Quote from: PatrickHarnett on October 11, 2012, 11:01:45 PM

Quote from: Shadow383 on October 11, 2012, 10:23:17 PM

Quote from: heatstroke on October 11, 2012, 09:21:59 PM

Quote from: Rassah on October 11, 2012, 08:36:42 PM

If Patrick had only classified his investment thing as a managed hedge/mutual fund, with returns based on his investment skills as opposed to fixed interest "savings account" style returns, none of this would have been a problem. Losses would have had to be taken by the customers instead of Patrick, and his returns would have been consistent with the average hedge fund (lesson: don't invest in bitcoins, people. You'll save time by just flushing your money down the toilet).

the "average" hedge fund managed by a well-educated, certified professional typically grow at 3% per year.

Source?
If the average performance of any of the funds I invest in was that poor I'd have pulled my cash out long ago Cheesy

It was a recent article I read and I've hunted for it since I read it because it was so startling - I was surprised it was that terrible (I'll hunt for it again). I knew most funds made the owners quite wealthy even with a 1% fee, but the after tax (real, not nominal) returns for many people is negative.

Over what time frame though? I mean if you looked at performance 2007-2009 or some window like that you'd probably get pretty poor results Tongue