For me, it was Chainlink back in 2020. To me, it was such a devious little thing. The branding, product, and messaging were perfect for someone like me who didn't know or care what a blockchain was.
There were the myths comparing Sergey Nazarov to Satoshi Nakamoto, the vibrant community of meme-spewing Link marines, and the annual event SmartCon, which is such an amazing double entendre in retrospect.
I now think, absent a real viable AGI, there is no way to solve the oracle problem. But oh how I wanted to believe.
the dollar, to this day
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Lost 250k when Terra Luna imploded.
I finally "won" the shitcoin gambling game with Luna after getting in decently at around $1-3, then all the way up.. never felt euphoria like that in my life when it reached $100+. I could finally quit my shitty $16/hr manufacturing warehouse job!! I was a genius! Free money! UST the Standard! Lunatics are gonna wagmi! All I do is win!
The grief I felt after it busted lasted months.
Thing is, I really dove into Terra Luna hardcore right after my best friend killed himself, it was a welcome distraction - I hated Ethereum and never used it.. Bitcoin was all I cared about. But I was curious about what I was hearing from the new DeFi scene.
Getting to learn DeFi on Terra, learning about leverage, messing with NFTs, liquidity pools, tokenomics... the endless bullshit to keep up with, dApps launching, DAO's, constant price checking on my phone throughout the day to adjust my LTV, it kept my mind busy from dealing with my emotions and grief of my buddy. When Luna imploded, I couldn't get out of bed for days. What a terrible feeling, all sorts of painful emotions swirling around at once. From feeling blessed by God to laughed at by the Universe, and crypto twitter. From feeling "rich" (in my situation) to realizing the importance of my bitcoin stack in cold storage. From feeling smart to realizing I was a fucking idiot blinded by greed. Truly coping with the feeling of Loss, in all sorts of ways, including my best friend's death.. my wealth.. my friends' wealth... my online "communities" of Lunatics... the loss of confidence in myself.. just a dark pit, frens. All my orangepills over the years knew better, but I did it anyways. And the maxis were fucking right. Always.
Shitcoining is so reckless and dumb, I could have traded my Luna for 6 BTC at the top... such a moron.
And that's my shameful confession boys Steady lads, bitcoin only. Happily stacking my way back up, no shitcoins, leverage, tokens, or games. Just hard work, and starting my own business. Doing much better now.
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Sorry for your loss.
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Sorry man..I am truly sorry.
I sold 140,000 Dogecoin I won off a $4 USD deposit at luckyfish (RIP Luckyfish.io) at 0.009 USD/piece about thirty-six hours before it hit 8.5 cents USD for the first time.
I had the knife to my throat and I had to have it physically taken from me by my roommate at the time when i woke up and found out that Doge was over 8 cents.
That money literally would have changed my life completely. Even though it wouldn't have been as much money as yours, it would have been absolutely life changing for me.
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Sympathize with this Terra Luna story from all fronts, especially with the Ethereum bit. All it took for me to leave that train was Vitalik being a massive cunt, and I then sold it all alongside USDC to buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Cash is the only other crypto I mess with nowadays, privacy coins notwithstanding. I hope you make back all you lost eventually, friend.
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I am still remember when I bought #Doge on small price. 30k Doge just around $10 and sell it just for $20.
Now I regret it 🫂
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Biggest shitcoin was FTX once they bought out Blockfolio; didn't have much in it, but it fucked my mom over.
Even when I did use them, I was never a fan of custodial services or the KYC. Now it won't be an issue, since I'm (slowly) taking out my savings from Strike and putting it on a Trezor.
Thanks to Stacker News, I now know how to get paid in and use my Bitcoin day to day, and hope to utilize both soon. o/
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LUNA :(
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Thanks for the shoutout!
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None. Financially biggest regred could be selling all ETH I had too soon, at ~15 USD (converted to BTC, not sold for fiat, but ETH/USD price was around that).
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NONE. I never used or bought any shitcoin. That's why are named shitcoins, to stay away.
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Nothing rekd me more than the good old dollar. The original shitcoin.
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Ethereum. I never actually got rekt, but the whole EIP-1559 and how they gave the middle finger to the miners made me deeply suspicious of ethereum. I was mining eth at the time, and making good money. Like most eth holders I also had some of that "old fashioned" bitcoin. When I realized what was going on I sold all my eth and my mining rigs for bitcoin and never looked back.
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None. Shitcoins never appealed to me whatsoever, because their marketing strategies are nuts:
  • B.S. claims of revolutionary technology
  • promises of wealth
  • urgency/FOMO
All of which are pure nonsense, because:
  • There is nothing revolutionary about any shitcoin, not even their marketing strategies (which are just a copy of penny stock scams).
  • Even if your wealth were to 100x, you'd return to what you had before within a few years. Enormous changes in wealth are usually temporary, and destructive.
  • Shitcoiners try to fill your head with gibberish in order to overload the rational part of your brain, after which the emotional part of your brain takes over. Then, they switch from gibberish to emotional manipulation. Urgency/FOMO are the simplest way to manipulate the emotional part of your brain.
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Many moons back, in 2015, there was a mining company. They rebranded and resold mining gear, then offered hosting. Then it devolved in to a classic Ponzi. Our machines were converted to "hashlets", little more than crappy graphics on a screen. Then, when that stage of the scam drew to it's inevitable demise, they evolved again, creating a whole new coin, with Wall St backing. Funny thing, the twat behind it actually was a protoge of a wall st wanker.
Anyway, long story short, the bell end is now in prison for robbing people.
Last time I fell for a scam.
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You'll for one again. Well, you already did if you're invested in bitcoin. I won't invest until the lightning network essentially replaces the on chain/mining aspect of bitcoin. I think it may happen after every bitcoin is mined to be honest, and it's the only way bitcoin prevents an ultimate death in my opinion.
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And the fact that lightning relies on "the on chain/mining aspect of bitcoin" doesn't bother you? How is it going to "replace" it, if it depends on it?
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I don't think he understands bitcoin or lightning. If he has questions I'm sure there's enough smart people here who can help him though...
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I don't think so either. Which is why I thought those questions might help him think about it.
Had I bothered to have a quick look at his profile first, I would not have even responded.
Lesson learned, thank you.
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I'll be forever grateful to the great lady Ruja and her Onecoin. If it wasn't for them and their MLM style recruiting I would perhaps to this day ignore Bitcoin. I didn't invest but they made me question the space and start my jurney trough the rabbit hole.
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I remember speaking with a single mum over on Reddit who dumped her life savings into SafeMoon. I hope she managed to get out before it imploded.
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i have never, not once, ever bought or traded a shitcoin. the closest i've come was dumping the bcash i had after the hard fork.
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Gridcoin, but only ~$1k.
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AUDIUS

I WAS A BELIEVER IN THE MUSIC FREEDOM REVOLUTION
Then the shitcoin tanked in price and I noped the fuck out of there
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To me: Bitcoin = Money. Shitcoins = shares of private company.
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To me, Bitcoin = Expensive and volatile transaction fees with no timeframe of your transaction will be confirmed, and no guarantee your transaction will EVER be confirmed and therefore irreversible.
The day the lightning network becomes the main focus of bitcoin as a whole and when it ultimately replaces the on-chain and out of date way of transacting, is when Bitcoin has a chance to truly spike to a price we can't even fathom and then replace fiat. Until that day, Bitcoin's fate will one day be death.
No one wants to pay anything to pay someone (haven't you guys seen those karens get pissy at the manager for their credit card service fees at stores and restuarants?!) when they can do it for no transaction/service fee.
You guys forget that part.
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Hello there, First of all, thanks a lot for being here, I really like to have this discussion.
So lets be clear, the day that lightning will become the main focus of bitcoin will never happen. There are different dev teams for the different implementations of lightning and bitcoin. We will never "abandon" the base layer. therefor The base layer will continue to be used as it is today, settlement layer for lightning, big transactions and people who want to use it no matter what (ordinals for example).
That being said, I understand your frustration, you believe that paying 50c for paying a coffee its crazy, you r right, it is crazy, but is also crazy to save your everyday coffee transaction to the main blockchain of the future economy, don't you think? Why an African node runner need to save coffee transactions from a guy of San Jose, CA? it doesn't makes sense.
That's why lightning come into play, we can keep using bitcoin as the unit of account, the one who grow in value, but we can be used in the every day coffee transaction, almost free and instant.
The fees are needed to secure the base layer (the blockchain) but lightning bring the equilibrium to the ecosystem. If Russia (the country) sell to China oil & gas, and they need a neutral, free, unseasonable network to transfer value, they will use the blockchain because 50c for that transaction is nothing. Meanwhile paying your coffee still possible with lightning.
I have a question for you, what was your process to be here? was it so painful? I mean you need bitcoin and lightning to share your thoughts with us in SN.
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My first was the Argentinian peso, but thanks to that hot trash I "got" Bitcoin a lot faster than I otherwise would have (and also why Argentinian adoption is so high).
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