I consider myself as a safe investor. I started investing in Bitcoin back in early 2013. How I found out about Bitcoin was hard work and dedication sitting in front of the computer researching all day all night long to find opportunities that I can get involve with little to no money, or with what I currently have which are a bunch of computers.
I stumbled upon Folding@Home from a forum that I webhost for. I started Folding@home for a few months to a year, with 1 laptop then a desktop and eventually a few desktop with high end cpu. I took a vacation as usual with the family visiting Vietnam, and I a got a call from my work saying that my job is impacted, in other word I got laid off, let go, I lost my job basically. I was scare and kind of joyful at the same time, maybe this was the moment I was looking for new opportunities or career change. I was with the company for more than 15 years at the time, however they got me back within weeks and I work for another 5 years before I wrote resignation letter, total of 20 years working for a corporation.
Folding@home eventually got me interested in similar computing power opportunities for money as income, and it was mining Bitcoin. So I spent numerous hours days and nights researching and started mining with a laptop. I was skeptical at first, and came up with my own rule, I must not spent money on this stuff, spending time only. Well, at that time, time was the only thing I have, I have no money whatsoever, struggling to meet ends need. So with 1 laptop that I got for free and turned it into a Bitcoin mining machine, at that time I was able to mine 1 Bitcoin a week but it went down quick because the price of Bitcoin rise and many new Bitcoin miner came on board and thus causing the difficulty level of Bitcoin mining higher, in word takes longer to mine Bitcoin. I was solo mining, then eventually moved to pool mining.
One laptop, then 2 to 3 laptop and then desktop computers and eventually I made some money and use that money I made to invest in more hardware, in this case getting all the high end GPU video card I could with good deal like rebates and so on. Since I understood that the hardware I invested will need a return of investment within a certain period of time like 3 months or so, but what if I cannot? in that case I kept all the hardware original box and receipts so I can sell it back on eBay or somewhere to get some money back. It was a safe investment. At that time, my goal was to take advantage on all good deal GPU that are onsale, once I got the shipment I immediately assembled right away and get it up and running within an hour or less because time is of the essence.
Eventually mining with GPU is no longer profitable due to the rise in difficulty level and ASIC chips took over GPU mining, although mining with GPU for ASIC immune coins like Ethereum (ETH) still it just cost too much power not much profit. So I sold most if not all my GPU and get some money back.
Then I started to look for other opportunities online to earn more cryptocoins. I even tried some ponzi scheme or scam rather, also known as hyip (high yield investment program), I win some I loose some in the end it even out. I also tried crypto lending through poloniex and made some pretty good decent coins, however poloniex closed lending platform.
Playing it safe is my strategy now a day, including diversifying my portfolio. I now have some stocks, real estate, cryptos, vairable universal life insurance with cash value, and very little onhand cash in the bank. For sure I am not rich, I still have an old 2005 family van, which I fix service maintenance on my own. I don’t have expensive computers laptop or mobile phone device, since I believe in all I need is reliable devices and enough for a modest living. Any money that I earned more than I need I believe in sharing with others like the poor, but since I don’t have extra, just enough for my own enough to sustain me while I turn my hobbies into self employment job.
Today I’m doing work on the internet with my computers including creating websites contents and computer security. I also I have over 100 list of domains that one day I hope someday will have some value.
