Episode 4 – A stab in the dark…
I logged into Binance and it suddenly dawned on me I was in way over my head. I still couldn’t understand what type of trade I was looking to do. I couldn’t understand whether I was trying to buy in £s, $s, Satoshis (whatever they are!) or even Bitcoin for that matter. I didn’t truly understand the limit or stops or market trades and how to value a coin or how to read a chart for that matter. But I had found something I was enjoying. Just like I described Blockfolio like crystal meth, crypto was my pimp, it was giving dopamine away for free and I was lapping it up. I couldn’t sleep for thinking about which coin I’d like to invest in next. I held the big boys, but that wasn’t enough I wanted in on the twitter hype of 3x or 5x or 10x or even the granddaddy 100x! I’d missed out on buying Bitcoin at less than $1000, I’d missed out on buying Ethereum when it was merely cents, and I’d missed out on buying Neo when it was Ant shares. I had major jealousy, I felt as though I had completed missed the Bitcoin bubble and I should have looked into it deeper in 2016 when I had the chance! Idiot! Well hindsight is beautiful, but she’s also a snake which will bite you in the ass if your not careful. I felt like I was missing out, all these alt-coins were getting thrown around on twitter and I wanted a piece of the moon action, I fell victim to my own stupidity and my own greed. I didn’t do my own research! Ok I said it, yes, I realise everyone says its every 2 minutes and everyone tells you not to listen to hype or take any advice, other than your own. But if you don’t make these stupid mistakes then you won’t learn yourself. And now I’ve learnt the hard way, surely that gives me experience in trading and investing which is priceless?! I’m trying to look at the positives at least.
Yes, I’d bought into a so-called ‘shitcoin’. I had watched a youtube video of an intellectual and well dressed looking chap talking about a technology and language I couldn’t probably understand. The proposed product sounded awesome, it was literally going to revolutionise crypto! Little did I know that there was already 317 other projects just like that of which some even had working products! But I was keen, far too keen and I wanted to start making my first big profit moves. So far I had invested about £1000. I had originally agreed to £500 with the missus but I’d taken my telling off for that! The ‘shitcoin’ – which I won’t name because I am sure behind the scenes people are probably working hard to create a product and there will be others out there who have invested int hat dream and I don’t wish to start damaging their investments – was relatively ‘cheap’ to buy and apparently it was fairly early so getting in now would show profits almost immediately. The next morning I ploughed in £100 worth of Bitcoin. I was at least sensible not to put too much more than that in to start with. I watched it climb to about 4/5% that day and went to bed looking forward to seeing a nice little return in the morning. I’d put in zero effort myself and getting trading tips online was an absolute winner! WRONG! You absolute f**king idiot, what were you thinking? You just got sold one of the oldest cons in the book, you f**king noob! Overnight the ‘shitcoin’ had bottomed out at about 60% in the red. I could have cried, I was fuming with myself and I certainly didn’t mention that one to the missus over breakfast and coffee. I couldn’t get out the house quick enough. I checked Blockfolio 46 times on the way to work hoping to see some sort of recovery but deep down I knew I’d learnt a harsh lesson straight away. I’d been sold a false dream, I’d bought the bag that some internet genius had sold, I’m sure he had made a tidy profit at least. So when someone gives you a bit of advice, at least have the courtesy to listen, you never know it might save you some heartache as well as dollar down the line!
…”I didn’t do my own research!”…
So as any noob in crypto does, I went back to the drawing board. This time I was going to put in the graft, learn my stuff and show the world I wasn’t as stupid as I had just made out. I immersed myself in the community, subscribed to as much free material as possible, listened to as much crypto podcast content as possible, and I had managed to stop myself ploughing in money in order to make gazillions over night. I didn’t know the first thing about technical analysis and so far my fundamentals were pretty much; ‘well I like the sound of that coin’. I needed to get a grip on this crypto lark soon or I would have to give it all up with my tail between my legs, and earn back what I had lost the hard way! I took a couple of days off.
The break was what I needed and with a new found ambition, and enthusiasm to succeed I set back to it. I kept listening to CRYPTO101 enjoying interviews and learning about new technology and innovations happening in the space. I kept reading articles online, medium, telegram, facebook, every spare minute I was trying to find new projects to delve into. I’ve never been one for standing back and letting someone else make the mistakes to win. This is the reason I hate ping pong, because I have to win the point on EVERY shot! Attack is the best form of defence and I’m not frightened to take a risk. I wanted to prove I could win.
After going through many different alt coins I kept coming back to the same one, Icon. A project that looked as though it had potential. A well put together website in my opinion, with a decent sized team and fundamentally the project was based in Korea, away from Chinese regulation but close enough to make an impact on the massive Asian market. It was also very well discussed and talked about throughout numerous communities. I did see a few people talk about it on youtube and twitter but I didn’t jump straight in, I waited out a couple of days before deciding on my position. I wasn’t going to go all in but I’d allocated a fair size of my portfolio ready for this investment, what could possibly go wrong?!…
CRYPTO 101 