> and some people stood to lose their entire savings.
While I am not defending MtGox, having your entire life savings wrapped up in Bitcoin is hardly a sound, proven financial decision and evokes absolutely zero sympathy whatsoever. Losing it all in a get-rich-quick frenzy is sad - but it's sad in a "I can't believe people are willing to bet their lives on this" way, not a "this poor person lost his/her entire life savings due to the corruption of the financial industry" way.
Highhorses are fun to ride, but if you put in 5% of your networth at any point > 8 months ago, it is likely that you ended up with 90-95% of your net worth in Bitcoin.
I had not considered this, and you have a very good point. Most of those people had been getting used to the idea of being rich, that it will be very rough for them to adjust.
Besides, the way their money is lost made it so much worse. The global value of btc crashing would be one thing, corruption would be another, but this level of incompetence.. it's almost harder to digest since they most likely are not guilty of any crimes either, unless stupidity would be a crime.
Too true. It is interesting that rationally speaking, considering windfalls or lottery winnings "house money" is incorrect--money is money. This attitude can lead you to cognitive errors that cost you more money in the long run.
On the other hand, if we think about the coping strategy for people who've been Goxed, I can see where if you can disregard the winnings as "paper gains" it is much easier to get on with life thinking "I only lost 10k."
This thread is awesome. Goxed is now my new favorite word (sorry for the more initiated if I'm already late to the party). It's just like being doxed - you exposed yourself in some way, and some clever bastard got the better of you for it.
Given the huge price increases bitcoin has experienced, many people bought bitcoin with a small portion of their net worth that later grew into the vast majority of their net worth. Some of these people were unable to withdraw from MtGox (their USD withdrawal issues were ongoing since June).
And in the same vein, while I'm not defending those who put their entire life savings into Bitcoin, to put their entire balance into an online wallet strikes me as the worse way to go about that. Paper wallets aren't comparable to dollar bills. They're comparable to security vaults from everyone online who would seek to separate people from their money.
While I am not defending MtGox, having your entire life savings wrapped up in Bitcoin is hardly a sound, proven financial decision and evokes absolutely zero sympathy whatsoever. Losing it all in a get-rich-quick frenzy is sad - but it's sad in a "I can't believe people are willing to bet their lives on this" way, not a "this poor person lost his/her entire life savings due to the corruption of the financial industry" way.