My Channel
Hi people of the internet, I’m starting a blog/YouTube/Steemit/Twitter channel on cryptocurrency and all things related to and figured I would introduce my story of how I got into the scene.
Now this story(although long and sprinkled with bad jokes) showcases just how risky diving into the crypto world head first can be. Try to see if you can find my mistakes as we go.
The Conversation That Changed My Life
So the year is 2016, tax return season rolls around and you are sitting at the gym one day talking to some friends about how to spend these funds the government decided to forcibly borrow all year long(those greedy Bastards)
Do you save for a down payment for a house? Invest in the latest tech stock on a hot tip from a friend? Buy that life size blow up doll Amazon has been pushing on you all year? Maybe treat yourself to a nice long trip somewhere hot? You are overcome with this new wealth and all the possibilities it may bring.
Then out of left field, a stranger walks by and tells you
“Son if you want to get rich you need to go all into Bitcoin and and Ethereum”
Now if you are like me your first response would be something along the lines of,
“Bitcoin? You mean that imaginary internet money? duuuuude you are craaazzzy… I missed getting in at $0.25 cents there is no way I’m getting in now at $20”
Well that was me last year, but being the gullible sucker I was I listened to this strange man and let me rope him into this wild and crazy world of cryptocurrency. Now I was far from an expert, but I still had heard the stories in high school about the crazy returns of people buying Bitcoin at fractions of a cent. Feeling all high and mighty about my knowledge(probably sounding like an arrogant fool) I was absolutely stunned when he tells me the current price($700 ish) and how much he has made in his past three years of crypto.
What can I say, he had me hooked.. The next hour was a blur, a deluge of knowledge that had me on the edge of my seat from the start. My intended workout was scrapped, instead of bench press and biceps(don’t you judge me) I learned of cryptography, blockchains, and “returns on investments”. I’m going to be honest here, I didn’t remember most of what he said but the one thing that stuck was the Ethereum DAO(UHHH OHHHH…) but more on this later.
Buying My First Bitcoin
So as I stated before, I was hooked. Immediately after leaving the gym I headed on over to the bank to grab my new found government money and then to the hipster restaurant in town where our only Bitcoin ATM was located. And that’s where you found me for the next hour, that one goofy looking kid in short shorts feeding twenty after twenty(It was late okay… bank was closed) into this magic money machine.
For those of you that have used a Bitcoin ATM you will know that you need a “wallet”. Weeeellll back then let's just say I was not one of those due diligence kind of guys, and as soon as I insert all my funds I am prompted to scan my wallet bar code.
“My wallet what…”
Yuuup I had no wallet made, phone forgotten in the car and a couple grand worth of money sitting in a machine I knew nothing about. Reaaaal smart move Davis…
Luckily it prompted me to create a new one. Unluckily it was a string of random characters I had to meticulously copy down onto a napkin.
Well all that being said and done, I was now the holder of Bitcoin(with a large 15% fee taken off the top by the ATM). But who cares, I now had MAGICAL INTERNET MONEY and I was pumped.
The Ethereum DAO
So I have my wallet written on a napkin with this currency I know absolutely noooothing about, what should I do next. Learn about what I just bought? Understand the underlying technology of Bitcoin and the blockchain? NAAAAAHHH lets send it to something else I don’t understand, the Ethereum DAO.
Now for those new to the Bitcoin scene, the Ethereum DAO(Decentralized Autonomous Organization) was to be the first form of venture capitalism on in cryptocurrency space. I can do a write up another day on the DAO(or you can do a simple google search and find a waaaaay better explanation) but essentially it was intended to be an investor-directed fund raised through the concept of an ICO(think IPO but with fake internet money).
So a quick google search pulled up the page for the Etherum DAO where it gave me a quick little briefing on the technology and how to buy(LAWL as if I read that). Luckily I remembered enough of the conversation with crazy bitcoin guy from the gym to know I needed both Ethereum and an Ethereum wallet.
My First Exchange
Fueled by the dream of becoming rich I frantically googled bitcoin exchanges and came across Bittrex(At the time low volume, currently the best exchange evaar… Hit me up with that colab. Trex). Easy enough to sign up for right? Email… Same password I had been using for everything since I was 10… And Boom, I had an account.
Now luckily I was somewhat computer literate and able to navigate the site and find my way to the wallets. It’s a miracle I didn’t send my bitcoins off into cyberspace but eventually, I got them on there, bought some extremely overpriced Ethereum and sent them directly to the DAO address.
Yup ooooopsy.. Immediately after doing this I remembered how I needed to send them from MY wallet, as in one I held(not the exchange). I panicked, I had just lost my sweet sweet MAGICAL INTERNET MONEY the government had paid for and didn’t even get that awesome blow-up doll.
A few minutes of hysterically pacing my basement helped me breathe and think it through. Well as it turns out a number of people had also done that(stupidity in numbers am I right?) and Google told me that all I needed to do was email the exchange with my Ethereum wallet address and they would help me sort it out. PHEEEWWWW
Back to the DAO
Now those clever readers out there may have noticed I was using the terms “was” and “intended” while talking about the DAO. Weeeellll lets just say there was an exploitation in the code allowing users to transfer about 50 million dollars worth of the 100 million(yuuuup million with an “M”)raised into their own account.
Well as you can imagine I was freaked for this was the third time I had almost “lost” my MAGICAL INTERNET MONIES. Of course, there was a huge proceeding with this… Hard fork of Ethereum… Lots of Drama… Ethereum Classic was born…
None of this really matters to my story though, because as soon as I got hold of my tokens I dumped them on the exchange for a huge loss because I feared they would continue to drop in price. Baaaad call… Because within a few short weeks the price rebounded, Ethereum holders were given a matching amount of Ethereum Classic and I was left twiddling my thumbs at a loss.
So what can we learn from this?
Well, obviously I made a ton of mistakes along the way including…
-Lack of technical literacy
-Improper wallet/key storage
-Sub par security
-Panic and over trading
All of these resulted in the loss of money, again and again I found myself losing bitcoin and having to restock to buy new coins until my crazy bitcoin friend sat me down and talked me through step by step what I needed to do.
So How Do YOU Avoid Losing Money?
Well, that is exactly why I am starting my channel, my goal is to reach out to new people entering the world of bitcoin and cryptocurrency and be their sherpa in climbing this steep technical learning curve.
I will be producing content weekly on the underlying technology of bitcoin and the blockchain as well as shooting how-to’s on buying bitcoin, downloading wallets, setting up exchanges, passwords and security, and finally trading.
Stay tuned to content in the future when I plan on releasing investment guides and updates on upcoming coins and news effecting the cyrypto world.
If you enjoyed this article and want to see more from me please follow me on…
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXuajhn1RU31l_NaZBvFKPQ
Steemit: https://steemit.com/@cryptbrocrypto
Medium: https://medium.com/@CryptbroCrypto
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptbrocrypto
Hope you all enjoyed this post, please feel free to comment and give feedback as I try and grow this channel one step at a time :)