Join Doufu in his noob journey into the cryptocurrency rabbit hole. Experience the excitement, the angst, the fear, the greed and most importantly, the lessons learnt. We start off with the usual disclaimer that I am not a financial advisor nor am I giving financial advice. I am just sharing my experiences, thoughts and opinions for entertainment purposes. Always remember to DYOR (Do Your Own Research)!
In this post, part one of the “Crypto Noob Doufu” series, we look at how it all started. What I did not do back then and how I jumped on the bandwagon later. Hop on and enjoy the trip down the memory lane.
I first heard of Bitcoin back in 2013 through an internet article. It seems to be some sort of thought experiment to me that was pretty novel and it caught my attention. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much information (at least for a beginner), and especially Bitcoin in those days was pretty much under the radar. I saw the potential in blockchain technology and wanted to be part of it, even though there wasn’t a real life use case for it — yet. The idea of using it as a replacement for fiat and as a global currency was revolutionary but I knew it wasn’t realistic and practical. That is a story for another day. Further research didn’t gather much steam and it seems that you have to own a bitcoin to get started. There wasn’t any exchange or places that I could easy get or purchase a Bitcoin and hence, in the end I gave up.
Fast forward to late 2019, my brother re-introduced me to the world of crypto “investment” after recommending me to sign up for a Crypto.com account. Back then, I didn’t sign up due to some issues. First, they had stopped all new sign ups in Singapore to comply with the local laws and regulations. Second, there were problems with the KYC (Know your customer) approval process. Opportunities wait for no one and I decided not to wait. I jumped on the crypto bandwagon with Coinhako.
“Investment” funds started flowing into the Coinhako account in early 2020. To be honest, it was more like gambling than investment. I had not a single clue on what I am buying or doing. The first crypto asset I bought was Bitcoin (BTC), this was pretty much a no brainer. The second one, of course, Ethereum (ETH). Next stop were the altcoins, Polkadot (DOT) and Ripple XRP. I didn’t spend a lot of money, because I didn’t have much — unfortunately — hard truths. In total, I pumped in about 600 dollars in fiat throughout the whole of 2020. This portfolio bagged a 2x increase which I liquidated before the end of 2020, thanks to the volatility and fed’s money printing adventures.
2022 was quite the opposite of 2021. I took a hiatus due to the events in the family and work. When things had settled down a little with some pocket of breathing space, it was already somewhere Q3 of 2021. The period of easy money was replaced by learning things the hard way. The highlight of the year was DYOR (Do your own research). I finally got my CDC (Crypto dot com) account running and it took quite a while to understand how the whole thing/ecosystem worked, and yes, paid quite a bit of “learning fees” in the process. It was then I realized this was different from 2020. I was more rational back then and in 2021, I totally FOMO-ed. I have fallen into the rabbit hole and I can’t get out.
I had also created a Gemini account in order to get my BAT (Basic Attention Token) coins from Brave browser. How it works is Brave browser will serve you advertisements (which you have to enable, it is not turned on by default), and they will pay you in their native token (BAT). You can then use these tokens to tip other content creators that you want to support. However, to cash out the value of these tokens to fiat money, you will need to accumulate a minimum amount of token and sign up and link your account either with Uphold or Gemini.
So far, my “investment” in crypto has been in the red by at least 50%, which is no difference from my china tech stocks holdings, but it has been a learning experience which I should have learnt 10 years ago. Better late than never. Hence, the reason for this series, to share my journey, thoughts and experiences so that no one would make the same mistake as I had. Feel free to leave comments to share your thoughts and experience too.
Once again, please be reminded that these are my own opinions and are not financial advice. I am not a qualified licensed financial advisor. And I will not be liable for any damage or losses arising from usage of these information. Please do your own research. If you are interested in signing up for a crypto exchange account, you can use my referral links below.
Crypto.com
Use my referral link https://crypto.com/app/wpp4d7nqvz to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $25 USD 🙂
Coinhako
Check out Coinhako — The platform to buy, sell and store your crypto assets. https://www.coinhako.com/affiliations/sign_up/173349_36362274
Gemini
Have you seen the Gemini app? Try it using my code and we’ll each get $10 USD of Bitcoin. https://gemini.com/share/axnymaaud
Originally published at http://doufu.wordpress.com on February 9, 2022.
