https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h...the-dream-2019-11-10?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo He bet his family’s entire life savings and mortgaged his home for a shot at millions — now he’s living the dream ‘I’d seen a story at some point about someone who had spontaneous orgasms at random times throughout the day. That’s the best way I can describe the feeling. When I checked my phone, I’d be up another six figures since the last time I looked. I couldn’t resist stopping whatever I was doing to pump my fist and shout, “YEESSSS!”’ That’s Dan Conway, a former middle-management cog in a Silicon Valley firm’s wheel, describing in a piece for The Hustle how it felt to see his all-or-nothing $300,000 bet on Ethereum make him a very rich man. It all started when Conway, who was making about $150,000 a year, asked his wife if he could invest the family’s $100,000 in savings, which was earmarked for their three children’s college education, in a risky crypto play. “I hated the fake company culture, the bureaucracy, the endless chains of command,” he wrote. “Like so many others, I was looking for some kind of escape.” His wife knew it could cost them everything but, amazingly, agreed to it anyway. As a guy who had gotten into trouble before with his addictive personality, part of him recognized such a risk as self-destructive, but the more he read about cryptos, the more he began to believe in its future. This was in 2015 and bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.80% had fallen out of favor, dropping from a previous high of $1,200 to $300. “What if it goes up again? What if I put everything I had into this?” he wrote. “I could get rich and never work another day in Corporate America.” After eating up every bit of information he could, Conway turned his focus from bitcoin to Ethereum ETHUSD, -0.85% , which had just launched in July 2015. “As a disenfranchised suit-and-tie, I was enraptured by the possibility of a decentralized future,” he wrote. “As a greedy speculative investor, it gave me a rush.” He became so smitten with the potential, that he embarked on a wild ride — he used that $100,000 to buy 6,933 ETH at an average price of $14. Soon thereafter, he was served a heaping spoonful of crypto volatility and watched his initial investment drop below $40,000. “In the midst of a particularly volatile week, I found myself in the emergency room, struggling to breathe,” he explained. “The doctor diagnosed me with a panic event.” Undeterred, Conway doubled down by tapping into his home equity line. He borrowed another $200,000 and ended up with a total of 26,750 ETH at an average cost of $11.21 each. This had all the makings of serious disaster, but, no, the investing gods had other plans. “Something miraculous happened: It kept going up… and up… and up. Between February and March of 2017, ETH shot from $15 to $50 per coin. By April, it was at $70; by May, $230,” Conway wrote in The Huslte. “In a span of four months, my $300,000 investment ballooned to $6 million.” It didn’t stop there. In January 2018, Ethereum topped $1,000, and the memes were flying across the internet: “It was an unprecedented burst — so monumental in scope that it temporarily froze the exchanges,” said Conway, who wrote a book about his journey. “It was like a 9.0 earthquake with an infinite number of aftershocks.” He got the urge to sell, and sell he did. It was a market timer’s dream, as he sold most of his Ethereum position for a cool $10 million. Soon after he cashed out with his fortune, digital currencies were absolutely clobbered and still haven’t recovered. Ethereum is currently trading at under $200. Meanwhile, Conway paid off his mortgage, took a dream trip to Africa and bought a second home in Ireland. He still has seven-figures sitting in his bank. His advice for would-be Ethereum traders? “I still believe crypto will open up new possibilities for organizing the world in the decades ahead, and I’m confident it will pop again as a result,” Conway wrote. “But I don’t recommend that anyone try to replicate what I did. For every story like mine, there are hundreds of others about people who lost it all. I know that could’ve easily been me.” Read: Alt-coin traders share their horror stories
At the bottom of the page, ,,Read: Alt-coin traders share their horror stories'' Those are not traders, but ordinary folks, that took 80% loses on their portfolios , with hope for it to be back. On Etoro platform, you can see , most of the members holdings,thus out of curiosity, i went through most of the people from my country ( not that many , 1k or so), everywhere same scenario, - portfolio exposure, 95% cryptos and few blue chips ; before BTC bubble burst, huge gains, next year 80% - 90% loses. One of my past coworkers, tried to persuade me, that i should go all in some alt coin, which was at the value of 0.000034 or something. The best part was, where he wrote : ,,How much lower it can go ?! Best time to buy, open your eyes'' Politely responded : ,,Oh yes, i will consider that'' Wanted to send this as an answer from Peter, but, would it change anything... : 27:30
I find these stories silly. They are subtly hyping crypto gambling. I've run in circles with these kind of people before. None of them seem to care about liquidity, or the ability to get money out of the market when you need it. Reminds me of online poker before it got banned. Sure you might be a millionaire on paper, but when your broker packs up and leaves with all your money - you're the only sucker here. You wouldn't catch me wiring money into one of these exchanges. What a stupid move. This guy is pants on head retarded and stumbled his way blind into all of the right choices. I hope no one follows him. These "currencies" have literally no tangible value. It's gambling with monopoly money hoping some other sucker wants to buy in when you want to get out. Ridiculous. Top tier advice from the king of idiots.
I posted an article about Ethereum, a cryptocurrency, on the cryptocurrencies forum of Elite Trader and all I got are responses from crypto-haters. Very interesting... Cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, are just another form of a speculative, tradeable, digital, investment asset. There's a market for it, just like there's a market for penny stocks, junk bonds, options, negative-yielding government bonds, etc. Heck, CME trades futures on bitcoin and ICE (Bakkt) futures volume keeps increasing. There's a lot of money to be made investing in bitcoin (cryptos). Imo, trading cryptos is much harder, but ymmv. Bitcoin has had several parabolic bull and bear markets since inception 11 years ago.
Polite definition : A ruling monarch figure, in a hierarchical structure, that is based not on competence or brutal power, but on ones ability to spread wide, the most absurd ideas, which serves as vessels of inevitable material loses, for anyone who - follows him. At least, it's not a birthright & one has to deserve such a title by his service to society. Recently in forum, saw a good example where to begin, - one has to announce himself - a Legend. A - Legendary - King of Idiots. Level 2 stuff.
Cool story bro!!! Not trading but blind dumbass investment, but really cool story until you run the numbers. So he loses 40% with his initial investment but nicely averages down by injecting twice as much capital. ETH topped at $1000 but he cashed out at $373, because he got an urge to sell. Yes, because his investment lost 2/3 of its value!!! Had he sold at the top, he would have made 27 millions. Sure, he still made bank and he is still rich, so we will give him that. His urge to sell was pure panic. And let's mention that he made to the ER when he was down 40% because of the stress. What I admire about him is the willingness to hold while he was already up 1000% and 2000%. But his timing? Nope, that sucked. I would have liked this story much better had he sold continuously into the rally. If you can't time, average up and down.
I will bet he will lose all his wealth quickly. Can I invest my entire life savings on puts on this guy’s net worth?