Hello Readers,
I had the pleasure to interview:
- my good old friend Alberto, 35 yo, ex-miner
- my basketball buddy Gabry, 25 yo, investor and trader
- my old teammate Max from Warlight/Warzone, 43 yo, DeFi expert (?)
The topic? How we started and how they made good money with crypto.
So, how did you start and when:
A- In November 2019, I bought a new powerful GPU and the idea of mining started to take shape. I began researching online on how to do it - hesitating, to be honest. Then COVID hit, and I finally decided to start. I mined ETH and deposited it in a wallet that rewarded me with BTC sats..
G- It was 2017, my classmate at school (Yes, Gab is young) told me he had a “sure” way to make us rich. We started buying and we accumulated 14 BTCs in total (price was around 3K $ at that time). Unfortunately. I decided to take the profits and sold my share. I made +50% on the amount invested,
M- It began this year in January, I was searching the web for other things and decided to try some sites for passive income after a video by Michael from PaidFromSurveys. The first were Cointiply and Freecash. Damn, I pale against you guys, LOL
X- I got into crypto in late 2020, right before the DeFi summer was cooling off. At first I started with Coinbase and put 100$ into BTC/ETH/SOL in a 6/3/1 repartition. Then a friend introduced me to MetaMask and showed me how to swap tokens on Uniswap. A revelation… no registration, KYC, just click and swap. I just bridged some ETH from Coinbase to my MetaMask wallet and played around with small DeFi protocols. Soon I was staking, farming, bridging to Layer 2s, and exploring everything from Curve to Yearn to Index Coop.
The first strategy: how did you organize it?
A- After I started mining, I found an obscure GPU reseller from the Far East. I began acquiring GPUs and reselling them. Meanwhile, I used them for mining. The GPUs stayed in my hands for 2–3 weeks before I could sell them. I ran up to 12 GPUs at once. I made more from reselling than from mining, but I started accumulating sats when BTC was at $3,500.
G- As I mentioned, we just bought BTC. We had a front man who helped us set up a bank account and a credit card, since we were underage, hehehe. After I cashed out, I tried to speculate on forex and SP500 — not my garden! In 2021, I came back to crypto. I spent a lot of time studying how altcoins work, how they correlate with the US market, etc. My strategy now is identifying the most promising (... speculative) altcoins and investing in them, waiting for peak moments.
M- Offers and games. Faucets pay very little, and surveys are just frustrating. But games are fun and sometimes profitable. Raid and Dice Dreams helped me earn my first €100. Then I discovered Lootup and used tons of free offers - that’s why I have accounts on a bunch of exchanges and wallets. My first $10 came from Ember. Eventually, I opened a Binance account, and now I mostly stake BTC there.
X- At first, it was pure exploration, trying to understand smart contracts and yields. But then I settled into a strategy: In short, I focused on sustainable passive yield with protocols I trusted, all while growing my on-chain knowledge. Then I used lending protocols to earn passive yield, and when confident, I would loop positions or provide liquidity on DEXes. (I'm already struggling to follow)
What are you doing nowadays?
A- Since November 2024, I'm no longer actively investing or moving my capital. I had previously invested a few thousand euros in BTC, when the price was around $13K until it was circa $35K.
I think I’m in the cash cow phase now: I earn high interest from Nexo, and I accumulate sats via cashback and rebates from Nexo and Bitcashback. I prefer not to disclose exact numbers, but I’m somewhere above $100K and below $1 million in BTC. (Finance me !!!)
G- Since I returned to crypto, I’ve been using Binance extensively: bonuses, offers, airdrops, BNB rewards, etc. I mostly do slow trading of altcoins. When the market dips, I try to accumulate different altcoins, then wait for their spikes and sell. It takes time to analyze the market. You need patience, sometimes it takes months to recover your investment—and you must always keep a STOP LOSS active. You never know when the void will try to get you!
M- I click a lot, play a few minutes, and complete offers. The last piece of the puzzle has been betting on BetFury. GPT sites earned me a few hundred euros to fund BetFury, and now I’m trying to win back what I gambled. Between KuCoin and Binance, I have about $1200 - probably double that if I include all the credits across exchanges, wallets, faucets, etc.
X- Still 100% on-chain. I rotate between Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base depending on gas fees and where the best yield is. I started providing liquidity here and there. And a lot of tracking early airdrops. With mixed results honestly.
Worst moves trying to get rich?
A- Oh well… Once I invested $200 in Wonderland (yes, that Wonderland—the Ponzi scheme promising 38,000% APR). Completely burned. Another time, I tried remote mining—buying computing power from third parties—but between hidden costs and sneaky clauses on how much was actually mined… I lost more than I’d like to admit.
G- You mean other than pulling out of a $100 BTC deal too early?
In my second life in crypto, I don’t have many horror stories. At worst, I lost $30 on an altcoin I expected to rise, but instead it dropped by 30%. Luckily, I sold—because it eventually dropped over 80% and is still down today. Stop-loss, MVP !
M- Oh, sports betting! I lost quite a bit on Ember, missing NBA playoff predictions. Also, minefield—I love that game. Lost money there, too. Considering Tronpayu, Ember and the multiplier on Cointiply… those mines costed me around 30$.
X- Uh, I could write a book… I lost thousand on Fantom in 2021, chasing an insanely high APY. Later I overleveraged on Aave. Since then I’m a patient guys searching for passive income in protocol fees.
What you think of the future regarding the crypto market?
A- I think It's going to be more stable but I see the world split in 2 between those immersed in the DeFi environment and those that will see cryptos as an investment tool like gold now. I think it’s still possible to make big money investing/trading, but huge rewards are no longer as common. That said, making 300% in traditional markets is nearly impossible, while in crypto it’s still very doable. The golden days may be over, but there’s still plenty of silver to dig.
G- I believe the market will follow the usual cycle, and BTC might collapse in 2026. Despite the evolution and integration of DeFi and the real economy, the crypto world will keep rotating as it always has. I think crypto believers will remain a minority - maybe 10% of people will understand it, but only 2% will actually invest.
M- I’m always amazed how younger generations - hey, it’s been over 20 years since I was 18! - are still divided between those who know a bit about crypto and those who are completely unaware or uninterested. It still hasn’t really penetrated.
Maybe now that even credit cards are connected to crypto, something will change.
As for BTC, I think it will stay afloat - no major dips below $90K. Not just investors, but governments, institutions, and credit card companies are now publicly supporting BTC. That’s a strong safety net.
X- How much in deep should I go ? I think in the mid term it will be Defi vs Tokenized Reality. More liquidity in the market and more movements in crypto at any level. Tokenization is the near) future.
DeFi will not replace banks overnight, but it’ll erode their dominance. With more and more services based on procolos and smart contracts part of the economy will be more streamlined with no middleman between you and the service you want. I see BTC stable while ETH will get bigger as the backbone of new systems.
Any advice for newcomers and youngsters ?
A- I stopped actively investing, but I stay informed. I follow a couple of guys on YouTube and read about economics and a few projects I’m interested in. The more you know, the better. It’s easy to start understanding crypto, and it helps you avoid scams.
I used to go to Lugano to attend investor meetups and exchange ideas with traders, developers, wealthy investors, and newcomers. For me, self-education is the key to success - not just in crypto.
So study and keep grinding!
G- Honestly, I studied a lot and still ask my old partner for advice. If someone wants to invest and doesn’t have a crypto millionaire friend… I highly recommend following Crypto Gateway on YouTube.
M- In the past, you couldn’t even make "beer money" unless you worked. Now, with a phone, you can. Same goes for information. The world has changed drastically in 30 years.
Investments used to be tied to banks and complex systems. Now you can start with just a few dollars - or even for free. My best advice: just start doing something. Experience is valuable - even if you make nothing or lose everything.
Between games, faucets, surveys, staking, casinos, cashback, affiliate programs - there’s something for everyone to explore and potentially earn from.
X- Don’t skip the basic: Learn how things work. Wallets, gas fees etc… If you want to start in L2 you can’t be approximative. DeFi punishes greed and rewards patience, don’t chase yield.
And that's all!
Waiting for the moment AIs will kill us all, thank you for reading !
Best regards from Italy,
Ilpegg & friends
