First, English is my second language so please forgive my poorly organized, horribly formatted and super long story. Also I never shared this story before and wasn't really planning to, but I told it to one of my now close friend who is a crypto nerd like me and he said it was inspiring and that I should share it so here goes.It's 2014 I am working a minimum wage job at a labels factory, I boxed the finished labels. 6 months later, I am promoted and I am head of the quality assurance department (happened super fast and everyone was amazed that it happened including myself :P ). I got a raise and life was good.One day the owner decided to hire a "team leader" basically a tier 2 boss. An authoritarian racist c*nt that hates my guts. We get in an argument, I turn my back on him and walk away and he ends up physically assaulting me for it. I threaten to sue and they fire me because of it.I complain to the EEOC, because I can't afford a lawsuit. We mediate and like an idiot I settled for 5k they offered me. I Payed my lawyer $400, Bought us a new furnace because ours was old and had broke down. I replace the kitchen sink, paint the house and did some other minor repairs.All said and done, and after working for nearly 2 years at that company I am unemployed, depressed and have nothing to show for it, Well except for a $1000 I have left from the settlement that I wanted to preserve and invest in something instead of spending it.I spend a couple month of freelancing and hustling trying to find a new source of income. And one day I am on some random forum trying to find a solution to a problem I have with my code (I have 13+ years of programming experience C++, C#, Asm and reverse engineering) I read the word Bitcoin for the first time ever. And the person talking about it made it sound like it's the next big thing and that it's going to do wonders for apps and payment systems.Other replies to that same post were talking about how it will make them all rich. I got curious, And on September, 2015, I google Bitcoin for the first time ever and I end up on Coinbase. I bought $5 worth of Bitcoin for shit's and giggles. Forgot about it for ~3 months. Then came back and sold it in October for $5.10. So I made 10 cents profit after coinbase's outrageous fees. And I thought to myself, This is great, I just made 2% with minimal effort. Greed kicked in and I started my quest to learn as much as I can about BTC.For the skeptics:https://preview.redd.it/jrz4ptp5z4b61.png?width=797&format=png&auto=webp&s=d91bfe7e49827ba274cfbb9fca57dc419bdd9e2fNext thing I know I am on Coinbase Pro (Gdax at the time) and was instantly hypnotized by the insane volatility and price swings. I immediately start buying and selling, Without any knowledge about trading whatsoever. I made some money then then lost more than I made and now I have ~$820 left and I realized I am not going to beat the market like this. My orders were being front ran by bots (didn't know they were bots at the time) because they keep burying my limit orders whenever I post them and I don't get filled. Also fees for market orders were exceeding my profit so I end up losing instead of making money.Thinking like a programmer (a problem solver really) I thought to myself there has to be a way for me to do the front running. I do some googling. Learn about the exchange API. I fired up Visual Studio, downloaded some files/libraries and spent a few weeks creating a prototype that would speed things up and give me an edge. At first I used C# and it looked like crap but it performed well, And with the ability to place orders as fast as possible (and free limit orders). My balance started growing.Slowly but surely I kept improving the prototype over the years and it evolved into a fully functional trading platform. I eventually used Directx to recreate the order books locally (this part happened much later 2019-ish) because the exchange kept freezing and crashing when I needed it the most and low and behold, I had out done myself and created a fine trading platform Here is the post were I first showed it to the world.Here is a video of it in action too: https://streamable.com/3jl30lOne click insta buy/sell and everything was pre-calculated for me. All I had to do was pre-set the # of lots I wish to flip in each trade and click either the buy or sell buttons.Within a few weeks of the first prototype I was up from $800 to 8k scalping BTC's volatile market and I was ecstatic, I was over the moon, pun intended. However, The market was slowing down and it is now boring and I am not making any $$ and I was never happy that I could only trade BTC and LTC on Coinbase and was scared to trade anywhere else for fear of losing my money with all the hacks and scams that were happening almost everyday. But then I learn about a coin called Lisk. And the Lisk zealots managed to convert me and I end up joining them and opened a Bittrex account lol.By now I had spent 3k in life expenses and I have 5k left so I move it to Bittrex, And add Bittrex to my trading platform and go all in on Lisk at $3. I was convinced it is going to the moon and will make me rich. I go to my wife and beg her to borrow some money from her dad for me or max out a credit card or whatever the fuck she can do to get me a few more thousand dollars so that I could add more to my LSK position because I have no credit score history and no one would lend me, She was terrified and refused to help me. I didn't get a single dime. (Hindsight, I am glad she didn't :P)So there I was, Angry at my wife (I was wrong I know) determined to prove her wrong and show her that this will work and that I am not going to lose so I am trading like a degenerate gambler with my entire stack. Looking like a zombi from malnutrition and lack of sleep, But I pull through and grow that 5k into ~24k within roughly 1.5 months. Phew, I DID IT, I shout. looking at my wife. I FUCKING DID IT. I TOLD I CAN DO IT but you never believed in me. And my head grew bigger and bigger to the point were it wouldn't fit through the door any more. Meanwhile LTC is pumping like a mother fucker but I had no idea because I am not paying attention to anything else but my cash cow LISK. Now that LISK is slowing down (Re-branding delayed) and hype was dead. I sell it all. Transfer the cash back to Gdax and join the LTC frenzy.By now it's December 2017, And shit was Insane, It was lit, Everything was on steroids and $ signs everywhere. I was going all in on every trade (Spot trading) and with every trade and my account kept growing. First it was growing hundreds, Then LTC went parabolic and it was thousands of $$ with every click of the mouse. Every click of the buy/sell buttons I made or lost a few thousand $$. Never holding on to a position loser or winner. I catch the wicks (which were huge) and would flip it in seconds just to go back to fiat for fear of getting whipsawed and losing it all.By now I had grown my 24k into 100k within like 3 days at the markets peak (LTC at like $150+). The joy I felt, The happiness, The pride :) I was victorious and those 3 days were like a crazy epic dream.So now I am gloating and teasing my wife telling her how I did it all by myself and shit and thanking her for all the help she didn't offer. meanwhile, LTC is still pumping like crazy. But I was content, I had just broken the 100k mark and was ready to celebrate. but of-course life is never sunshine and rainbows.To my dismay, My wife asks. What about TAXES? I am like what taxes? I already payed the fees! (I am a foreigner so i knew nothing about taxes in the US of A) She said you have to pay capital gain taxes on this, It's like 30%. My face turned pale and my heart skipped a beat, I jump out of bed, go online and research capital gain taxes.And I realized she was right, I am going to end up paying at least 25% to 32% of my money in taxes. I felt like I wanted to cry and all the joy and happiness I had felt was gone (Hindsight I should have been happy even after taxes :P). But I decided to push forward and make the 32% that I have to pay in taxes to get to the 100k mark after taxes while the market is hot.so I cancelled the moon party and went back upstairs, Started the computer and started trading again.So now I am back at it, Still killing it making more and more money. This continues for a day or 2 more and by the time the crypto party was over and when LTC started the big crash from $400 to $150 I was all back in cash and I had made a grand total of 310k+ and 105k+ trades in about 6 months, Most trades were made in Dec 2017 and Jan 2018 on BTC, LTC and LSK combined.I at first protested paying taxes for weeks, No for months, because it seemed unfair to me. But the April 15th deadline drew ever closer. And our CPA scared me str8 telling me about all the fees and fines I would have to pay if I delay paying the IRS so I reluctantly agreed and paid all of my taxes to uncle Sam. It was a massive chunk of money to give away all at once and it made me sick to the stomach.And that my friends is the long-short version of the story of how I turned a $1000 into $300k. I hope to one day be able to tell a story of how I turned whatever I have left of the 300k now into a million $ or even better into a multi million dollar fortune :)I know some people did like 1000x better than me, But for my story, I am proud of what I had achieved so far and I thought it would be cool to share the story and to hear other peoples success stories.I still am still doing great in this bull market and trading crypto has been my full time job ever since I got fired from my job at the labels factory. I have grown a lot since. btw I thought about sending the owner of the factory that fired me a letter thanking him for firing me because it was the best thing that ever happened to me but I never did :PIf you have made it this far. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, And wish you and everyone else the best of luck and riches beyond your wildest dreams.TL;DR: I turned a $1000 I got from a EEOC settlement into $300k+ scalping LSK and LTC back in 2017 bull market.Leave a downvote and a "delete" comment if you think I should delete this :)
Submitted January 13, 2021 at 11:34PM
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