I'd be more interested in how many of those who lost (or rather, will lose if MtGox does indeed die) cannot easily afford it. 8 people so far, for instance, have said they lost more than 1000 BTC, which would be over $600k.
I wonder how many of these fall into the following categories:
1. The mined the coins themselves back when it was cheap to mine, or bought them when they are cheap. They are not actually much worse off then before they got into Bitcoin.
2. They put a lot of money into acquiring those Bitcoins. They are going to actually end up a significant fraction of that $600k worse of than when they started. However, they have millions of dollars or dollar equivalents elsewhere, and this loss is not really going to impact their lifestyle in any noticeable way.
3. They put a lot of money into acquiring those Bitcoins, and are going to end up a significant fraction of that $600k behind where they started. That represents a significant fraction of their wealth, and it will impact future plans to live a more extravagant lifestyle, but it won't knock them down to a lower class. They'll keep living where they live, and buying the same kind of luxuries they currently buy.
4. Similar to 2 and 3, but they had most of their wealth in this. They may have to move down a class or two on the social/financial ladder.
5. Similar, but they had so much of their wealth in this that "ruined" would be an accurate description. They basically have to start over financially.
You don't feel bad for the people who missed that specific train and are now "chasing" it, dollar cost averaging a percentage of their (limited/spare) discretionary income at the hopes of one day owning 1 $15k "whole" Bitcoin, thinking it'll go to $100k or $1m?
I've read a lot of sad posts at r/bitcoin. Not sad because people are saying "ouch, these losses hurt". Ouch because they are saying "what a great chance to buy more!"
It's a cult... for a non-zero amount of people :( They won't listen to evidence, logic, reasoning.
I too know far more people who lost Bitcoin due to mistakes, or negligence or such.
But I also know quite a lot of people who lost a lot of money in the 2018 banking crisis. So I highly doubt your really don't personally know a single person who lost money this way.
Right. I know about a dozen people who had a lot of bitcoins back in 2011 / 12 timeframe. None of them held on to it and are beating themselves up now.
You are saying an 80-85% loss isn't brutal? Man, bitcoin people are way tougher than I am, because losing that much value in my investments would make me want to die. I only lost like 15-20% during the 2008 crash and recovered that and way more over the last 11 years.
Wait, if you bought Bitcoin before 2013, you bought at $20 tops. Was your dad's nest egg $140? Even if that's true, what's so bad about it being worth $120,000 at the peak last year? Even if you got the years wrong, if you bought when MtGox was still active, you bought at a much lower price than even today.
I mean, apart from the fact that you left it on MtGox, that investment had a 6,000x return. What's so bad about that, and why did it "hit you" in 2013? I can't make heads or tails of your comment. How did you manage to lose money buying Bitcoin before 2013?
Do you ever think that you losing out on tens of millions of dollars might have affected your desire to challenge your believes that "bitcoin is something that cannot work"? I know I'd probably cope in a similar manner
They approached it with more caution than many people did.
But they're almost 40. They aren't so young that losing their life savings will have no impact.
I don't write any of this to criticize them. And I realize they could still see a positive ROI on the money they've spent. For me, their story sort of humanizes the whole thing. It's easy to look at this as just a bunch of abstract people losing money.
We'll see how it all works out. Between the time I wrote my first post and the time I'm writing this one, the price of Bitcoin has jumped from 7600 to 8300. Too volatile for me, but I'm sure someone, somewhere is having fun.
I was. And i was backed up. The backup was mitigated by the embarrassing technical snafu that I mentioned, the other losses occurred when bitcoins were being held in escrow byt third parties. Those third parties were either shut down by the feds, hacked or the service owners plain just absconded with the funds.
I wasn't a bitcoin millionaire, I only had a modest amount and I never bought in when they were super cheap, but that still added up to a sizeable chunk of cash.
Bottom line, there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong, and there's no safety net when it does.
I applaud you on your foresight and you should pat yourself on the back extra good tonight.
But clearly others trusted MtGox. I haven't traded a bitcoin since 2011 so I don't know much about the community past what I'd absorb about anything that's on HN daily. But isn't the claim that MtGox lost like 6% of all BTC in existence? If you think this is going to sail by without impacting the larger community, I think the foresight that led you away from MtGox is failing you now.
People are now $500+ million dollars poorer than they thought they were. That has ripples. That will erode confidence. And my bet is that it will erode confidence.
I agree. I mined bitcoins for a few months early on (2010). I ended up with about 100 of them. I didn't transfer the wallet when I reformatted the drive a year later because I had completely forgotten about BTC.
My loss isn't $10,000, because there's no way I would have held on this long. Realistically, I probably would have sold them once they were 5 USD / BTC.
I don't hate anyone. I love living in my house, and I was fully aware of the risk when I bought my bitcoins. And I actually bought them just after the collapse when China dropped out, so I bought them at EUR 470, and now they're EUR 430 or thereabouts. The loss isn't huge. Yet. I'm not sure if I should cut my losses at this point.
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).
I wonder how many of these fall into the following categories:
1. The mined the coins themselves back when it was cheap to mine, or bought them when they are cheap. They are not actually much worse off then before they got into Bitcoin.
2. They put a lot of money into acquiring those Bitcoins. They are going to actually end up a significant fraction of that $600k worse of than when they started. However, they have millions of dollars or dollar equivalents elsewhere, and this loss is not really going to impact their lifestyle in any noticeable way.
3. They put a lot of money into acquiring those Bitcoins, and are going to end up a significant fraction of that $600k behind where they started. That represents a significant fraction of their wealth, and it will impact future plans to live a more extravagant lifestyle, but it won't knock them down to a lower class. They'll keep living where they live, and buying the same kind of luxuries they currently buy.
4. Similar to 2 and 3, but they had most of their wealth in this. They may have to move down a class or two on the social/financial ladder.
5. Similar, but they had so much of their wealth in this that "ruined" would be an accurate description. They basically have to start over financially.
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