For my very first article, I'd like to share with you my story. How my initial success turned into failure. You know how they say "don't invest more than you can afford to lose"? I'm that guy who did, although not at first.

I first heard of bitcoin when it was first created, I was a teenager at the time and it was mainly used by tech enthusiasts and criminals so I wasn't one of those early adopters. I wanted to buy it, I was a tech enthusiast but as a teenager that wasn't working, I couldn't justify to myself spending £20 on this thing I'll probably forget about in a week.

Initial Interest

Years later, I encountered it again, you could now buy it from exchanges rather than sketchy methods or earn it through faucets a little at a time. I started using the faucets but never got to the withdrawal threshold for these, they were time consuming and I'd sit for hours on end filling in captchas and it felt like I was wasting more and more of my time so I stopped. Unbeknownst to me at the time I had used a doge faucet as well - paying out 10 doge directly to a wallet - and only used it for 23 or so times. I found it last year and I'll be honest it looked like I lost interest in after using it on and off for two weeks - oh, if I go back to that time.

The start of the road

Fast track to mid-2019, I gain interest again and reset my coinbase password and start buying £10-20 of bitcoin a week. I mainly hodl at this point, trading for a few altcoins (OMG) and seeing them rise in value and then falling. Bitcoin keeps going up, and I start getting excited eventually having a balance over £300 in crypto. I fell in love with crypto, a 28 year old working full time in an awful job with a micro-manager of a boss who seemed out to get me. He clearly wanted me gone and I started to get a lot of anxiety about my performance that actually led to me getting a formal diagnosis of ADHD. I was able to stay in the job until July 2021 at the cost of my mental health and my physical health too.

Success in 3..2..1..

It's late 2020 when I register with Binance transferring my Coinbase balance. Binance had tons of features, I felt like I was in a sweet shop. I could earn interest, trade and the potential for financial freedom was there. I was ready to quit my job but I hadn't saved up or earned enough yet so buckling down I did some research, started using trading bots and spot trading while working to earn as much as possible; trying to learn how to effectively make it in the crypto world. I wanted my financial freedom. I had no debts and I was investing any spare money I had after bills in crypto. I wasn't earning much from my bots at this point but I had a varied portfolio around £1000, I was determined.

With any success, there's always a little bit of luck involved. A random purchase of nearly 2000 bake bought for £25 turns into £1000, I sell a bunch thinking that it wouldn't go much higher - it does. Within a week or two, my portfolio ranges from peaks at £6000 before bake starts to decrease in price, BNB at this point which I had 5 of starts climbing in price, I stopped buying at £25 thinking it will go down - it didn't. I'm still thinking, I can definitely quit my job at this point, but what if I lose all my profit right after? I need to get to £10,000 then by the time I'm 30, £30,000.

I research how to make your crypto work for you as I likely wasn't going to get that lucky break again any time soon. I find out about defi and AMM's. I'm hesitant but curious. I invest into some risky exchanges, provide liquidity and pray that the ones I've chosen work. I use the BSC network as Ethereum always felt too costly to use. I transfer my BNB to a wallet and start using it, not fully realising that BNB was going to continue climbing in price. I had also provided liquidity on the exchanges for max returns. The token price starts decreasing but at this point I have over $1000 dollars invested in one alone, this turns out to be the genuine article luckily but I ended up still withdrawing for other reasons while I was in a loss but that comes later.

At this point, I have crypto everywhere in several wallets earning interest. I'm not the smartest investor so other than Binance or Defi exhanges, I don't have much more than £100 staked in wallets.

Things are ramping up at work, I'm close to another breakdown and my mindset to get out has never been more fixated. I start taking riskier moves as I feel I'm close to fired and I don't want to/think I can handle another job. When I thought about my work experiences so far (pre-diagnosis) every single employer said I was too slow with the work but whenever I tried to speed up, I'd make mistakes and then get in trouble. I didn't want to do that again, especially after finding out that it was all due to a neurological condition I couldn't help years later. My performance at work continues to slip, but one thing keeps in my head "I have to do this faster" which unfortunately was a driver for my risky moves.

The riskier the road....

I discover the Futures market while the markets are going up. I use USDT pairs and I'm actually seeing a profit. I use a DCA bot on doge and I'm seeing great profit. I never keep a lot of the USDT in the futures wallet and instead invest in other coins with the profit. The profit keeps going and I'm able to bot multiple pairs. I do have a few loses but you'll see why I wasn't bothered below.

I was on a high, I earned my monthly wage in a week! I felt unstoppable. The main times I encountered a loss was when the markets dipped and I had too many pairs without a stop loss.

As you can see by the March date in my profit, this was all right before the crash. This is where valuable life lessons can be learnt because this is where it went downhill for me. My losses started to mount. I found myself transferring more and more into futures to keep afloat. I didn't tend to have a stop loss, I always felt the price will always go back up and I thought a 50x leveraged DOGE/USDT pair that was in the red for 4 days before going back up and then continuing to make a profit every minute. I wanted minimal losses, but I didn't think properly about the risks.

Road to Ruin

I kept optimistic and every loss I did get, I didn't let phase me. I used my crypto for collateral to help ensure there were minimal losses, I swapped alt coins in my portfolio. The markets were going down but I was still in profit by a few thousand with money tucked away in other wallets, I was playing with the houses money anyway and I was confident that I'd recoup any losses once things started going back up and this is how addiction starts folks. I ended up losing 5k within 3 months.

Around this time, a friend left her husband due to abuse and asked to stay with me. She had little money, no where to go and so of course, I was happy to help out. I was using my debit funds to buy crypto every week but started to use my credit cards more for bills and shopping.

In July, I'm fired from my job becoming even more dedicated to having my financial freedom and recouping my loses. My mental health low and affecting my physical health, I definitely can't do another job, I want to do trading as my job where I can be my own boss. At this point, it seemed like the markets were going back up and I did get back up to £2000 but I'm panicking now, I don't want a huge loss again now I have no job and I'm beginning to close trades where I shouldn't due to fear even while the price is still on the way up. I'm still caught up with my bills though and I have another £500 of shares tucked away but I haven't recouped near enough of my losses to stop, so I keep my money in futures and a day after I have 75%+ loss on two trades.

Downfall

The bots are no longer making hundreds a day, my time and money will run out in a matter of months, if not weeks, I'm slowly realising. Maybe I can't do this. Where did I go wrong? Did I just get greedy? I should give up...

You're probably thinking, why not just go back to spot trading? It felt like the profit I needed was mounting while the time I had was running out and futures had brought me nearly £200 profit in one day. I got impatient, I threw all my eggs in one basket. I got lucky a few times, don't get me wrong between now and then I made two trades that resulted in nearly £1000 in a day. I lost it most of it immediately though when I thought it was going to go back up and took out a large trade only to have it go straight down and bring me to a -£880 unrealised PNL within seconds. I couldn't tell whether it would continue down or jump up again and so when I saw it dip I closed the trade only for it to hit my initial price entry 10 minutes later, it wouldn't have liquidated had I left it open. I had so many liquidations before throwing all my money in one place though that I panicked and made a choice.

We're getting on in the article a little now, so thank you if you're still here. Thank you for reading my story.

The L Word

After several liquidations, I needed funds for the futures, so I started transferring coins from other wallets and converting them to USDT, Eth and Btc (for the coin market) and liquidated them too. I emptied every crypto wallet I had and found that doge wallet I mentioned earlier that had a whopping £200 in it. I was ecstatic but then I lost that eventually to futures too. I couldn't think of anything other than making my money back, and so every time the markets went up slightly I started using my credit cards to buy crypto. Once I couldn't use my credit cards anymore, the money I started spending was meant to be for food, rent, credit card bills and electricity. What didn't help is the friend I mentioned earlier, she left me with little reason, blocked me on all contact platforms all after 10 years of friendship and what we went through since she left her husband. I spiralled and I stopped caring that I was using money I shouldn't be, if I could make a few good trades then I'd have at least one less thing to worry about. The only smart thing I did was use my company shares to catch up on rent though.

I was sure that I'd be rewarded somehow for my faith but I was wrong, I was an addict with plenty of excuses and a whole head o' brain nasties and stupidity. I had no valid ID, and Binance needed to do verification again and so I wouldn't be able to trade anymore after a certain date. I wouldn't be able to deposit or even spot trade.

Today

That date was just less than a month ago. In just one single year, I made thousands and lost it all due to bad choices. Due to my bad choices, I went from the most money I've ever had in my life to being 1.5 months behind in rent with credit cards maxed. I spiralled into a depression, I'm not better yet and I still don't think I can even work yet, I don't even sleep in my bed anymore and reside on the couch. I'm struggling to stay afloat each month with each month getting harder and harder. I'm worried I'll have to move cities back to live with my parents and leave my life behind and I'm worried that's when I'd truly give up. Now here I sit, 30 years old - having lost overall roughly £10,000 which would be a life changing amount for anyone, unable to buy crypto anymore, bills mounting up and barely surviving.

Conclusion

When they say, "Don't invest more than you can afford to lose" please take the advice. Trading and Investing, especially in Futures, can be very fun and if done right, life changing. It's awe-inspiring to trade successfully when the market is moving up but be careful if using futures or high leverage, a 10% dip can wipe you clean and then you could become the same. Spend more time in the markets and not as much money. Don't become greedy as things going up will always come down giving you another shot at a low entry price. It's so easy to ruin yourself with a few bad trades and it's far too easy to think that based on your previous results you'll make it back if you just keep throwing money at it.

I still firmly believe in the future of crypto and I still wish for my financial freedom, but thanks to me and only me I've set myself further back and will be on this road a lot longer than planned.