It was Friday, November 19th last year (2022) when it all started. I blame and old laptop, idol just sitting there call out to me. It wanted to be useful still, however, the new laptop I had transitioned to had rendered it virtually useless. How could this old laptop still provide value?
How about mining some crypto? The thought came to me, but in reality didn't mean much. I knew nothing of crypto, let alone how to mine it. Undeterred, I went to work on that old laptop and after much time and frustration I had it off and running mining away pushing it's CPU to the limit. I was going to be rich, mining Dogecoin on that laptop. Elon Musk had just talked about the meme coin a few months earlier when he hosted Saturday Night Live so why not go with that. And that is how it all began...
It wasn't long after I had a second old laptop up and running. After a little research into the most profitable coins to mine, I decided to mine Ravencoin on this second laptop. This wasn't so hard after all... Proud of myself, I decided to start calculating "when Lambo" and much to my chagrin, it was going to be a long, long time before I had that much horsepower under my right foot. In fact, at this pace I wouldn't be able to hit the minimum withdrawal, worth about $5, for about a year running 24/7. Looks like it would be a matchbox car version of a Lambo for me.
Truth is, it didn't matter. I was already heading down a crypto rabbit hole I didn't know existed the day before. I had no idea how obsessed I would become with the technology or where it would lead me. Determined to learn more, I found out about Publish0x and what a blessing this resource would turn out to be. It would lead me to begin writing again, my first article was written - Crypto Newbie Week One - Lions, Ravens, Turkeys and Doges, oh my - published on November 30th. Somehow I made more off of this article than a weeks worth of mining. I was going to be crypto rich after all thanks to all your tips.
I've written about 150 articles since then, averaging about three per week. I've been lucky to be a first place winner in a few Publish0x writing contests and even more lucky to gain a loyal group of followers - thanks to each and everyone of you. I cherish reading articles from a number of the talented writers on this site and have gained so much knowledge thanks to their efforts. The AMPL and ETH gained are nice, but not nearly as valuable as being part of the community and the knowledge gained.
I finished off 2021 learning how to earn free crypto on faucets, opened a few exchange accounts and messed around with crypto wallets. Honestly, it was all still so confusing at this point. But what would 2022 have in store aside from a continued downturn in the crypto market that started as soon a got involved. Yes, you can blame me for the crypto winter which coincided perfectly with my entry into the space.
To kick of the new year I decided to make an investment into Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). I parked my investments on the Midas platform which has given a nice little return on both assets growing my bag. I did a ton of research before settling on Midas which seemed risky as clearly stated by anyone who chimed in on my choice. Since then, many of the so called "safer" alternatives have collapsed while Midas has been transparent in their communications and investment approach.
A month later I dived head first into yield farming joining Forex Shark's Animal Farm. It would be paused until this month shortly after starting, but I was hooked on yield farms - particularly Tomb Forks which I found incredibly interesting given their complex ecosystems. EMP Money (a ETH tomb fork) and DEX Finance (a USDC tomb fork) would be my two biggest plays here. I enjoyed this type of yield farming so much I wrote a book about it which I will put up on Amazon after one more edit. Yes, I wrote a book about crypto - who would have thought that 12 months ago...
By the second quarter I was diving into DeFi degen plays. I'm not a gambler by nature, but throwing a little risk capital at these projects proved to be a good educational opportunity at a relatively low cost. For the most part I've broken even on these, from miners to ROI dApps, yet to hit it big.
I had moved on from laptop mining pretty early into gaming PC mining. This turned out to be much more fruitful but the continued decline of crypto prices combined with increasing electricity prices lead to an end of mining for me. I loved the fact that I could generate an income stream from mining and looked at how to replace this income.
Eventually I stumbled onto trading bots and another huge crypto world opened up to me. I became somewhat obsessed with bots, the various asset classes and all the different algorithm plays you can use. From platforms using trading, to free bots, to open source code bots - I was hooked and soon coding my own bots. I still have a lot to learn and experiment with here, but am getting better at using trading bots every week I mess with them.
And then there were NFTs. I learned how to mint NFTs working with an artist friend of mine. Later, I would design my own NFTs and would end up sending hundreds of free NFTs to readers of Publish0x. The encouragement from the community only spurred me on further.
I would combine these two passions, trading bots and NFTs, into my first crypto project - BOTZ. Unable to find NFTs that generated income via trading bots, I decided to launch my own and offered a few beta tester spots to Publish0x readers. With a full launch planning in the first quarter of 2023, I am excited to help others generate passive income from trading bots by simply holding an NFT. This week I launched YieldBotz, a project that uses profits generated from yield farms to provide passive income to our NFT holders.
The technology in crypto continues to drive me. The possibilities are endless. I remember waking up one Saturday morning in late summer with my wife out of the house for the morning and my two sons sleeping the day away after a hard night of gaming. Then I had a thought - why not create my own cryptocurrency? Without getting out of bed I grabbed my laptop and started researching. After a few hours I was coding in Solidity and created a coin on the BNB Network and named it after my dog Kuda who faithfully laid next to me the whole time unaware that he would soon have a digital currency named after him. I would add liquidity on PancakeSwap for the coin that would soon be available to trade on more than a dozen exchanges. Pretty cool!
There have been a lot more crypto projects and adventures along the way, too many to mention. I'm so excited to start year two of my crypto journey and hoping this year I'm running with the bulls instead of fleeing from the bears. I look forward to continue to share my journey with the Publish0x readers and learn how their own journeys are progressing. I wanted to take a moment to reflect back on what a year it has been and thank all of you for sharing your knowledge and words of encouragement along with fascinating journey.
