The biggest risk in the crypto world is not taking any risks—betting is the truth
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The biggest risk in the crypto world is not taking any risks—betting is the truth
A gambling strategy that appears suicidal is the only path to long-term success.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: GRITCULT
Translation: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
I assert this: gambling is not a flaw in human nature, but our most defining trait—the engine that has driven our evolution, economy, and civilization.
From the structure of our brains to the birth of markets, from ancient exploration to modern technology, the logic of risk and reward has shaped civilization and humanity far more deeply than we dare admit.
Betting is truth.
Life as Coin Flips
Imagine two tribes in early human civilization, both facing the same mathematical reality of survival.
Tribе A plays it safe—they live near rivers, eat familiar foods, and avoid unknown risks. Their survival strategy is:
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Probability of maintaining current caloric intake: 85%
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Probability of slight improvement: 15%
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Daily expected survival rate: 0.97
Tribе B takes risks—they explore new territories, try unfamiliar fruits, and cross dangerous terrains. Their strategy is:
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Failure probability (starvation, poisoning, death): 60%
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Small gain probability: 35%
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Major discovery probability (new hunting grounds, fertile valleys): 5%
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Daily expected survival rate: 0.89
Tribе A’s conservative strategy appears superior: higher daily survival probability, lower volatility, predictable outcomes—but compound effects are ruthless.
After 1,000 days:
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Tribе A survival probability: 0.97^1000 = 0.0000061%
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Tribе B survival probability: (0.89^1000) × P(major discovery) = vastly different outcomes
The conservative tribe is doomed to extinction through slow decline.
The risk-taking tribe faces bimodal outcomes: most attempts perish, but a small fraction not only survive but thrive, eventually dominating.
The Jackpot Paradox in Evolution
Under compounding, arithmetic average (expected outcome) catastrophically diverges from geometric average (long-term median outcome).
Conservative strategies offer an illusion of safety, yet guarantee failure.
Gambling strategies appear suicidal, yet are the only path to long-term success.
In life, the greatest risk is not taking any risk.
You must risk, fail, learn, and then achieve massive gains.
Conservative strategy (Tribе A):
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Daily return: 0.97 (steady 3% decay)
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Geometric mean: -3% per day
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Extinction time: ~115 days (ln(0.5)/ln(0.97))
Gambling strategy (Tribе B):
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Daily returns: [-40%, +10%, +500%], with probabilities [0.6, 0.35, 0.05]
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Arithmetic mean: +5.5% per day
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Geometric mean: -5.8% per day for most paths, +∞ for jackpot paths
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95% of attempts go extinct faster, but 5% dominate.
Averages cannot be optimized.
You must optimize for the possibility of extreme positive outcomes—even if it increases the chance of failure. You must take risks. It's the only way.
We are descendants of the rare gamblers who won evolutionary rewards. Every living person carries ancestral genetic imprints of those who chose volatility. Dopamine triggered by uncertain rewards isn't just entertainment—it's a survival mechanism designed to optimize multiplicative, not additive, outcomes.
The Winner-Takes-All Math of Innovation
Minor innovations yield exponentially disproportionate returns.
What happens when Tribе B's gamble succeeds? They discover fire, agriculture, or advanced hunting techniques—gaining permanent survival advantages.
Frontier of innovation:
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Both tribes: 2.1 children per family, population growth: ~0.5% per generation
After innovation (Tribе B adopts agriculture):
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Tribе A: still 2.1 children per family
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Tribе B: 2.3 children per family (10% reproductive advantage from better nutrition)
A mere 10% reproductive edge triggers genetic dominance.
After n generations:
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Population of A and B: P₀ × (1.005)ⁿ, P₀ × (1.015)ⁿ
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Proportion of B in total population = (1.015)ⁿ / [(1.005)ⁿ + (1.015)ⁿ]
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Generation 100: Tribе B makes up 67% of population
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Generation 300: Tribе B makes up 97% of population
Within 300 generations (~7,500 years), a 10% reproductive advantage nearly replaces the conservative population genetically.
Genetic studies repeatedly confirm this:
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Y-chromosomal Adam: one male lineage expanded to represent ~60% of all men today
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Mitochondrial Eve: one female lineage became the matrilineal ancestor of all modern humans
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Lactose tolerance provided ~2–3% survival advantage in dairy-farming cultures 7,500 years ago. This tiny edge compounded over 300 generations, rising from 0.1% to 35% frequency—an increase of 35,000%.
Evolution’s hyper-gamblification:
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"Bets" (genetic mutations) cost almost nothing—one DNA base pair
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Failure rate ~99.99%; most mutations are neutral or harmful
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Successful bets yield exponential compounding until dominance.
This pattern repeats across scales:
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Individuals: those with better tools feed families more effectively
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Tribes: those with advanced agriculture support 100x more people
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Species: one breakthrough (language, fire, agriculture) brings global dominance
DNA reflects this: even minor innovation yields exponential compounding. First movers gain disproportionate returns. Reward structures favor extreme outcomes over moderate ones.
We did not evolve to avoid risk—we evolved to calculate risk and bet on asymmetric upside.
When We Started Rolling Bones
The oldest writing is about 5,000 years old. The oldest dice predate writing—gambling is older than language. Before law, money, or cities, we played games of chance. We rolled sheep knuckles, drew lots, created meaning from randomness.
In Mesopotamia, dice were spiritual tools. Ancient Chinese used randomness in the I Ching to divine fate. Romans cast dice before political decisions. In the Mahabharata, a kingdom falls due to a single bet. Chance is not separate from society—it is society’s foundation.
Gambling became a primitive form of resource allocation, ritualized conflict resolution, and social stratification. When you don’t know what will happen, you roll the dice—and agree to accept the outcome. It simulates risk in a controlled way. Gambling is our culture.
Better Gambling Systems
As human civilization advanced, so did our stakes. We launched transoceanic trade without knowing if ships would return; waged wars without certainty of victory; built cathedrals meant to take 300 years, unsure if anyone would finish them. But we grew smarter—we built tools to manage our gambling instincts and scale them.
The most trusted institutions in modern society are merely formalized gambling systems:
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Modern corporations: diversify investment risk
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Insurance: emerged from Renaissance European maritime trade, pooling risk
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Lotteries: funded Harvard, the Great Wall, and churches
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Stock markets: speculation machines built on future belief
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Democracy: structured gambling on who should lead us
Civilization rose by taming risk—not avoiding it—but riding it, sharing excess returns. When someone dares to innovate, over time, that innovation benefits all of humanity.
The social contract is a bet on each other.
Why We Need Gambling
The more we try to eliminate uncertainty from life, the more people seek it out.
We hold stable jobs, pay insurance, then log into Robinhood and bet savings on meme stocks. Learn crypto. Chase jackpots.
Why? Because gambling is existential.
Gambling is practice against fate. We roll dice to re-experience the thrill. Play is animals rehearsing real life—humans uniquely invented gambling to simulate high-risk scenarios.
Entrepreneurship is socially acceptable gambling. Startups are volatile. Founders bet time, status, and capital. Investors seek outliers, not averages. Venture capital models rely on jackpot logic: a few wins pay for everything. Rightful gambling is creative—it drives exploration, innovation, discovery. Speculation turns noise into signal.
When gambling works well, it is not destruction—it is creation.
Gambling is a force for good. It is courage in the face of the unknown, creating order from chaos, turning randomness into ritual.
We consume substitute risks. We watch others play. We crave stakes but fear consequences. Perhaps the problem isn't that we gamble too much—but that we gamble poorly.
The danger of hyper-gamblification isn't that we flip coins—it's that we flip them aimlessly.
We shouldn't try to eliminate gambling, but restore its evolutionary advantage. Reclaim risk as a tool for transformation. Today’s children are hyper-gambling—our apps, every surface of human interaction. The only way forward is to accept this and acknowledge the importance of speculation.
A future without risk may sound like utopia—but it is inhuman.
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@GRITCULT
