I'm not new to the blogging scene and I'm not new to the crypto scene. Until mid-way last year I was hoping to never have to write or work again, but life has other plans for us. Now as an unemployed, broke (we'll go into why and how you can prevent the same in later posts), and in debt 30 year old trying to leave his degenerate ways behind, I hope to write my story, lessons, observations and make a contribution to the community overall. Crypto would be nothing without its community and I think it's so easy to forget that sometimes.
For a bit of background on me and why I want to help others avoid my mistakes, I won't give you the life story. What I will tell you is that during the bull market of 2020, I went from ?1,000 invested to ?5,000 after only investing from 2019. I discovered futures and leverage and I went to nearly ?7,000 using DCA bots and strategies. When the markets starting going bearing, when the fear was HUGE, I was confident that I could keep using the same methods I was using during the bull run despite starting to lose hundreds. I continued until I lost a few thousand and then I became obsessed with recouping my losses. If I could get back to my ?7,000 I could stop and plan what to do next. ?5,000->?3,000->?1,000. I stopped, I understood that some of the value was only lost in the dip but my overall BTC value had went from in the 0.1's to 0.01 or in that range. I had liquated several times using futures, but I was confident the markets would rise any day and I didn't want to miss it. Using little amounts and high leverage, it wouldn't gain much but I run into minimal risk right? Wrong. My exchange wallet went from 0.1 bitcoin value after so much hard work, to nothing. I blamed my greed and poor choices, but I was working full time in a terrible job so I kept depositing. Unfortunately at the time, I was at risk of losing that job any day so instead of hodling like I had before and avoiding futures, I felt pressured to secure my financial freedom and make as much as I could and this is how I excused my addition to the futures markets. At one point in my PNL I noticed I had earned $5,000 but lost $6,000 over 90 days. This became a pattern, no matter how much I gained I lost so much more.
It got to the point I withdrew from all my wallets and converted to USDT, or BTC and ETH and used them as collateral. All my crypto savings, gone and I can't blame anyone but myself. Addiction is an awful thing though, and my job situation hadn't improved but in fact, worsened. It was mid-2021 now and I was definitely losing my job, it was just a matter of when and having a meeting. The markets seemed like they were going up, I couldn't just spot trade when in a bull run... if I played it smart I could and got out at the first sign of trouble... I could do well. My confidence played out and I actually got to over ?1,600 from ?60 after 2 weeks. I thought this was it, I'm on the way back up but I still needed more and I still had wages to come. The next day, most of was lost. The job loss came, I was up to date on rent, but my credit cards were needing paid and so I used 60% of my last wage to try once more to recoup my losses which at this point had to be huge, I kept feeding the markets, falling for the fake-outs. Doubting myself after my job loss, my skill in anything but trusting the markets would be the answer to everything. I was still failing but I was just making silly choices I told myself and my friends. I spent more days in profit but it was always one big loss to come along, not having a stop loss due to thinking the price will always go back up and experience of having a stop loss go off and then the price go back up.
What had started so well as a hobby became an obsession, I even started using my credit cards to their limits and now I'm facing the consequences of that. I lost so much because I didn't have patience and I didn't stop making the same mistakes. Fortunately, my ID expired and I can't afford to renew it and exchanges require verification every few months so I was forcibly stopped. Cut off and grateful. I didn't listen to the don't invest more than can afford to lose advice and now I'm pay out in bills more than I'm bringing in. I became isolated from the crypto community cause I knew what I was doing was wrong and I couldn't, wouldn't ask for help. I'm not the person to take advice from, but if anything please learn from my story. Stay smart and learn from the resources and the community, it could save your wallet, your funds and your life.
What I'm doing now is trying to earn a passive income from crypto, I'm barely making $20 a month but I'm thankful for being able to earn even the smallest amount of crypto so I don't miss out on, what I still believe is, the future of currency.
