The end of the year is fast approaching and it is crazy to think how fast this year flew by. I have been in a reflective state of mind recently. Reviewing everything that happened throughout 2021, my outlook and goals for next year as well. As much as I like to look ahead into the future, it is important that we also pause, take a step back and look at everything we were able to accomplish throughout the year. And also the things that we made mistakes on. After all, if we don't take time to analyze why we made those mistakes, then we will be destined to make those same mistakes again. So today is another personal post about the things I am proud of accomplishing this year in crypto, and the things I wish I did better. I promise that my end of year style posts are soon coming to an end. But I do find it fun to do them.
The Good
- While this only partly relates to crypto, but I am proud of the progress that I have made on my writing and blogs. I have been at this for about a year and a half now, and I'm surprised that I have been able to stick with it. When I first began, I had no idea what I would write about or if anyone would even be interested to read what I had to say. The writing block that I used to have was intense. Also, I used to write very sporadically, only here and there. But as time progressed I made a writing schedule and stuck with it. You can usually see my articles being posted on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays without fail. Once I began to stick to a somewhat strict writing schedule, it was then that I eventually found my niche and what I like writing about. It usually involves Bitcoin, making passive income or extra earnings, staking, Ethereum and so on. But mostly bitcoin. Once I began writing more and more, it has gotten to a point where the words just flow out of me. Writing an article is now as easy as having a conversation with a friend. After finding my niche and keeping a schedule, that is when I finally began to see more success. Nearing 5,000 followers on Publish0x, a reputation score that has grown well on Hive, and constant performance on Read.cash. The next step is to continue focusing on my Substack and see what happens. As I mentioned in my crypto goals for 2022, I am considering starting a Podcast that would also lead to a YouTube channel. Let me know if you would be interested in that.
- While many people have gone head over heals for Meme coins; I am glad to say that I have stuck to my morals. Yes, I knew about many of these coins and could have made a truckload of money if I had only put some money into it. Thinking several years back, when I first got into crypto I even had a decent amount of money that I had put into Dogecoin that would have been enough to be able to retire if I had kept it in. You win some, you lose some. With that said, once I fell down the rabbit hole in crypto, I decided that there is a certain way that I want to play the game. Even if it means that it make take me longer to eventually win that game. I have said this often in previous articles, but I only like to invest in coins that I am very passionate about. Projects that I truly believe in. They end up being the blue-chip coins of the industry, with an enormous percentage of that being in bitcoin. I follow this industry intensely close and it is just more a more enjoyable experience for me to be into coins that I actually like or am excited about. This gives me energy or motivation to keep chugging along in more journey towards financial freedom via cryptocurrency. Some projects that I got into very early, but would eventually sell out of my positions for this very reason were Cardano, BNB, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Chainlink, Cosmos, XRP and the list goes on and on for miles. I made some good profits with these coins, but definitely could have made more if I held on longer. Like I said before, you win some and lose some. I have no regrets.
- The third thing that I am proud of was that I was able to build up a very nice sized passive income from cryptocurrency. A few years ago, I began to really see the light of where this industry was heading towards. Especially with the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum and so on. It was at that moment that I understood that it was going to become much more expensive or difficult to be able to accumulate a significant position in these coins in the future. Therefore, I strived to build a passive income that would allow me to quickly multiply my current portfolio by earning passively and also continuing to spot purchase. But, in the future it was my intention that these passive income streams would allow me to never need to spot purchase into crypto again. Of course I still plan on doing so, but that was the original intention. Of course this all really depends on how high lending rates are, or what the percentage rate for staking is. Meaning that this could change in the future. It is my goal to continue to work hard during 2022 to build an even stronger passive income foundation.
The Bad
- If you saw my article talking about my goals for 2022, you may already know what I'm going to talk about. During 2021 I became somewhat risk adverse. There were many reasons for this. I had a setback with some of my ETH mining machines that forced me to change my investing strategy for a few months. And then there were those pesky Ethereum gas fees. In the past I loved to explore the markets. Tinkering and experimenting as much as I could. This meant by doing swaps on new protocols just for the fun of it and to learn how to use new systems. And things of that similar nature. But those gas fees scared me away and made me quite risk adverse. And that mindset caused me to lose out on a lot of money. In the cryptocurrency market, it is often the explorers, high-conviction people that benefit greatly. Think about all the early adopters to Uniswap that received that generous airdrop. Being risk adverse caused me to become pretty closed minded. That is the worst thing that can happen to you while investing. You can have several amazing opportunities presented to you, but if your mind is closed, you will miss out on those great chances each and every time. Naturally, there were several of those great chances that I knew about. I was told by very credible sources about the ENS airdrop, but yet thought it wasn't worth the effort, just because of the gas fees that were needed. I was told to create several addresses, and even though the initial cost would be high, the end result would be all worth it. I didn't listen, and missed out on several thousands of dollars because of that. I have learned from this mistake though and have begun preparing for the inevitable ETH L2 Arbitrum airdrop. It is like buying a lottery ticket. But if you have good sources in this industry, those chances become much, much better!
So there you have it. Even though I did make what I consider to be a giant mistake, I am still very happy with how the year turned out. Like I said before, we all make mistakes in this industry. It is just important that you learn from them. I am planning on being in this industry for a very long time, and there will be many amazing opportunities that will appear. We just need to be ready to take advantage of them.
As always, thank you for reading!