There's a few things weird about this story. Are you really proud you have a leveraged position in bitcoin? Isn't that among the riskiest positions you can take on a very volatile, illiquid, and possibly illegal asset? That's totally a personal choice, but it's certainly not one I would or a typical retail investor should ever take. Your decision to buy-and-hold during a sell off in the Spring is at best an anecdote and certainly should not be used as any evidence on what behavior to do now.
Government intervention is just one of a few significant black swans: blocksize changes, verification (i.e. mining) fragmentation (effectively doubles the money supply for each split), and SHA collision attacks becoming practical. None of this should ever happen, right?
However, this line should be clarified in every context:
> took out a student loan and bought in at $225.
In the US, this is generally _not OK_. To everyone else in the US, do not read this as a positive example. Do not use student loans for bitcoin or any other investment.
What can I use my federal student loan money for?
You may use the money you receive only to pay for education expenses at the school that awarded your loan. Education expenses include such school charges as tuition, room and board, fees, books, supplies, equipment, dependent child care expenses, transportation, and rental or purchase of a personal computer. Talk to someone at the financial aid office at your school if you need more details. [1]
(Of course you may have been one of the small percentage who took out an unregulated private loan, but the principles behind those are generally the same).
It's also illegal in the UK to reinvest your student loan.
Update: I can't find a link to back this statement up and at least one UK Bank (Barclays) seems to encourage it. My evidence is therefore purely anecdotal — I remember it being noted in the terms at the time.
Please spare us the lecture on what an investor should and should not do. What someone does with their money is their choice and the consequences of what happens with that money is their consequence.
i love how you are telling him it was a dumb idea, when you have no idea if he sold enough at $1100 to cover his student loan, or that right now he is still in a position where he has doubled his money in a matter of months regardless of this crash.
Too many people offering investment advice in hindsight round here.
Err isn't ivanplenty doing the opposite of offering hindsight investment advice? He's saying it was stupid despite it ending up being a profitable investment.
Thank you captain obvious. I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA that using student loans for unauthorized investments is a violation of the contract. Gee willakers! I better go turn myself in!
Government intervention is just one of a few significant black swans: blocksize changes, verification (i.e. mining) fragmentation (effectively doubles the money supply for each split), and SHA collision attacks becoming practical. None of this should ever happen, right?
However, this line should be clarified in every context:
> took out a student loan and bought in at $225.
In the US, this is generally _not OK_. To everyone else in the US, do not read this as a positive example. Do not use student loans for bitcoin or any other investment.
What can I use my federal student loan money for? You may use the money you receive only to pay for education expenses at the school that awarded your loan. Education expenses include such school charges as tuition, room and board, fees, books, supplies, equipment, dependent child care expenses, transportation, and rental or purchase of a personal computer. Talk to someone at the financial aid office at your school if you need more details. [1]
[1] https://studentaid.ed.gov/sites/default/files/your-federal-s...
(Of course you may have been one of the small percentage who took out an unregulated private loan, but the principles behind those are generally the same).