‘I’d seen a story at some point about someone who had spontaneous orgasms at random times throughout the day. That’s the best way I can describe the feeling. When I checked my phone, I’d be up another six figures since the last time I looked. I couldn’t resist stopping whatever I was doing to pump my fist and shout, “YEESSSS!”’
That’s Dan Conway, a former middle-management cog in a Silicon Valley firm’s wheel, describing in a piece for The Hustle how it felt to see his all-or-nothing $300,000 bet on Ethereum make him a very rich man.
It all started when Conway, who was making about $150,000 a year, asked his wife if he could invest the family’s $100,000 in savings, which was earmarked for their three children’s college education, in a risky crypto play.
“I hated the fake company culture, the bureaucracy, the endless chains of command,” he wrote. “Like so many others, I was looking for some kind of escape.”
His wife knew it could cost them everything but, amazingly, agreed to it anyway.
As a guy who had gotten into trouble before with his addictive personality, part of him recognized such a risk as self-destructive, but the more he read about cryptos, the more he began to believe in its future.
This was in 2015 and bitcoin BTCUSD, -3.15% had fallen out of favor, dropping from a previous high of $1,200 to $300.
“What if it goes up again? What if I put everything I had into this?” he wrote. “I could get rich and never work another day in Corporate America.” After eating up every bit of information he could, Conway turned his focus from bitcoin to Ethereum ETHUSD, -1.77% , which had just launched in July 2015.
“As a disenfranchised suit-and-tie, I was enraptured by the possibility of a decentralized future,” he wrote. “As a greedy speculative investor, it gave me a rush.” He became so smitten with the potential, that he embarked on a wild ride — he used that $100,000 to buy 6,933 ETH at an average price of $14.
Soon thereafter, he was served a heaping spoonful of crypto volatility and watched his initial investment drop below $40,000. “In the midst of a particularly volatile week, I found myself in the emergency room, struggling to breathe,” he explained. “The doctor diagnosed me with a panic event.”
Undeterred, Conway doubled down by tapping into his home equity line. He borrowed another $200,000 and ended up with a total of 26,750 ETH at an average cost of $11.21 each. This had all the makings of serious disaster, but, no, the investing gods had other plans.
“Something miraculous happened: It kept going up… and up… and up. Between February and March of 2017, ETH shot from $15 to $50 per coin. By April, it was at $70; by May, $230,” Conway wrote in The Huslte. “In a span of four months, my $300,000 investment ballooned to $6 million.”
It didn’t stop there. In January 2018, Ethereum topped $1,000, and the memes were flying across the internet:
“It was an unprecedented burst — so monumental in scope that it temporarily froze the exchanges,” said Conway, who wrote a book about his journey. “It was like a 9.0 earthquake with an infinite number of aftershocks.”
He got the urge to sell, and sell he did. It was a market timer’s dream, as he sold most of his Ethereum position for a cool $10 million. Soon after he cashed out with his fortune, digital currencies were absolutely clobbered and still haven’t recovered. Ethereum is currently trading at under $200.
Meanwhile, Conway paid off his mortgage, took a dream trip to Africa and bought a second home in Ireland. He still has seven-figures sitting in his bank.
His advice for would-be Ethereum traders?
“I still believe crypto will open up new possibilities for organizing the world in the decades ahead, and I’m confident it will pop again as a result,” Conway wrote. “But I don’t recommend that anyone try to replicate what I did. For every story like mine, there are hundreds of others about people who lost it all. I know that could’ve easily been me.”
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I’m waiting for a quantum computer to throw a serious monkey wrench into this block chain scheme.
I often wondered why the US Fed Gov doesn’t just start up their own crypto mining operation since it costs them absolutely nothing to generate more currency aka funny money to purchase the machines and pay for the electricity. Maybe the spook agencies are already mining on the taxpayers dime.
I would guess governments are already doing this.
Crypto is the latest and greatest version of knowing exactly where,how much , and what you have fiscally available. Who do you think created crypto? Qui Bono??? Big Brother will take it all from you when the time is right for them to rob you blind and leave you at their mercy. Jesus had it right when he said, “render unto Caesar what is Caesars’, render unto God what is God’s.” Crypto is electronic fool’s gold.
The very first notion of crypto currency was a working paper that appears to have been published by … the NSA. I do have the article which traces its origins somewhere on my computer. This whole notion of some mysterious, brilliant Japanese introvert creator …. just goes to show you how gullible we can be.
Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered. He invested in Ether. That says it all. His is a very uninspiring story. Money for money’s sake makes for a very dull, albeit rich, doucheb-g.
For every Conway there are literally 10’s of thousands of “investors” who lost everything. He’s nothing but a gambler who got very lucky. Betcha $100 this goof gives it all back in another future “trade”.
Ten years ago or so local 20 s0mething guy’s 81 y/o grand dad wanted to get him into investing so he gave him 30k to invest, he wanted to put it into crypto, every one told him not to, but he insisted, he bought bit coin at $1.75, the guy was so adamant that the grand dad, who was quite well off put 300 k into it, now the guy is a multi millionaire and the grand dad is a bit coin billionaire
I like Ethereum, try and get 32, seems to be the number required for the coming proof of stake, you can lock it in and basically receive dividends.
It’s programmable with solidity, i.e. it is programmable currency, a significant tech advancement that will not go away.
There are others I support, Bitcoin is basically controlled by China, I think, still a solid play, litecoin, bitcoin cash, are also good coins.
Loki has splashed onto the scene with the rebirth of 8kun, a privacy coin that allows you to use Tor browser to surf, a derivitive of monero, uses the cryptonight heavy algo.
Zen and zcash also decent privacy coins.
We are watching the sunset on current legal tender, yes it will be disruptive, now is the time to get acquainted with options moving forward and form consensus, the Masters of the Universe have made their plans, and will foment division, fear, uncertainty and doubt to guide the masses into their net.
It’s coming, most haven’t a clue, shit, most did not understand fuck all about the last and are wholly unprepared to talk of the next.
Ones level of contentment is not correlated linearly with wealth. It sucks to be poor, but if you made a graph of the continuum from misery to earthly happiness and contentment (eternal happiness being left out of this discussion), the biggest increase in happiness would come from rising from poverty to lower middle-class income. Rising above that has a decreasing happiness return. It is complicated somewhat by the fact that your expectations have to be done in line with reality and stability of income helps to live happily within your means.
Risking plunging your family into poverty for wealth that would – at best – provide a slight incremental increase in happiness is illogical.
Why take all that risk when you could have just bought Tesla in June for $215.? Free money
Or you could have bought it in June 2017 and be down. It is the equivalent of bitcoin.
Tesla is toast.
Dude, you are blind. It’s not a buy-and-hold. it is manipulated more than any other stock, and as a result is more volatile than any other stock. But the pattern is predictable with easy ramps on and off. Pay attention. And by the way, I think they debut their pickup truck next week.
How much do you own? Last I heard it was zero. Did you sell your house and all your goods in June and dump it in Tesla? Thought not. Walk the walk!
And yup, Billy Bob and all his friends want them an electric pick up truck.
Still at zero. I’m not a stock guy. I get to use my money in my own business where I have a lot more control. But my points are valid. I haven’t been wrong yet. Tesla is a monster. Musk has an amazing skill set. And learning the pattern in the stock manipulation is free money for anybody who invests in securities. It’s not my thing, but that one is so easy I think about it every time they drive the stock price down. I like pickup trucks. I would consider a Tesla if they made it a little more luxurious on the inside.
Just range and capacity is all i need, but i understand why they will pimp it out.
all these different stories about tesla’s stock & earnings are a good example of why the average guy should not be in the market–
some say tesla is the greatest thing since sliced bread & some say that the earnings report is juiced,which is causing the stock to run–
who to believe?
https://www.google.com/search?
rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS775US775&q=chart+of+tesla%27s+stock+price&tbm=nws&source=univ&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjwhP7E_-XlAhUOCawKHbMrCt4Qt8YBKAF6BAgDEC4&biw=1777&bih=876
Folks seem to fail to realize that he was making $150k per year anyway. The biggest lesson in gambling is dont risk what you cant lose. His initial investment was 2-4X what most of Americans make in a year, yet it was 2/3 what he made. He was also knowledgeable in the industry and IT, thats a guarantee. Even the additional bet of 200k he could actually still afford, though a loss wouldve been devastating he couldve made the mortgage payments on a loss. One grand story seems to always trump the hundreds and hundreds of devastating stories. For any decision, if you cant afford the loss, take it… but too many cant afford the loss and take it anyway.
There are stories aplenty out there about folks that did exactly the same thing as the guy in the article. But lost everything. It is a rigged slot machine.
What isint
There is nothing wrong with making a high-risk high reward bet sometimes.
It is foolishness to bet everything on one high risk thing though.
The money Conway scored was on the backs of all the losers out there. Like the lottery, someone wins $250 million because there were $280 losing tickets. Duh….
And your point is?
The money Conway scored was on the backs of all the losers out there. Like the lottery, someone wins $250 million because there were $280 losing tickets. Duh