A year ago, I wrote a blog post entitled “Bye Bye Bitcoin Bubble“, in which I compared the popular cryptocurrency to prison mackerel, and wrote:
“As I write this, Bitcoin just past (sic) $16,000 in value. I would bet any amount of money that on December 7, 2018, the price of Bitcoin will be below that value.”
The blog post made the rounds on HackerNews and Twitter, and a variety of people sprang up offering to bet me money.
I frantically tried to find a lawyer to help me structure the bets, and finally found a Las Vegas firm with expertise in gambling law AND cryptocurrency to confirm that I could do so legally. At that point, I went back to the people who said they wanted to bet me. This was weeks later, and Bitcoin had already dropped to around $13,000. No one was willing to place any bets, though no one cited the price of Bitcoin for their decision to not follow through.
Sadly, rather than being $50,000 richer (the amount I was willing to bet) all I can do is take an Internet victory lap and say, “I was SO right, and you were SO wrong.”
Here were the people who responded to my original tweet with Bitcoin bullishness and criticisms of my intelligence:
@BitcoinBhoy @Hodlayheehoo @dbrizzy80 @georgepf84 @tracyarciaga
Here are people who expressed interest in betting but never followed through:
@qihu00 @ericsports @Bitcoin_Shill
Here are people I DMed with about betting, but never actually was able to bet with:
- @jimmysong, who went the farthest towards making a bet with me, but ultimately didn’t
- @cryptocharlesh who was willing to make a longbets.org bet with me (which I was unwilling to do because I wanted to make money, not donate to charity)
- @haralabob, who was game, but who is really rich and wasn’t interested in a mere $10,000 bet.
Same for @scottwalker99, who immediately offered to bet me $1,000,000, but wasn’t interested once I capped bets at $10,000 per person.
I want to give a special final mention to @allnewsfor, who wrote: “Btw the internet will remember if you are too scared to back up your empty words with action”
I hope that applies to those who refused to bet me as well!
people keep making predictions. what's the big deal? when you fail, you don't follow up, when you're right, you say i told you so. even if you do follow up, so what? the markets will tank next year. that's a prediction. if the markets go up, uh okay, fine and move on. you can wallow in your superiority or admit no one can predict the future reliably year-over-year. a broken clock is right twice a day and all that.
you calling out specific people just makes look like a bully, which i'm assuming you're not, yet.
I just read this and can hardly believe that you got haralabos' attention. too cool!
Aren't transaction costs (legal) of personal bets on Bitcoin greater than simply buying/selling the futures?