Weekend Engagement - My Crypto Journey

What do you consider to be the best find or discovery you have made in your life and why?

It's hard to pinpoint one specific person or thing or even an idea for this topic but one of the first things that came to my mind was cryptocurrencies.

2017

My first exposure to cryptocurrencies was during 2017. In that year, something called Bitcoin went up from USD 1,000 to USD 20,000 before "crashing". I remembered reading it in news every day, and being fascinated by the price movements. It felt so crazy and unbelievable that such a relatively unknown asset like Bitcoin can be jumping 10% or 20% within a day. Many people including my friends and colleagues were even talking about it. Unfortunately, back in those days, it was difficult to actually open an account and buy cryptos. Moreover, many platforms seemed scammy and there was no way realistically to gain exposure in cryptos or Bitcoin even if I wanted to.

2019

Of course, with the Bitcoin "crash", nobody talked about it anymore. Everyone kinda of concluded that it was a bubble and greedy people got their pockets burnt. Over time, the infrastructure improved, and in Sep 2019, my interest revived after I read from a blog that it's possible to fund an account to buy cryptos like Bitcoin. That time, I think the only well known ones were Bitcoin and Ethereum.

And so I followed the steps, signed up, and this was my first purchase using Coinhako in Sep 2019. As you can see, the price of BTC was only barely about SGD 13,909, which in USD terms, would be around USD 10k.

If you thought that was jaw dropping, the second crypto which I bought was ETH. As you can see, the price of ETH was just about SGD 299, which in USD terms, would be around USD 200+.

2021

This was the year of the bull market where many other cryptos gained popularity, including memecoins like DOGE. For me, this was a memorable year because while reading up about the different crypto projects, I chanced upon the concept of play-to-earn crypto games. It was a refreshing concept that game assets can be NFTs on blockchain, and they have asset values unlike the typical games like Pokemon Go where your Snorlax or Pikachu is just a pokemon with no tangible value.

The most popular game then I remembered was Axie Infinity. I remembered that it was too expensive to start playing, and eventually, I found Splinterlands, and then I found Hive. Splinterlands provided me with a lot of fun, especially during the pandemic period. Hive was another different dimension because it opened my eyes to this whole new concept of social media on a blockchain. It was a steep learning curve for me to understand how curation works, how Hive Power works, what it means to stake/unstake or delegate/undelegate, and the list goes on. It's really not easy to fully comprehend how Hive works, but I never stopped trying and asking questions.

This was one of my first/second post where I was asked to do an introduction to the Hive community. You can read it here. Hehe!

2024

Fast forward to today, I am still around writing this post! I am less active on Splinterlands but I do have a decent card collection and some Splinterlands assets which were accumulated over the years of grinding/entertainment. Hehe! As for Hive, I am almost around every day unless I am on vacation or if I am sick. For all 3 years! I can't believe it too. I know many people have left or given up in the 2022 bear market, and more people are discouraged with Hive at 0.19 now, but it doesn't bother me a single bit. Of course, all of us would like to dream about Hive reaching 10 USD or higher, but we don't always get what we want in life right? I am enjoying myself on Hive, getting to know more people, seeing more photos of the places in the world, and it is a fun hobby!

My crypto journey in a way has been 7 years, and I think it's one of the best finds or discoveries because it has made an impact to so many aspects of my life, be it financially (from the conventional tokens), entertainment (from Splinterlands), social circle and knowledge (from getting to know new people and reading new content).

With that, cheers to more blue skies and more years of fun and learning about cryptos. Who knows, we might be just getting started! So, what's your crypto journey like? Share with me in the comments below. :)