Hi everyone, this is my second article in a series of articles I’ve entitled My Crypto Journey, an article I am really enjoying writing. I’ll jump straight into it. I've added photos of my beloved country to bring you all to Zimbabwe as you read.
To continue my story, it was late 2017 and I had just purchased USD$10 worth of bitcoin, some of which I’d already spent on purchasing referrals for a PTC site (a scam). By this time I was left with roughly USD$5 worth of bitcoin. (As a side note, the price of bitcoin was about $7000 per bitcoin when I first purchased and was on a bull run which I struggled to keep up with.)
From one scam to another, I discovered a new term as I sought ways of putting my $5 to good use “HYIP” High Yield Investment Program. You can only imagine what this phrase did to my heart. I immediately began to look for an investment program that would help me grow my bitcoin exponentially.
I came across an investment company called Biostry and I was immediately drawn to the pitch of the company. The institution purported to be a leading and innovative biotechnology company seeking to develop the industry in their own innovative way. Being a biochemist I didn’t think twice. As quickly as I read through the company profile my bitcoin was sent. I was well aware of blockchain technology and the uni-directionality of all blockchain transactions and was still raw from the deal I’d been served with the PTC site, but all the same believed I could trust this company.
The very day after I sent my money, when I typed in the website details there was an error message reading the domain doesn’t exist….I can’t begin to describe the mix of emotions that I started to go through as each repeated attempt to get into the website yielded the same result. I then began reading up on all I could find about the company and realised there were so many people who had been scammed by this company. I won’t lie, that was one of my lowest points in my journey, I couldn’t sleep for days afterwards. It was a small amount of money I know but to get it cost me a huge chunk of my salary and at that time I seemed to be the only person who had ever heard of bitcoin and the few who knew about it thought it was a pyramid scheme so I felt pretty stupid after that huge mistake.
I think it would be good to mention my first wallet was a blockchain wallet and also I bought my first bitcoin on localbitcoins at $14000 per bitcoin when the actual price of bitcoin was $7000 simply because the Zimbabwean dollar only works in Zimbabwe as it is only legal tender in Zimbabwe and the only person willing to accept it was charging that price. (I’ll mention that I learnt about escrow as well and I won’t lie the escrow service system was scary, I still cringe whenever I use it).
I’m bringing up all these things to drive the point that I was learning through the whole process. As I speak I now know to go through Trust pilot and Alexa Ranking when reading up on new cryptocurrency ventures, a lesson I learnt in blood.
In my next article I will talk about my eventual success in finding an HYIP and how it’s still going for me 3 years later, though not in the way you’d expect. Stay tuned in.
I would like to thank you all for the encouraging comments that have actually led to me writing a second article so soon.
I hope you enjoy this article!!
I leave you with this image an average day in my city Bulawayo
I remember images from cricket being played in Bulawayo like 15 years back. Good to see some images from there now!