It all started with a birthday check from Grandma. I'm 40, but I still get birthday checks from my grandparents. Cute, right?
The pandemic was in full bloom, and there wasn't much for me to do with my birthday bucks--so I decided to head to everybody's favorite virtual casino: Robinhood.
I was classic dumb money, investing in a certain electric car company--let's call it Schmikola--and other less-bad-but-still-bad choices. I learn from my mistakes, though. With every misstep, I became a little smarter.
I moved from following the herd to making better, educated decisions. I was diversifying. I decided ETFs were better and started putting money into them instead. Things were growing and moving in a positive direction.
But then I realized I have a 401k for that. I asked myself:
What am I trying to do here?
That's when I ripped it all out and put it into bitcoin. (Keep in mind that "all" is my original birthday money plus weekly investments of about $50. We're probably talking about $500 at this point--not my life savings.) Can you guess what happened next?
That's how my fascination with bitcoin and cryptocurrency began. I started exploring outside of Robinhood and discovered an entire world of choices and freedom. It's become my number one hobby, and that's what brings us to today.
I've since moved all my funds from Robinhood and into exchanges, wallets, and investments. Robinhood's okay for getting started if your only goal is to have some skin in the game. It's crypto with training wheels. You can't make as many mistakes, but you also lose all freedom.
There are two things Robinhood steals from you: choice and opportunity. You're limited to the handful of cryptos they offer, which is less than ten in a sea of thousands. And since you don't have control of the coins themselves, you can't use them for investing--and the investment returns in the crypto space are mind-boggling good.
That's how my journey began. After leaving Robinhood, I began to explore the various exchanges and opportunities. I started researching lots of different cryptocurrencies. I've learned a ton, and I've had a lot of fun along the way.
In my next article, I'll talk about how I'd start if I could restart from the beginning. There's free money available if you know where to look. I could easily double my same $250 birthday investment in less than 6 months, and I'll show you how. Stay tuned!
Please note that this is my hobby. This is not financial advice, nor am I qualified in any way, shape, or form to give financial advice. Learn with me; have fun with me, but do your own research and only gamble with money you expect to lose.
This article was originally published on Medium on February 24, 2021.
