Hello! Sorry, allow me to introduce myself…

I have been posting on this platform for the past week now and I realise that I haven’t actually introduced myself properly and documented my journey not only to this platform, but to Bitcoin Cash in general.

I was properly introduced to the crypto space late 2017, I had heard about it around 2013 but dismissed it at the time as I was studying and didn’t have the time to invest in something I thought was nothing more than Internet tokens at the time.

Getting into this space around then meant I was initially oblivious to the whole scaling debate Bitcoin had had for years in the lead up to the forking off. Like many, it was speculation that brought me here and I had no idea the power behind this technology.

My main sources of information when I was new was Reddit and “Crypto Twitter”. “Crypto Twitter” really is an intimidating place for someone new and I remember a lot of Litecoin fanboys at the time regurgitating the Bcash line and trolling the Bitcoin Cash community, probably hoping to get a LIKE from their leader Charlie Lee and so I never really paid too much attention to Bitcoin Cash early on.

At the time I put a little bit of money I had into Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and also NEO (apparently the Chinese Ethereum…) and with that small investment I thought I was all knowledgeable and had this place figured out. Apparently after a few weeks of buying on Coinbase and checking in on Twitter I could pick the winners in this space.

Then Came the Bears!

As you can imagine, getting involved then meant my fiat I had invested quickly started decreasing and so I thought F**K! I better actually look into what it is that I have just bought here.

I started reading on different subreddits and subscribing to a few podcasts and started to hear an awful lot about this Roger Ver guy, the man people were claiming was behind Bitcoin Cash (even though we know it wasn’t Roger who invented BCH)

When I first started to look him up through old blogs and videos my initial reaction was just this is someone who is genuinely passionate for Bitcoin and the good this technology could do for the World. I get how his passion could lead to heated debates with some people but I liked what I saw! I have never judged people on other people’s opinions and so I started looking more into his videos, following his social media platforms and also properly looking into the Bitcoin Cash.

The Community!

My first impressions were am I in the same place here!?

What a difference in the rhetoric between the BTC and BCH camps, anyone going onto r/bitcoin will be hit with posts about buying lambos one day and an almost arrogance in some people that Bitcoin had already established itself as an uncorrelated asset and long-term store of value and every other project was just a scam and doomed to fail…

Contrast that with what I was seeing on r/btc. The posts were all about building an infrastructure, developing a BCH ecosystem of commerce and building the tools that will enable Bitcoin Cash to achieve the original mission of Bitcoin and become a global peer to peer electronic CASH system. This whole can do attitude of everyone in here can do something no matter how small, was inspiring! Especially compared to the complacency on r/bitcoin that Bitcoin was already the winner and we were all not to worry as it is in the hands of the blockstream Gods and they know better than you so don’t ask questions just buy and hold and don’t even dare question the fees! The fees in late 2017 were apparently a good sign and a cause for champagne bottles to be popped!?...

It was this night and day difference that helped changed my perspective and got me excited to be involved and feel like an early adopter of a technology I genuinely believe can and will change the World.

A Reminder that I was Still Living in a Fiat World

In late 2018 I was quickly reminded that I was living in a fiat World and lost my job, a job I had held since university.

I couldn’t believe it. In the end I was just over 6 months out of professional employment due to the job market where I reside. In that time I had taken on work as a manual laborer on a construction site to help pay my bills however there was still a shortfall between what I had been earning and what I was earning now.

To cover this shortfall, I started doing all the usual things like dipping into my savings, selling off unnecessary items such as my PlayStation, video games and record player, trading in my car in for a cheaper one and I also changed what I was buying grocery wise and where I was buying it. This helped but not enough as I was out of professional employment longer than I anticipated and so it came to selling off my crypto, most my holdings by this point had been shapeshifted to BCH plus a few other small tokens that I thought were cool projects.

I sold these off slowly, hoping that I could “hodl” onto at least one BCH coin but unfortunately in order to keep paying my bills and help look after my family that last one got sold too.

Looking back now I believe selling my last piece of BCH might have been the kick up the backside I needed as I became a lot more aggressive in my job hunting efforts and in the June of last year I finally got a position back in line with what I had been doing before.

Where I am at Today, and my Approach

After a couple of months of finding my feet again I started to reinvest into BCH again, every payday paying myself first and buying around £50 of BCH, sending half to my bitcoin.com wallet for spending and sending the other half into cold storage with the goal of building up my reserves again! The only project I am going to buy now is BCH, although maybe not the best investment advice my rollercoaster so far has made me realise I am more attached to BCH succeeding than making a quick buck or two. I will keep an eye out on what is happening with other projects and stuff as there is a lot of cool things happening in this space but I believe in BCH I have found something I truly believe in.

It is funny, as I came here initially for the gains and with illusions of cashing out and making money but spending my BCH has become a much more enjoyable thing to do than simply hodling.

When I do spend my BCH I try and replace as soon as I can too but if I can’t afford to I never grudge my purchases as I see every purchase and every transaction as helping bring BCH closer to achieving its goal. It’s got that bad (or good depending on your perspective) where I have now become almost militant in my approach of seeking out products and services from companies that accept BCH as a payment method, and if they don’t you can be sure I am asking them why not.

It was discovering Rick Falkvinge and listening to him explain his vision of how we grow an economy with Bitcoin that helped this concept sink in for me.

Although I am no Nostradamus I genuinely believe BCH will be the winner in this space purely down to the community and the motivations of the people involved. I believe owning 1 BCH will be a BIG deal in 10-15 years time so I am still working away to buy back at least my 1 BCH and now after everything I am getting there again. Knowing what I am investing in makes me so much more relaxed too as even if I never got wealth in this space I know that if this project succeeds the World will be for the better anyway!

My Hopes and Concerns Going Forward

If you cannot tell by now I am extremely bullish about Bitcoin Cash going forward, even though I wasn’t invested for a while early this year I never lost any of my interest and enthusiasm in this space and it excites me with how dedicated people are to making BCH a financial tool that will be universally available throughout the World.

The Cash Fusion project is what most interests me right now and what I am trying to learn about in my spare time as financial privacy is a big concern of mine. Like a lot of people when I first got involved I thought Bitcoin was an anonymous method but quickly realized it is in fact the exact opposite!

My concern is how we ride the next financial crisis, a lot of people believe that is when crypto will rise but I am not so sure just yet. I do not believe if it happened today money would flood into the space rather than out, using myself as an example, as much as I didn’t want to I had to sell my crypto. I imagine there is a few people who if they lost their job for a fair amount of time would have to turn to selling their crypto assets too.

Hopefully when that day comes (and it will) we are a lot further on and are in a position to thrive and capitalize as the rest of the financial World melts down around us.

My Hopes for 2020

After a rollercoaster 2019 my hopes for myself and my BCH story this year are pretty modest.

- Firstly, I would love to attend a BCH meetup somewhere in the World, there isn’t one near me so London is probably the closest one. Failing that Amsterdam would be pretty cool! (Probably my favourite place that I have visited).

- Secondly, I finally buy back my 1 BCH and think of that as a retirement fund (I enjoy seeing the price go up right now...but not too much!) That will finally bring closure to my job loss etc.

- Thirdly, my redundancy also made me re-evaluate my skill-set in the marketplace and so I am learning more about coding. This will hopefully give me a greater understanding of BCH too and so I have been looking at online resources of how to code and would love to see if I can pick up the hang of it over the next year.

- Finally, I hope to find a way to contribute more to this space, however small it is and of course generally just keep my eyes open and take in as much as I can.

A year in crypto is like ten years in real life so bring it on!

If you stayed with this article this long thank you!