Bleeding Profusely Again - Looking Back at Past Scrapes and Wounds

By now most of us are painfully aware of the most recent crash - the LUNA collapse, the subsequent tanking of BTC, dragging the rest of the cryptosphere with it, including our own HIVE. As a result panic, gloom, and hopelessness are abound, in spite of all the well intended, mature sounding posts reminding us that ... well, that's part of the crypto reality. Bulls and bears and volatility. Take your winnings, buy the dip, and do what most others aren't doing. Gee, thanx! Great help when one's previously mighty bag is melting away like an ice cube in the summer sun.

This Hasn't Been the First Time, It Won't Be the Last

Instead of parroting out similar wisdoms, for which I can't even take credit, I would like to look back at similar experiences over my close to five years of handling cryptos. Some of them were clearly rookie mistakes, others just plain stupidity, and occasionally even the result of malicious intent of others. And yes, then there was the "big crash" of 2018 leading into years of crypto winter, which is what may happen again now ... we'll see. What each of these minor and major cases of bloodshed has done, is given me a perspective that I'd like to share, primarily for all those who are where I used to be. It may help a bit, if in no other way than psychologically.

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Before I go on, I would like to emphasize that I started out about as far from being an expert as one could be: zero background in IT or finance, and even anything math related has been my biggest Achilles heel ever since first grade. Still, I managed to figure out how to program a VCR as a kid, or how to steal WiFi signals from my neighbors as a young adult. So figuring out how to make money with cryptos should not be that hard, right? That's right! But learning from experience will cost you... actual money in this case. Oh well, it's the tuition at the school of life.

2017 - ICOs and Bitconnect

For those who have been here as long as I have, these terms will ring a bell. Five years ago Initial Coin Offerings were all the rage. Devs and hacks ... or maybe just one charismatic dude with some graphic skills created new coins left and right, and came up with some radically amazing concepts to sell it under. Since at that time literally ALL cryptos were heading for the moon (more or less), it wasn't hard to convince enough fools to take the risk and buy into it, before disappearing with the funds. One of these fools was me, investing into a coin about authors, publishers, and translators. I "only" spent one ETH on it, which back then was a couple hundred bucks, but had I not done so I would have a few thousand dollars worth more in my wallet now.

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Oh yes, we all live and learn. I'm sure everyone knows the adage: don't put in more than what you're willing to lose which became painfully clear. Still, it was a relatively benign loss, compared to what came next: Bitconnect going belly up as part of the great carnage of early 2018. Now that was something I tried very tentatively at first, but as I saw how well it worked, paying about 2% of return EVERY DAY, while its own price kept going up, I became greedy and threw a thousand bucks worth of BTC at it. Needless to say, all that money is irrevocably lost now, teaching me another valuable lesson: do your own research, which should be ideally more than watching some videos where similar clueless users go on about how much money it has paid them. Retrospect vision is always 20/20, so I'm not going to explain how this scam was the perfect mix of a pyramid scheme and a ponzi scheme.

Stay Calm and Blog On

The two recommendations I wish I could send back to my earlier self, is one: stay with BTC which I didn't heed very well and two: keep earning by blogging which I would have done anyway. Sure, it took some time, but after a while the results were quite impressive. As I kept messing with shitcoins (and other not so spectacular cryptos), while steadily posting and being active here on this (and the previous) blockchain, my BTC worth kept dwindling (growing only during intensive bull runs) while my HIVE worth kept steadily growing. In fact, it was only a couple of weeks ago that I realized that everything I had on this blockchain was worth about the same as all my other cryptos. (This may have changed over the last few days, though.) The big difference was, that everything Hive related I earned right here, compared to all the rest that I bought with BTC, which initially I bought with fiat.

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As a result, it may be no surprise that I've gotten super enthusiastic about the various projects on Hive, while my interest in other blockchains remained moderate at best. Also, it was here that I saw fantastic results of joining various projects: Splinterlands as a game didn't hold my attention for long, but ever since I've been renting out my cards, taking advantage of airdrops, buying land plots, etc. my holdings have increased quite a bit. When LeoFinance first started doing DeFi, I was in on it, only to get hacked and lose everything. But this amazing team restored our faith by compensating us for our losses, so with my confidence restored I stuck around for while. Even CubFinance and PolyCub I made good use of, though it seems like the big payoff is still ahead of us (though maybe a bit further now).

Convert Winnings Into Something Real - Real Estate

After chugging on through the long crypto winter of 2018-2020 the prices of BTC, and hence all other coins started going up again. What a cause for excitement ... but also for caution. After all, it's advisable to be smart and take your winnings. Everyone agrees on that, but the big question is how! Looking at posts on LeoFinance it seems like everyone has their most recommendable way, whether it involves stablecoins, the right moment to get back on BTC, using fiat, or something completely different. Since the bulls and bears tend to affect BTC and altcoins simultaneously, taking my winnings out of crypto seemed to be the most sensible thing for me. And even fiat money is not something I want to hold on to. Precious metals may be more stable than anything, but you can't eat them (unlike your cake, which you sill wouldn't have if you ate it).

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Land on the other hand... meaning actual real estate, is something I've known all along for being the key to riches. That's where life grows, that's where food comes from, that's where water can be harvested, that's where people can live, and that's where communities can be formed. So when I first saw such an idea presented by my fellow blogger @eco-alex I knew right away it was for me, and over the following months put quite a bit of money into a land based project in Portugal. Not only that, but I was even planning to visit the place myself and become actively involved in the construction of a sustainable community. Unfortunately the whole thing was nipped in the bud by legal impediments, but being a conscientious organizer, @eco-alex bought back the coins he had sold me. Thank you Alex! I would invest with you again in a heartbeat!

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Now, I am getting involved in a similar land-based project organized by @ecoinstant in Colombia. (Check out his updates about it here, here, and here). And this time I put in significantly more money than into the one in Portugal. In fact, it is around a thousand USD, about the same magnitude of what I put into Bitconnect back then. Though this time I am way more confident that not only will I not lose it, but it will actually pay off. And yes, visiting the location is becoming more and more interesting, though I'm still not sure about the details.

In any case, I am becoming more and more settled where I am in the cryptoverse. I will probably wait for BTC to get as low as it will go, then put some fiat into it, and wait for the bear season to end. At the same time I will continue blogging on Hive, and playing around with its second tier coins, DeFi projects, and whatnot. Most importantly, however, I am not going to lose my head, no matter how fast the prices go either way. Before soon we'll be up on the top of the world again, and in the long run in a much better place.