I would like to first preface this post by making it clear this is not a post made in vain to brag about my achievements, but simply a story about my journey through the world of cryptocurrency, and to show that it is possible for anyone to do exactly what I have done.
I was first introduced to cryptocurrencies in 2014, when I was 13 years old. More specifically I could say I was introduced to Bitcoin, it was a while before I even knew other currencies existed. I saw Bitcoin being discussed frequently on Hacking and Gaming forums I was part of at the time, and my main attraction to it was the fact that, unlike PayPal you didn't need to be 18 to sign up. I bought a small amount of Bitcoin and used it to buy game accounts and various services offered on forums, which at the time was pretty much the only thing it could be used for, as mainstream adoption was barely light at the end of the tunnel.
I had always had a fascination with the stock market, and begged my parents to open an account on Plus500 for me to trade on. Sadly they did not want me to "gamble" my money away and told me no. So you can imagine when I learnt of people trading "altcoins" on sites like Poloniex and Bittrex I was hooked immediately. In March 2017 I signed up for an account on Poloniex and took all the cash I had at the time ($500 AUD) to the bank to do a cash deposit in exchange for Bitcoin. I took that $500 and deposited it straight into my Poloniex account and bought my first two currencies, Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH). I recently found my first ever Excel Spreadsheet of my investments which I had actually forgotten about. Looking back on it made me smile.
I decided to diversify my portfolio based on the advice of the man himself, Warren Buffett. I bought into 30 of the top 100 altcoins listed on coinmarketcap.com and then sat back and watched them grow. My best investments to date would have to be Ripple (bought 11289 at $0.02/sold at $0.41) and Stratis (bought 1019 at $0.28/sold at $10.13). If I could give some advice to people looking to get into the trading and investing of altcoins it would be to do your own research, don't listen to anything other people are saying and most importantly to buy the market rather than put your money into one or two currencies. And for the love of god please do not panic sell. The one quote that has stayed with me from the second I heard it was this: "be greedy when others are fearful, and fearful when others are greedy" - Warren Buffett. When I thought about it this was exactly what I based my entire investment strategy on, buying when the market was going down rather than going up.
Two weeks ago I told my parents about what I do. I showed them my account on Poloniex, which was at the time holding around $11,000 USD worth of altcoins and told them this is what I had been doing for the last few months to make money. They were in disbelief and it took me hours to explain to them that yes, this is real money. They still do not fully understand how it works, but atleast they have stopped yelled at me to "stop playing computer games all day". I will continue trading altcoins for as long as possible, and I truly believe that cryptocurrency is the future. Please to anyone that is reading this. Go out and just buy 1 BTC today and hold it, I assure you in 5-10 years you will be thanking me.
To anyone who is interested, here is my current investments.
http://imgur.com/7KlG9Qj
Thanks for reading, tutorials and guides coming soon :).
- sl4de