This has been an amazing few years with crypto. I have lost a lot of money (70% of my net-worth) but it does not matter. This is why.BBC and Modafinil (2011)I have always been fascinated by money. I am a geek who collects old coins and banknotes. In 2011, I was watching BBC Newsnight. Oxford University academics were explaining how students have better cognitive performance with a drug called Modafinil. BBC? Oxford Uni Profs?.... some drug called Modafinil that makes you smart ... I wanted and needed this shit. The BBC Newsnight episode even mentioned the website where you could buy this stuff! I logged onto the site and saw the prices. I could not afford it. But.... they offered big discounts if you paid for it with Bitcoin! I could not afford it so I did not bother.Bad Performance in Uni and Making My First Order (2011)My studies were not going well. I needed something to make me smarter than all the rich kids. I am not naturally intelligent or wealthy. I just find ways to get shit done. I bit the bullet and decided to try and order some Modafinil using Bitcoin. I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I was being scammed to be honest. Buying Bitcoin and using it to pay for stuff with some bizarre code. By the end of it all I thought I had lost my money and was pissed off. I spent two weeks eating instant noodles to save money. Then, the Modafinil arrived by post to my University accommodation! My Bitcoin payment had worked! I never looked back. It was fucking awesome! My grades improved; I gained confidence, and after years, I was finally no longer an incel! It made me feel psychologically better somehow even if it did nothing, I believed it worked.British Museum Casascius Bitcoins (2012)In 2012, I saw a physical Casascius Bitcoin coin (with a cool hologram on the coin) in the British Museum History of Money. I spent my Saturday reading the history of money from ancient Mesopotamia to today. The coin looked cool. I ordered two from eBay. One for me, and one for my boyfriend. We both collected coins and banknotes (we broke up in 2014, I wonder if he ever figured out what it was worth, or if he even remembered).Central Banks and Disillusionment (2014)I graduated in 2014. My research was all about interest rates and central banks. After so many years of studying central banks, I realised how rigged the system was. I also knew how puny and small I was in the greater scheme of banking and the world. I started getting disillusioned with the fractional reserve banking system and sympathising with shit like Zeitgeist.Studying Bitcoin and Giving Up (2014)I moved to Thailand and started working as a researcher. I was writing articles about trade, but in the back of my mind I wanted to write about Bitcoin because I felt there was a gap in academic research. I never had time. I eventually quit my job and started lecturing in a Thai university. In my job interview, I talked a lot about Bitcoin and the professors seemed intrigued. I tried to teach myself, but honestly I could not really understand what the fuck Bitcoin was or how it worked. Like I said, I am not naturally intelligent.Understanding Bitcoin (2015)My university did not have access to good data for research. I had to scrape data from websites. I taught myself Python using tutorials just to get data. I tried to learn about Bitcoin but it was out of my depth. One a holiday to Laos, it clicked. I decided to download all the data on the blockchain and figure out how every variable (column in Excel) was connected to every other variable (another column in Excel). As I said, I am not naturally intelligent. I cannot imagine data in my head, I need to see it on Excel like a normal person. I spent months and months trying to figure this shit out. Eventually, I got to a point where I thought I understood it. To prove to myself I understood it, I made a set of lectures. If I could teach total beginners with no background in math, finance, programming ect how Bitcoin worked in detail, then I knew my topic. I struggled with it, but I did it. I taught my colleagues everything I knew, with all my passion and zeal. They loved it :-)Restructuring My Brain (2016)At this point. The professors in my department were excited about crypto because I was so passionate about it. I loved the philosophy, the economics, the financial implications, the fuck you to centralised monetary authorities, the independence, the freedom, the libertarian ethos. There were some things I disliked about Bitcoin but it changed my mindset and way of thinking. I became complacent and invested a lot of money into crypto. It mooned that year. I felt like a god.The Crash (2018)In January, everything crashed. I held my nerve and did tried not to care. I invested in Ethereum and OmiseGo. I hodled. I panic sold. I re-bought. I am still hodling. With hindsight, this was a stupid thing to do. Hindsight is a great thing. I lost a lot of money. I lost around £7,000 which for me is a lot of money (In 2016, I had a total of £10,000). Putting this into perspective, this was cheaper than my bachelors degree, cheaper than my masters degree, cheaper than my doctorate. I gained more from these two years than from any of my education. But looking back.....Why?- I found something I genuinely care about. I love the philosophy. I love the economics. It is something deeply rooted in my life now. Most of my colleagues can tell you how I use the principles of blockchain in meetings at work. Openness, transparency, voting systems ect. It has changed my whole outlook on the world. I see a way to bypass the central banks entirely (which I have studied my whole life).- I can code. As an economist, I had to teach myself to code in Python and C# using online tutorials. I am not an expert coder after two years, but I can speed up much of my research.- I can write research. To create change in the world of banking, you first have to get the central banks to listen. The central banks only listen when academics produce research. Few academics are producing research, this is where I can do my small part.- I have created a course to teach total beginners about Blockchain and Crypto. Everybody who attends manages to create SHA256 hashes, digital signatures, and understand the minutiae mechanics of how Bitcoin works after just 4 fucking hours.- I have met so many weird and cool nerds that I get on with (or I think I do), and it makes me happy :-)Should You Invest in Crypto?I get this question all the time. You have to understand. For me, this is my calling. This is my fight. This is our war on central banks. For me, it is not a matter of 'making money quickly.' For me, it is about supporting something I care about. If I lose money, it does not matter because I did what I thought was right. Yes I am annoyed I lost money. I supported something I cared about. It is not a matter of getting rich quick. It is about my fight. If you support a charity you care about and they waste the money, it does not matter. This is the same feeling for me. If you 'invest' in crypto, then do it because you give a shit, not because you want to make a quick buck.Anyway. My colleagues will probably read all this and get annoyed. For the university, you all know that I try to be honest all the time, whether people like it or not. So here it is :-) This is me.Kind regardsAmanp.s I use my real name online. I do not hide behind fake names :-)Edit 1: It is 6am. Gonna sleep. Will reply in the morning/afternoon, whatever :-)
Submitted December 20, 2018 at 04:57AM
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