Reminiscences of a cryptocurrency operator or What will happen in 10 years?

Published in

Coinmonks

11 min readApr 20, 2022

Let’s get to know each other!

My full name is Michael Antonov, I’m 34. My friends call me just Misha, and on the global Internet, I’m better known as Hypov.

I’m a person of the World, getting my third higher education in Malaysia, building a family with a girl whose ancestors came from southern India. I speak English, German, Russian and I am learning Tamil.

My first steps

From the very childhood, I had a craving for inventing something new. All the toys that fell into my hands have always become the subjects for research — I’ve opened them to conduct a detailed study of the working mechanisms. Probably, I would have made a great engineer, but at the behest of my parents and the general education trends, I began to study economics.

However, my interest in studying various mechanisms has not gone away. Since 2007, I actively began to understand the Forex currency market, and then the stock market. The first time I heard about Bitcoin in 2013. At that time, various Internet projects in the field of highly profitable investments were at their peak, which, without any blockchain, using simple electronic payment systems such as WebMoney or PerfectMoney, collected money at a very high-income percentage. I studied these projects with great interest. Despite the fact that 100% of these projects turned out to be scams and ceased to exist, I managed to develop my own system for evaluating such projects and predicting how many days or hours this or that HYIP will last. With proper diversification and risk control, following my author’s methodology, I managed to earn money even in projects that were doomed to failure.

However, working with such projects, I didn’t aim to get easy money but wanted to understand how to create a project with high profitability and without the risk of going broke? In fact, I was thinking about how to invent the first DeFi at a time when almost no one knew about cryptocurrencies.

My first thoughts about Bitcoin

Then I still had no idea about smart-contracts, and bitcoin for me was just another money transfer system like WebMoney, only with a very unstable exchange rate. This fact itself seemed to me like a huge disadvantage. Huge volatility, in my opinion, should have drowned Bitcoin in competition with the well-known PayPal and WebMoney. Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, called his creation an “electronic peer-to-peer payment system”. But I still couldn’t understand: “Why buy Bitcoin to pay for goods or services, if in a second the price for it can be completely different and payment with Bitcoin will instantly become unprofitable for either the buyer or the seller?”

The sharp rise of Bitcoin from 20 to 250 USD in April 2013 was the first signal that I was wrong. I would certainly have been one of the first early investors in crypto if that growth had lasted at least a few more days. However, on April 10, 2013, the price collapsed to 50 USD in two days and I was once again mistakenly convinced of my initial conclusions that Bitcoin is another scam. After that, it was already difficult to perceive it as something serious and unique.

The next increase in the price of bitcoin took place in November 2013. It raised from 100 to 1100 USD. I have perceived it with skepticism. For me, as an investor who is used to holding assets in a portfolio for at least a few months, it was obvious that the situation would repeat itself, as any HYIP projects repeat its life cycle. The consumer hysteria will subside and a new wave of sales will begin amid disappointment. There was no point in buying Bitcoin in such conditions.

And again my expectations were confirmed. Throughout 2014 and half of 2015, the price of Bitcoin only fell. The market was a complete disappointment. People sold their farms for nothing and believed that the cryptocurrency was over

Hypov was born, and Bitcoin completed the third cycle

After almost two years of stagnation, in 2017, a new unprecedented wave of growth in the price of Bitcoin began. Cryptocurrency talks began to be heard from every corner. With the rise of interest in this new investment tool, I wrote my first analytical post in July 2017. It started my career as a blogger/analyst of cryptocurrencies and other investment instruments. In the wake of the popularity of cryptocurrencies in 2017, my posts began to be in great demand. I started speaking on the radio and writing analytics for large brokers. My articles were translated into 8 languages and the most popular ones reached more than 650k views.

In 2017 it seemed that cryptocurrency was a new Era. A re-evaluation of the entire blockchain technology began, as well as attempts to implement it everywhere, even if there was no point in it. The ICO boom started, but the information bubble turned out to be the worst of all, which dispersed the price of Bitcoin from 1,000 USD to 20,000 USD. In December 2017, the bubble burst, and the whole cycle started all over again. The price of Bitcoin dropped to 3122 USD.

The fourth cycle and our place in it

Three times Bitcoin repeated this cycle and I have no doubt that the same will happen on the fourth. Now it’s clear that the third cycle is over. Bitcoin has updated all-time highs, but it is starting to slip.

The same situation I observed in the summer of 2017 before the whole world began to talk about Bitcoin. For clarity, I highlighted this place with a grey oval.

The green arrow points to our approximate position in this cycle and I have two pieces of news =)

The good news is that we are at the very beginning of a new bull cycle and it is not too late to buy Bitcoin.

The bad news is that you will have to get through a long and painful period that can last for several years before seeing fantastic growth and getting your 10x.

Yes, the final result of the new cycle may be around 500–600k USD per one Bitcoin, but you need to be prepared that before that, the price may fall to 20k or even lower.

Fear and greed

The axiom of market relations, which must always be remembered, is that trading occurs under the influence of two main emotions: fear and greed. As buyers believe in the scenario depicted above, they will stop being afraid of bottom renewal and begin to enter the market, succumbing to the most basic desire — greed, the desire to have more than others, to become richer and more successful than others. At this very moment, the sellers will leave the market. Why sell now when you can do it many times more expensive in a week?

As a result, there will be an excessive demand in the market. There are practically no sellers, and there is a huge line of buyers. People start buying in panic and fear of not being able to catch the fortune. The Achilles heel of Bitcoin is that 87% of all coins belong to less than 1% of the wallets of the so-called Whales, and the wallets of less than 100 people hold more than 20% of all Bitcoins.

Thus, a small group of people actually controls the market, because, at the moment when their sense of fear overrides their sense of greed, it can start a trend reversal and a fall in the Bitcoin price. The stronger the panic in the market, the more profitable for the whales, because they will be able to re-enter the market much cheaper by increasing their fortunes in bitcoins.

Bitcoin is the same as HYIP

I was wrong when I considered Bitcoin an electronic peer-to-peer payment system. Perhaps Satoshi Nakamoto was not aware of this, or maybe he was deliberately misleading, but the main function of Bitcoin is not electronic payments, but accumulation and savings. It is a non-transactional tool that provides fast transaction speed and minimal cost. Bitcoin still loses on these points to its centralized counterparts.

The main task of bitcoin is to protect capital, first of all, from inflation, and secondly, from regulatory bodies and bureaucratic barriers, blocking and sanctions regimes.

But at the same time, it remains the same HYIP project, which is managed by an anonymous group of people. Just as in 2007 people put money into Ponzi schemes with the belief that they would not be the last ones in this chain of players, so now people are buying Bitcoin with the belief that its price will rise in the future.

No independent trader could resist these three cycles. Each of them completely swept all the holders out of the market, even the most persistent ones. As a result, Bitcoins remained only in the wallets of crazy fanatics, insiders, and those who did not live to see the rollback.

The main strength of Bitcoin is that it cannot go bankrupt. Bitcoin and its team do not promise anything to anyone and do not assume any obligations. “If you managed to exit the market with a profit, then well done, but if you didn’t manage to, it’s your own fault.”

At the same time, bitcoin itself does not produce anything, does not create any good, and does not make people’s lives better. If we take into account all the costs of electricity, then the impact on humanity is in the bottom line with a negative sign.

And what’s about 8.Finance?

Imagine Bitcoin where:

the team holds not 87% of the tokens, but only 3%
the team is public and has a legal entity
there is a constantly replenishing reserve that ensures the minimum cost of the token
4% of each trade is used to buy back and burn the token in auto-ionic mode
no mining and no emission. The number of coins can only decrease
the team builds and develops the business, creating additional liquidity and demand for coins
there is a professional team of marketers, ambassadors, influencers, content makers who accelerate the process of acquaintance and recognition of the token
not only the function of the payment system works but also marketplaces for games, NFTs, educational content and other services are being created

What would a Bitcoin price chart look like in this situation? Share your ideas in the comments.

Imagine for a second that such a token exists. Imagine a project that is open and honest in its work, constantly evolving and scaling in different directions.

This is how I see 8.Finance, this is how I want to create it.

But you can ask me, If Bitcoin is HYIP, will 8.Finance be a HYIP project? The answer is “absolutely NO”!

The profitability of any Ponzi system directly depends on the inflow of new money.

8.Finance can develop regardless of whether there is an inflow or outflow of funds, since the main cash flow is formed not by increasing the inflow of funds, but, like any exchange, due to trading turnover.

8.Finance is a unique new generation project — MetaFi, which is built at the intersection of all popular cryptocurrency industries (DeFi, GameFi, DAO, NFT Metavers). It has no analogs on the market. We honestly tried to find them but failed. If you find it, write it in the comments ;)

Thanks to 8.Finance, I hope to achieve all my dreams about a project that will not only help people solve material issues, but also bring real benefits to society.

The data in this article has lost its relevance; see the current information in the gitbook.

What about risks?

The cryptocurrency market remains very young. Blockchain technologies are sharper than computer science, and like any new technology, there may be bugs and errors. Often they do not lead to disastrous results, but only a swindler or a madman can give guarantees and obligations in such conditions.

If even such crypto giants as Axie Infinity, which are played daily by 2 million people, can become a victim of hackers, then what guarantees can we give?

A professional development team, smart contract audit, 1 million USD bug bounty, and public testing reduce the possibility of hacker attacks, but cannot guarantee 100% protection.

8.Finance cannot guarantee that the price of the token at the moment will not be revalued or, on the contrary, resold. Market volatility in the market has not been canceled. However, thanks to hyperinflationary tokenomics, we can guarantee that with the stable operation of the project, the number of coins in circulation will decrease in the long term, which means that their value will have constant support, which will not allow the price of the token to depreciate to zero.

Ask yourself if you knew Bitcoin would sell for $40,000 today, would you buy it for $20 in 2013? Would you keep it despite all the falls? I believe you would say “absolutely YES”

For the conclusion

Now imagine that you have a time machine and you are in 2009 when Bitcoin first appeared on the market with a price close to zero. Would you buy it, even knowing that you will have to wait more than 12 years to receive windfall profits? I’m sure you would…

Fortunately, a time machine is not needed. You have the opportunity to try your luck and take part in the Private Sale of the 8.Finance project at a token price of 0.0063 USD

Vesting of tokens for all participants of all pre-sales will last about two years. Perhaps this will be the most volatile period when the price will be thrown in different directions. The project team will do everything possible to balance the market and switch to an uptrend as soon as possible. EVERYONE is interested in this. However, no one can guarantee that the price at the moment will not fall below the purchase price. It’s a crypto, baby =) As with bitcoin, the most persistent will win, but unlike bitcoin, you don’t have to wait 12 years.

Good luck at the rodeo ;-)

Take care of yourself and your money!

Sincerely,

Mikhail Hypov

PS. A couple of photos from the home archive: