It has been five years since I started my crypto journey in this community and I have to say, it has been wonderful. I'm extremely grateful for everything I've experienced here and I look forward more experiences.
I recently ran into a tweet that I can't even remember who the author was and the post was referring to the class of 2018 as "OGs". It was quite flattering to think that I'm now classed as one of the OGs as well.
I started my crypto journey at the end of 2017, so I consider myself a 2018 baby. This was the year that I felt the full force of the crypto market.
In 2018, I felt joy and pain in equal measure. I saw fat wallets vapourise, I plummeted into despair, and worse of all, I even got a marketing job that I quit after a month. Listen, there's no nicer way to see it, it was horrible.
The crazy thing is that 2018 started out very nicely, there was a lot of optimism, Bitcoin had just touched $20k for the first time and people were already speculating $100K. Everyone and their grandma were crypto enthusiasts, we were all eating caviar and farting gold dust.
A couple of months later and all that excitement dissipated into a blob of sadness catalysed by coordinated FUD from all the bad actors and scammers in our midst. 2018, a year that started with fever-pitch optimism ended with our hopes and dreams dashed into the abyss.
Nothing has changed
Four years down the line and we're experiencing the same pain, all over again. As I said, my crypto adventure started in 2017, but 2018 was when I was truly indoctrinated and that year gave me the highs and the lows.
Fast forward to 2022 and it is a familiar story. Five years of crypto and the market has gone full circle, taking me back to where we were when we started.
2022 started with so much hope and excitement but all that was cut by coordinated FUD catalysed different events. The first was LUNA and more recently, the FTX debacle that crippled the market.
Crypto assets in the market are taking a beating, the total market cap is less than $1 Billion, investor confidence is rock bottom and fear is through the roof. There's not much to be optimistic and the silver lining is hard to find.
We're living in 2018 all over again, the only difference is the actors at play. The FUD is loud and deafening, the pain is deep, the portfolios are vapourising and while all this happens, we'll still hold on to this flickering ray of hope that the sun will shine again, someday.
Some hope
Well, it isn't all doom and gloom for us. If you stayed the course from 2018 until today, you'll find that while nothing has changed, everything has also changed from a personal perspective.
For starters, your wallet is probably fatter and right now, you definitely have more to lose. You're looking at your portfolio value and wondering how despite the gruelling bear market, your net worth is probably even higher than in the bullish times of 2018.
On top of a fatter wallet, you have the intangible and priceless skin in the game that can only come from experience. Your skin is thicker, you're more impervious to volatility and you exude sage energy.
I started my journey in 2017, and all I wanted was a few extra dollars to buy food and drinks because I was poor. Fast forward to today and I've built a career, pay my bills, and have an actual life through crypto. I guess what 
