same time. Simply
because I invested more.

So by not investing in BTC, I did not miss much.

~~~
pjc50
Not only is it tremendously volatile, it's very easy for it to be lost or
stolen from your wallet, or defrauded by the exchanges.

(Unless you're _really_ good at information security and very disciplined. I'd
be very uncomfortable keeping a £10k investment on a PC in my house.)

~~~
TekMol
That's actually the biggest issue with Bitcoin. And what I meant with "dabble
with the tech".

There is just no way to securely create a secret key.

Because the algorithm is so complex, you have to trust somebody else's
software to create the key. How do you know that software is neither malicious
nor buggy?

~~~
DennisP
If you really want to be sure, you can create your own private key with dice:

[http://www.swansontec.com/bitcoin-
dice.html](http://www.swansontec.com/bitcoin-dice.html)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2s2w1r/generate_ad...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2s2w1r/generate_addresses_private_keys_with_pencil_paper/)

~~~
TekMol
Thanks! That bitcoin-dice.html link is awesome. It links to a rather short
bash script that seems to do the key to public address conversion. That is
exactly what is needed.

------
davidgerard
The hype is full of survivorship bias.

* What if you lost it in Mt. Gox?

* What if you lost it in another of the roughly-monthly hacks of exchanges?

* What if you lost it on an accidentally thrown-away hard drive?

* What if you lost it to your own error?

* What if you lost it on one of the many scams the crypto space is absolutely suffused with?

For some reason these are never mentioned by people saying "but if you'd
bought in 2011".

Look at all these coins you also didn't "invest" in!
[http://deadcoins.com/](http://deadcoins.com/)

Cryptos are gambling. Good luck if you won! But it's still not a sensible
thing to recommend to others.

~~~
ggambetta
I lost it in Mt. Gox, and this website made me very sad.

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have_faith
I refuse to visit this website in order to preserve my own sanity. I was
floating around forums trading BTC while it was $5. Life moves on, trees keep
growing.

~~~
MrMember
If I had the disposable income I have now back then I probably would have
build a mining rig when the price was around $15. It wasn't too difficult to
mine around a Bitcoin per day with a decent rig.

On the flipside I have no idea when or if I would have cashed out. When it hit
$100? $1000? Impossible to say.

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keyle
As much as I see myself as wild person when it comes to offshoot bets, I still
can't reason myself into buying bitcoins. Not sure I must be too Gen X to find
this reasonable.

Anyone here comment "how well they did?" and if you've pulled out or are
seriously thinking about pulling out?

I feel silly, but I'm still not going to put my hard earned cash in it any
time soon... In fact, I wouldn't really know how.

~~~
tobitornottobit
I bought a dozen coins at $100 a coin. I eventually sold when they reached
around $800 per coin. My rationale was that I was far too obsessive about it,
I checked the price every day, I read and watched articles and videos and kept
up with all the drama. The amount of brain time I was spending on it was just
too much. I would have remained a holder if I wasn't obsessive.

The technology and ecosystem is very interesting in many ways, buying into it
is probably a good way to kick start your interest -- nothing better than
having your money on the line to keep you engaged -- but who knows where it's
going to be in 10 years. Which would feel worse: buying Bitcoin now and having
coins worth nothing in 10 years, or not buying Bitcoin now and in 10 years
looking back and thinking "I had the perfect opportunity and I didn't take it,
I'm an idiot!"? I imagine for most people they'd take the risk and buy in
(hence the price growth) but for me personally it's too consuming and that's
why I'm out.

~~~
keyle
Thanks for chiming in. I feel I would have done the same, become obsessed with
the price every day. Not worth it in the end.

Seems the only reasonable way to do it is with 'fuck money', pardon the term.
You know, money you happened to have forgotten about or came about that you
didn't budget for.

------
sAbakumoff
Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.”

~~~
AndrewOMartin
"All our savings and our house went up in smoke because I shot them all on a
volatile investment I knew nothing about" must come in a close second.

~~~
bshimmin
"Invest only what you can afford to lose" really are wise words. They aren't
words that will get you insanely rich in the blink of an eye, of course, but
they are words that mean you won't lose your house.

~~~
AndrewOMartin
You're damn right, I worked in the online gambling industry four about 5
years, and that became the golden rule zero for all things, especially poker
strategy.

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superasn
Interesting site. It should have another graphic on the final page like what
if i had invested the same amount in [google stock¦in a property in ny¦govt
bonds¦etc] as comparison.

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quickthrower2
This will depress many people

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verroq
What if I didn't buy AMD? What if I didn't buy SPY? What if I didn't buy NVDA?
What if I didn't buy Ethereum?

~~~
DennisP
Well Ethereum's in the dropdown so they've got that covered.

------
danmaz74
As long as there are greater fools, there's a lot of money to be made with
Bitcoin. Just don't be the last fool.

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scrrr
Funny, this could be extended to all sorts of investments. What if I spent
1000 USD on Apple in 1990? I'd have about 1000 Apple stock now, currently
worth around 160k.

~~~
quickthrower2
That's nothing like the return on BTC

~~~
JSDave
How about the return on PonziCoin everybody missed out on? It's gone up about
10,000% in 2 months. Market cap should surpass global GDP mid-May next year.

