[throwaway10110]

That is just awesome, I go into bitcoin in 2011 or 2012 (in top few hundred users on bitcoin-otc back when price was $4 a pop) and had loads of ideas for services (+ accepted bitcoin for years for webhosting) but listened to all negative comments about crypto and spend most of them over years (have a descent stash left) and hence now not a billionaire just a millionaire, but yeh moral of story is not to listen to overly critical nerds who are overly negative about every subject (often just to be edgy/cynical) and just do it!

[apples_oranges]

Yes, there's also something about techies that get older that makes them more negative? Thinking of comments on some other websites that have been around longer, such as slashdot.

[thathndude]

You can’t fault folks for being “negative” when Armstrong’s narrative did in fact prove to be very wrong. He’s saying in 5-10 years Amazon isn’t going to suffer paying CC interchange fees, and yet here we are and that hasn’t changed.

Folks are talking about mainstream acceptance of BTC, and that means holding 1-3% of the balance sheet in BTC and an eccentric billionaire with an electric car company accepting them for payment.

To be sure, the underlying crypto value has blown up, but it’s integration into society has fallen well short of Armstrong’s predictions in 2012.

More mature/older tech individuals have seen this cycle play out before, and so they’re just not as quick to embrace the unchecked enthusiasm and optimism.

[manigandham]

Not negative, just more realistic as experience builds up and patterns emerge. It doesn't mean that people can judge everything perfectly, but it is backed up by the fact that the vast majority of new crazy projects don't end up actually doing anything.

[gist]

> Yes, there's also something about techies that get older that makes them more negative?

Most ideas do not work and even most that work don't work as well (in terms of making money) as coinbase has. The only reason we are discussing what Brian was looking for in 2012 is because he is an outlier. Otherwise what he said back then would be of little interest.

[benjohnson]

Speaking for myself, it’s because I’ve seen a lot of things that not only were leading but the best in the business fail to remain relevant:

We not now even using CompuServe on Commodores aver AT&T lines. Modula-2 and Prolog are just footnotes, and Lotus 123 is gone.

[NicoJuicy]

Seeing problems on changing things.

To be honest, decentralized crypto is terrible for any financial service.

If you get scammed, you're money is gone. Nothing in crypto is fixing this and i don't see a real future without it.

And i don't think it's even possible without keeping it's essence of existence.

[sumedh]

Even if HN would was more pro BTC back in the day you and most others would have sold a majority of BTC when the price started crashing from the 20K USD peak

[hmmokidk]

I struggle with this. How do you know when to sell for good?

I suppose it is when you predict opinion is going to work against this and public opinion seems a very slow moving thing. Unless some sort of crazy event occurs.

[midasuni]

For every example like this, how many are there of people failing?

[Isn0gud]

Yeah, if you know the future, just play the lottery, its much quicker!

[seriousquestion]

Unknown. But we do know that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

[d_burfoot]

Cranky nerds are like a dumb baseline ML algorithm that always predicts "false", and is right 95% of the time.

[FlyingSnake]

> moral of story is not to listen to overly critical nerds

I would say pay attention to overly critical nerds, and see of the opposite could be used to your own benefit.

[thathndude]

Enjoy your millionaire status! Could of, should of, would of!