If you experienced a severe case of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) last August and decided to sell settlement payments for pennies on the dollar, enthusiastically cartwheeling and caterwauling into investments such as Bitcoin, the IBIT ETF, or Strategy stock, here is how your performance would have fared from August 26, 2025, to June 9, 2026, at the time of posting.
If you sold a structured settlement at pennies on the dollar and invested the proceeds using a “Bridge to Crypto” strategy on August 26, 2025, the following table reflects the resulting prices as of the market close on June 9, 2026—less than nine months after the “Bridge to Crypto” press releases by a Florida company. These are not hypothetical risks; they represent real, irreversible drawdowns that sharply contrast with the guaranteed income structured settlement sellers forfeit when pursuing the volatility of cryptocurrency.
| Asset | Aug 26, 2025 | June 9, 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $111,802.66 | $61,788.38 | –44.77% |
| IBIT | $63.10 | $35.14 | –44.31% |
| MicroStrategy (MSTR) | $351.36 | $117.02 | –66.69% |
Sources: CoinMarketcap and Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance
In considering this today, remember that it’s not just the loss shown in the table — it’s also what preceded it, the sales pitch involving the pennies‑on‑the‑dollar sale of the income‑tax‑free structured settlements to raise the funds for the investment. And there must be a reason regulators insist on reminding investors that past performance is not a guarantee of future results: the warning exists precisely because people tend to forget it at the moment they need it most.
✅ Is “Past performance is no guarantee of future results” a legal requirement? 🎯In regulated investments, the warning is legally required in principle (SEC + FINRA). The exact sentence is not mandated verbatim, but the disclosure is mandatory in substance.Yes — in substance.
For anyone still unclear on how FOMO and FORO drive these decisions, the illustration below captures the emotional physics. Keep in mind the dubious “Structured Settlement Bridge to Crypto” Strategy that was the subject of national press release campaign in August 2025 out of South Florida.
Live from Structure Your Lunch Money Park
Sing along! (to the tune of “London Bridge is Falling Down”)
Crypto bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down!
Crypto bridge is falling down,
My fair laaadyyy!
Build it up with stablecoins,
Stablecoins, stablecoins!
Build it up with stablecoins,
My fair laaadyyy! Stablecoins will wash away,
Wash away, wash away!
Stablecoins will wash away,
My fair laaadyyy!
Build it up with DeFi apps,
DeFi apps, DeFi apps!
Build it up with DeFi apps,
My fair laaadyyy! DeFi apps will rug-pull away,
Rug-pull away, rug-pull away!
DeFi apps will rug-pull away,
My fair laaadyyy! Send it down with leverage high,
Leverage high, leverage high!
Send it down with leverage high,
My fair laaadyyy!
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