Hello World :)
I am a 1980’s child, a first generation American born and raised in Colorado the first few decades of my life. My parents are refugees of Marxist murderers who seized control of former Czechoslovakia in the late 1960’s and that combined with strong ideals of the Republic of United States, I began my path to where I find myself now, living in Prague, the Republic of Czechia involved with financial information, precious metals and bitcoin.
I started three websites in 1995, one of them was called ‘The GOLDen Page’, one of the first – maybe even the first? – gold news & investor websites on the internet. Although I was still in high school and then soon in college, I grew up with a strong entrepreneurial energy, passion for liberty, gold’s truth as money and love for computers. So it was only natural when I was taking fulltime courses at University studying computer science and information systems, working multiple part time jobs, my passion went into growing the golden pages.
By the time I ended University, I realized I put most my energy and time into my websites and the idea of working for big companies like my parents did their whole lives, sounded like a prison sentence. I have had a nomadic, free and adventurous & creative spirit and the idea of being put in a 9-5 cage sounded horrible. I had already worked for others since the age 15 from Albertsons, Walgreens, Kinesiology Department, Business College computer lab slaving away for near minimum wages giving my valuable time to make my first capital to invest – in the precious metals markets and my businesses and to travel around Europe!
Thankfully I have the privilege of helpful parents who were thrilled to have me back living with my them for a few years after graduation, while I got my first office going and the sites cash flowing. In 1999 I moved The Golden Page into GoldSeek.com and by the mid-2000’s, the next team members came onboard while the credit credit-debt-dollar bubble was starting to rock gold prices from nearly $250 an ounce to over a $1,000 Around the same time my silver bug fever kicked in and SilverSeek was born along with some base metals and uranium interests.
By the time 2006 hit, I made my first million, was getting lots of media attention doing interviews with Reuters to MarketWatch and asked to go on CNBC (but too timid to do at the time) and it seemed like I would be retired by the age of 30, as I had dreamed of while working behind the cash register on my weekends making money to travel to Europe and build my sites. A year later I became a multi-millionaire living the lifestyle of someone making a low middle class income.
I had a nice condo on deep outskirts of Denver, surrounded by nature and for a $1k a month, drove a very economic Scion, ate at home making cheap pasta dinners and didn’t invest into much in the place -- I slept on a mattress on the floor, used boxes as side tables, etc. My frugal upbringing carried over and I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I had more savings. In fact, looking back I remember how when I made my first millions, it felt like a bit of a letdown. It did not bring me the thrill and excitement I thought it did. Really it wasn’t about buying things but having the freedoms money provides. I do like a certain level of luxury I do admit.
The first riches in my mid-20’s did blow up my ego, sense of self-worth some and for life’s many lessons, the ego was about to learn some humility and that is worth more to me today than the financial net-worth.
Two years after making my first then second and more millions, 2008 was a horrible period for gold/silver and junior stock investors. I lost it all, mostly because of tax liabilities (another discussion), sank me into a negative net worth. It was a bit humiliating to have lost all that money so quickly and have to go around scraping up all the dollars I have saved and I could find. I even had to ask a good friend for a loan to keep goldseek going but within months I found a new opportunity.
Despite the crash in mining stocks and devastating losses, gold and particularly the silver bullion markets had a massive opportunity for the overwhelming demand for silver bars and coins. So I created an auction bullion site called seekbullion.com, which charged 1% on all bullion auctions sales. Within a year or two there was over $20 million in sales and I also began to sell 100 ounce silver bars at 5,000 oz lots at a time using options to protect my price exposure and learned a lot about the physical bullion business – which later turned into a minting business until a few years ago when the banks attacked us and costs surged and well, the US gov made a policy to make life difficult in the land of the “free.”
So back on my feet, by the age of 30 I had found my way back into some successful investments and business was thriving again as gold surged to nearly $2,000. I had moved to Vancouver, where my soon-to-be wife was living. I expanded GoldSeek to Canada, where many mining companies are based out of and business flourished. But it was not to last long again!
By the peak in 2011, I have made several millions of dollars (before tax extortion rates) and even though I expected a period of consolidation, the crash in the sector would be equivalent to what many describe the great depression as.. in relation to our mining sector. Personally I was able to survive off savings but my investments crashed with gold and silver, many junior stocks falling to 0 or down by 70-80-90%. From one extreme to another – this is the world of speculative mining investments wiped out a massive portion of my wealth, savings.
Living in Vancouver and also with a nice house part-time living in Denver, paying several thousands of dollars just to have these places, the cars and their overpriced food – Vancouver is quite ridiculous, quickly became way too stressful and draining of resources. I was putting already much of my remaining wealth in keeping my businesses going, I waited too long to reduce costs.. let good people go from the our team , downsizing the company and having to take on a lot more responsibilities to keep the sites moving along for the next upswing in the markets. So plan “C to Z” came into play, moving to the Czech Republic!
Almost 2 years ago, I moved with my fiancé to Prague and explored many new business ideas. This city is changing quickly with strong entrepreneurial spirits-energies, unlike Vancouver so easy a life and stale in many ways. I have already been to Prague 20-30 times prior and my dream of living here was realized. The first month found me attracted to and soon working out of a shared co-office working space called PAPERHUB.cz. A BITCOIN ONLY café, office, work place not too far from the center and it was a great move! They focus on anarcho-capitalism with strong interests in cryptocurrencies to 3D printing to other creative business types realizing their ideas.
I spent nearly a year working there, met many interesting people but mostly it influenced me back into Bitcoin a second round. With its price around $200-$250, I took a good chunk of my net worth at the time and plowed it into Bitcoin. ½ year later the gold and silver markets seemed to have it their capitulation bottom and a very strong rally ensued, my average investment having rallied around 500% last year, before things peaked (temporarily) the night of the Trump election.
About a year ago I moved to my private office, where I focus best, just under the Prague castle. In a building several centuries old, I love the creative environment which is around me. I am heavy into precious metals and about 1/10 or so into bitcoin and little alts. I continue to focus on goldseek, silverseek and other projects. I do not visit as many mine and mineral property sites as I did but I continue to attend various investment conferences and invited to do presentations at some of the largest ones.
I will end here for now, this is more of an introduction with a focus on my work, investment side with some personal insights I have never shared before. But I have many passions. I travel constantly, recently just went to Chernobyl, Kiev, Southern Italy, Spanish-Canary islands, Slovakia, Switzerland, Canada, US, Mexico.. all last ½ year. I love music and one of the keys to my heart is shaped as a violin – which after neglecting for a decade I am returning to back in the city of artists, I love to hike and nature is my refuge – Colorado instilled this in me but today much time is spent in the treasures of Utah, I have hiked all over including 3 trips into and out of Grand Canyon.
I love inspiring others and try to have a positive impact in this word trying to seek its truths and share it with others. I look forward to Steemit, I was introduced to it by https://steemit.com/@hilarski and love the possibilities here. So I would like to also try and participate in this growing community. I hope I can share interesting to valuable things with others here as well!
Peter