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ECB Chief Lagarde Admits Her Son Lost Crypto Cash (reuters.com) 61

No one is a prophet in their own land, including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who admitted on Friday that her son lost "almost all" of his investments in crypto assets, despite copious warnings. From a report: Lagarde has long railed against cryptocurrencies, calling them speculative, worthless and a tool often used by criminals for illicit activity. "He ignored me royally, which is his privilege," Lagarde told a town hall with students in Frankfurt. "And he lost almost all the money that he had invested."

"It wasn't a lot but he lost it all, he lost about 60% of it," Lagarde added. "So when I then had another talk with him about it, he reluctantly accepted that I was right." The ECB chief has two sons in their mid-30s but did not say which one she was referring to. The ECB has called for global regulation of crypto assets both to protect consumers who are unaware of the risk and to close a loophole that can be used to channel funding to terrorists or lets criminals launder cash.

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ECB Chief Lagarde Admits Her Son Lost Crypto Cash

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  • She could've bet all of ECB's money in Safe Moon. I mean it's in the name.

  • Who cares?

  • I didn't recognize the initials "ECB" and thought this was going to be another story about a crypto broker "losing" a fortune in customer money due to forgetting a password or some other sloppy practices, only to have the money mysteriously get transferred to someone's private wallet later.

  • "It wasn't a lot but he lost it all, he lost about 60% of it," Lagarde added.

    It's not Lagarde's fault that her kid ignored her advice. However, if she thinks that 60% is "all" that's perhaps a bit more concerning for someone in her job.

    • English isn't her first language, and she was speaking extemporaneously at a town hall meeting, so I think the imprecision of her micro-gaffe is forgivable.

      • by Teun ( 17872 )
        For a French person her English is excellent.
        But yes, 60% is not "almost all", let's say he lost the majority of his savings.
      • "but he lost it all, he lost about 60% of it"

        Put a wig on Will farrel. Anchorman 3: Crocodile skin

      • Under normal circumstances yes, but in her job when talking about financial matters mistakes like this can sometimes be very costly.
    • by Sique ( 173459 )
      He lost the majority of it. Which is what she was actually saying.
    • by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Saturday November 25, 2023 @06:47AM (#64030373)

      60% loss is considered a devastating wipe out in a real investment.

      Her error was not in the words she chose to describe the magnitude of his devastation but that she used the word "investment" to describe what he was going.

      "Gamble" was a better word choice.

      Or "stupid as fuck" but she can't say that in public.

    • It's not Lagarde's fault that her kid ignored her advice. However, if she thinks that 60% is "all" that's perhaps a bit more concerning for someone in her job.

      60% loss is a bloodbath. What asset is that even remotely acceptable for besides your car, which most definitely is not an investment?

      Can you imagine telling someone that lost 2/3 of their retirement fund, well, hey, it wasn't all of it?

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Penny stocks, venture capital, anything but the biggest pharma companies, lots of things. Even big company stock sometimes loses like that. Boeing, for example.

        Investment means you have a reasonable expectation of return. It doesn't have anything to do with the amount of risk, other than it's generally not zero.

        The issue is why you would expect a return on an investment in cryptocurrency.

      • 60% loss is a bloodbath. What asset is that even remotely acceptable for

        It's acceptable for a high-risk investment, the sort that you only put money in that you can afford to lose. Regardless, 60% is still not "all" and anyone would take a 60% loss over losing it all.

  • >global regulation of crypto assets both to protect consumers who are unaware of the risk

    Regulation won't stop it. "A fool and his money are soon parted." and "There's a sucker born every minute." will still be true, as they have been forever. Regulation will result in those "unaware" people thinking they're protected from risk, which only means more will play. It's a zero-sum game*. More playing, but each losing less. For every winner there's a loser. In crypto, there are a few big winners (e.g. SBF)
    • Regulations are *exactly* there to prevent such abuse.

      In EU, there's blacklist of gamblers, for example. Known debtors or voluntarily admitted are listed so when they need to show ID for gambling, they get denied the game.

      Other regulations, like in banking, make sure exact total expenses are mentioned and that credit worthiness is checked before getting loans.

      Such regulations are exactly made for those unable to manage their own finances, to protect them from their incapabilities and society from having to

  • by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 ) on Saturday November 25, 2023 @12:55AM (#64030101)

    " The ECB chief has two sons in their mid-30s but did not say which one she was referring to."

    I can just see the more responsible of the two sons shaking his head and saying to himself, "Great, now everybody who doesn't actually know the family...business associates, news reporters, possible investors and such, are going to be wondering whether I'm the idiot. Thanks for letting dumbass off the hook again, Ma."

  • "And he lost almost all the money that he had invested."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (10 second watch)

    Cryptocurrency speculation is gambling. You're buying nothing other than the right to resale that nothing to someone else later for more than what you paid for it. No matter how many people try to explain it, the Crytpo-Bro Ponzi Parties continue to pretend it (or NFTs) is investment. When there is no "underlying security" OR if that thing they claim is an underlying security is worth nothing, it'

    • No! This cannot be true!

      Come on, will you be telling me next that FX isn't an investment and that I can't make huge returns by daily trading?

      • by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

        > I can't make huge returns by daily trading?

        You can make huge returns by day trading! Well, probably not *you* but "you" in the general sense certainly do often times make huge returns. They often also make big losses.

  • Playing with crypto is no different than daily trading, aka gambling aka what leads to the bankruptcy of roughly 90% of people who are chasing fast profits.

    Calling crypto all the evil words because of that is just illogical. Those who invested in e.g. Bitcoin in 2009 and have sat on it ever since are doing fine. That's no different than long term investing in stocks. Unfortunately a large number of crypto coins have turned out to be worthless crap but if you spent at least a few months in crypto, you'd ea

    • Playing with crypto is no different than daily trading

      Uh... yes it is. In crypto, nothing is backed by anything in the real world. In daily trading, at least some of it is.

  • by kipsate ( 314423 ) on Saturday November 25, 2023 @02:03AM (#64030167)
    The great majority of unsophisticated "investors" will lose significant chunks of their money when they attempt any form of day trading, no matter in what asset: stocks, options, bonds, commodities, currencies or "crypto".

    That's because they're up against an unbeatable army of professionals and algorithms that no one can dream of outperforming consistently with day trading. This is exacerbated by greed, impatience and fear of losses that amateurs who engage in day trading are subject to more than anyone else: the reason to engage in day trading is making a quick buck, which selects for risk takers with tendencies of greed and emotional decision taking.

    The summary does not mention whether the son of Lagarde engaged into daytrading but virtually everyone putting large amounts of their net worth into "crypto" qualifies as a greed driven risk taker and is bound to lose their "investments". The scam-ridden universe of "crypto" makes this even more of a certainty.

    Now for some nuance, the term "crypto" compasses the thousands of opportunistic Bitcoin copycat cryptocurrencies that are almost without exception outright scams, as well as the ill-conceived concept of NFTs and "stablecoins", the latter used by exchanges to fraudulently hold fractional reserves like a bank legally can.

    For some perspective, a non-speculative investor with patience that would have put their money into Bitcoin and just waited it out, would be in the green considering most time frames (any time frame actually, except mostly for the period between February 2021 to May 2022 and today).

    Bitcoin also can be regarded as a highly speculative investment that can go to zero at any time, but at least it is very different and far removed from anything "crypto". For starters, it was envisioned conceptually as an uncensorable money, and it first proved its utility by allowing payments to Wikileaks at a time it got shut off from the banking network. Bitcoin genuinely represents a new paradigm that many people believe may actually work and survive as a money free of political meddling and manipulation through interest rates and other central banks interference. Therefore, it would be a mistake to lump Bitcoin together with scam-ridden "crypto" horseshit. Also, it must be noted that there is no need to trade crypto for unsophisticated investors to lose their shirt: any brokerage account offers plenty of opportunities for them to get completely wrecked.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sique ( 173459 )

      The great majority of unsophisticated "investors" will lose significant chunks of their money when they attempt any form of day trading, no matter in what asset: stocks, options, bonds, commodities, currencies or "crypto".

      That's because they're up against an unbeatable army of professionals and algorithms that no one can dream of outperforming consistently with day trading. This is exacerbated by greed, impatience and fear of losses that amateurs who engage in day trading are subject to more than anyone else: the reason to engage in day trading is making a quick buck, which selects for risk takers with tendencies of greed and emotional decision taking.

      This is not the exact reason. The main reason is that trading by itself is a zero-sum game, and for each guy who triples his net worth, there have to be two who lose it all. If you add provisions and other fees, trading will lose you money, except you are the bank which gets paid provisions and fees. Only if the assets itself generate value, e.g. somewhere in the chain of ownership, there are people working and creating valuable goods or adding to valuable goods, you can expect the value go up. It's Adam S

      • by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Saturday November 25, 2023 @07:02AM (#64030397)

        Crypto is worse than zero sum due to fees, rug pulls, lost wallets, etc.

        The stock market is actually not zero sum although it seems like it should be. The reason is that stocks over time are closely correlated to the real world value of the company they represent. Extremely academic example: let's say everyone decided to stop all trade activity in company X for a full quarter. No buys, no sells. Hold only by pure voluntarily group agreement. At the end of the quarter the company announces they did great and will do even better next quarter. Then everyone agrees to trade as normal again.

        The sales will be at a higher price. But the buyers at the higher price are getting something with an underlying higher value, while the sellers make a profit. Real actual profit was made by the sellers without a loss by the new buyers.

        Because the stock has an underlying real world thing it is an economic measure of.

        Crypto is zero sum because there is no underlying thing being measured. It is the thing free floating of all connection to reality.

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Crypto is zero sum because there is no underlying thing being measured. It is the thing free floating of all connection to reality.

          Which also separates it from normal fiat currency a country might issue.

          Even the US Dollar is still backed up by the US - how the US does is generally reflected in how well the US Dollar does compared to other currencies.

          Comparing how fiat currency trades is often a useful proxy for comparing the economic performance of a country - when the US economy does well, the US dollar ri

      • The main reason is that trading by itself is a zero-sum game, and for each guy who triples his net worth, there have to be two who lose it all.

        Its worse than that. There are two factors making crypto much worse: First the cost of crypto mining. You need two to lose everything for one guy to triple his money, plus one or two paying for the cost of crypto mining. Second comes lost crypto; there's tons of crypto in wallets where the keys are gone forever. Third comes a massive amount of fraud, if we agree that fraudsters are not part of this not-quite-zero-sum game. And a small amount is crypto that has been confiscated and basically mothballed by va

      • You are missing real companies usually make a profit. That profit is given back in the form of dividends, stock buy backs, or re-investment in the company (which increases the underlying value of each share). Crypto generates no profit. Actually, pure expense, energy to mine.
    • >The great majority of unsophisticated "investors" will lose significant chunks of their money when they attempt any form of day trading
      The Mrs. Watanabes of Japan seem to contradict that. The average housewives of Japan only lost money during large scale financial collapses, when *everyone* lost money: other than that, they have managed over the decades to significantly outperform the interest rates paid by Japanese banks and bonds, through carry trading and then day trading.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Japanese stocks and bonds generally pay about 0%, so it's not hard to beat them. Daytraders' expected return is the same as the stock market, which is usually assumed to be around 6%, although it's been higher recently. If you just daytrade randomly you'll make the same amount as someone who just puts money in a bunch of random stocks and holds it. Minus the fees, but you can bet no daytrader ever tells you their gains after expenses.

  • There are plenty of stocks you could have invested in recently and lost 60% if not more. Some of them make Crypto look stable, even large caps. Take Chrysler over the last few years - high of 19p, low of 6.2p. Get that wrong and it was -68%. Roughly the same as completely mistiming bitcoin over the same period. Both investments could also have made you a lot of money with slighly different timing. Losing money on an investment just means you made a poor investment decision, doesn't mean the investment itse
  • Can we just say: If the chief of the European Central Bank says something, then it just might be worthwhile listening to her. Although what she says might be governed by politics to make you do what they want you to do, but you should at least think about it.

    Now if you are the son of the chief of the European Central Bank, and she tells you that you will lose your shirt buying crypto, and you think you know better, then you should realise that you don't.
    • by Luthair ( 847766 )
      As opposed to advocates of the cryptocurrency ponzi who have for the past 7-years been shilling to find suckers to buy in after of them? That is the whole reason we've had to endure unending nonsense submitted to, and posted by Slashdot about "digital gold", "hedge against inflation", "useful technology", etc.
  • I've not seen anybody suggest "the difference between investing and gambling is genetic", so this piece adds not much to the discourse and challenges no widely held viewpoint - or even fringe viewpoint.

    "Public figure entrusted with financial responsibility has close relation who is financially inept" isn't much of a story; if this was part of a wider series of coverage showing how much loss happens outside the spotlight of TO THE MOOOON hype on social media maybe it'd make something worth thinking about. Or

  • It's not her fault that her son is dumb as a doorknob.

    It would be way, way worse if the head of the ECB herself lost money in some crypto scam. That would scare me. But someone who just happens to be related to her and didn't follow her advice and who lost his money as a result... that's ok, carry on.

    Though I will watch very carefully now whether the ECB suddenly start pushing for bailouts for people getting cryptoscammed, you can be sure about that.

  • There's a bigger concern here.

    So some idiot lost money in crypto stupidly. That's going to keep happening.

    But, speaking as an economist, the *serious* concern here is that the head of the ECB called his activity "investing."

    You can gamble on crypto.

    You can speculate on crypto.

    You can trade crypto.

    You can invest in a company that will process crypto, and possibly even in one that mines for it.

    But you absolutely cannot *invest* in crypto!

    And the head of such a body casually referring to such is deeply concer

  • You wouldn’t want to lose cryptocurrency even in your nightmare. I'm studying to be an accountant and often use finance assignments, I found https://essays.edubirdie.com/finance-assignments [edubirdie.com] for this. I would also like to have at least 1 bitcoin. After all, they have a lot of money.

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