It was January 20th, 2016, and I was up late on the laptop browsing around the internet. A story about Bitcoin had popped up and I had decided to finally go down the rabbit hole and learn exactly what Bitcoin was. Like many people, I had heard of Bitcoin, but never took the time to research and figure out how it worked.
I decided to start by reading Satoshi Nakamoto’s whitepaper, but couldn’t even understand or finish it by the second page. I almost give up but instead went to YouTube to watch videos on how Bitcoin and blockchain worked and about 2 hours later I was hooked. Why didn’t I look into this earlier when I first heard about Bitcoin?
I knew I had some extra cash in my bank account from Christmas and decided to finally buy some Bitcoin. I checked out the price and it was $400. Of course I know better now that price shouldn’t make a difference in crypto, but back then, it was a little intimating. Surely it was overpriced right? (who knew, right?)
I knew there were other coins like Litecoin, Monero, and Ripple and kept browsing around the internet, researching some more. For some reason, I wound up on 4chan’s /biz/.
Back then, threads mostly consisted of Amazon dropshipping, flipping products from Alibaba, RobinHood stock trading, and general finance advice. /biz/ was originally created as an containment board from /g/ who was getting fed up of the constant Bitcoin threads, derailing the discussion from tech. It was then, /biz/ was born.
A few threads about Bitcoin and crypto would popup every now and then, but stock trading seemed to be the trend in those days. I then stumbled upon a thread called “Ask the World’s First Ethereum Millionaire Anything”. People in the thread called it “the next Bitcoin” and “Bitcoin 2.0”
Sounds interesting.
I went back to YouTube and learned about smart contracts, DApps, and Vitalik Buterin. Hmmm, this Ethereum could really be a game changer.
I opened up my first exchange account, bought some Bitcoin and converted it to Ethereum via ShapeShift.
And the rest is history.
Since then, /biz/ has become 100% crypto. At first, there were some complaints from Alibaba droppershippers and stock market traders. But once people started posting their 6 figure crypto portfolios with 200%+ gains, crypto couldn’t be ignored any longer.
/biz/ was always about making money and they finally found a way how. 5% stock market gains and $100 a month with Amazon affiliate seemed like peanuts compared to crypto.
My next coin I found on /biz/ was PIVX which I got in at 20 cents. PIVX was posted on /biz/ nonstop with users touting it as the next Monero. I did my research on PIVX, thought it was good buy, and went for it. It has since returned over 5000% back in gains.
Your first time visiting /biz/, many threads might seem to be obvious pump in dumps, chasing ATHs, and bad shitcoin investment advice. But just like the rest of 4chan, there is a lot of bullshit and you need to filter it out until you reach the gems.
/biz/’s next choice was ChainLink (LINK). A small market cap ERC-20 token that aims to solve the oracle problem of smart contracts. ChainLink was shilled hard on /biz/ late 2017 and the memes were some of the funniest I had ever seen.
I couldn’t ignore it any longer and spent half a day researching LINK, reading blogs and watching videos and conferences. Damn, I thought, this could be another gem.
ChainLink threads were full of FUDsters and trolls saying the project was going nowhere and developers weren’t providing updates. But I knew I had to read past the bullshit and went for it.
I originally bought LINK at 48 cents and a few days later it dropped hard. LINK trolls rejoiced but I decided to go with my gut and ended up averaging down with my biggest buy at 17 cents.
Since then, LINK has reached an all-time high of $1.70 and I expect it to go much much higher this year.