Author: hitesh.eth
Compiled by: TechFlow
Before getting into cryptocurrencies, I was a serial entrepreneur. In 2016, I was running my third startup project - Digital Gorkha. It was an app that provided visitor management and security services for physical venues. We managed to secure some funding, but due to poor selection of investors, we had to give up too much equity, which directly led to a chaotic equity structure and made the subsequent Series A round almost impossible. Although user growth and revenue performance were good, the lack of technical barriers made the company's prospects bleak.
As the founder, I watched helplessly as my startup project headed towards failure, with no solution in sight. I started thinking about whether I could find a way out for the company through technological innovation. At the same time, my wedding was approaching, but I had not had any income for six months and had to rely on university friends to support my living. My parents were also constantly putting pressure on me, and I was at a complete loss.
One night, I accidentally came across blockchain technology while searching on Google. Due to my background in network security, I was familiar with cryptography and quickly grasped the basic principles of blockchain. I read about various use cases of blockchain and found that it had huge potential. A blog post I happened to come across about a blockchain-based identity system immediately inspired me. At the time, Digital Gorkha already had a visitor database covering more than 20 cities and 100 venues, recording over 1,000 data points per day. I thought that if I put this identity information on the blockchain, I might be able to build a competitive product.
The blockchain-based identity management system GetXS was thus born. However, in 2016, the Indian venture capital market was still largely uninterested in blockchain. I had tried to pitch this project to some well-known angel investors like Anupam Mittal and Kunal Shah, as well as large funds like Accel and Sequoia, but failed to get any support. Looking back now, this project was actually similar to the early version of Worldcoin, but at the time I couldn't raise a single penny.
Six months later, our funds were quickly depleted, and we had to borrow money to keep the company running. The real estate developers who had invested in Digital Gorkha were not interested in my blockchain exploration - they wanted to run the company their own way. At the same time, my parents were mocking me, thinking that as a person without any income, I still wanted to get married. Eventually, under immense financial and psychological pressure, I sold 30% of the equity at a very low price, left the company I had founded, and started looking for a job related to blockchain.
Entering the Abyss of the Crypto World
To survive, I embarked on three paths: I created a blog @ItsBlockchain to document my blockchain learning; I restarted GetXS as an independent project; and I found a job as a blockchain consultant in Bangalore. However, this job paid very little, not even enough for my wife and I to live on.
That's when I remembered the 1 Bitcoin I had bought in October 2016. When I checked the price three months later, it had doubled. This made me see the huge potential of cryptocurrencies. I started to delve deeper into cryptocurrencies and eventually invested in ETH and XRP. This was my first real investment in my life, and within a month, my portfolio had grown 10-fold. I realized this was an opportunity to change my life, so I immersed myself in the cryptocurrency field.
Four months later, I quit my job. I told my manager, "Rather than coming to the office every day and doing nothing, I'd rather stay at home and do something interesting, and I can make four times my current salary." I started focusing on running @ItsBlockchain, transforming it from a blog to a cryptocurrency content platform, especially content related to Altcoins and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). Once, I published an article "Top 10 Cryptocurrencies to Buy in August", and the influx of traffic caused the website server to crash. I upgraded the server three times, and the article's monthly views exceeded 150,000. This made me realize the huge demand in the cryptocurrency field. I started producing a lot of similar recommendation content, and the website's monthly traffic exceeded 1 million.
At the time, the ICO market was experiencing explosive growth, and we had a large email subscription list and huge traffic resources. I quickly seized the dividends of the crypto market and monetized these traffic resources through advertising, paid articles, and providing crypto investment advisory services. At the beginning of 2017, my bank account was still empty; by the end of the year, the revenue of @ItsBlockchain had exceeded $1 million. My life became better, but greed crept in quietly.
The Painful Lesson of the 2018 Bear Market
In early 2018, the surge in the Altcoin market made everyone see the opportunity. I exchanged 90% of my Bitcoin for more than 40 kinds of Altcoins, planning to hold them long-term. This was my biggest mistake.
When the market began to quietly collapse, I thought it was just a normal correction and was full of confidence in the market's rebound. I was busy traveling and enjoying life, thinking the market would "pay the bill" for me; I only focused on tweets that could verify my biases and ignored the obvious warning signals in the market; and the biggest illusion came from Bitcoin's $6,000 support level - it tested it 6-7 times, and everyone thought this support level was unbreakable. Everyone was firmly holding Bitcoin, believing it was just a healthy adjustment.
However, the reality was cruel. The market crashed rapidly, and Bitcoin plummeted to $3,200. I completely collapsed around $4,000 and sold off all my crypto assets. In the end, my portfolio shrank to less than 5%.
Losing Everything Again
To recoup the losses, I started trying futures trading. In early 2019, when Bitcoin rose to $13,500, my portfolio had recovered to 30% of its peak. However, the market's sideways volatility caused technical analysis (TA) to become ineffective, and I began to suffer frequent losses.
To maintain my living, I found a job writing analysis articles at Blockchain Whispers, which paid in Bitcoin. I could have saved these Bitcoins, but I put them all into futures trading. Then, the Bitcoin flash crash in March 2020 completely wiped me out. My account was liquidated, and I lost all my assets. I was forced to exit the crypto market and turn to filmmaking, temporarily distancing myself from this industry that had made me love and hate it.
Summarizing the Lessons
Looking back, I've learned three important lessons:
Greed is the greatest enemy: When you've made enough money to change your life, take profits in time and don't pursue unlimited returns.
Maintain a moderate lifestyle: Raising your living standards too early will exacerbate the psychological gap after failure.
Avoid emotional investing: The market won't change because of your beliefs, and rational risk assessment is crucial.
