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Comment on Show HN: Eiten – open-source tool for portfolio optimizationparent

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That's my line of thinking. I don't have the interest to be micro managing my investments. I put some of my money into the stock market some years ago (with good results, probably doubled my money if I sell now) but a big part is in a managed fund (a product sold by my bank) and another part is in just hobby / meme things, amateur "I think this company will do good".

I try not to think too hard about things like "I should've held onto those TSLA stocks" because I can't predict the future and the company could easily have crashed instead.

I had one left in TSLA (now 5 because split), I've bought Take Two because I'm confident GTA VI will be ridiculous (again), and I think most right now is in S&P 500 indices because it's a solid long term investment.

I almost worked on Bitcoin mining hardware as an honours project back when Bitcoin had no value, less than a cent per coin. I would have made so much money just by mining back then. But I don't regret it. I worked on automated tests instead but I think it was the wiser choice just not the lucky choice.

Definitely not the wise choice. You will eventually realize there’s plenty of time to learn about automated tests, but only few opportunities to make truly massive amounts of money. If you had mined $100 of bitcoin back then, you’d be a 9-figure developer today.

How were they to know this at the time, that’s the point they are making. Obviously knowing how things shook out if OP went back in time, yeah no shit they are going to mine that bitcoin.

True believers always knew this. I remember going to a presentation about Bitcoin where a speaker had boasted about how he had invested all his life savings into bitcoin, back when it was still worth less than $100. He gave his justifications, about how it was the future of money and the end of fiat.

I laughed, and couldn’t wait to hear the sob story about how he lost it all years later when the price went to 0. But the day never came, and I never forgot.

The guy must have cashed out sometime shortly after Bitcoin hit his peak, and now posts about his “riches and bitches”, I’m talking fast cars, big houses with long hallways, vacations around the world with exotic women under his arm and watches as big as your fist. Scroll through his feed long enough and your bound to catch a selfie with a middle finger aimed straight at the camera. He still gives seminars about investing in cryptocurrencies and did a few angel investments in some startups that went who knows where.

Was it wisdom, or pure luck? There’s some element of luck probably, but substantial gains don’t tend to last that long if you only have luck without wisdom.

That was pure luck. Investing 100 percent of your life savings in one high risk thing is dumb. That is not to say some people won't win that way but the vast majority will loose. That guy lacks wisdom and got very lucky.

Is it though? At that point in his life, perhaps late twenties, how much accumulated life savings could he possibly have? If he lost it all, he would probably put himself maybe 10 years back, sucks, but not unrecoverable. How often does a moonshot come around? What other point in his life could he have taken such a risk? Maybe there’s some wisdom here, it’s not all luck.

Luck. There were a million other more promising moonshots at the time. He rolled the dice and lucked out. He also could have taken his life saving and taken it to Vegas and made even more money.

What other moonshots were there at the time?

And I doubt you would get the same success as investing in Bitcoin at Vegas.

Luck. It was luck.

If he had invested $100 back then he would have sold his holdings when they reached some crazy high level in comparison.

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