Want to get rich from Crypto? Go to a Casino Instead. You’ll save a lot of time.
There is a fine line between investing and gambling in the wild world of financial markets. What starts as innocently buying Tesla stock or some Bitcoin can quickly turn into staring at data reports and charts with funny-looking trend lines at 3 a.m. Enchanted by the bull markets of 2020 and 2021, I was one of the many people who fell into this alluring but sinister trap.
Finance is no longer exclusive to the suits of Wall Street or the City of London. Nowadays, anyone with a WiFi connection can download a trading app and try his luck on the stock exchange or, god forbid, the crypto casino. My journey started in March 2020, you know, when the world looked like it might end, and the financial markets took a two week nosedive. I met someone in Mexico who introduced me to day trading. He later explained stocks and ETFs; it was not long before I got some skin in the game. I bought a bit of Tesla, Microsoft, apple…the usual suspects. And then, in the summer of 2020, I bought some Bitcoin and Ethereum. By January 2021, I was adamant that Bitcoin would become the new money and had started to dabble in the alt coin market. I loaded up on ETH and added the likes of Cardano and Doge.
Almost immediately, the crypto market went absolutely crazy. Not only were my Bitcoin and Ethereum booming, but practically all the altcoins I bought were tripling at a MINIMUM. My portfolio was going through the roof, and the $7k I had initially invested was now almost $50k. I was rich! The market eventually cooled down, and there was a big dump of the crypto markets in May of that year. Of course, this did not phase me. I still had plenty of cash to travel and plenty of cash to reinvest in more Bitcoin and altcoins, so I doubled down. It worked.
Q4 of 2021 was even crazier than Q1. Bitcoin made another all-time high, and the pump in altcoins was like nothing I had ever seen. NFTs, gaming coins, and Layer 1s pierced through the Earth's atmosphere and headed straight to the moon. The crypto markets were unstoppable. My portfolio was now well over $100k, and I was guzzling the Kool-Aid like a tub of water after running a marathon. In my eyes, Bitcoin was more valuable than dollars, so there was no point in holding cash anymore. I took most of my profits into Bitcoin and held onto my major alt coins as I thought this rocket was just getting started. I was convinced nothing could stop the crypto markets from rocketing past the moon and going straight to Pluto! How wrong I was.
The journey from ‘Future of money investor’ to ‘total crypto degen’ was gradual; the transition was complete by the end of 2022. The timing could not have been worse. When the markets dipped at the beginning of 2022, I doubled down again. This time I went even heavier in the alts, especially LUNA. By April, all was still fine; Bitcoin was around $50k and my portfolio was still a healthy $80k. Then May came around, and the LUNA collapse happened. Within less than a week, my 40k bag worth of LUNA and UST was utterly decimated. What made matters worse is I bought an extra $3-4k worth of LUNA at $30, 2 days before 1 LUNA coin was valued at $0.01. What a dumbass. I had 35k left, which evidently was not low enough for me to lose faith as I kept most of the money in Bitcoin, ETH, a few altcoins and only 5-10% in cash. Yes, I know, I was a total idiot. But what can I say? I just wanted the next 10x. The summer of 2022 was boring in the crypto casino; the market was stagnant, with low volatility and Bitcoin dragged down to 25k. I was sure the worst was over and that this was the bottom. All I had to do now was lay low and hold on. Then, the FTX scandal happened.
The markets nuked, and Bitcoin went down to $15k. I was in total shock and became very upset as my portfolio was now below $10k. My faith in crypto was so strong, my immunity to market downturns so high, that I remained unfazed after countless dumps. Even after losing half my portfolio during the Luna crash, my faith in crypto being the future remained unwavered. But with Bitcoin at $15k and my portfolio at $8k, I had less money than when I first invested in Jan 2021. I was finally losing faith and began to convince myself it would be years before Bitcoin recovered. I sold all my crypto, and then a few months later, it rebounded to 30k.
Originally, I was a kid with a bit of money who invested in the idea of Bitcoin being the future of money. My intentions were good, but then I got drunk from the fruits of the bull market. I became selfish and greedy. I had become a gambler, a degenerate... a degen. I was not only hunting the altcoin pump; I was craving the dopamine you get when you catch a 10x. I craved this feeling so much that I ignored all reason. I was heavy in altcoins and low on cash. I forgot Bitcoin could encounter a bear market, I did not take profits responsibly, I was low on cash, and I never made a plan of dollar cost averaging into Bitcoin. Ironically, my lust for money made me poorer, and I missed the opportunity to buy Bitcoin at $15k. I allowed my ego to be inflated by money, tainting my mind and soul.
I will leave you with one message. The flash of financial markets can blind you from the fact that it is gambling. One can go incredibly deep into the rabbit hole before even admitting to oneself that they have an addiction. If you want to start trading crypto or any other market, please be careful and do it with a plan. What is first an acquired hobby or skill can quickly become an addiction that can ruin you spiritually and financially.