Crypto Crash 2018: 5 Stories of Survival – Part 2

Tell me how you got into Crypto back in 2017:

I originally heard of Bitcoin when my Calculus II professor explained how amazing it was to our class during the summer of 2013. So, I went home and looked it up on Wikipedia and still didn’t quite understand the concept, and so I didn’t bother any further. It wasn’t until later, in 2017, when my brother and his friends started investing and making massive gains that I began to take notice.

I started researching it more and joined a few Facebook groups focused on cryptocurrency investing. Most of my research was on how to invest, rather than why to invest. The key lesson I learned in my research was to never invest any amount that I couldn’t afford to lose. I started out by buying a little portion of Litecoin and Bitcoin whenever I had a small amount of money to do so. 

Describe the euphoria and bull run of late 2017

The periodic small investments went from late summer 2017 into late fall of 2017. Then came the huge run up throughout December. It was absolute mania in all of the Facebook groups I was a part of. It seemed like everyone on there had some ICO they wanted to shill as the next Bitcoin and everyone was making predictions of how Bitcoin was going to reach $1 million per coin in just a few years.  Around that time we started to see many mainstream media outlets publishing stories of crypto scams such as Bitconnect. I felt like I had truly missed my opportunity to become wealthy off of Bitcoin.

What was your experience through the ensuing crypto winter like?

Almost immediately after the huge run up to 20k for Bitcoin came the crypto winter. For me, the winter stung badly as I had put my entire income tax return into Litecoin.  I was banking on LitePay becoming the next big thing.  As the crypto winter continued, LitePay ended up being a scam and I lost my entire income tax return due to the continued downward trend of the bear market that LitePay failed to stop.

What was odd though, was during this time, it seemed like so many people knew a massive sell off was coming and kept quiet.  While many others were still making extremely bullish price forecasts. It seemed that Charlie Lee and several admins in my crypto groups were aware that a massive crash was coming. 

I also remember John McAfee at this time gloating about making money off of poor people with all his rich friends by tricking them with his pump and dump schemes and that’s all that cryptocurrency was good for. I became curious as to how these people knew that a dump was coming and that’s when I learned about market cycles and what to expect for the next few years. 

How did you get through all this?

I began looking more into why I should invest in Bitcoin instead of how. I became more interested in blockchain technology and what money problems Bitcoin solved. Once I learned about the utility of Bitcoin, and the positive impact on the world it could have, I became even more bullish. I bought and read “The Bitcoin Standard” by Saifedean Ammous and became, what is considered in the crypto community, to be heavily orange pilled. 

At this time, I also watched several lectures by Andreas Antonopoulos and became an active viewer of Crypto Capital Venture’s YouTube channel. I remember asking a bunch of my peers in 2018 if they thought that Bitcoin would ever go back up and they all laughed at me and said no. 

So what did you do next?

Summer of 2018 came around and I finally saw Bitcoin back at the price I had first seen back in the late summer of 2017. I told myself if I ever saw this price again I would go all in. I invested as much as I could afford to lose and gave up several luxuries to do so. I gave up living in a nice downtown apartment in Ann Arbor to living in section 8 housing in Ypsilanti which made my commute very stressful. I kept the same car that I had for years, I didn’t go on any expensive vacations, and I massively limited how much I was eating out.

During the crypto winter I did not sell back into fiat. This was due to my prevailing belief that Bitcoin was actively hurting the current banking system. I really believed then, and still believe now, that Bitcoin can force a change in the system. I have a long term vision for what my financial goals are and I don’t want to risk losing my good crypto position.

Luckily I had made heavy accumulations at the $5k level and ignored all the FUD of Bitcoin being dead. I never had any intention to sell and I don’t plan on doing in the future. 

Orange pill philosophy is almost a religion.

What about DeFi and Altcoins?

DeFi apps were still very new back in 2017 but altcoin ICO projects were all the rage. It was sort of like an altcoin fever by the end of 2017 and even into the early parts of 2018 despite the crypto winter. One thing I learned from all the mania is that there aren’t many good altcoin projects and most people are better off just buying Bitcoin; not financial advice!

What are your views and ideas of the recent 2021 developments?

As you can likely imagine, I’m still very much in the green with my crypto investments overall and am now more bullish than ever now that countries are interested in making it legal tender. 

This was a fantasy for the community back in 2017. I still do DCA when I can, especially with this pullback in Bitcoin’s current cycle. I spend most of my time educating myself and others about Bitcoin. My future plans include developing a wallet that solves many issues that I see with self-utility for your average person as well as supporting the Lightning Network.