I have a confession to make. As much as I'd like to hide this from everybody around me, I want to let it out. Maybe I'll feel a little better.
I lost 22.22 BTC in 2013. "How?" You may ask. It was mainly due to greed. You see, in 2013, I was a 20-year old. I was fascinated that Bitcoin rose so much so fast and asked my parents to invest some money into them. Told them that it had great promise of growth in the long-term. They agreed, gave me about $5400, and I bought 22.22 BTC.
All was good. The price rose and it fell. It was fun watching price and immediately calculating what the Bitcoins were now worth. It was addictive. I would check the price ever hour or so back then.
A few months later, the value of Bitcoin doubled. Now they were worth about $11k. "Wow," I though. My parents are going to be so happy (we're from a middle class family in India and $11k is a LOT of money).
One day, someone found my phone number on the Localbitcoins website and sent me a text. He said he had a strategy to earn recurring profits through Bitcoin. That a lot of people use it for gambling, and we can use the spread between Bitcoin prices in India and China to make a profit!
"This is getting better." Or so I thought. 2 weeks later, I meet the guy at a restaurant. Talk a little bit about what he plans to do with the money and I decide to send him 10BTC to see what he can do with it. He gave me a post-dated cheque for the equivalent of 10BTC in fiat as a "safety" so I can be sure he wasn't a scammer. Transferred the money, went back home, super happy to make money by investing my Bitcoins!
Later that evening, I get a call from this guy saying he needs more upfront capital to get the ball rolling. I suspected something might be wrong - but I didn't want to loose 10BTC because I couldn't afford some more. BIG FUCKING MISTAKE. I paid him 12.22BTC more and he promised to deliver.
Days went by and I didn't hear from him. I called him up hundreds of times, no answer. I rushed to the bank to cash out the cheque, but it was cancelled. I asked the bank employees for remediation, they asked me to go to the cops. I went to the cops - they said "Bitcoin is illegal, you shouldn't have bought it anyway. But since the cheque bounced, we can try to help you." They didn't do jack shit.
So this is the story of how a naive 20-year-old lost 22.22 BTC - valued at $256718 today. The story clearly talks about my mistakes. It seems obvious now, but back then, I was blinded by the idea of easy profits.
Lessons:- Don't trust ANYBODY.
- The moment you feel something is not right, cut your losses. Don't get in deeper.
- Don't be greedy. There are no get-rich-quick schemes. Don't fall for them.
- Don't be naive.
- Never touch money/investments that aren't your own. It feels 100000x worse.
- ALWAYS ESCROW.
I'm having to fight through this pain everyday. I feel pathetic. I've lost a lot of courage and morale. I feel extremely lonely. I can't being to understand how people that have lost bigger amounts of money cope with this. If someone here knows, do let me know.
Checking the price of Bitcoin has become super painful. I can literally feel my heart burn every time I see the price go up more. I'm 23 years old now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to earn back the 22.22 BTC. I'm afraid. I feel like I'm falling through an abyss - just falling deeper and deeper.
I can, however, claim that I've got balls. That should be evident from the fact that I didn't suicide yet. Time to time and more often than not, there's a voice inside me that says "You can't do it. You're in over your head." I try to suppress that. I'm trying to make all those Bitcoins back.
Recently (a few days ago), I asked Roger Ver to help. He politely declined. It was really nice of him to reply to my email. I totally understand - he can't verify any of this. And 22.22BTC is not a small sum of money today.
If there's anyone out there that can help, please message me. If not, I would love some support in these dark times (for me). I need some extra courage. I have some inside, I need some more.
Hope you learned something that prevents you from losing money.
#BitcoinToTheMoon
