Greed is the greatest enemy.
Author: hitesh.eth
Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow
Before getting involved in cryptocurrency, I was a serial entrepreneur. In 2016, I was operating my third startup—Digital Gorkha. It was an application providing visitor management and security services for physical venues. We successfully secured some funding, but due to poor choices of investors, we had to give away too much equity, which directly led to a chaotic equity structure, making subsequent Series A funding nearly impossible. Although user growth and revenue performance were decent, the lack of technological barriers left the company's prospects worrying.
As a founder, I watched helplessly as my startup headed towards failure. I began to ponder whether I could find a way out for the company through technological innovation. Meanwhile, with my wedding approaching, I had not earned any income for six months and was relying on my college friends for support. My parents were also putting pressure on me, and I felt almost cornered.
One late night, I stumbled upon blockchain technology through a Google search. With my background in cybersecurity, I was somewhat familiar with cryptography and quickly grasped the basic principles of blockchain. I read various use cases of blockchain and discovered its immense potential. A blog I randomly came across about a blockchain-based identity system sparked an idea in me. At that time, Digital Gorkha already had a visitor database covering over 20 cities and more than 100 venues, recording over 1,000 data entries daily. I thought, if I could put this identity information on the blockchain, perhaps I could create a competitive product.
Thus, the blockchain-based identity management system GetXS was born. However, in 2016, the venture capital market in India had little interest in blockchain. I attempted to pitch this project to some well-known angel investors, such as Anupam Mittal and Kunal Shah, as well as large funds like Accel and Sequoia, but received no support. Looking back now, this project was actually similar to an early version of Worldcoin, but at that time, I couldn't raise a single penny.
Six months later, funds were rapidly depleting, and we had to borrow money to keep the company running. The real estate developers who invested in Digital Gorkha were not interested in my blockchain exploration—they wanted to run the company their way. Meanwhile, my parents were mocking me, thinking that I, with no income, still wanted to get married. Ultimately, under immense economic and psychological pressure, I sold 30% of my equity at a very low price, left the company I had founded, and sought a job related to blockchain.
Entering the Abyss of the Crypto World
To survive, I embarked on three paths: I created a blog @ItsBlockchain to document my blockchain learning; I relaunched GetXS as an independent project; and I found a job as a blockchain consultant in Bangalore. However, this job paid so little that it was insufficient for my wife and me to live on.
At this time, I remembered that I had bought 1 Bitcoin in October 2016. When I checked the price three months later, it had doubled. This made me see the immense potential of cryptocurrency. I began to delve into cryptocurrency and eventually invested in ETH and XRP. This was my first real investment, and within a month, my portfolio grew tenfold. I realized this was a life-changing opportunity and devoted myself fully to the cryptocurrency field.
Four months later, I quit my job. I told my manager, "Instead of coming to the office every day doing nothing, I might as well do something interesting at home and earn four times my current salary." I began to focus on operating @ItsBlockchain, transforming it from a documentation blog into a cryptocurrency content platform, particularly focusing on altcoins and initial coin offerings (ICOs). At one point, I published an article titled "Top 10 Cryptocurrencies to Buy in August," and the influx of traffic caused the website server to crash. I upgraded the server three times, and the article's views exceeded 150,000 that month. This made me realize the huge demand in the cryptocurrency field. I started producing a lot of similar recommendation content, and the website's monthly traffic surpassed one million.
At that time, the ICO market was experiencing explosive growth, and we had a large email subscription list and significant traffic resources. I quickly capitalized on the crypto market's boom to monetize this traffic through advertising, paid articles, and providing cryptocurrency investment advisory services. At the beginning of 2017, my bank account was still empty; by the end of the year, @ItsBlockchain's revenue had exceeded $1 million. My life began to improve, but greed crept in quietly.
The Painful Lessons of the 2018 Bear Market
In early 2018, the surge in the altcoin market opened up opportunities for everyone. I exchanged 90% of my Bitcoin for over 40 altcoins, planning to hold them long-term. This was my biggest mistake.
When the market began to quietly collapse, I thought it was just a normal pullback and was confident in a market rebound. I was busy traveling and enjoying life, believing the market would always "pay" for me; I only focused on tweets that validated my biases, ignoring the obvious warning signs in the market; the biggest illusion came from Bitcoin's $6K support level—it had tested this level 6-7 times, and everyone thought this support was unbreakable. Everyone firmly held onto their Bitcoin, believing it was just a healthy adjustment.
However, reality was harsh. The market quickly crashed, and Bitcoin plummeted to $3.2K. I completely collapsed around the $4K mark and sold all my crypto assets. Ultimately, my portfolio shrank to less than 5%.
Losing Everything Again
To recover my losses, I began to try futures trading. In early 2019, when Bitcoin rose to $13.5K, my portfolio briefly recovered to 30% of its peak. However, the market's sideways movement rendered technical analysis (TA) ineffective, and I began to incur frequent losses.
To make ends meet, I found a job writing analysis articles for Blockchain Whispers, which paid in Bitcoin. I could have saved this Bitcoin, but I invested all of it into futures trading. Then, the Bitcoin flash crash in March 2020 completely devastated me. My account was liquidated, and I lost all my assets. I was forced to exit the crypto market and turned to filmmaking, temporarily distancing myself from this love-hate industry.
Lessons Learned
Looking back, I learned three important lessons:
Greed is the greatest enemy: When you earn enough money to change your life, take profits in time and do not chase infinite returns.
Maintain a moderate lifestyle: Raising your living standards too early can exacerbate the psychological gap after failure.
Avoid emotional investing: The market will not change because of your beliefs; rationally judging risk signals is crucial.
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