Author: hitesh.eth
Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News
Before entering the crypto world, I was an entrepreneur. In 2016, I fully committed myself to my third startup project, Digital Gorkha. We developed a simple visitor management and security application for physical locations, and also raised some funds, but from a group of unsuitable investors, for which we had to give away too much equity.
Tweet content: "Digital Gorkha" was my previous startup, an innovative yet simple tech product. Digital Gorkha (acquired in 2016) was the first attempt to develop an access control security application. Later, MyGate (valued at over $500 million) executed this idea very well.
This mistake put us in a bind. Although the project had stable appeal and revenue, it was almost impossible to complete Series A financing, as the equity structure was in disarray, and the product we developed did not have a real technological moat.
As a founder, I watched helplessly as the company I founded headed towards decline, racking my brain to change its fate. It was then that I started looking for a technological moat, something that could help us secure the next round of financing that was about to slip away.
At the same time, the immense pressure from my parents came crashing down, as my wedding was approaching and I hadn't received a salary for six months. I temporarily stayed at a university friend's place, relying on them to solve my housing and food problems.
I had nothing left to lose.
One night while googling, I accidentally discovered blockchain.
With my background in cybersecurity and some knowledge of cryptography, I quickly grasped the blockchain architecture. I read about different use cases, explored its future potential, and finally read a blog about a blockchain-based identity system, which sparked an idea instantly.
The Digital Gorkha project had a verified database covering visitor information from over 100 locations in more than 20 cities, recording over 1,000 visitor entries per day. If I could put these identity data on the blockchain, I could build a truly defensible product.
GetXS was born, a blockchain-based identity authentication layer under Digital Gorkha.
Tweet content: "Going back to 2016, I was building GetXS - a decentralized distributed identity (DID) platform, and we were ranked among the top 10 Web3 startups in India. We released a whitepaper and planned an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), but for some reasons, it never materialized, and the product never launched.
I started pitching this project to investors, but it was mid-2016 and Indian venture capitalists were still indifferent to blockchain investments. I pitched to angel investors like Anupam Mittal, Kunal Shah, and even large funds like Accel and Sequoia, but none of them saw the potential.
In hindsight, it was an early version of Worldcoin, but at the time, I couldn't raise even a rupee.
We struggled for six months, but the burn rate was too high. The debts we took on to keep the company running were suffocating us every day.
My parents were constantly mocking me, as I was penniless and about to get married. Another person was about to enter my life, and I had nothing.
I had no choice but to give away nearly 30% of the equity, almost for free, which also forced me to leave the company I had founded.
The real estate developers who had invested in Digital Gorkha did not like my exploration of blockchain, and they wanted to run the company their way.
Mentally, I felt the battle was lost, crushed by the financial pressure. So I gave up on entrepreneurship and started looking for a job in the blockchain space.
Falling Down the Crypto "Rabbit Hole"
I did three things:
Launched the Its Blockchain blog to document my learning journey in the blockchain space.
Restarted GetXS as an independent startup project with a new co-founder.
Took on a blockchain consulting role at an IT company in Bangalore.
The money I earned was barely enough to sustain myself, with no means to bring my wife over. It was then that I remembered Bitcoin, and in October 2016, I bought my first Bitcoin.
Three months later, when I checked the price, it had doubled. That's when everything changed.
I started delving deeper into the crypto space, searching for the next Bitcoin-like opportunity. I discovered Ethereum and Ripple and made my first real investments, which grew 10x in a month.
That's how, four months later, I quit my job.
I told my manager:
"What's the point of coming to the office and doing nothing? I can earn four times my salary by doing some exciting things from home."
From then on, I shifted the focus of Its Blockchain from blockchain to cryptocurrencies, focusing on Altcoins and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).
One day, I published an article: "Top 10 Cryptocurrencies to Buy in August", and the server crashed. Even after three upgrades, the website's monthly traffic reached 150,000 that month.
I had tapped into market demand. We doubled down on creating these list-style articles, and the traffic peaked at 1 million monthly views.
The ICO craze was in full swing, and we had massive traffic. So I started monetizing, offering advertising, paid articles, and consulting services to crypto investors.
Tweet content: 2017 was the peak of my career. I founded a crypto media publication, Its Blockchain, with an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of over $500,000 and 500,000 monthly page views. I also had a paid consulting business with 500 members, earning enough for me to retire at 25.
I started the year with a zero balance in my bank account, and by the end of the year, the revenue from Its Blockchain alone exceeded $1 million.
Life was good, but greed took over.
The 2018 Bear Market: Portfolio Plummets
At the time, everyone believed that investing in Altcoins was a faster way to make money than Bitcoin.
So in January 2018, when the Altcoin market was booming, I converted 90% of my Bitcoin into over 40 different Altcoins, intending to hold them forever.
This was my biggest mistake.
The market started to slowly unravel. At first, it looked like a normal correction, and the bounce-back rallies gave me some comfort.
I kept telling myself: "Everything will be fine."
Because I was busy traveling, smoking weed, and living like a crazy rich person, I thought the market would always reward me. I only listened to the tweets that confirmed my biases.
And the biggest deception was what?
Bitcoin bounced multiple times from the $6,000 support level.
Everyone thought this support level was unbreakable. Everyone kept holding. Everyone thought it was just a healthy adjustment.
Then reality struck hard.
Bitcoin broke below $6,000 and plummeted all the way to $3,200.
Around $4,000, I capitulated and sold all my assets.
Ultimately, my assets were reduced to less than 5% of their peak value. I was back to square one.
I was desperate to recoup the losses. I started trading futures, and by early 2019, when Bitcoin reached $13,500, I had recovered 30% of my losses.
The sideways market has made me suffer, technical analysis has completely failed, and I have fallen into a dilemma of consecutive losses.
Tweet content: You can follow my Bitcoin and Ethereum trades on this website, my nickname is b3 y.
I found a job at Blockchain Whispers, earning Bitcoins by writing analysis articles.
I could have saved those Bitcoins, but I didn't. I bet everything on futures.
Then, March 2020 came, and Bitcoin crashed. I was forced to close my positions and lost everything.
Lessons from the cycle
At that time, I completely left the cryptocurrency industry and went to work in the film industry for a year.
Looking back, I have learned three key lessons:
Greed is your biggest enemy. When you have earned enough wealth to change your life, you should know when to stop and not keep chasing unlimited returns.
Your lifestyle may become a trap. I raised my living standards too quickly, and when I lost everything, I felt like I was suffocating.
Emotional investing will lead you to ruin. I only focused on information that confirmed my biases and ignored obvious warning signs. But the market doesn't care about your ideas.
In 2020, I thought I had left the cryptocurrency industry forever.
But as we all know, no one can truly leave the crypto realm.
