pinkybanana

People in invest in crypto because the gains have been ridiculously good. However some people have lost their money because of bad security or scams. You can mentally it like, you invest $1000, plan to exist when the value hits 10x and have 5% probability of losing it all, you can calculate the expected value and decide if the risk is for you.

Better analogy would be "it is not worth living because you might die"

There have been plenty of news articles about these people. For example in Scandinavia top tax payers are published yearly, there have been some crypto investors who have made it to the top of the list, and have given out interviews.

Reading some of these it is not that much different to someone winning in the lottery or getting some making million-level exit from IT business.

> It's pretty crazy the number of people who bought Bitcoin/crypto at such an early stage (e.g spending >$1000 on something nearly worthless and very obscure) yet are very bad at the security of this. You would think the first step to recovering >$10M plus would involve a Google search or two.

Though $1000 is a money typical let's say IT employee can easily spend and lose without having major issues. The issue with some early BTC adopters is that it was like buying a lottery ticket, most probably assumed that they would be likely losing the money, therefore they didn't invest in security and careful planning. Many people working for FAANG for example don't have to work that long to make $1000, so it is quite natural not to spend several hours of r&d on $1000 investment.

> I understand that often, we think something new will solve all our problems

New things fix some old problems, but also introduce new ones that we hadn't before. The value of solving the old problems is greater than the total cost of the new problems, why we stay with new things even when they add problems to our lives.

However crypto has made lots of people millionaires and that kind of hippie stuff doesn't. It is not like reinventing old institutions, Bitcoin has features that central banking based systems are fundamentally unable to offer (such as limited supply).

It would be good way to avoid taxes, as you can write it as a loss and then go enjoy your BTC stash to some other country tax-free.

The problem is though that the BTC will still be traced to you...

There are already Bitcoin ETFs and other stock-market tradable products in many jurisdictions (not US though). These are very straightforward for casual user, I don't see how it would be any more insecure than buying for example Gold ETF.

What has really helped me to relax with my crypto holdings was reading couple of cancer stories. Basically as how nature is, cancer can come any time and take anyones life away. Just treat Bitcoin as the nature, but a less severe version as you won't die if you lose your crypto.

That said, crypto loss is very preventable. Lots of people have put lots of effort to make holding bitcoin/crypto more secure.

> Keeping your coins in a self-hosted wallet is like handling millions in physical cash or precious metals.

Definitely not. I'm sure that for someone who has middle-level skills at basic IT and basic understanding of cryptocurrencies, safe storage and handling of cryptocurrencies is 10x safer than handling the same amount of physical cash or gold at home. Considering also that you want to use your assets.

If I were routinely transfering tens of thousands worth of cash from my home to somewhere to spend it would surely catch some attention, I would guess. With crypto I can just use it from safety of my own home at online shops and similar.

There are lots of custodians with different storage models. If you have account at some reputable service, good password and 2FA set up (non-mobile) then I think accidents are always super ultra-rare or basically nonexistant. Of course you also have to just HODL and for example not send your crypto to some scammer (that ofc isn't a problem that a custodian will solve anyway).

Have to note that when there are millions or maybe hundred of millions of people with crypto wallets, there will be also some amount of "false positives" reporting lost BTC, for example people who have sent their BTC to wrong address drunk or high, and then afterwards think that its the platforms fault.

The people have been always there, it is just that now they have the tools. I personally have no problem, bitcoin should be for adults who can manage their own risks. You can always opt out and not use it. This whole thing has been repeated since the early Bitcoin times ad infinitum and shouldn't be a surprise.

This issue has been fixed in Electrum a long time ago already. However the problem is that no one can prevent people from running older versions.

This kind of problems are to be expected in crypto in the future as well, so always stay cautious.

> (Or there are externalities: techies will work for less money if you let them work on space travel.)

I guess the salaries are about the same in companies like SpaceX etc, but I would guess that working hours etc are not. Some engineer working for a bank will probably demand quite relaxed hours, negotiate low pressure tasks and have some holiday time with family, while with the same salary guy working for SpaceX will be busting his ass off and working weekends multiple times an year.

> that aren't doing anything actually useful (finance, fintech, adtech)*.

Cut that crap. Most of the companies in these spaces are value-adding services and products. It is annoying that this kind of thinking is prevalent "If I don't understand how it generates value, it must be useless."

Dude, to me it sounds like you are missing the point of music, which is that there isn't a point. It is just to experiment and do whatever feels good for you, which can be quite different things for different people.

> Why should you expect different treatment from Google than Twitter et al.?

Well, because you aren't twitter. Expecting google to treat indie dev the same as multibillion dollar corporations would be stupid. World isn't fair place and crying after fairness is often waste of time.

This kind of blog post might affect the situation and I think it makes sense to make it in polite way. However my default assumption would be that no one inside google will do anything about this, because thats how giant corporations work.