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It has to do with so-called lottery system of success. Most of these people are not that smart IQ-wise, so a comfy white collar job is out of the question. Speculation and other hustles such as crypto, youtube, or meme stocks is the only ticket to getting rich. Unfortunately for them and not surprisingly, the expected value is negative, so most lose. Crypto crashed 70% this year..AMC crashed..NFTs crashed..see a pattern. The boring old college + white collar job + index funds +home ownership route has a much higher expected value and much smoother returns, but you need to be smart to succeed at this...you need the credentials and skills to land a good job and then a good income to buy a home, which these crypto and AMC people often lack.
Pre-pandemic, the crypto market cap was 300 billion. Today it is over 900 billion. Housing did not go up 3x in the last few years, nor did the NASDAQ or stock indices generally. Index funds did not achieve this level of performance.
Over these last few years, crypto is not just a positive value proposition but considerably superior to traditional investments. The expected value is greater if you don't buy stuff like CuteFeet.finance or Goblintown NFTs as a long term investment. If you simply bought boring, well-established coins like BTC and ETH, you'd have gains considerably greater than index funds. Only if you buy at the top are you looking at losses.
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/?symbol=CRYPTOCAP%3ATOTAL
about $130 billion of that is stable coins or new additions. Also, one must take into account the huge decline from 2018-2020, which is why BTC is unchanged since late 2017, and why BTC lags index funds (SPY, DIA, QQQ) on many timeframes as far back as 2017. BTC is only at 19k, a 90% gains from oct 2020, which is nowhere close to 3x.
Housing is bought using leverage using a mortgage, usually 10-30 years. Its not like most homeowners are buying a home 100% cash down. The returns for housing is much more smooth, making it ideal for leverage.
Finally, if you look at price weighted volume, much of the buying was after and during price surged in early 2021, so most of these people are looking at a loss. Anyone who bought BTC after late 2020 and didn't sell is looking at a loss, which is probably a lot of people.
So the fair metric is comparing the previous all time high to the present day? Or comparing from October 2020, midway through the bull run? Or late 2017? We both know what happens when you track BTC's performance from pre-2016, it leaves absolutely everything else in the dust.
If I wanted to produce really spectacular returns, I'd do the same thing as you but in early 2017 when Ethereum was trading at $10-40 and BTC was just breaching $1000 again. Or I could put my start point at the end of 2018!
90% from October 2020 is nothing to sneeze at. Apple didn't do that. What hedge fund is up 90% since October 2020?
Nobody is saying that it is easy or risk-free to make massive profits but it is possible and has been done.
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