From the outside, crypto outcomes seem pretty binary, I think of traders I know from twitter that are simply killing it. Or early adopters that through either genius or dumb luck hodled their way to a lifetime of financial security.

There are others that dabbled and either got shook out at the first dip or were able to change some spare money into paying off some debt or to start a college fund (both noble outcomes).

Then somewhere in the middle there is me. Although this is certainly wrong, it doesn't feel like there are many of me, or at least stories from people like me. 

I am 24, work in tech but am not an engineer. I live in Australia (all $ in AUD unless otherwise noted) which is a mostly fantastic country, although I believe our obsession with real estate will end in tears. I'm far from understanding crypto very very deeply. However, I did understand that blockchain is as fundamental a technology as the internet, it was still super early, and if you had of invested in Amazon in 1997, that would've gone pretty well for you.

In last 12 months crypto has turned $25,000 of my hard in dollars into, at last look, a touch over $200,000. 

By any normal measure that is something that has gone, well, pretty well for you. In crypto, it seems merely mediocre. What follows is the story of how I got into crypto, a heart wrenching missed opportunity and some of the wins.

Throughout this whole journey I told family, friends and colleagues to buy cryptos. For those that did I helped them with some baby steps like others before helped me, and some are doing tremendously well. For those that didn't, well, they might have a story for later.

The title is actually a lie, I first purchased 24 ETH in 2016 for about $500, I couldn't even tell you the price in BTC at that time. I had been interested in the space for a few years so it wasn't really a blind buy but in hindsight I was very lucky, my initial analysis was equal parts smart and incredibly dumb. 

It boiled down to me saying "I see no reason why Ethereum won't have a similar market cap to Bitcoin given the technology ETH brought to the table." Ethereum has far surpassed what was Bitcoin's market cap at the time, so I guess I was right, however I was totally blind to the network effects that make Bitcoin the true O.G.

The purchase was shortly after the whole thing with the DAO, but 6 months later, even through all that turmoil my ETH had grown roughly 25%, far outperforming ETF's that I owned, I was stoked. It seems bizarre to say I was stoked with a 30% gain over 6 months in crypto but I was, it was undoubtably a better performing asset than any other options I had at my disposal.

With that it was time to double down.

**Timing is everything**

I had cash, I earned more than a spent and I was, and still am, very comfortable with the possibility of my crypto money going to zero. I believe this is more or less the correct mindset for investment decisions at my age.

Even still instead of investing my savings, I wanted to invest $12,000 USD from liquidating a brokerage account that my Grandfather had setup for me. Even being aware of it, I could initially not overcome the bias towards losing what I had actually worked for. 

The only problem was this account was in the US. I was not. I did not have direct access to it (something awful called a custodial account as I was an infant when it was started). I dedicated a whole weekend in Australia to getting this money out of brokerage account and into Ethereum. 

I could not, and I spent the very next week watching Ethereum double, and each week thereafter it seemed to double again for what seemed like a long time.

Having experienced simultaneously my first 10x (from the initial $500) and also my first missed lambo, I was more enthused than ever. I poured $18,000 over the course of a May and June into a handful of alts and a sprinkle of BTC, this time it was my hard earned dollars, I wasn't making letting red tape hold me back again. This was a fantastic time, I now realise I caught the tail end of a great alt run, I'm pretty sure I even, no joke, bought some to this day all time highs against BTC, however winter was coming. 

Fortunately, I had accidentally prepared. I used that touch of BTC to BTFD and filled my bags to the brim. Importantly, what you own in BTC can't go down relative to BTC so I bought two of those to replace what I had traded into alts for an additional $7000.

I speak very casually of the $25,000, but it was a lot of cash, almost all of my savings. However I was young, the money was going to be invested anyways as I couldn't think of anything reasonable to buy with it, and unlike my peers I had no interest in saving for a house. 

I calculated that on a long enough time scale the consequences of losing $25,000 were practically zero, while the upside could be legitimately life changing. **That may well be the greatest insight I will ever have**

BTC shrugged off it's own FUD (I still hold my airdropped Bitcoin Cash and plan on buying a nice watch with it as a token) and fortunately I had lucked into a portfolio that was anti-fragile...in fiat. 

My precious alts were so savaged I deleted Blockfolio, but I slept easy knowing those two Bitcoins were atoning for all of my investing sins and worst case I could get out all together and still vastly outperform those ETF's. To all of my nocoiner friends the fact my performance against BTC was awful didn't matter as I was **UP IN AUD**.

Then as we rolled into November my alts started to wake up. I started being more active, and actually trading. Some of my previous nocoiner friends had become interested, and turned to me for advice. It came in two sentences, it was only invest what you can afford to lose, and if you're worried, just buy Bitcoin. Most didn't listen, but those that did are laughing.

My latest pick, a combination of being shilled by traders I respect on twitter and DYOR, was RaiBlocks, and is as of posting between 40-50x from when I bought, and the rest of my alts are kindly rising at a slightly slower pace. Among the people I told to buy XRB was my brother, who just bought me an iPhone X as a thankyou, so he also did well off that one.

However after all of this I am barely past where I would've been had I just been all in on BTC when I put in that initial $18,000.

So that's it, a mediocre year in crypto can net you $180,000 and then, on 366th day you might be up or down the annual salary of the person sitting next to you.

There has truly never been a market as explosive as this, and again even if it all goes to zero in the end, what a ride we're getting to go on.