Steemit got me into it. I had always heard of Bitcoin but knew nothing else about cryptocurrencies until my son and I started making video games, and one of our artists, a Steemit user, started lecturing me about Bitcoin.
I started investing after hearing friends brag about their gains and realizing the potential for major returns. I did my own research and decided to take the plunge.
It eliminates the middleman, allowing us to hold our own money and transact directly, which is a significant shift in how we handle financial transactions.
The biggest lesson is to take your time, do your research, and not get caught up in the hype. Buying the pump is a sure way to lose money.
I'm most bullish on NEO. It has a ton of potential and I believe it can reach Bitcoin's current value within a few years.
It's important to spread the word because cryptocurrencies offer a new way of living and existing, and many people are still unaware of the opportunities and benefits they provide.
I'm excited about Power Ledger, an Australian company that improves the energy market, and 10X, which bridges the gap between fiat and crypto, making it more mainstream.
Take it slow, do your research, and don't be impulsive. Focus on Bitcoin first and avoid buying at all-time highs. Wait for pullbacks and be patient.
What's going on guys? The Crypto Lark here from Wellington. I am so excited about the video that we've got coming up here for you. We have talked to different crypto people from all over the world and got their advice, got their stories, put it all together. And here is that video for everyone to enjoy this experience, to learn from other people.
to get an insight into what it's like getting started in crypto and some of the successes and the stories and the trials and the tribulations that everybody goes through. You're not alone out there guys. You're not alone out there. Big shout out to everyone who has participated in this project. Really, really appreciate everyone who took their time and put their energy in and sat down with me. It's been an absolutely amazing experience. And so, let's get into it guys.
The first question that I asked was, what got you into crypto? Absolutely, it was Steemit. Steemit got me. I had always heard of Bitcoin, of course, but I knew nothing else about cryptocurrencies. One of my main things that I do for a living is I make video games with my son. I have four kids. My oldest son is a prodigy programmer.
He's been teaching himself since he was nine years old. He now knows like 15, 16 different coding languages. And he came to me about three years ago and he said, "Look, I'm ready to show people what I can do. I want your help." So we partnered up. He started teaching me and we started making video games together. He got his very first video game for sale on the Steam platform when he was 13 years old. So anyways,
The first artist that we worked with on that game, he is a Steemit user. And we talk all the time. We became friends through the experience of building a video game. And he had been going on, he had gotten into Bitcoin and started lecturing me about Bitcoin a lot. I wish that I had listened to him when he first started telling me Bitcoin was, it was at 1400 still at that point, which wasn't even all that long ago, honestly. Yeah.
No worries. So, well, I wish I got started, you know, four or five years ago when I first started reading about Bitcoin. I remember I was at my favorite local cafe in the morning reading about Bitcoin. I was young, naive and didn't pay much attention. So that's probably been the biggest regret. So this year I made it a goal to take whatever savings I had to start investing it. So naturally I waited till my tax time, got a bit of a tax return.
So from about, I'd say just after July, that's when I started investing in Bitcoin. So really I've only been in the game for about July, but it's become like an addiction for me.
I would actually say I got started from basically friends always talking about it and they always kept bragging about their gains and I'm pretty big on investing my money, saving. And I was like, how are they getting these major returns and nobody's talking about it more? You're only hearing it through the grapevine. So then I started doing my own research and I was like, you know what? Let me try this. So I kind of just said, you know what? Screw it. What's the worst thing that can happen? Just take the money that you're willing to lose.
Thank God I didn't do everything. Just dump it in there. And then one of my really good friends, he and his other best friend are actually pretty big in crypto. And one of them is actually behind a lot of the ICOs. So he's really big.
pretty big in the crypto world. So he was like, dude, just go for it. You know, he gave me some advice to start off and I just shot forward. I heard Max Keiser speaking about Bitcoin. And I was like, yo, what am I doing? Why don't I have Bitcoin? Because it's such a big thing. And now Max, I wish I would have seen Max Keiser speaking about it in 2013 because he did have an interview in 2013 where he was like, boy, it feels good to be a Bitcoin millionaire. In the beginning of this year, I started jumping on it when it was like at $700. And
And I just bought a whole bunch of Bitcoin and I bought some litecoin I bought some Ethereum too so I jumped in like at the perfect time because Ethereum was like seven dollars and Litecoin was at like three almost four. Yeah. Yeah, so I jumped in on that and I was like, oh man and then in this year it just it blew up. So we had good support and everything. And one day
He knows I've always been kind of good with money and I've always saved money and everything and I'm always the one person that kind of has money set aside to do stuff. So he's like, "Hey, have you ever looked into investing?" And I was kind of, yeah, looking at it a little bit. So he actually got me started in that company or investing in a company after Chase, MGTI, McAfee and everything. So I actually got in there pretty cheap and I pretty much made four times my money. I heard coin and you automatically think of Bitcoin.
And so he was like, yeah, it's kind of like that. But then he started telling me about that. This is the tide turning to a whole new way of living and a whole new way of just existing. Yeah, man. I was watching Beauty and the Beast with my wife over the summer. And in the opening scene, it's just kind of this village sort of market scene where
it just looks like people are like trading fish for bread for eggs and there's some coins involved and it's just like this commerce happening and it it sparked it sparked something in me um that's changed the trajectory of the last six months of my life like trading and goods for services and kind of like the history of currency and i went all the way back to
Literally like Aristotle and some things that he wrote about all the way to Bitcoin. I was just all over the place. I didn't even really finish watching the movie. To be continued with Beauty and the Beast. It piqued my interest back in 2013 but didn't know much about it or really paid a lot of attention to it. So I kind of kept it on the down low a little bit.
It kept on popping in the news but I didn't take any action. But I think about a year ago I really got triggered into it, saw the gains, started researching the communities behind it and really thought like this is something I have to jump in on. So since approximately a year or so I've been actually trading and became more active into cryptocurrencies.
Well, I kind of started researching back when Bitcoin first came out and I was really on the fence and never pulled the trigger on investing. So as time went on, you know, kind of looked into it on and off. But eventually, you know,
It got to the point where it was starting to become in the news over and over again. I was just like, well, you know, this right now is something of the future and I want to get into the mining and really get into this full-fledged and recently I've had some health issues that gave me some time to do more research and that kind of puts us up to now. Who have you been telling about cryptocurrencies? Nobody.
Nobody at all. My wife, obviously. But the truth of the matter is nobody. There's a Wild West opportunity going on here. How many people do you want to just let in on that when we have a huge opportunity to
crown ourselves a little. Yeah, well I came up and tried to tell my girlfriend, she's sick and tired of hearing about it. So pretty much when I'm online, I'm speaking to my friends, my family and colleagues at work and my colleagues have now learned to try to keep the conversation short because otherwise I would probably go on a 20 minute diatribe.
To be honest, I've been actually telling a lot of my best friends the same time I invested. I was talking to one of my really close friends, Xavier, and he was like, you know, I've been really trying to invest too. Thank God you told me about it because now I'm really going to just, you know, let's just do it. So we both invested in it.
We both set up Coinbase, very user-friendly. I didn't really mind the fees, you know, because it's secure. But we just said, you know what, let's just go for it. So everybody that's around me, I've been trying to get basically to invest in crypto. And it's basically booming, as you see now. Everybody's spreading the word and all these things.
All my friends, I mean, I got one of my friends into crypto and he had the chance to make like a thousand dollars off of Ethereum. But then, like most people, you see the gains and you've never seen gains like that. So you make mistakes, you jump into other coins. I myself have even made mistakes. And thank God that I jumped in at such a good time that I had the opportunity
You know, I was able to take the hits and not really walk away harmed. And it's fun to tell other people about it. After this, I'm going to get a friend to get a Coinbase and everything and start to actually invest. I've been telling a lot of people. You know, I naturally like to share things, whether it's music or a good restaurant, I naturally like to share things that I really appreciate. And, yeah.
and that I feel like would add value to somebody else's life. Well, I see myself as sort of an evangelist regarding crypto. I involve my family with it. Every time I post something on Facebook, a lot of people just send me DMs saying, "Hey, what's this crypto stuff?" I actually started recently a little Telegram community which
I have some people that are super interested in crypto and they want to have more info and I'm helping them get through the basics, set up an account, stuff like that. So yeah, it's actually, I'm up to 10, 15 people a month right now who are contacting me on average regarding crypto. So spreading the word out there for sure.
I've told basically everybody in my family. I've got about five friends. I've told every single one of them. Random people I meet. Just yesterday, I was at the store buying a stupid pack of cigarettes, and I was talking to the clerk there about Bitcoin. Did they have Bitcoin already? Yeah, I don't know what it was. Say what? Did they have Bitcoin? Did they know what it was? No.
They didn't even know what it was. They were Indian gentlemen that, you know, had family and stuff, and he sends money back home, and I was just like, you know, this is a way to really get your money to them without paying fees, really. That's it. So he was just like, yeah, that sounds really cool. I'll look into it. I don't know if he has yet, but... Well, next time you go and, you know, grab a pack of smokes, it's like, hey, man, what about that Bitcoin stuff? You look into that yet? What technology...
is the most exciting for you? I'll get into that. But I think basically anything that's willing to turn upside down the way things, the way people have been accustomed to. Well, definitely what excited me and I actually got into the RCO was Power Ledger.
I am a bit biased being an Aussie company, but also at the same time, thanks to my girlfriend, I've started being a bit more pro-environmental. I could see definitely the potential for that to improve the current energy market. So I think that's definitely one of the perhaps newest things that have excited me the most.
And also in terms of even other tokens like say good old 10x, which is a form of you can basically pay using cryptocurrencies, allowing it to become more mainstream. That's a tough one because I feel like I'm just so new to it. I think that the most exciting...
Still, the most exciting thing to me about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency is eliminating the middleman. And, you know, I guess it's just real simple in that regards. But just being able to hold our own money and eliminating the middleman is just kind of...
What I'm most excited about and then I would definitely say my favorite when I first started is still the same As today and I would definitely say that's been like coin I actually and you know, some people may say I'm stupid for this but I
It's fine. You know, it's my money, my risk. I'm all in on Litecoin, mainly because I did a lot of research beforehand. Everybody's been talking about it. I have friends that get in at $3 or so, like five bucks or whatever. They've been telling me to get into it. I was like, no, no, no, it's all right. But then I said, you know what? Litecoin is very undervalued. I did my research and
Charlie Lee I like him a lot and I thought he's very honest so you definitely want to stay behind a coin who's very reputable he's been around for a long time you know they've been around for what six plus years right next to bits and so you know like when I'm definitely interested in and I know 2018's and be very good he was he did an interview he's gonna be talking about like we basically was speaking about going more into privacy and some other things he was looking at so you know what they're gonna definitely shoot I think
Maybe a little ballsy, but I think by the end of next year we should still like when at least 400 plus I like - - is pretty cool Just because of the internet transactions, but then again, they haven't come through with evolution or any of that So we're still waiting on that So for me, it was no limit coin. That was one of the first coins actually got into I
Guess I'm still new so it hasn't been as fast with the whole development of the company that I was expecting but as I'm Getting more seasoned. I'm realizing I'm investing in future. I just need to wait. That's the one thing I've realized is that you just need to wait I mean you make rash decisions by wanting a quick answer and a quick
it's no real coin, I'm still holding it, I do the staking and everything. And so I'm just really excited about that whole aspect because I think I just don't like going to FanDuel and all those sites. They take 20% or something like that. Well, I participated in the VibeHub ICO, which was an ICO regarding VR educational platform basically and much more.
I think VR, although it's been going on for a while and hasn't literally caught up yet, I think it still has huge potential. So Vibeb for me is definitely one to watch. Heavily undervalued at three cents right now. In terms of the disruptive technology, I do think projects like 10X who are trying to bridge the gap between, let's say, fiat and crypto,
Are the ones that will have a massive impact on the financial system as we know it for sure? Um, I really believe the steam it community is going to change a lot of different things You know the fact that they have the YouTube style platform and also a way a place that's kind of like Facebook or reddit as well, you know
That right there is just a game changer for me. And I really like several of the privacy coins. The Komodo group is just really amazing compared to some of the other ones. What would be your number one piece of advice for anybody who's just starting off in the crypto space? I'm going to say there's, I have two main shots here.
One, when you open up your Bittrex account, for example, and you're looking at the volume charts that are showing and you see something that, oh, my God, it's pumping 108% today. Don't be that fool. It's too late. Don't do that. Don't buy the pump. You're a sucker. That's my number one. My number two is research. Research, research, research. This information is out there.
If you're willing to just throw your money at something with doing zero research on it, give it to me because I'll at least make you money on your money. My advice is take it slow just because, say, you've got some savings that you like to invest. It's very easy. You jump on the trading websites. You see coins going up. You think, oh, I've got to buy. I've got to buy. I've got to get this. It's going up. It's going up.
take your time in fact you probably do better but actually not trading right away and spend probably i'd say 80 just watching and learning and maybe the 20 trading and investing um anybody who's looking to get into crypto i would say a lot of people kind of on the fence oh my god look at all these people making games i would say
grab your ball it's kind of elm looks explicit but just grab your balls man up do it you can you want big gains you're gonna have to take some risk i guarantee you i promise you if you invest right now even no matter what chain it is if you hold it it's gonna keep going right so it's fine i would say i definitely will say though if you see something making a crazy spike
weight right you know think about it first look at the charts you know and just don't go all in that right right at least right away right because you know you're gonna have some pullback so I would say don't buy the all-time highs waiting for it to pull back but
I would say if somebody is looking to get interested, just do it. Get it over with. Don't be too greedy. I don't need to go invest in a $2 coin hoping to hit $100. It's okay. I'm looking for the steady climb. You're going to see a lot more returns than just going to the regular stock market. So just sit back, enjoy it, learn as much as you can. And maybe once I become more familiar with the space by watching your videos and everybody else, I can maybe start dabbing into ICOs, which I'm interested in doing, but
I'm okay. All in on like, you know, so. Pay attention to Bitcoin. Just pay attention to Bitcoin. Don't do anything impulsive once you already have the Bitcoin because like Bitcoin is the gateway drug. And then you have all the other cryptos and then people start asking questions. How do I make money with it? How do I make? But they need to understand that it's an appreciating asset. It's not, it's not this thing.
where you make money with it, like you can. And there's ways to find, you know, income streams. But if you start making mistakes, then you're going to regret everything and it's going to ruin your experience. And then you'll just, you know, shy away from Bitcoin itself. Because I've had my moments where I'm like, yo, this is like ruining everything.
my experience I'm getting emotional about losing money and money that and it's all in your head like at the end of the day you know it's nothing to like kill yourself about so I just advise to focus on Bitcoin and don't start making moves that you might regret later do your own research if you don't understand
the intention behind what you're investing in, you won't believe it and you'll follow the hype or the FUD or the FOMO. Like with NIO, I bought in a... That was one of my not-so-proud moments is buying in NIO at high. And so when it dipped down, I was like, I'm...
What am I going to do with this? I'm like half, almost half of what I paid for it. But I won't even look at NEO. Just forgetting about something, it's still going to be there. If you believe in the fundamental ability, you wait two months, then no. You may miss an all-time high. Chances are the pullback is going to be more than...
What it was before and so actually you know not lose as much money But you'll probably still be making a little bit more, but so that's why I say is just do your own research Look for people like you and other people one word D. Y. Or do your own research calm like We saw that recently with the whole ripple was situation. You know a lot of people are panic selling and whatever
Of course, Ripple is a bit of a weird one and yeah, I'm not the biggest fan myself, but it's a big one and I do, you know, the developers are active. I do see the potential of it. So even though it's at the minor lows, don't sell, just hodl and things will be better for sure. Think of it the way you think of it, but you know, hodl, hodl, hodl. Get as many news sites as possible to try to collect
your information, really get what other people like yourself are talking about and get the information from pretty credible sources. And I mean, the pub community is a really great one. You have some of the best white page information that I've come across. What is one of the biggest lessons that you learned? So honestly, I haven't made any mistakes.
Yes, and I'm not saying it's not going to happen. But I do do my... Cryptocurrencies was new to me, but I had a lot of experience in the stock exchange and trading stocks. And so I understood when...
prices plummet and things like that to remain calm and know that you've done your research on the project and you know that it's inherent value and where you want to buy and sell. And just hold on to that. Know that you're comfortable with that move and stick to it because it's when you doubt yourself that you lose money. And the second you lost money, somebody else won. So honestly, my biggest mistake was I didn't listen to people when they first started talking about this stuff.
biggest lesson is take your time I mean and also just wait what goes up must go down I'm a start out on the neo boats initially but with that recent crash I managed to pull our neo I think about $18 a coin back then
So, as you know, it's sitting at around $34, $35. So, I only bought a small amount. The point is I waited. Didn't jump in the half boat. And for every coin that goes up in time at the moment, don't worry. A week or two, there'll be another coin. Yeah, it can be terribly stressful. Like, I jumped... When I got in, you know, Ethereum was at like, I don't know, $370, $370.
You know, Bitcoin was, I don't know, like maybe $2,500 or something like that. But I just got caught up in it and started like, you know, selling low and buying high and started like losing money and, you know.
When it was all said and done, you know, Bitcoin had gotten down to like $1,800 and all the way up to over $3,000. Ethereum went from like $360 down to like $185 over the course of a couple of months. So I just got my butt kicked. And in the end, I was lucky to come out even.
Yeah, I guess just kind of, and I know you talk about this, is how you sort of avoid moving from coin to coin and jumping around and just getting caught up in the waves and trying to chase the highs and when percentages are increasing. And that's the lesson that I've learned and I'm still kind of learning. Yeah.
Before you make a big play, I guess let your adrenaline come back down, right? So my biggest mistake I made when I first decided to get in crypto I think my first initial investment I wanted to make and this is I just started up Well, I wasn't a dump like 10 grand into like on right but this is when it was rising up I was like, oh my god all-time high. Well, I didn't even know what that even ATH I didn't know what that meant. I was like, you know, okay, I did some research Invest now it's gonna go up right look at the profits from before. I
I dumped, but I said, "You know what? Relax. Take it down a notch." That's what I did. I was like, "Look at all these returns. Everybody's making ... Look at all these people's returns. Oh my God. This is going right now." Then plummets. I'm like, "Oh ..." I think my first buy was at $74 USD for Litecoin. Then it plummeted down to 36 and I was like, "Oh my God." But before it got to that point, I was researching really quickly.
What the heck do you do? And then I learned about averaging your coin out, right? So you buy a big chunk at the bottom. I was buying every single dip. Then I bought a big bulk at 36. So it averages your coin out. So thank God I did that. And now I'm in the positive already because it's already much higher, right? Don't let your worldviews get in the way of your investments. Your worldviews could ruin your investments. Like, look, I'll tell you a big mistake I made. I jumped out of Ripple.
I had a crazy position in Ripple. My positions when I first started were flawless. Flawless for an entry-level person, they were flawless. I had a great amount of coins and I had a good amount of coin in Ripple. Good amount. I moved an entire position out of Ripple to jump into Brust. I took it out of Ripple because Ripple had no value because it's created by the banks. I moved a huge position out of Ripple
when Burst was having a volume surge. Right. Burst was having a volume surge and I saw that and I acted impulsively. I jumped out of Ripple. Instead of taking out half of my position, I took out the whole position because I was like, ah, nah, fuck Ripple. My bad. I sold at a loss on the Burst and I had bought like a million, like three million Bursts. It was a huge position and I lost like 10,000. All in.
YouTubers that I watch is like it's news and I like to compare and contrast what other people have to say to make my decision. I've been in the beginning definitely chasing the pumps and you know trying a few pump and dumps. A few of them went well but recently I went into BostonNet I think and
But in a 350 sets, we're worth today 20 sets. Following the crowd is probably the biggest one that I would say is the biggest mistake. You know, don't just go off what other people are talking about. You really got to look in it for yourself because, I mean...
There's so much information out there and you get caught up on a white page and you got to think that's a salesperson writing that to get you hooked. Exactly. And I mean, you get so many people here and, oh, this is great. Oh, this is great. And it's just like, okay, why is it great?
Well, yeah, I read that too, but it really didn't have a good roadmap or a straightforward goal to get where they want to go. So do the due diligence yourself and don't trust anyone else but yourself to do it. What coin are you most bullish on? All right.
Okay, well, I'm holding long on NEO. I love NEO. I think it has a ton of potential. Is that going to make me thousands of dollars overnight? No, but I wasn't expecting it, and I'm not expecting it to.
I bought some NIO at $13, some at $18, some at $22, some at $24. The most I've ever paid for any NIO at this point was $32. I watched it drop back down. I bought some more at like $19, then a little more at $24. So even though I've watched drops happen, I'm still in the positive with all my investments on that. And I realized, you know, there was an obvious huge dump
in the price due to the, you know, the China foot. Long term, NEO, man, NEO is my coin. And anybody that's not going to tell you that Bitcoin is not an amazing long term hold is just dumb. You know, I've already explained why I'm not holding a ton of it. But NEO, I was able to find a good buy in. And I do believe within a couple of years at most that NEO can easily get up to where Bitcoin is right now. You know.
Tough question again, there's so many. Look, since I bought some NEO, that would be my topic just in terms of quick short-term game. But one of the coins I think I'm most heavily invested in and believe in a lot is the LISC project. In fact, that's based on a, look, I'm not a programmer, I don't have a computer background, but I read and know the basics, but based on what, Jarvis, correct? Yep.
Yeah, that's a universal basic coding language. So that's one probably our most heavily invested on and I'd say third to that will have to be the O-minus-Go as well. Oh, yeah. I feel like I'm on the verge of being very bullish about IOTA.
You know, I do hesitate because there are a lot of things that aren't quite worked out yet. You know, it's really kind of the technology is really developing. But, you know, like no fees on the transactions and just the microtransactions. And it just seems like kind of a quick...
just like a quick fee-less transaction that seems pretty smooth, you know, with my understanding of how everything's working. And it seems like it could be adopted on a mass scale. I mean, to be honest, you really don't even got to diversify with Litecoin. I don't think you do. I think they're so undervalued that you're going to see profits no matter what. Top Bitcoin. I mean, like I said, if I had my way, if I would have, man, I wish I would have invested.
what I invested into Genesis on Dash. Dash for me was like my one-top Bitcoin. Besides Bitcoin, obviously, but yeah, just because of the low circulating supply. I mean, I think it's 20 million max or something. Something like that, yeah. Like 17 million or something. Yeah, Dash looks great. Plus the fees for Dash. Man, perfect coin. Sad to say this,
but I think Ripple and it kind of goes against what most of us are thinking about with this technology of having control your money works to be adopted by banks and it seems frontrunners in the most usable and actually practical practically a faded coin so
The second part is obviously Bitcoin. Bitcoin is always the go-to one when things go bad or when things go south. Always be prepared and make sure you have some Bitcoin. So obviously Bitcoin is a big one. But for me, the scaling possibilities and just the whole smart contracts idea of Ethereum are still number one for me. I mean, the project is being super heavily developed.
always upgrades no hard forks with new coins and all that stuff that Bitcoin has so For me Ethereum is still one I have a good feeling about and I only see like expansion of all the Ethereum on many ways for sure I've got a little sheet that I keep kind of glancing over at I really think
The Ethereum is gonna keep soaring. I really think the Litecoin is really gonna keep soaring and those are probably the two I'm most bullish about. Thank you so so much for watching everybody. I really really hope that this has been useful for you, that's been interesting for you. And again, really really big thank you to everybody who participated in this. I think we'll have to do another one of these projects in the future. It was so amazing having all these chats.
with everybody who participated. Thank you so, so much for watching, guys. Long live the blockchain and peace out till next time, guys.