
Cryptocurrency Was Their Way Out of South Korea’s Lowest Rungs - martey
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/10/business/south-korea-bitcoin-cryptocurrencies.html
======
godshatter
> Mr. Kim, who is 27 and lives with his parents, once made so much money
> trading cryptocurrencies that he was spending $1,000 a month on whatever he
> wanted. He quit his job. He borrowed to buy more. He planned to buy a house.

Cryptocurrency markets are so volatile that I would just stash that $1,000 a
month away somewhere rather than trying to double down. I'd consider every
penny I earned to be a win and hope it continued for a while. I'd expect it to
end in tears if I didn't. I guess I'm just more risk-averse.

~~~
megy
> once made so much money trading cryptocurrencies that he was spending $1,000
> a month on whatever he wanted.

That doesn't even sound like much at all. Surely he would have more than that
if he worked a job.

~~~
adventured
The median income in South Korea is typically around $1,250 to $1,500 per
month.

To be entirely free to burn $1,000 per month in that style, you would want an
income at least four times higher than that median. That's a considerable
salary in South Korea. At $1,500 you're going to roughly be at break-even on
living costs.

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nodesocket
I just got back from South Korea (Seoul) where I spent a month working and on
vacation. By no means am I any sort of expert, but here are my insights which
may be somewhat of a rant.

> Mr. Kim, who is 27 and lives with his parents

\- A lot of people in their twenties still live with their parents in S.
Korea. It is very common.

> He has lost a lot of money, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars.

\- S. Korea is very fashion and tech savvy. It is also very wealthy notable
mostly in Seoul and Itaewon. Koreans are really into how they look including
high end brands and cars (Mercedes, BMW's are rampant in the city). The women
are infatuated with makeup, their appearance, and Instagram. It makes sense
that S. Korea was a crypto hub and that it went absolutely wild there.

\- There is a noticeable pro-America vibe in S. Korea and wearing clothes or
fashion that has the American Flag is typically high end. They also love
Whiskey, specifically Jack Daniels which I thought was funny because I live in
Tennessee..

~~~
yongjik
> There is a noticeable pro-America vibe in S. Korea and wearing clothes or
> fashion that has the American Flag is typically high end.

Well, that's a bit like saying there's a pro-Chinese vibe in America because
so many people have random Chinese letters printed on their shirts or tattooed
on their arms. It doesn't really mean anything.

~~~
adventured
> It doesn't really mean anything.

Among nations, South Koreans have the third most favorable opinion of the US
[1], only behind the Phillippines and Israel. South Korea's well-known love of
the US goes back more than half a century. As an American, for me it's mutual,
I love South Korea too.

My grandfather, having fought in WW2, re-enlisted and volunteered to fight in
Korea. He always said the South Koreans were wonderful to him. I think he'd be
proud of how amazing their country has become, knowing that putting his life
in jeopardy was worth it.

[1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-
countr...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-
dont-like-america-and-which-do/)

------
gowld
This seems similar to "Blackjack was their way out of USA's lowest rungs", and
some people made a bunch of money and most people lost a bunch of money.

~~~
arcticbull
A small handful of people made a lot of money at the expense of a huge pile of
people who came after them but only the winners yell about it, FTFY :)

~~~
nostrademons
Now it's reversed - only the losers yell about it, while anyone who profited
from the bubble is keeping their mouth shut.

Funny how the zeitgeist can turn.

------
yongjik
Last year, when SK government clamped down on cryptocoin exchanges, many
crypto-enthusiasts cried foul and claimed that (just like this article says)
cryptocurrencies are the waves of the future and the only way out of their
"dirt spoon" status.

Well, IMHO, the subsequent collapse of bitcoin proved the government's point.
Without timely intervention, there could now be millions who suddenly found
their iron spoons turned to dirt.

~~~
oska
Bitcoin has not collapsed. The technology continues to work very, very well
and it has a world-class development team maintaining it. Its price will
continue to have large rises _and_ large drops but it continues on its upward
trend. However, focusing on bitcoin's price alone is where 99% of journalists
and commentators go wrong.

~~~
arcticbull
(1) Bitcoin has not collapsed because it works well.

No, it doesn't. It works only because less than 7 transactions per second
worth of people want to use it. It works well _because_ it’s collapsed. We saw
how it reacted when people _did_ want to use it. inb4 lightning, to open and
close a single channel for everyone in the world will take 68 years.

(2) The price is going up! Then...

(3) Stop focusing on the price!

Yes, everyone's got it wrong because in the same breath you tell us the price
is going up then not to look at the price. Not to mention all the basic
problems with it: the rampant manipulation you can't stamp out _by design_ ,
the actively user-hostile nature, the massive deflation because everyone keeps
losing their keys and all the features people want like chargebacks being
stripped out of it. Nobody wants to be their own bank, it’s so hard. Then
there’s the economics of it, my lord, ECON 101 level stuff.

Inflation isn’t bad because you’re not supposed to hold cash. You’re supposed
to use it to purchase productive assets, like stocks, bonds or real estate
which track and exceed inflation. It’s even good for borrowers because debts
become cheaper over time. It’s a regular haircut for unproductive capital, the
mechanism by which capitalism allocates capital efficiently. Money isn’t
supposed to become more valuable by virtue of you just having it. Under your
bird bath, of course because it’s not safe anywhere else.

Even the hardcore coiners on reddit have started admitting it’s sole value is
hiding your wealth offshore out of reach of the long arm of the tax man. Or
for the narcos!

Yes, it's going swimmingly.

~~~
illumin8
> all the features people want like chargebacks being stripped out of it.

Chargebacks were never stripped out because they don't exist. Bitcoin has
always had irreversible transactions, and many people view that as a feature.

Your argument would carry more weight if you didn't have inaccuracies in it.

~~~
arcticbull
Obviously it never had it that was my point. It was flowery wording for the
bitcoin network having evolved from modern finance, in that its modern finance
with features ripped out.

~~~
krageon
"Modern finance" has these features because they are at their core an old
boy's network of people saying "yes this is definitely okay". On top of that,
it is running on maybe two distinct networks globally, both of which are not
immune to just going down.

It's then a bit disingenuous to say that it's "modern finance with features
ripped out", I would say it's modern finance with a different set of
priorities. Two of those priorities are reliability and verifiability, which
are two features the current networks have absolutely none of.

~~~
arcticbull
Visa is not reliable? They successfully processed 99.9995% (5 nines) of the
last 319 billion transactions. [1] Marketing suggests they're working to get
that to 100%. It's also totally verifiable, as it needs to be audited by the
various regulators and industry bodies. It's absolutely both of those.

To my knowledge, bitcoin just achieved 4 nines of uptime since the genesis
block -- impressive in its own right to be sure.

Bitcoin may not be so verifiable itself, right, after all, the longest chain
wins and over 50% of hash power is located in the PRC. I'd say a strongly
worded memo from Beijing that a new longest chain needs to appear is a bigger
weak point than the worlds largest payment network with 5 nines of reliability
over the last few decades suddenly decides to stop working, or that they'd
stop scribbling down transaction data and avoid getting
audited/fined/shuttered.

That aside Bitcoin's real issue was never on-chain, but off-chain. Tether and
Bitfinex aside, to get a real, truthful, accurate accounting of transactions
within the bitcoin ecosystem the weak links by a country mile are the
tumblers, the exchanges and so on. Their reporting data is, shall we say, far
from tip top. Just ask QuadrigaCX.

Old boys network or not, the up and comer needs to be better, not "just
different" or "measurably worse."

[1] [https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/uptime/visa-s-uk-
network...](https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/uptime/visa-s-uk-network-
outage-what-you-need-know)

------
neokantian
The current price is back at the price in August 2017. Anybody who got in
before the subsequent speculative wave is doing absolutely fine. The $20,000
price of December 2017 was a speculative fluke of some kind of wannabe gold
rush. For someone like me, who got in years before, I am actually happy that
the hot money is mostly gone now. That batch gold diggers were turning the
entire scene into a gigantic lottery carnival.

~~~
arcticbull
You’re happy you lost 90% of your wealth? This kind of religious nonsense is
pretty typical in the MLM and ponzi worlds. Nobody should be happy about that.

Plus that’s some seriously classic goalpost moving. Each time the price drops
further shift the buy in a date a few months to the left. Yes people who
bought in two years ago (basically a tiny fraction of the people who bought in
after) are now break even. Classic success.

The S&P has returned 14% since August 2017.

~~~
robertAngst
No one bought at 19k/BTC.

And if they did, they likely bought petty amounts.

Most people bought before. We believe that there may be an alternative to
government currency in a rare number.

I didnt lose 90% of my wealth.

I actually got an extra 0.6 BTC since Jan 2017. I consider that an increase.

~~~
arcticbull
Tons of people bought at 19K. That’s when transaction counts peaked from
historical graphs. And at 18k, and 17k and so on. This isn’t in dispute the
historical data speaks for itself, not opinion. [1]

They bought huge quantities, multiplication tells us that. And anecdota of
people taking out massive loans because they couldn’t lose.

Most bought in the cumulative run up from mid to end of 2017, again, charts.
[1]

You lost 90% of your buying power.

[1]
[https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/5y/USD?c=e&t=b&vu...](https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/5y/USD?c=e&t=b&vu=curr)

~~~
jen729w
Yeah, _the price was $19k_. Therefore, by very definition, people bought at
$19k. Otherwise the price wouldn't have been ... ah, it's hard to get through
to people sometimes.

Loved your analysis in this thread, thanks.

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rbobby
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4240730/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4240730/)
Misaeng. Provides an interesting view of life in a Korean trading company (not
bitcoin). Apparently not too far off reality.

Pretty great series.

