Quote from: jaysabi on August 23, 2018, 07:20:37 PM

Quote from: Jennifer_Elam on August 16, 2018, 07:56:13 PM

Old-timers who got on before $500 are smiling at whatever price it's at, 19k or 6k. It's all green for them.

Being in the green doesn't negate the crushing loss you've suffered in the $19k to $6k drop. It's about opportunity costs, and the opportunity cost of not selling and continuing to hold is the direct result of those losses. If you bought 2 coins at $500, you've invested $1000. Right now you'd be sitting on about $13,000, which is great to be up that much. But you missed out on locking in the gain at $38,000. Being up is better than being down, sure, but who's smiling about the fact that the opportunity cost of not selling resulted in a loss of $25,000? Looking at it your way may be optimistic, but looking at it this way is pragmatic.

You have a point, but I can't agree with you on the loss amount. As long as someone is still holding his/her BTC, I think talking about their "loss" is inappropriate, and I'll explain why, with an example from the past.

In December 2013 Bitcoin hit $1,200 and those who bought below $100 earlier in the same year could make huge profits, or using your example with 2 coins, they could earn $2,200 investing $200 6 months earlier. But if they missed the opportunity and were holding later no matter what, we all know that they could make much more later. I think currently we are in a very similar situation. It may look like people who sold their coins at $11k in February did the right thing, but it is also possible that they did the same mistake people did in 2014 selling at $700 (although BTC went down to $200 afterwards).