A Rough Start

A year ago, I lived a very different life. My weekly routine consisted of doing a lot of things that I didn’t want to do. Such as borrowing money from my parents, waking up early in the morning to go to school, worrying about whether I’d find a job, feeling stressed out because I couldn’t afford to go on trips with my buddies, and looking at my bank account with less than $500 to my name.

I realized a lot of the problems in my life were due to the lack of financial stability, opportunity, and freedom. I felt ashamed of my lack of financial success, my confidence crushed, my morale at almost zero. Thankfully, for me, I had a lot of support from my family and friends to get through these tough times and yet, I couldn’t dig myself out of this financial pit hole.

Fast forward to June 2017. I was still feeling the wrath of being under financial duress, I was still trying to find a job, and I was still doing the same old tired routine. I was burnt out to the brink of insanity.

A New Beginning

Then, one day my friend Marc suggested that I look into “crypto.” When Marc mentioned crypto to me, I had no clue about what he was talking about. He was telling me about Ripple, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and even DogeCoin. “Aha, I thought to myself, I know what Bitcoin is!”.

Well sort of, but not really.

The only thing I knew about Bitcoin was that it used to be worth less than a dollar, and that one day in July, it was valued at a staggering $2400!

As Marc told me about the gains he made on the cryptocurrency market, I grew skeptical. “Is Marc lying about his gains? Is it possible for me to make gains like Marc? Is this money real? Isn’t Bitcoin a Bubble?”

These were all questions and that came across my mind. In retrospect, it was a whole lot of FUD on my part. However, I was determined to do anything to turn the tide on my financial situation.

After about two weeks of extensive research, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy my first few cryptocurrencies. I used everything in my bank account (which at the time was around $2000), bought 0.0378 Bitcoin ($100 worth) at $2640/BTC, 4 Ethereum ($1280 worth) at $320/ETH, and 12 Litecoin ($540 worth) at $45/LTC.

I was feeling ecstatic! I finally made my first cryptocurrency purchase! I had a feeling that I was going to strike it rich. I was delving into the cryptocurrency world filled with optimism. But those feelings didn’t last long. A week after my purchase, Ethereum dipped to $250, Bitcoin dropped to $2300, and Litecoin fell to $38. I had lost 22% in my first week of crypto trading. What a great start!

At the time, I was feeling slightly worried, alongside my friends (I’ll talk about them more later) constantly warning me about how risky the cryptocurrency market could be. But, I couldn’t just call it quits there. I proceeded to liquidate the last bit of stock I was holding onto on the stock market and bought more Ethereum and Litecoin on the “dip.”

This was around the same time I started researching the altcoin market. I heard that Ripple went from 2c to 28c and Ethereum went from $8 to $380.

FOMO hit me. I needed to get on the rocket ship before it took off. But unfortunately for me, the coins I just mentioned had taken off already. I had to find a gem myself.

After days of extensive research, reading whitepapers, looking at various forums, and talking to other people in the crypto community, I found the ticket for that rocket ship ride.

Two Month Trip to Mars

I discovered AntShares—now known as NEO. At the time AntShares was going for a measly $4.50. Based on the research I had done, I knew AntShares was going to be the next big thing in crypto, since it was the first blockchain competitor to Ethereum from China. I instantly recognized the value of holding onto Antshares as it constantly generated “gas” just by having it in your wallet, and the fact that there was a limited supply on the total amount of Antshares along with “gas” over Antshares’ lifetime. I sold off some Ethereum and Litecoin (both at a loss) and decided to buy 300 Antshares.

Now comes the turning point in my life!

Every day at school, I was refreshing my Blockfolio. My performance as a student was deteriorating because every chance I got, I was living, breathing, and talking about cryptos. Crypto was on my mind at all times. Making small gains was exciting, like a child getting a brand new Nintendo for Christmas. Making big gains became addicting, like the morning coffee I couldn’t live without.

A few weeks later Antshares rebranded to NEO. NEO went from $4.50 to $7.00 to $13,00 then to $25.00 and all the way to almost $50.00! I turned my $1350 stake in NEO to over $13,000 in a matter of weeks. I sold off 80% of my NEO stake close to the all-time high.

All the doubt I that I had from hearing about Marc’s gains, all the FUD about cryptocurrencies being at a bubble, all my friends and family warning me against playing the cryptocurrency market, all that talk about “Is the money real?” had been wiped away from my mind.

The money was real as it got — I converted some of my gains into Bitcoin and Ethereum, and even cashed a bit out through Coinbase.

At this point,I decided that I was going to quit school to dedicate all my time and attention to the crypto markets. My parents were furiously against this decision and my friends warned me not to do it. However, I had this gut feeling that told me blockchain technology was here to stay, that it’d be the next revolutionary technology since the invention of internet, and that If I missed out on it now, and reconsidered in the future, it would be too late.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin was making headline gains every month. From September to October Bitcoin went from $3000 to over $6000, then from October to November, from $6000 to $9000, and in December Bitcoin hit an all time high of $19000!

This is also about the same time all the doubters were changing their tone about the cryptocurrency market. The same people who were warning me against investing in crypto (my family and friends included) were now bombarding me with questions about crypto. “Which website do I use to buy bitcoin?”, “How do you setup a wallet?”, “What do you think about this coin?”, “What do you think about that coin?”, “Do you think it’s too late to buy this?”, and“What do you think the price will be in a year from now?”

Today, as I write this, I feel like an entirely new person.

I have made over 100 times my initial investment (about 10000% ROI), I no longer worry about being able to afford things, and I feel invigorated with newfound confidence. Most importantly I am more financially stable and free than I have ever been in my life. This year, I expect to do bigger things than I’ve ever imagined of doing. And I’m grateful to the crypto market and everyone in the crypto community for that.

I truly believe my success story is just one of the many out there now, and one of the even many more to come!