Cryptocurrency Cynics Stand to Profit the Most
Bubbles look like a uniquely predatory financial phenomenon.
By Noah Smith
Welcome, dear average American, to the lovely world of unregulated retail finance. Perhaps you’re young enough that you missed the tech-stock housing bubbles. Perhaps you didn’t have enough cash to “flip that house” back in 2006. Well, thanks to the invention of cryptocurrency, there’s a whole new way for you to lose your life’s savings.
Plunges in the value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have sent about $400 billion of paper wealth vanishing into thin air. Since its peak, Bitcoin has lost about $200 billion in market capitalization, and Ethereum about $67 billion:
If you’ve owned cryptocurrency for a long time, the big price drop hasn’t hit your net worth very hard — Bitcoin’s price is back to the same level as in November, while Ethereum is still up a good deal since that time.
But that $400 billion of evaporated wealth had to have hurt a lot of people. If you bought in December or January, you’ve taken a big hit. Some of the losses have been taken by early investors…
