Crypto Didn´t, But Being In Crypto Made Me Rich

2TSj...cEUn

9 Apr 2024

109

It´s almost two years ago.
Really, is it only two years ago?
Yes, only two years ago I figured out I was F´ed.

The Terra Luna crash in May 2022 and the fall of lending firm Celsius and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) in June told me the bull is dead and the bears are back.

Unfortunately, I was having hopes that we would see a bounce till April 2022 which fed my buy-the-dip addiction. I started buying the dip around the early April 40K and I did not buy BTC.... I bought the ALTs expecting BTC to hit 100K by June 2022.
Boy was I wrong.

Badly F´ed

It was so bad I still suffer from Bear Market PTSS, so keep that in mind.
To understand why it was so bad you might need the BitcoinBaby Lore.
I had been in debt for as long as I can remember, in my early teens I owed my brother a lot of money at least for a 13-year-old it was a lot.

My mom made me pay it, but I found away to overdraw my bank account as a teen, hence the debt was transferred to a Bank, and when I was able to lend more as a Student I did.
Life was for having fun, and fun does not come cheap.
Hence I was used to being in debt all the time, until I got divorced, got an inheritance, and flipped the switch.

The inheritance paid for the divorce and allowed some of the debt to be removed from my balance sheet.

Flip The Switch

Then I saw the light. I saw the annual cost of my credit card debt and the same week I got an offer from my bank.

Credit card 27% interest
Bank 6,7% interest

That offer sparked my interest, I called the bank to ask if it was real, and when they confirmed I used the bank loan to pay off the last bit of debt.

No Money, No Debt

So now I had no debt, but also no money left at the end of the month. No savings, no backup, that was hard any unexpected payment would need a lot of work to be made.
Fortunately, there were few.

Still, it took me some time to flip the switch and start budgeting.
Eventually, I did, and trust me I was left with almost nothing at the end of the month, but 10 times almost nothing could pay for one unexpected bill.

When I finally was in control of my finances, for the first time ever, I got a gift, my dad gave me a 2K Christmas gift.

I have no clue why, or where it came from but it was the first time I got money that I did not have to use to pay outstanding bills.

That money had great timing as I just got into crypto in the summer of 2020, and by X Mas 2020, I gave myself $750 in BTC and $250 to trade spot.
I put the 1K aside as an emergency fund.

Ready to lose it all

I was willing to lose that 1K I invested, but I did not. It actually grew.. it grew like a mofo.
And the fact that I was budgeting, not having any debt, learned about finance and markets, must have done something to me.

Because, not only my crypto investment kept growing, so did my emergency fund. During the 2021 summer dip I put in another $1000 in crypto.

Happy X Mas

X-Mas 2021, I took everything out, well the $2300 I invested.
By now I made an insane amount of money, for someone who never had any savings that is.
My 2K investment was now 12K.

There I was, it was early 2022. No debt, 2K in BTC, 7K in ALTs, and 4K in the bank. Sick Fluff, how did that happen?

Then everyone started talking about a prolonged cycle, and a 100K BTC. As a good little noob, I took the bait and bought back in way too early.
I ended up putting my 2K back in before Luna collapsed and after Celcius, my 12K, was worth 4.5K and still going down.

End Of Bitcoin Baby The Lore

I have never been in the red, I always owned more than I had invested but it came close. When SBF F´ed us all I had 6K invested and only 7.7K in holdings.

Going down from being slightly wealthy for the first time, to seeing 10K profit dwindle to a $700 profit with a 7K risk... but that probably shaped me for the rest of my investors' life. I can stare into the bottom of the bear market and still buy!

I promised myself

And I did, I kept buying till the FTX bottom and I got my BTC at 16K.
I knew that this bear market was an opportunity.

I promised myself that I would keep grinding because bear markets make you rich....if you have the stamina to stick around long enough.
From June 2022 I focused on HIVE content, and I kept making free crypto using Noise, Torum, and other side hustles. I learned about the market, the cycles, the narrative, the macro, and how to plan.

Post Celcius Syndrom

Celsius really hurt I had about $500 with those fockers and I thought I lost it all. Now I was already a conservative trader, but that got even worse.
No Lending
No Leverage
No Staking

I got hurt once so for a long time I just invested, hodled, and did some swing trading on the occasional very green and red days.

Fast Forward

Now that summer is closing in on us fast, and I have been grinding for almost two years, spending most of my free time on crypto-related things I do not have to wonder if it was worth it.

It´s been a blast and the best is yet to come.
If you read my previous posts you know I am up quite a bit from that 7K and that I plan to get out before the bears wake up.

I do not need to sell the top, I will just leave with a profit and return when we bottom. And the way things move that looks quite feasible.

But it does not matter!

If the bull market ends right now and I will sell my ALTS at a 20% loss over the next months I could keep my BTC and walk away with a profit...but that crypto profit would not be the biggest win.

Being in crypto, learning about investing, and the financial markets made me diversify. I am mostly into crypto, but I got my apartment at a great price and a low mortgage so I am up on that investment.

I put some money in company stocks, getting a 15% employee discount and I am up on that investment as well.

I moved some money into silver and gold, and just FYI both stock and Gold are no big numbers, but they are additional savings on top of my emergency fund (which atm is almost as big as my crypto fund).

Bikini Bottom Line

Getting into crypto taught me so much about money that it increased my overall wealth, not just that bit of crypto as that is the part I expected to lose.

Crypto made me focus, made me see, made me make money in all aspects of life. And the grinding plan still has a year, I will keep grinding just for the fun of it.

Crypto has not made me rich yet, but being in crypto has.
Thank goodness you made it till the end Pees, Love and I am out of here!