Nowadays it’s hard to not come by news of a cryptocurrency hitting new highs or lows. What just started with Bitcoin is now a market of dozens of currencies having rich valuations. To give you an example, Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a parody of Bitcoin and other currencies recently hit a market cap of $50billion. While a majority of us always wonder if this is the biggest asset bubble ever, there are a select few who have poured their life’s savings and more and started investing and trading in crypto. Here is one inspiring story.
Going anonymous here for obvious reasons. This is my “cryptocurrency millionaire story”:
I’m in my early 30’s. I have always worked in tech, and as a natural geek, I’ve always had my eyes on new and exciting tech developments. Undergrad was econ, so I’ve also followed global markets as a hobbyist.
So a few years ago, I heard about Bitcoin. My reaction was probably the same as everyone else the first time they heard about it: “Why would anyone buy that?” But naturally, I was still curious. I set up a wallet, and miner on my home office PC, just to figure out how it worked. I initially lost interest before very long.
A short time later, I happened to hear about Bitcoin again — to my surprise, it still hadn’t died yet. I decided to explore it more, and even buy some to add to the little bit I had mined. I’ve spent money on dumber things…why not?! So as I’m starting my research, I realize it’s more than just “internet geek money,” and that there are a lot of pretty smart people flooding into the space.
Fast forward a few months later — I’ve now learned quite about crypto, and all of the different projects happening and started to connect the dots when I saw the possibilities. I had even managed to create a pretty decent collection of altcoins and made some money along the way. By now, I’ve realized that it’s still a brand new industry and that it’s not going away anytime soon.
At this point, I had a pretty decent career in the corporate world, making around $150k. I was definitely comfortable. One day, I realized that I was also bored, and that I wasn’t going to be young forever — I could always come back to my old life. I wired $100k to my exchange and bought Bitcoin, then distributed it amongst the collection of altcoins I had been following. I continued to manage it as a hobby on the side while still working my day job, but it was quickly becoming my calling. I resigned a while later to focus on my investments full-time. The year and a half that would follow would become the scariest and most rewarding of my life.
In the beginning, I was working 20 hours a day learning all that I could, and perfecting my strategy. Some days were great, with massive returns — others were terrifying, as I was sure I would lose everything. Over time, it made me numb to the emotions short-term swings, so I was able to see the bigger picture. There was a point at which I had watched 30% of my net worth vanish in little over a day, and another point at which my portfolio was down more than 80% from its all-time high. I just kept moving along according to plan.
By the time the market had reached its next peak (this past January), I had turned my initial $100k into $17 million.
(Images used for representation only)
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