I think we’re in this once in a generation wealth accumulation opportunity with crypto. I’m sure you know of someone who may know someone who became a crypto millionnaire. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not me. I don’t know; maybe if I was younger and more reckless with my money, I’d be a crypto millionnaire by now, but alas, I am not either. Anyway, let me tell you how I lost 85% staking some damn crypto coins.
This started back in early November with this tweet about staking $OHM coins. Of course when you see something with 8000% APR, it raises an eyebrow. And I knew the biggest risk was – well it’s great that you earned 8000%, but what if you earned 8000% OF A PILE OF SHIT!?! Anyhow, the process of staking seemed easy enough to do; I had some ETH to spare due to my mining, so I figured I’d give it a shot for shiggles. So on Nov 11, I converted like 5ETH or so to OHM which I then staked for sOHM. You can see I had a value around $18K.
After a week, that 8000% APR earned me 2 extra sOHM. I think the price of OHM had fallen from around $900 to $800 at this point, so while I had 2 more OHM coins at this point, because the price of OHM went down, I was down a little over $1000.
I think 2 days after that, ohm went back up over $900 and I was thinking of what color Ferrari I was going to buy.
Fast forward a month. I think all crypto was beginning to slump at this point; I think OHM was down hundreds and now I’m down $4K.
Then a month later:
And finally a few days ago, I had had enough and cashed out:
This graph summarizes my experience. That yes, I made 9 sOHM over 3 months which turned out to be 9 piles of sHIT. So what did we learn here? That crypto is gambling. That you should only use ‘play money’ with crypto. That there’s so many new coins out there that it’s almost a pyramid scheme (only the ppl who get in first are the rich ones.) Looking back, would I still have done it? YES. What would I do different? I don’t know; maybe put in less money? But hey, you can’t be a crypto millionnaire if your bets are small.
Honestly ETH has so much downside hodling it right now its nuts. ADA, ETH and these old chains are gonna send people to the poorhouse. Don’t blame you for swapping for OHM one bit.
If i had to hodl id stick with SOL, FTM, AVAX or even Elrond. At least utility case in these chains is real vs. promises like ADA, ETH and others.
November 2021 was the worst time to get into crypto (hindsight 20/20). Inflation news was ramping and the Fed confirmed it was reducing its balance sheet along with discussions about raising Fed’s interest rate. Cryptos have somewhat clawed back up since, but are nowhere near their Nov highs. May 2021 saw another high for cryptos followed by a couple crashes in June and July. But we didn’t have the same QT Fed talks back then since inflation was deemed “transitory.”
To anyone thinking of using “stablecoins” to earn an easy 8%-16% that many of these online-only exchanges (Celsius, Voyager, Crypto.com, BlockFi, Gemini, etc.) are offering, remember the issue of liquidity. If equities (stocks) continue to decline slowly, then it should be fine. But if anything like a series of Facebook (now Meta) 26% declines in one day occur across different sectors, then watch out. Crypto is too volatile and can be easily spooked. Anyone remember the 2021 summer crypto crashes? Cash crunches are real.
Outside of additional fiscal stimulus from gov’t, I can’t see how this party will continue without either slow losses or a single massive sudden drop. Supply chain is the only thing keeping commodity markets alive (just look at oil). The ESG crowd has been up in arms for years and the consequences are becoming real with outrageous prices.
I still like NFT’s, especially for gaming. The ownership and utility factors translate to real benefits. I’m slowly getting out of staking and into NFT ownership, but very slowly. Hopefully NFTs will drop the way home prices dropped from 2011-2014.
Sorry to hear about your experience Vinh
I went big on RING, JADE, and TIME
LOL
Why I’d opt for Stablecoins, my favorite being USDC. Turnkey for regulation, custodians verify proof of funds and it’s pegged to the USD. Usually get 6-12% APY depending where you hold it. I’m at 9.5% with Voyager.
Beyond that the only crypto I hold which is 1-2% of my net worth is BTC, ETH and SOL. I don’t do shit coins or NFTs.
Thanks for your honest experience with crypto. I have a feeling there are plenty of other people out there with a similar experience who are not publically admitting this.
Sorry for your loss man…but atleast it is a good remainder for all..
On side note…you didnt wait for a whole year like ARKK to pull out.