The fools buy stories, the winners buy facts.

I guess the story of Mr. Holder is a fiction. But no matter. I have a real story. Back in December of 2018 I was in the market for an apartment for my in-laws. Here in CA, you use an inspector to review the state of various features of a prospective apartment. They check electrical, plumbing, appliances, etc. It’s a skilled construction-like job. Most of these guys do this kind of work.

This was a young guy (for me, at least), maybe early 30’s. He was very well-spoken and I could tell he was very intelligent. He evaluated all 3 apartments I looked at until I bought one. He did a great job. We talked about a lot of things along the way. One thing that came up when I told him my background was in the financial world, he said he had put all his money into crypto. I choked back my shock and asked him to explain why he did that. Astonishingly, he said he didn’t know anything about stocks and bonds and didn’t trust them and felt he could trust crypto.

This is purely analagous to your story about the stories told by (the real or fictional) Mr. Holder: these folks are basically suckers and have been told a story that is in no way good for their well-being or others’. He buys the gas-guzzling car/truck and oil prices spike to $4/gallon and he drives 50+ miles/day. Or if he has to sell it when oil prices are high, boy is he going to take a hit.

I agree with you crypto is story-telling and nothing else. Most other investments have stories, as well. But these are stories of revenue, growth, markets, management and current and future values. It takes education and understanding of how value is understood in an empirical fashion.

PT Barnum was a great story teller. So what if the bearded lady wasn’t really a lady sometimes. The amusement was enabled by the story told ahead of time and someone got paid.

Yes. Suckers are born every minute.