I’ve never been a subscriber to so-called “common sense”. By that, I mean, just because a majority of people say or believe something, doesn’t make it true.
I don’t know what made me question the one thing that led me to question everything else, but I always wanted to understand things myself rather than taking peoples word for it.
As a kid, this made going to school quite painful and it’s made joining the work force just as difficult, but when it comes to investing, it’s been a gift. Combine this habit with the habit I’ve built of questioning myself as much as I question others, and removing my emotions from the equation, and I think it’s probably become my greatest asset.
People tell me a place or person is this or that, I want to see for myself. My first reaction to something is negative or positive, but then I question why and try to consider another point of view…at least to consider.
There were many things I saw my parents or classmates or teacher doing that didn’t make sense to me and still don’t.
Following trends was probably the biggest, and when I say follow, I mean imitate or trying to fit in. To follow, as in to pay attention and to try and predict in order to navigatw the world better is another story. With fashion and with investing, it’s the same, if everyone is talking about it, you are already too late. And trends always come and go, they aren’t worth you energy the same way something with long term value is worth your energy.
I always hated the idea of investing because I didn’t understand it and because I didn’t want to support corporations. I saw the herd mentality and didn’t know anyone who actually did their own research, so it just felt like a big pyramid scheme to me, and honestly 98% still does. But then there are a few moments in your life that if you are paying attention, you realize a shift before it happens and it becomes a life changing opportunity for you.
Bitcoin changed everything for me, and I say that as someone who doubts its long term sustainability. It wasn’t tied to a coorportation and so I had no ethical qualms about supporting it the way i might for Facebook or Lockheed Martin, and it was fresher and had way more upside potential than something like gold or real estate. It was also a lot eaiser to start out. DIY, just how I like it.
I didn’t buy it at first because I still doubted it and I didn’t have any funds to buy anything. But I watched it carefully to see what would happen. The fact that it was permissionless and the fact that it was deflationary just made it feel like something to pay attention to whether you liked it or not. Of course most didn’t until it became hyped.
Most people were focused on their own benefit. I was more interested in how this would shift power. The first massive bitcoin rallies meant there would be a bunch of young people who had money and resources that were previously only availbale to people born into it or people who had worked tirelessly to build empires.
I didn’t judge them, I wanted to be them. It’s not that I don’t believe in work, I think we should do work we are passionate about or believe in. I don’t believe in work just to work, ESPECIALLY not when others are profiting off our work more than we are.
And then bitcoin crashed and I forgot about it for a while but when I heard you could earn crypto and trade it for bitcoin or stake it and have influence in a community, I jumped to learn what it was about. Half of it was for my own benefit and half was because the implications were exciting to me. I imagined an empowered Africa and South America and a world without super powers, where any community could create their own nation in a sense based on shared values, not just race, or religion, and it could happen remotely too.
I severely doubted the long term potential of everything but the idea was so fun to play with, so I got involved.
I’ve always been quick to spot trends, not because I want to follow trends but because I am interested in what the world has to offer me and what I have to offer the world. I want to have fun and learn new things and I want to help others do the same. Always. So even I don’t want to touch something myself, I want to understand it.
I don’t like or feel pulled to many things, for example: S&M or hardcore drugs or the adult film industry or religious fundamentalism…these are so dlearly not for me, but give me a chance to speak to people who are involved with these things in and I will gladly pick their brains if they are willing to let me!
This curiosity is how you end up spotting trends before other people. You discover things you ARE interested in and you learn why all kinds of people do what they do.
That’s just who I am and honestly I think it’s something we are all born with and most people lose through schooling and socialization.
So slowly I got into bitcoin and crypto and I started to see markets as an expression of energy flow. I still didn’t like the stock market but it became a good predictor for future news events. I realized that I could finally monetize my ability to spot trends through my curiosity, something ethical concerns and lifestyle always prevented me from doing in the work force. I knew bankers and had an path to that world if I wanted it but it felt so twisted and unnatural to me and now I could finally take advantage of my skillset in a way that was for me.
I learned trading but quickly decided it wasn’t the best way for me. You don’t need to make a billion smart trades to make money, you just need to make a handful over years. I still don’t have a passion for markets, I’m interested in humans and humanity’s trajectory and how we can steer it through culture and individual expression.
But being able to look at things holistically is helping me survive in difficult times now. My plan for work has gone wrong in almost every possible way. First a cultural shift, then pandemic, then economic decline and now government regulation, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.
Meanwhile investing has gone very very well, and the only reason I am not set for life now is that I started with such a small amount but that means I am only 1 or 2 choices away from easy street.
My strategy is simple: identify something that is undervalued and durable. That’s it. I don’t look at the price, I look at it’s ranking and it’s ability to adapt and solve problems and it’s weakpoints. Mostly I invest in things I have experience with or have paid attention to long enough to understand.
I bought hive not because I was sure it would overtake facebook or make it to the top 10 coins. I saw it in the 400’s with hundreds of shittier projects above it and said “this could at least be a top 200 coin and it’ll have to fuck up pretty hard not to make it”.
And that’s why I felt it made financial sense to invest time and energy and money here. You may feel we have failed because we hit $1 and fell back to $0.17 but if you were invested at 0.08 or 0.12 you are still up.
The same goes for bitcoin. I bought at $6000 usd. I didn’t have a lot of money but i was pretty confident it would 10x within 5 years. So i bought it and didn’t touch it. There were many times I could have traded it and tried to chase some hype but if you are chasing hype you are already late to the game. That’s how you end up buying high and selling low.
Now I am reluctantly getting ready to sell some bitcoin. My portfolio isn’t enough for me retire early, but it’s enough for me to suppliment my income with a portion and keep the rest so that’s what I am doing rather than stressing about work not going as planned. The good thing about a 20x, even if it takes 5 years, is that you can cash out 10x your initial investment and still have a 10x bigger portfolio than you started with.
I was hoping to share more about how I look at thing holistically and how “common sense” is often just the opposite, but this is getting long so maybe tomorrow!
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