Social networks are full of ads about how to make money in crypto. They "spin Binance" or play on the difference between the official and market rates, creating many cards and performing arbitrage. Some "opinion leaders", "influencers" like to brag about how much they have earned, but rarely talk about losses. Well, they often lie or exaggerate their earnings. More than once, I have seen "crypto-millionaires" who go to metro stations and happily eat free pizza and drinks at the meetups.
As for investments, a simple rule applies here: Buy cheap, sell expensive. But when these moments will come - it is much more difficult to predict.
I will talk not only about successful, but also about unsuccessful investments. After all, one way or another, if you invest actively, you will most likely fail sometimes.
At that time, I worked as a consultant with a crypto company and they provided an opportunity for their employees to invest with their salary. This is quite convenient - you don't need to mobilize additional funds, you just indicate the amount from your salary that you want to invest.
Since the company had many contacts in the crypto-sphere, it was often able to receive an allocation and enter earlier at a more favorable token sale price. Throughout 2021, and maybe even earlier, there were examples of successful investments.
I was interested in investing in this way, especially since I saw some even a certain element of corporate solidarity here, the company was actively developing and increasing its staff. Already after the full-scale war of 2022, when the company declared that it donates a lot, I addressed them several times on the army issues, but I was constantly refused. Then I simply asked to pay me in advance (it was necessary to buy a car) - and I was fired. Nothing personal, it's just that the market has already started to fall, I wouldn't agree to work for pennies like, for example, students could. I knew that by saying goodbye to me, they could also say goodbye to my investments. But everything was paid off, because by 2023, that is, in less than 2 years, my investments had turned into pennies.
So, in November 2021, I invested $200 in Astroport, a project that was then being developed on Terra (Luna). Then Terra grew both in price and in the number of projects that were being built on this particular blockchain. Back then, just by holding LUNA in staking, you could get a lot of airdrops (for example, I got some ASTRO tokens as an airdrop).
I should have received 1470 tokens or something like that (I got 1468 in 2023).
For example on May 6, 2022, that would be $4364, not a bad investment with $200 right? And I wouldn't wait, I would sell at least half, or even all of it - and reinvest in something else (at that time I was spending mainly on military needs). But according to the conditions, I could not withdraw anything, I had nothing, except the promise to receive tokens later.
When I received these 1468 tokens at the end of 2023, now it is already $34-35 and even these tokens I cannot sell due to some technical glitch or lack of liquidity (an example is on the screenshot)
So this is another example of double risk when investments are made with a lock. Yes, as if the investment price was better than the market price at that time, but then many events happened - first of all, the collapse of the UST stablecoin, the collapse of the Anchor protocol, and the collapse of Terra (Luna), which even now continues to exist in two forms , because there is still LUNC - Luna Classic (as well as Astroport Classic) - but this is just existence, it is already a completely different level... Just like most projects built on Terra - either moved to other blockchains, or died or barely hold their own existence.
Of course, there was an additional risk that the company I worked with would simply forget about me. Believe me, this happens quite often in the crypto-sphere. Would I be looking for them for about $35, and where to look if all the management left Ukraine before or during a full-scale war ... So this is an example that proximity to the project (as in this case proximity to Astroport) does not always give the quality of preference - the token could be worth nothing during this time. Therefore, I forgot about such an investment, came to terms with the loss, and mentioned it only as an educational example for readers.