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March 11, 2024, 07:15:25 AM |
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I've never recovered emotionally and it is a pain I am taking to my grave. On that fateful day of May 7th 2017 I lost 300BTC after being leveraged 2.5x on STR also known as XLM. I worked the grave yard shift 6pm to 6am and during the wee morning hours I was placing a 125K+ sell order of STR right above the current sell price forcing others to sell under my price if they wanted to get out. This slowly lowered the price. Around the time I got out of work that day and after pushing the price down a bit I went all in 2.5x leverage on what I had . That morning STR was the Crypto of the day where all the action happened and I was in before the FOMO even kicked in. I was already in big and it literally went straight to the moon the way we would always joke about in the exchange chat.
Off the 2.5x margin in the morning hours I was up $175,000 profit on the borrowed money not including my own. This right before BTC hit $1,000 for the first time. I crossed $500,000 in my account value and I called my mom yelling in ecstacy. I told her I just hit over half a mil and that this was just the beginning. That this was going to be more millions that I could count. To remember when I told her when we grew up in poverty and I left to the Marines penniless in 2006 that one day I would be a millionaire. That life in West LA the way I envisioned would be ours. I already had my beach front house picked in Playa Del Rey. True financial freedom from the power potentiality that money brings. It was 11 super long years in the making of blood sweat and tears. I was 29 years old at the time.
I had bought my first BTC in 2013 on localbitcoins for $80 and traded it up and down the chart to around $1000 and that this was the future as I first predicated back in 2012 when BTC made big noise when it went from $25 to $50. I hung up the phone and I reviewed with manic energy all of my news sources to see any changes that could affect the price. I had the order book pulled up like I always do so I could map out the resistance and support in the order book. FOMO was in full swing and no one was selling. The resistance was nil and the support massive. Only a FOOL would sell. Then my account went from 500k to 520k 530k 540k 550k 580k in a blink of an eye. I felt like I had made the perfect move at the perfect time and a tsunami of fortune was hitting ME like I only dreamed off. Not in percentages but in my account value because if anyone has traded crypto in the early days knows the volatility in percentages has always been there. I was a seasoned vet at this time having traded on the NYSE as a young man and making over 1000% of the rebound in 2009 where I timed it by two weeks from the bottom in March. This was my seed money into crypto in 2013.
I had my mouse over the close order to solidify my gain but I was a deer in the head lights looking at another tab of my account skyrocketing. I thought to myself it is time to close the order. I clicked close and a loading wheel appeared and wouldn't go away. I waited and waited and.... waited. I refeshed the page but it wouldn't load again. I had never experienced anything on poloniex like this and I had been trading since Ethereum forked with ETC classic. That was actually my first day trading. I started to get a bit worried trying to close the biggest order of my life. I checked my news tabs and the headlines started to come in. One of the biggest exchanges in the US just went down poloniex due to a DDOS ATTACK. My heart sank. I switched over to a crytpo marketcap website to look at the overall market and to my pain the crytpo marking in general started tanking.
I was 2.5x leveraged and I couldn't log in to close the FUCKING order. By the time I was able to log in I had been liquidated. My account was worth 24$. When I saw that number I literaly fell out of my couch and fell on the floor. I started shaking uncontrollably with spit foam coming out of my mouth and twitching seizure like. My brain was troubleshooting and downloading how drastically my life had changed. I saw my future and it was the life that I am living now. My own nightmare. I was helped onto my sofa and I could no longer move. To this day it has been the most traumatic moment in my life and I've had plenty of experiences. I didn't move for two weeks. Didn't shower or hardly ate. Didn't even call out of work and said fuck everything. I was a semiconductor microchip machine tech at the time. I said fuck everything. I eventually walked into one of my bedrooms and I pulled out my AR-15. I cried as I racked one back, took the safety off, and put the buttstock on the floor. I kneeled and put the barrel in my mouth and felt the cold steel and I remember telling myself just a few pounds of pressure and I don't have to deal with this path life has given me. I was in anguish and my life had collaped. The man I had been up to that point died that moment. I was left with a trillion pieces I could never put back together and I knew it. I thought about my mom and she was the only thing that helped me pull the barrel out of my mouth. The damage was done I would never ever be the same again.
I eventually went back to work with a made up excuse. I'm surprised they didn't fire me. I lost my girlfriend, 11 years of my crazy life, and any hope of my true dreams ever becoming a reality. I was going to be a slave in the system until the very end. This opportunity was beyond generational. It wasnt a stock that took off. It was a multi trillion dollar market being born and it went through my fucking hands like sand at the beach.
To make matters worse I started drinking heavily and got revoked on my 3rd DUI probation and I was sentenced the remaining full 400 day sentence in work release to begin October 2017. I remember someone in the crytpo chat asking if btc was worth buying at $900 and I said yeah it's like buying real estate in the 70s it is only going one way if you hold long.
But now comes January 2018. From losing everything at 1000 to watching BTC go to 14,000 from May to January was a knife in my soul everyday. Incarcerated on top of that didn't make it feel any better. It made it much worse actually. I could still see the numbers everyday and the massive days where every single coin was massively in the GREEN. I would cry and I calcualted each time what my account would have been worth. 2 then 3 then 4 then 5 million dollars. January 2018 I sat on that cold seat on that metal table in jail and hiding tears in my eyes all I could do was write how I felt in that moment. This is what I wrote:
Archaic Salvation
It is slow burning. Uneasiness translates in my mind. Breathing is shallow and empty. The mind sends the signal to find a way out. Run! Run! Run far away! Flight! Flight! Stand and fight! The heavy adrenaline radiates in my chest. Ready for battle I look but there is no one to fight. Void of direction I close my eyes and look in the opposite way.
The burning resonates at the center. The center of whatever this is. The center is where I always am. It is like attempting to run away from a headache except this is a crushed and defragmented soul with murdered ambition where memories fuel the fire. I can feel the crackling of charred dreams stirred deep in the corpses of desire and though dead they resurrect in smoke only to haunt and torment with visions of what could have been. The flames grow carrying the smoke to my throat. It stiffens. I can't breathe. I try to contain it but the smoke seeps through to my eyes. They water as they attempt to put out the fire but this fire will burn until the oxygen is eliminated.
I close my eyes to contain the tears. Like a broken dam it overflows in a torrent of cornered desperation. The smoke floods out of my mouth and speaks what could have been! What could have been! Only I know what could have been! The fire begins to rage and I douse it with alcohol. It burns going down but it is nothing compared to the burning flame of desire.
The alcohol assaults the brain like a tsunami destroying barriers and boundaries. These new brain pathways transform me into the flame. I look into the night sky and erupt like a volcano. Howling into the sky. Howling into the moon. Screaming into the stars for the conspiracy it has played on reason! Reason forever a slave to the infinite moment! Alcohol has arrived and swiftly murders reason. Rage is joined with adrenaline as I look at death absent fear and in that moment the hoax is clear. None of this is real and none of it matters. For what is matter itself but an illusion. An illusion just like the idea of who I think I am. The problem is the ego that cultivates desires and only leaves residual suffering from unfulfillment. This failure to materialize will only torment the senses perpetuated by the arrogance, disrespect, and truth of the world . The truth that I am not free. The truth that I am a slave by my own imagination.
So the question unfolds:
Will death bring the clarity of GOD or will desire reconstruct the prison eternally?
It is a slow burning flame in my chest. Slowly building pressure. This emotion gives no quarter awake or dreaming in the rabbit hole of the psyche. There is no rest in sleep but only fear that a cornered animal waiting to be devoured feels. Impending doom as the light gets dimmer and the shadow grows stronger. Who are you soul of the damned? The shadow looms grooming my anxiety before the fangs appear and in a sudden death is near. How can I fight you when youve coiled around my beating heart? Your poison running through my veins. Like a snake with its prey you tighten your grip and I feel the walls slowly constricting closer to annihilation. How long can hope burn to fuel a moment of courage and escape?The final dying ember of hope inevitably will fade completely taking with it the light and warmth from this brutal cold.
I look out to the stars and see it is not cold everywhere. Though these lands have always been barren there are some remnants of a past oasis. Here is where hope flourished through a difficult environment but the speaking flame has since turned it into a bygone thought. What remains is desire to quench this thirst as I look out to the oceans of the world. What magnificence to be in the center of the ocean. To be in the center of me and yet the thirst is unbearable. I wish I could feel the waves crashing into me. I wish I could feel the currents pulling me away. I wish I could exhale and float. Hear the birds sing and feel the warmth of the sun tenderly restore my hope and love. I wish I could walk on water.
I'm delirious from this thirst. Magnetic north is gone and darkness rules my eyes. I can't see but only feel fear. Fear of the demons that live here. Here where the sun no longer rises. God all I see are stars. They are far away. So hopelessly far away where only specs of lightpeek through the infinite darkness. Many died long ago becoming ghosts adorning the false sky.
The synchronicity of my tragedy gives light to this being destinity. The trickster whispers, "It was too perfect. How cruel can this world be? How meaningless does it you? Who shall pay for this rage?"
"I am only a victim to myself."I respond.
"True. So who will pay for this rage old man?A rage that wants to annihilate existence."And with that said self hatred manifests and gives birth to the saboteur.Here rises an ally in self destruction.
He continues,"The indisputable fact is you are a complete failure.It doesnt matter what anyone else says but what you and I know to be fact for who knows you better than I? Who has been at every step of every thought in this entire journey?"
"You are right. I can remember it all."
"Ofcoarse we do. You are an utter disgrace to existence. You pathetic fool. You are the fool. You walked over the cliff while hypnotized by desire taking even the dog with you.You ignored the signs and played it through emotion and not reason cowering until destruction came our way! You could have avoided this and all you left us with is grief!"
"I know! I know!I know!"
"The winds of fortune came. I told you where they would be and you still couldnt do it! These winds will never return. Get use to this misery.It feels like a slow burning.It will be with you until the end of your experience. The experience of the fool. And to remind you that you are the fool here comes the absolute disrespect of the world to rape your pride to its death! Do you know what you'll do? You will swallow that pride like a whore. Not even sleep will save you! No, you fool. It will only make the assaults more creative. And now you question what will save you?"
"Yes great one.I am not made of stone but mere flesh. My soul only made of pride. My perseverance fueled by visions and those vision are dead leaving only toxic base dreams. I am now living the nightmare I have always feared leading us to this familiar impasse. To be or not to be."
Ah yes,this familiar cliff. I dangle my feet over the edge of reason to feel the adrenaline in the moment. I look into the abyss and say,"Why do I hate you life? Why do I despise your masterful perfection? Is this why you fill me with fear? Is fear of death the glue that holds you together? Is your purpose to fill me with resentment and to extract bitterness from every breath so to fill another with joyous being and contentment? How cruel can you be only to be benevolent in the same breath? I am utterly disgusted with you life. I despise the masterpiece. I hate to feel so vulnerable. If only I knew the truth of the cosmos this hatred would be set to rest. Will you ever show me the truth? Will you forever cast the darkness of ignorance over me? Why does it feel like I have been thrown into this physical prison absent will? I never want to see you again. I feel you have betrayed me. The knife has been set upon my back since the moment of conception. I stand as a man, a meaningless toy, awaiting your response and through that breath you will blow me to dust. I will never hear anything from you but the thundering silence in the glistening darkness.
So I sat there trying to make sense of the emotinal roller coaster I was going through. I kept trading in my head as I looked at the charts everyday. When BTC was around 15,000 China banned it and I told my friends to get out the second largest player in crypto just made it illegal. It topped out at around 17.5k if I remember before cratering to 3,500$. As it sat at 3500 not for just a 1 month or 2 months or 3 months but 4 months! I told my friends time to get back in. About a week after telling them that the price jumped from $3500 to $4000 and that was the beginning of the road to $50,000 plus which I told them to sell at. Then it went back down to 18k to now at 70k. Same old crypto swings but now to me they move in slow motion. So easy to predict compared to the early days where things moved WAY faster.
I am writting this so this experience can live on in the internet long after we are dead. So in the future when someone reads this they will read an experience of a man who was young, risked it all, and sacrified anything for the opportunity to create my own fortune and path in life. To not feel like a stick in the ocean moving whever the waves of life want to move me to. Some would argue just go with it but I wanted a yatch with big diesel engines moving me in this world. For better or worse. I wanted to live and die free from the matrix.
Now I'm 35 about to be 36. I tried to repair my life but the ptsd of this experience always had me in the same cycle of grief triggered multiple times a day. I picked up felony gun charges after I blacked out and shot a round in my house with my neighbor present. I lost my career, my money, 6 figures in debt, completely broken, back in the same place I grew up in 1,000,000 miles behind where I thought I'd be by now. No friends no family just my mom who never went to school a day in her life. God bless her. I am no longer mad at life but just accept it and even though I accept it the massive rage is still there until I die. Mostly at myself. When you lose your money at the casino you can't get mad at the casino. It is a game of chance and the casino gives you an opportunity to play. So is life just an opportunity to play and live. To be young, to be ballsy, to take risk, to laugh, to cry, to love, to chase the vision that your soul maps out, and if you can project it.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of what has occured in my life. A long jaded life but a life that even though it ended in tragedy is a life that was worth living to me. I am now at the end of my road. Maybe in an alternate reality poloniex didn't go down that day and I made my dreams come true.
For all you youngsters of the future. Really go for it, youth is on your side, if you make it great, and if you don't well you can look back and say fuck it I gave it my ALL.
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