2020, We're almost through with you.

Part of me says "good riddance". But, a year in review gives me some hope and insight that I am very thankful to have gained.

Now, Gordon's going to share that with you!

Setting aside the personal effects felt by the pandemic+plandemic, actual real people I know and loved personally who died from complications related to Covid-19, and the legitimate concerns I have over the political unrest, dishonesty, divide, and manipulation of the masses into an anger towards one another that needs true healing without political gain... This article is about trading cryptocurrency.

Ah, 2020, a year like no other. A health scare unlike anything seen since 1918, yet with shared concerns on record even from way back then. There is a single instance of insight from a lady of the young age of 102, who caught the Spanish flu and recovered, and caught COVID-19 and survived 2 weeks on ventilation. If she can do it, there's hope for the rest of us. Meanwhile, in the name of science, we've been led around by some puzzling "facts" that not only make little-to-no sense, are actually hard to support if using one's fully-loaded brains, considering all of them have been disputed and walked back by the very individuals and health officials who put them out there. It seems that facts only hold weight when maintained by the source currently benefiting the narrative... hence the plandemic part of things.

Now, Gordon's going to make things personal. Buckle up and take the time to read. You will gain something... or you'll at least appreciate that I did.

At the end of 2019 going into January, I was working my day trading system that is unique, and requires proof of concept by consistently earning and compounding one's growth. Funds have been modest, so one has to pay very close attention to the actual percentage-based growth very early on, and keep tracking whether it is on target or not. This is very, very expensive at the start, because it costs more in living expenses than it does to earn profit. Every sat counts, literally, until things have earned their way upwards. The process was going well, but stupid regulatory stuff was the one factor I could not control. Every time my govt. stuck their rules in the path of an otherwise self-governing process that simply works, it meant shopping for new exchanges where I could work my process. Something key to understanding this burden is this: if you're trying to compound growth, it is a LOT harder to do the accounting when funds are spread across multiple exchanges, where you're not only adding the profits to a pool to see if you're on track, but in addition, different coins are hitting different clears at different times, the volume and liquidity require different actual trading strategies, and the whole thing is 10X the work it actually needs to be. That, is without taking into account that most people fail because the actual stress of trading is too much for them.

So, with funds spread across 5 exchanges, the 1-2 locations with the best volume and lowest fees were starting to accelerate at a faster pace, making it a no-brainer to pay a developer to create a custom bot specifically for me. This bot would use the API for a single exchange that allowed me to program in the price to buy and amount, and when that limit buy was entered, it would automatically create a limit sell order at "x" above the buy. This made it possible for me to get in and out of positions faster, preventing losing opportunities. The main challenge here was getting a programmer I could trust and afford. Don't try this at home. Most of them are absolute frauds. After a few dozen losers, I found the perfect match and dude made the program at a great cost and did it in record time.

Then in January, 'system maintenance' on this exchange turns into what looks eerily like an exit scam. While I still have trades and principle on 4 other exchanges, this is the one for which I have built a bot and have been moving profits from other platforms to grow wealth. The CEO finally admitted to making up stories, being more than $130 Million in the hole, and had a ridiculous plan to pay back some people until there weren't enough funds left, and then he would launch a new exchange and people would start getting their funds back when that new exchange was successful. What a crock! But, I leaned on them hard, helped lead direction in the community TG groups, prayed a lot, wrote internationally-covered articles exposing the fraud, and would you believe it, I was one of only 400 people out of 20,000+ who actually got their funds returned to them!!! This was nothing short of miraculous! 

We lost valuable time, and I still had to find ways to cover bills, and this is pre-pandemic. At this time, I actually knew about the virus because I talked a great deal with people who worked at different Asian exchanges. They were quite worried about the virus before we knew a thing in the states and Europe.

We had our funds back. during those 3 weeks or so, some of the scariest, most strenuous nights I've ever suffered, I continued working the process with the funds still working on the 4 other exchanges. Earnings were small and I was notably scarred and marred by the wasted time and resources of that wonderful, now useless, bot that I got to test and use for a total of 3 weeks. More so in importance, I had to find a new trading home. This meant going through hundreds of exchanges, many not to be found on CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko etc. I needed low fees and big liquidity somewhere that also was friendly to U.S. and was not a scam like what we just experienced. There was a small exchange that used shared liquidity with Binance, had some errors on their website I helped correct,  and low fees. I tested a few hundred dollars there, then a few more, until the recovered funds were now growing our profits on this new platform. Just one problem though; they were not pleased that I was doing as well as I was doing. They froze my funds and accused me of wash-trading... something that is impossible to do if you are selling at a higher value than where you bought. The problem is, that you are supposed to be wrong at least 40% of the time, and most people lose more the more often they trade. I do not use any fancy tricks, but have a sharp instinct, and when the volume is extremely good, I remain more than 90% accurate, and I do so day after day. After negotiations, and another week of sleepless nights, I wrestled to get my principle back and they kept all of my profits. Was it fair? Heck no! Was it better than being out all of that principle a second time just a couple of months later than being exit-scammed and blessed to recover funds? Heck yeah! So, now we're several months behind, I have exactly the funds that I started with, and I am equal parts thankful to still have an opportunity to prove myself, and devastated that precious time was costing precious money, and now we're looking at the first stages of lockdown. Keep in mind; I'm just a dude barely scraping an existence, and I have found a talent at trading that breaks all of the models. I am honest, work harder than others, and I appear as an anomaly to any exchange paying attention. I do not triangulate, use gimmicks or tricks. I don't even use leverage.

I scour the internet for new exchange options yet again. I find one that I do NOT like, but find I am trading well and again, the fees are good. You know the drill. I test a little, then a little more, and now I'm earning at the correct rate again. After a little time, my trade sizes are essentially growing at a similar rate to the price of Ethereum while it was on the rise. This particular exchange suffered liquidity brown-outs, which I attributed, after great analysis, to their OTC trades. It seemed that whenever a large amount needed to buy or sell off the order book, the order book would simply flat-line until 50, 100, 10,000 ETH or BTC equivalent cleared, and then it would kick back into high gear. But, I was still making progress.

Then it happened.

They announced a site maintenance, which for me now causes PTSD from previous experiences. It was a legitimate site update, but it either caused a technical glitch or they used it as an opportunity to steal from their customers. Either way, the world will never know. At the time of the 'update', there is a literal section of my order history where they are blank pages. This is very different from having a gap from the last order to when the next one finally gets entered. There are 2 blank pages representing what happened, but was not recorded, during a brief site maintenance. In that time, my account balance shows a 1 ETH-sized value that was both accounted for, yet frozen and could not be touched. It appears that this 'glitch' took all of my profits, and placed them into a category where they could essentially take all of that profit back, and hold it hostage as a fee for being allowed to withdraw funds if I wished. I debated with a staff of under-trained, immature, childish... lets be fair and call it what it is... absolute morons who could not fathom, let alone care, that we were talking money, not bubble-gum brands. Few times in my life have I felt so unlucky, burned out, sad, dismayed, disillusioned and yet blessed at the opportunity to find SOME way to keep moving ahead.

Needless to say, I was torn, because I have searched the hundreds of exchanges and measured the liquidity, volume, and fees to determine where I could work my strategy. Trust me on this, I have a system that works, and all that it lacks is a place to apply the process.

Honesty, at this stage, was the greatest determining factor in whether I was ever going to earn off of this massive growth, or keep living the life of Sisyphus pushing that crypto rock up the hill. 3 times now, I had found an exchange where I could grow my funds, and 3 times I had gotten burned. I wanted to find somewhere that serves U.S. customers on our own soil and does not charge a premium, or worse, charges a fee hidden by a crappy spread.

I chose to actually withdraw, once again lose all of my earnings, this time to a 'glitch' that was 100% documented to show exactly where the trade was that they stole from me. I could not trust them, but where was I to go?

For the next leg of the journey, read Part 2!