You’re Not Alone: Ripple Exec Lost Thousands on ‘Worthless’ Tokens Too

Tim Alper
Last updated: | 2 min read

Learn from your mistakes, goes the old adage.

David Schwartz. Source: A video screenshot, Youtube/UNCHAIN Convention

And when it comes to crypto investment, it appears that there is no shortage of mistakes to be made – providing the rest of the world with plenty of opportunities to learn from other investors’ cryptoasset-related mishaps.

In an eye-opening Quora thread that gathered pace early this month, a number of crypto investors candidly discussed their crypto gaffes – in answer to the question: “Have you lost money trading in bitcoin (BTC) and any other cryptocurrencies?”

An answer was even forthcoming from David Schwartz, the chief technology officer at American crypto giant Ripple, who admitted to buying more than 11 tokens that have since plummeted in value.

Schwartz wrote that he had “absolutely” lost money trading crypto, although the figure was “not as much as I’ve made.”

He added,

“I’ve bought quite a few cryptocurrencies that turned out to be disasters. Here are just a few cryptocurrencies that I bought that I ultimately had to write off as worthless: TIX, DICE, FLASH, VEZT, AMP, SIG, BEE, KIND, PRYZE, KUDOS and NRN.”

He tallied up his losses on these and other better-off-forgotten tokens, writing,

“My total losses, just on tokens that [have] become completely worthless, is just over USD 300,000.”

Other posters shared their own tales, with a Spring Hill, Florida-based contributor explaining that she had lost “most” of her “life savings” in May this year after she was “approached by this broker on Facebook who convinced and promised me that if I invested a certain amount of money I would have a very good return on investment.”

This sad story didn’t get much cheerier, as the contributor explained, “Every dollar I paid them was gone. Initially, it [would] appear on their trading platform but I couldn’t have any further access to it, even my ROI which had accumulated over a stretch of three months. In August, I was [completely] removed from their platform.”

Another apparent victim of crypto fraudsters warned that unscrupulous individuals often “use mind games to steal from investors” – with one contributor advising,

“No one can beat the market, no one can have [a] 100% win rate. You lose, you make it back, you learn [from] your mistakes and continue to trade. In trading, it is important to be profitable in the long term.”

Therefore, investors need to be cognizant of the risks and should be careful not to invest more than they can afford to lose.
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