As I was feeding our messy toddler his breakfast banana one morning, my other half chortled over something on Facebook and glanced up when I raised a curious eyebrow. “Okay, hypothetical question: Through time travel you meet your 18-year-old self. What three words would you say to her?.”
“Hmm.” I narrowed my eyes in contemplation and sipped my English Breakfast. A dozen thoughts raced through my mind: Trust your instincts. Believe in yourself. You are worthy. Don’t take crap. Leave toxic relationships. You’ll survive this. Love yourself more. You deserve better. Forgive, move on. You got this…
“I’ve thought of mine.” A sly grin spreads on my spouse’s face. ‘“Buy Apple shares’.”
“Seriously?” I snort. “Fine, if we’re going down that route then mine would be ‘BUY BITCOIN ASAP!’”
After seven years of marriage, we’ve turned into this kind of couple. I promise you, we used to be fun. Heck, some people even thought we were cool.
But what I say is true. If I could jump into a time machine and travel back to the past, my life would be completely different today had I been savvy enough to buy a big bag of Bitcoin when it first came out at just $0.0008 per BTC in 2010. And then, more importantly, hold on for dear life (or HODL in crypto speak). To provide context, someone paid for two pizzas using 10,000 BTC in 2010. Eleven years later, Bitcoin reached its all time high (ATH) this April and one BTC was worth an impressive US$64,829.14.
That’s about a 55,000 per cent jump since Bitcoin’s inception. Therefore, in an alternate universe, I could have been a crypto billionaire. Like that dude in Florida—if he hadn’t used all that Bitcoin to buy Papa John’s pizzas on May 22, now forever known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. Yeah, you don’t need to be a mathematician to figure out that he paid over $640 million for those two pizzas.
HOW I GOT BITTEN
It was back in 2012 when I first learnt about Bitcoin from someone I worked with. He had acquired around two thousand dollars worth of BTC and kept his precious coins in a portable hard drive. Having seen how people close to me got burnt when they gambled their life savings away in stocks and shares, I wasn’t keen to speculate on something so risky and new, especially when I did my research and realised nobody even knew who the founder of Bitcoin really was. The identity of “Satoshi Nakamoto” remains a mystery to this day. There’s speculation that “he” might in fact be a group of highly intelligent hackers who came up with this original form of digital currency to fight against the fiat.
No, honey, we’re not talking about the Italian car brand. I’m referring to how the powers that be simply print money whenever they need to, driving up inflation. This forms one of the greatest appeals of cryptocurrency; coin holders aren’t at the mercy and manipulation of centralised governments and banks. If we look back at our history, humans started trading valuable seashells before moving on to precious stones and metal, with fiat (pieces of paper that are “legal tender”, aka cash) coming into circulation only much later.
So, what exactly convinced this obstinate woman to get in on the action?
Believe it or not, it was the birth of our son. Motherhood totally changed me. I view parenting as Adulting 2.0 and I suddenly realised I needed to start being smart about money since inflation is so real. My folks used to lament that back in the day when they were paktor-ing, a bowl of noodles cost only 20 cents. To fight against the inevitable gravitational pull of inflation year after year, investments are a way to go. I had to shift my mindset. I couldn’t afford to still be that girl who simply left all her earnings in a savings account, making interest that couldn’t cover a month’s phone bill.
This was the start of my journey, and it led me down a path of no return. As Bitcoin reached its ATH in April, I decided to finally give this whole crypto business some serious thought. Mining (the other, traditional way to get Bitcoin) seemed overly complicated; you couldn’t just use any old computer or laptop, you had to invest in a proper rig and the whole process wasn’t only time-consuming, it also required plenty of power and you needed airconditioning 24/7 and a lot of fans to keep the machines from overheating. So I decided to keep things simple and just buy my crypto the good old-fashioned way: from a trusted coin exchange.
While doing my own research about Bitcoin and altcoins (alternative cryptocurrencies), I also asked advice from people whom I trusted and respected. My Boomer friend was all for investing savings because “there’s no point putting money under the bed”, but cautioned that crypto is too volatile for their liking so they choose to dabble in safer investments like dividend-paying stocks, as well as trusts and bonds that provide guaranteed principal and returns. My Gen Y friend didn’t like how risky crypto was and pretty much left their Coinbase account untouched to focus on trading blue chip stocks. However, my Millennial buddy who started investing in crypto last year was all for it. He was eager for me to come on board and join him in the new revolution, which he truly believed to be the future.
“Trust me, we’re early to the game,” my buddy told me confidently. “Even if you start now, you’ll be way ahead of the majority, Ning!”
After speaking to my other half—who wasn’t against it but made things clear that I should only play with my own pool of savings that I didn’t mind losing—I went ahead to set up an account on Kraken, a well-respected US-based cryptocurrency exchange and bank. I’d pretty much decided to put some money into Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH is regarded as digital oil if BTC is considered crypto gold), and an alt coin that seemed promising enough, so I bit the bullet and made my first purchase. I even created an Excel sheet to keep track of trades since I’d decided to DCA (dollar cost average) along the way, that is, buying whenever the charts dipped to accumulate more coins.
Things were amazing at first. Making money off crypto seemed ridiculously effortless and even my spouse was impressed that we were up hundreds of dollars just one week in. I learnt how to read charts and view red and green “candlesticks” to anticipate changes; I even read up on Wyckoff distribution and other patterns (FYI: Head and Shoulders is more than just shampoo). In other words, I got really invested in what I was doing. I saw myself as a long-term investor; I was doing all this to help fund our son’s future University fees. My buddy, on the other hand, saw himself as a day trader. He’d bought heavily into lesser known coins like ICP, and made aggressive swing trades to earn more, compared to my simple strategy of buy and HODL.
“Do you think Internet Computer might be a little dodgy?” I asked him in earnest. “I mean, it sounds as iffy as Dogecoin. Some folks believe ICP to be a Ponzi scheme, and makes up a whopping 80 per cent of your portfolio. Why not pick up more BTC or ETH instead? You can’t go wrong with those.”
There had been a lot of discussion about the eventual “flippening”, during which ETH will “inevitably” overtake BTC as the number one crypto. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, but I believe this could possibly happen in the future because ETH is not just a store of value like BTC—it’s also a powerful platform that many things run on. Like NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d have read about how many of these digital assets have been sold off or auctioned for staggering millions, changing the lives of many struggling artists and musicians. With the mindset of being in this for at least the next 10 years, my crypto portfolio consisted of around 60 per cent ETH, 30 per cent BTC, and 10 per cent of alt coins I had spent a long time researching. I also shared my strategy to stake all my coins so they generate interest on a sliding scale of 0.25 per cent for BTC to 12 per cent for DOT.
But my Millennial buddy had other plans. He didn’t want to stake his coins when he could move them around to make swing trades. He explained that the gamble with lesser-known coins could give significant profit— more so than BTC or ETH— if you pick the right crypto to buy. He did promise that he’d stay the hell away from Doge since it’s obviously just a silly “shitcoin” that didn’t do anything.
Famous last words.
DANG YOU, ELON MUSK!
As we all know, shortly afterwards Elon Musk made several tweets about crypto which saw the value of the infamous meme coin DOGE shoot inexplicably to the moon. And days later, when the eccentric billionaire declared that Tesla wouldn’t be accepting Bitcoin anymore, BTC took an epic nosedive.
My heart sank to my knees when I saw everything on my phone screen turn blood red and the curve plummet down, down, down.
While there are tons of self-proclaimed experts on YouTube who talk a great deal about where the charts are heading (“Don’t forget to smash the Like button and subscribe!”), nobody has a crystal ball offering glimpses into the future.
I cried that night. Literally crawled into bed and bawled in my spouse’s lap because I realised I’d let myself get all swept up by hype, stretching myself to the limit because of FOMO, and then losing a good half of my portfolio. It’s all very human, I suppose, like wishing Elon Musk death by a thousand papercuts… but as I licked my wounds, I realised I wasn’t in as bad a place as others who had sold their house to support their crippling crypto addiction.
“Don’t fall for the FUD,” my battle-hardened Millennial buddy texted me the next morning. “Whales trying to shake out paperhands. HODL!”
But the fear, uncertainty and doubt were very real. The timing sucked. I had bought in at ATH so do I sell everything now at a loss and buy back in later? I wasn’t sure what to do since it was my first rodeo after all but as the weeks rolled by, it became clear that something was afoot. I was glad that I was stubbornly HODLing, trying my best to still DCA into further dips (actually, the dip of the dip of the dip) to improve my position while maintaining “diamond hands” (the opposite of “paper hands” which are too weak to HODL). In time, the signs became even clearer. Traditional banks were getting onboard with crypto! Respectable investment firms started to include BTC and ETH as portfolio options for their wealthy clientele! And then more incredibly, countries around the world decided to welcome BTC as legal tender!
As I’m writing this, it has been more than 3 months since the unfortunate crash. While the numbers are slowly climbing, we are still pretty much trading sideways. I hate that I find myself reaching out for my phone to check my Kraken app every hour to see how the charts are looking, but my investments do seem to be bouncing up and making several V-shaped recoveries of late… although I’m still wary of “bull traps” that appear promising enough but dip back down into the trenches again once you are FOMO-ed into buying more.
So, is crypto one big scam? Truthfully, I don’t have a definitive answer for you. There are good coins out there, like ETH that are really doing something, unlike DOGE which was a joke that became all too real. But just like classic Ponzi scheme, it certainly helps if you’d gone in early. There are many stories of successful people who became crazy rich on crypto but they had the first mover advantage—and the good fortune of not shelling out 10,000 BTC for a pizza delivery.
As for the rest of us who are late to the party, it’s certainly a crazy rollercoaster ride that not many can stomach. While luck and timing does play an integral part in all this, it’s vital—as it is with all investments—that one doesn’t get too greedy. I’ve also learnt that it’s a terrible idea to put all your eggs in one basket. That’s why besides trading in crypto these days, I’ve also signed up for UOB SimpleInvest where they have a team of professionals who actually manage the trades, besides also diversifying my investments in REITs and blue chip stocks like Facebook, Microsoft…and Apple.
At the end of the day, while we may not be the next crypto billionaires like the famous Winklevoss twins who own approximately 1 per cent of all Bitcoin, there’s a chance that this may offer financial freedom if you play your cards, er, coins right.
As for me, since our little man just celebrated his first birthday, it will be some time before he goes off to university so we’ll see how things develop. Maybe by then he’d be able to afford a Lambo along with his tuition fees, thanks to his Mama’s savvy crypto investment. Or hopefully at the very least, the ROI from my crypto adventures can buy him two pizzas.
***
NING’S PERSONAL TO-DO LIST FOR CRYPTO STARTERS
This is not financial advice because I’m not selling you anything but since my editor asked nicely, if you’re planning to begin your Bitcoin journey, here are some tried and tested tips to give you a solid head start:
- Always do your own research before investing your hard-earned money. Read up all you can and always be cynical before making a final decision. You may want to check out the 2020 documentary Cryptopia on Netflix. Some crypto channels that I personally like and follow on YouTube are CoinBureau, InvestAnswers, and IntotheCryptoverse aka Benjamin Cowen, who also has an active Telegram channel.
- Only buy and stake crypto through legit trading platforms like Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, etc. There are plenty of scammers in crypto since there’s no policing, so if something sounds too good to be true, it most certainly is!
- A well-known saying within the crypto community is “not your keys, not your coins” so if you’re not staking your coins, consider investing in a secure crypto wallet and be sure to keep all your ledger passwords and keys safe.
- Use 2FA to securely link your bank account or credit card to your trading account. I’d highly recommend you use a reliable app like Google Authenticator. And obviously, always log out when you are done and don’t even think about using a public PC to handle transactions.
- To make your first crypto purchase, you’re not required to buy a whole Bitcoin or any full altcoin for that matter. In most coin exchanges, you can start building your portfolio with just a few dollars. US$10 currently gets you around 0.0003 BTC. That’s 30,000 Satoshis (named after the founder) since 1 Bitcoin is equal to 100 million Satoshis.
Once you’ve decided on your investment strategy, brace yourself for one helluva ride. And when things get rough and bumpy as they sometimes will, do like me and put on some BTS and try not to check how your crypto portfolio is doing every two minutes. Good luck!
