Playing the Cryptocurrency Casino
How I turned a $20 Bodog credit into a digital wallet worth over $1,000.
I am not going to tell you that I have discovered “The secret formula for trading BitCoin”, nor will I tell you that I made any significant strategical decisions while building my digital wallet. However, I will show you every move I made to turn a $20 Bodog credit into a digital wallet worth over a thousand dollars. Although I will mention this again later in this story, investing in cryptocurrencies is extremely risky, and has proven incredibly volatile. Therefore, if you decide to buy cryptocurrencies I recommend following Marc Cubans advice and not invest anymore than 10%, and pretend you’ve already lost that before you begin.
Luck is the where my journey begins with cryptocurrencies. I began learning about BitCoin and Blockchain technology in my spare time after reading a story about a man who spent 10,000 BitCoin to order a pizza back in 2010, only to find out that 10,000 BitCoin is now worth over $7 million (hopefully it was a half-decent pizza). I was fascinated by the revolutionary idea of a decentralized currency and its limitless capabilities to change the world, yet never took any steps towards setting up a digital wallet. This all changed when I made the request to cash-out my winnings from a couple lucky hands of Blackjack on Bodog. I was presented with the two options to receive my winnings ($140). One of those options being to “receive your winnings in BitCoin.” Within minutes I officially had my own digital wallet on Quadriga CX and owned my first 0.0262 BitCoin! This is where the fun begins…
My Digital Wallet History:
Early December the media buzz surrounding BitCoin was insane. It was all over the news, Snapchat features and it seemed every day there was a new ICO being advertised on Instagram. This caused BitCoin to hit record highs and smash through the $15,000 milestone. I sold a little over half of my BitCoin (0.017) at $16,470 on December 12th, 2017 for $282 CAD. The reason I sold half my BitCoin? No real reason at all, other than my own speculation that BitCoin has already far-surpassed what it was capable of so I figured I might as well cash-out something while I’m ahead. Clearly, I was mistaken, as BitCoin continued to climb all of December right through the $20,000 CAD mark.
After selling my BitCoin, I spent the remainder of my day attempting to add more funds to my digital wallet as I wanted to purchase other currencies. After countless attempts, I was unsuccessful in my attempt, due to majority of the currency exchange website being either down or having a long wait period before being verified. (If you have ever tried to set-up or fund a digital wallet through a currency exchange, you are well aware of how unreliable they can be.) This resulted me having to make the most of the $282 already stored in my wallet. The following day I purchased 1.013 LiteCoin for $121 (selling at $120 / coin), as well as 0.3 Ethereum for $157 (selling at $529 / coin.)
The purchase of LiteCoin and Ethereum is the only move I would consider “strategic”. My speculation was that with all the attention BitCoin was receiving people would be either selling their smaller currencies to go all in on the BitCoin craze. To be blatantly honest, I believe that many of the people who buy cryptocurrencies are doing so purely out of “FOMO”. Nobody wants to miss their chance to “get rich quick”, and will buy because their friend did, or their Uber driver told them they should. (A prime example of this can also be seen in the Cannabis sector).
Although my digital wallet has been able to grow over 86% since I began experimenting with cryptocurrencies, buying and trading cryptocurrencies is extremely risky and volatile. As Tony Robbins would say “investing in BitCoin is like going to Vegas.” I would call my brief experience thus far in cryptocurrencies a lucky night on the strip. However, similar to a night out at the casino you haven’t won anything until you leave the building.
Thank you for taking the time to read this story, any feedback is greatly appreciated. In case I wasn't clear enough throughout the course of this story I want to reiterate that investing in cryptocurrencies is extremely risky. If you are interested in experimenting with trading cryptocurrencies in my next article I will be giving some very helpful tips on what platforms I use to track my coins, the quickest ways to be verified by an online currency exchange platform as well as some other very useful tips I have learned so far.
