All of those idiots are down x% and y%, so who ****ing cares?

Because it's human nature? In sports, people have no vested interest, but there are players that have a personality type that is rooted for and another set of players with characteristics that are root against.

When crypto rallies and enthusiasts post tons of rocket emojis, "have fun staying poor", normies this or normies that, while posting graphs and outrageous predictions every 2 minutes, they become a category of people that are very easy to root against.

Buffet and Munger have just stacked humbly for decades, Berkshire investors don't gloat endlessly about results. I've never seen the same disdain for them that the crypto community receives.

You don't need to actively short something to root against it. Sometimes people are naturally likable or unlikable. The community as a whole is just rather unlikable during bull runs.

This is true, but there's plenty of the same on the other side.

You left out telling non-cyrpto investors they're NGMI, the most obnoxious of all their clique expressions.

Rooting for or against a (probably famous and well paid) player is very different from wishing someone loses money.

I agree "hfsp" is in poor taste and likely to cause this kind of hatred, but that's about it to me, and still inexcusable on both sides.

If rocket emojis cause someone to lose sleep and wish ill of someone they don't know then they're petty, "human nature" or not.

i don’t know what to tell you man, people don’t root for people to succeed when they aren’t involved, especially when the people involved gloat and are excessively obnoxious about success. as someone excessively long for years, even i take some happiness when prices fall big, at my own expense.

Guys please don't say anything negative about Bitcoin. It's mean and will make bluegrassplayer sad.

anxiety

Sell the dip.

I'm not asking for people to root for crypto holders. I'm just curious about the mental state of people who get triggered by rockets and laser eyes, are unable to filter those out of their life (I manage to filter out most of the obnoxious price predictions and rockets somehow and I read and watch a lot of crypto stuff), and then take the time out of their life to come in and say "hey now you're only up this much!" as if that's somehow a win for them.

I don't really disagree with most of your reasoning, except it being human nature. I'm just calling it petty, obnoxious and self destructive... which I think it's pretty clear it is.

Ultimately the reason boils down to this which is a pretty bad excuse:

Next time you’re at a blackjack table and you win a hand and someone else at the table loses the hand, look them straight in the eye, make sure not to break eye contact and say “not gonna make it and have fun staying poor”. Let me know what their reaction is when you go on a cold streak.

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Bad analogy. You're playing the same game. Blackjack players are united. More accurate analogy is it's like the dealer busting, everyone at the blackjack table winning, looking over to the plebs at the roulette table as the ball lands on 00, dealer scoops, and yelling have fun staying poor playing your terrible odds game.

If I take your analogy at face value then you believe cryptocurrency has better odds for long-term return than other investment classes?

take another glance at his avatar

Yes, but there's still a lot of junk in the cryptocurrency asset class. Rather than investing in the whole class, better off with only Bitcoin, or at least Bitcoin representing 80%+ of your holdings.

What's the investment thesis on why BTC will outperform other investment classes? I'm not being coy - I'm genuinely interested on the buy-side argument for it.

Number Go Up Technology.

So scarcity alone? Do you project demand will continue unabated indefinitely, ie no terminal or systemic event you foresee that would cause it to lose investment favor?

Forever is a long time, but 150 years seems to be average length of global reserve currencies. End of USD window is nearing.

Scarcity is helpful, but the fixed supply schedule is more important. Even if it continued 'printing' forever, it still is effectively less and less % over time. This is different than the unknown supply schedules of fiat that are subject to the whims of unelected people who print money for political reasons.

Fiat will continue to debase and lose purchasing power. Bitcoin is a perfect alternative for global reserve and ultimate settlement layer and L2s such as lightning will enable it to be used quickly and cheaply for day to day transactions, should people wish to spend the hardest asset ever created.

BTC as a store of value is based on faith, granted the same as with fiats like the USD. As limited the supply of BTC is by design, I still see it as an arbitrary scarcity, since in theory we can construct any digital entity and declare it scarce with strong algorithms. BTC seems to have certainly crossed the threshold for critical mass in the collective belief of its scarcity value but I wonder how strong the foundation in that belief actually is.

BTC came to prominence during an era of very loose monetary policy and high risk tolerance. It'll be interesting to see how much of its value is correlation to those factors vs an intrinsic belief in the currency. Either way, good luck on your investment.

You can indeed construct any digital entity and make it scarce, but you can't make it decentralized. When Bitcoin was born it was worth nothing and was only traded by ultra nerds as a fun nerd exercise in cryptography. Bitcoin was already heavily dispersed among many thousands of people before it reached a dollar. Then the founder of Bitcoin either died or lost his private keys rendering a large block of the initial supply inactive. There has been a thousand altcoins since that are scarce with strong algorithms, but they all started with hyped up dollar values and a premined group that control large blocks of the supply. You cannot replicate the immaculate conception that is Bitcoin.

Scarcity is just one aspect of its value.

If an artist creates 20 exactly identical gorgeous items and I use all of my artistic ability to create a similar item, the 20 from the artist will be worth far more than whatever ugly thing I can come up with despite mine being 20x as scarce.

Had that artist only created 10 then they'd probably be worth more. If he'd created 50 then they'd probably be worth less.

The scarcity of btc is important in determining its value, but it is not the sole source of its value.

Which aspects other than scarcity does BTC derive its value in your view? I guess a better way to ask that question - what prevents a competing currency from being developed and adopted that has the same technical underpinnings including decentralization? Is it the first-mover status that sets BTC apart or is it something else?