š
How I Made and Lost $1M Trading Crypto I Super Users - YouTube
Channel: VICE
[0]
It was just wild.
[2]
Itās really hard
to explain it to an outsider.
[5]
These cryptocurrencies
just kept going up in value,
[7]
just every single one.
[8]
It didnāt matter which one
you bought; it just went up.
[10]
And turning $30,000
into over a million dollars
[14]
in the space of ten, 11 months,
[16]
it was hard to get your head around.
[18]
I was very lucky,
and I got in early.
[19]
And, you know,
[21]
I wasnāt going to stop at a million.
[22]
I was going to make five,
ten million.
[24]
Yeah, it didnāt work out like that,
but I just got swept up in it all.
[29]
[Super_Users]
[32]
[Bitcoin King]
[34]
The first time I bought Bitcoin
was back in 2012.
[39]
One of my friends phoned me up
and said,
[42]
āPete, thereās this website;
you can buy drugs.
[45]
Itās like Amazon, but for drugs.
[46]
Weed, heroin, cocaine, crack,
[49]
like, every single drug
you could think of.ā
[51]
I was like, āOK, Iām going
to buy some weed.ā
[55]
But I had to get some Bitcoin,
[56]
so I went onto LocalBitcoins,
and then I bought some weed.
[62]
And it was a bit like,
āThis is mental.ā
[64]
And then, at the end of 2016,
[68]
my mother, sadly, she was dying.
[71]
She had ovarian cancer,
[73]
and we wanted to treat her
with cannabis oil.
[76]
I bought some Bitcoin and went back
and bought some cannabis oil for her.
[81]
Sadly, it was too late,
[82]
and Mum died in early ā17.
[86]
I was just sat in my dadās
house in Ireland,
[89]
and Iād gone to sell
this Bitcoin back.
[92]
And then when I went to sell it back,
[94]
there was this other thing
called Ethereum,
[95]
and I was like,
āOh, whatās that?ā
[97]
I did some Google searches,
[98]
and it seemed to me like there was
this new flourishing crypto industry,
[102]
whereas before, it was just Bitcoin
back in 2012, 2013.
[106]
Ethereum is the do-it-yourself
platform for decentralized programs,
[110]
also known as dapps,
decentralized applications.
[114]
And I was like, āOK,
this sounds kind of interesting.
[117]
I think Iām going to invest,
and Iām going to try trading.ā
[120]
And I did and spent
probably at least a year,
[125]
close to a year trading.
[129]
It was kind of a wild year, really.
[130]
I put $32,000,
[133]
I think 25,000 pounds
at the time, in.
[136]
I bought a bunch of Bitcoin
and a bunch of Ethereum.
[139]
And the Ethereum I bought was,
like, $9 when I bought it,
[142]
and then it rockets up to $150.
[145]
I bought all these other
cryptocurrencies,
[147]
and just... Iāve never made
so much money in my life.
[151]
There were some days youād go to bed,
and youād wake up,
[153]
youāve made $10,000,
$15,000, $20,000.
[155]
Youāre like, āWhat the hell
is going on here?ā
[158]
It was a wild year.
[159]
I think at its peak,
I traded that $32,000
[164]
up to the equivalent of
about $1.2 million in equity
[169]
in the cryptocurrencies
I owned.
[171]
It was really hard to pick
a losing coin back then.
[175]
We suddenly got a lot of money.
[176]
It gives you a lot of freedom.
[178]
And I was traveling. I was
traveling out to America a lot.
[181]
I bought a new car.
I bought a watch.
[184]
I was treating my family to things.
[186]
I was giving money to my family.
Iāve gone out to dinner.
[189]
I was just living this
really kind of... good life.
[195]
And, you know, maybe
Iām an absolute idiot.
[197]
Maybe I should have recognized it.
Maybe I got greedy.
[200]
I just wasn't overthinking it.
[203]
Honestly, to answer how
I was going to spend the money,
[206]
the truth is,
itās really embarrassing.
[208]
You just sound like a dick.
[210]
Genuinely, I made an inquiry
to buy Bedford Town Football Club,
[214]
which is where I live.
[215]
Itās a small, crap town.
Our football teamās crap.
[218]
But I always kind of thought,
āI want to own it.ā
[221]
So I made an inquiry
about buying that.
[224]
Yeah, just stupid,
moronic things, really.
[226]
So, I didnāt really
know what I was doing.
[228]
I was just getting lucky, really.
[229]
I was just **** about on this thing,
[232]
like a lot of people were.
[233]
Just going, āOh, Iāll buy that,
and itās going up.ā
[235]
And then I didnāt know that
these kind of markets went in cycles,
[240]
and I wasn't prepared for
the end of the market.
[243]
And then in, I think
it was January 2018,
[248]
the market crashed.
[249]
And the value of my
cryptocurrency holdings
[253]
just dropped quite heavily.
[254]
But I kept thinking it would
come back, but it didnāt.
[257]
It just kept getting worse
and worse and worse,
[260]
and by mid-2018,
[262]
pretty much everything Iād made
had gone.
[267]
I had a very short period where
I was like, āOh, God, this is dead.
[271]
Oh ****, I **** up there.ā
[273]
But there was no point I was like,
ā**** it, Iām done with this.ā
[276]
I just became focused on Bitcoin.
[278]
I just thought Bitcoin was just
a really interesting technology.
[281]
When you look at how people
were managing to use it
[287]
to avoid capital controls
in certain countries
[289]
or they were using it to get
money just into a country
[292]
or that kind of
censorship-resistant property
[294]
that allows you to send it to people.
[296]
I think what I learned
coming back into the current cycle,
[300]
because obviously,
if anyone's listening to this,
[302]
theyāve probably seen that
Bitcoinās at nearly $60,000 again,
[306]
and theyāre seeing itās fine,
thereās a lot of interest.
[309]
There is a similar level of
excitement between now and 2017,
[313]
and, Iām sure, 2013 as well,
and the previous bull cycles.
[317]
And I always think the excitement is
people are getting rich.
[321]
You know, you can't pretend
that's not happening.
[323]
Some people out there
are getting rich.
[325]
If I owned all the Bitcoin
I had at the peak,
[327]
I would have over $10 million
of Bitcoin right now.
[333]
And, look, I could dwell on it,
[335]
but I kind of got over it
pretty quickly when it happened.
[338]
Yeah, itās annoying,
but Iām still OK.
[342]
Yes, I wish I had that ten million,
[344]
and Iād go out and buy
a big house and a Lamborghini.
[346]
But I donāt, so, you know, **** it.
[348]
I came into this cycle a lot better
prepared to be patient
[354]
and invest in a much more
patient and... controlled way.
[360]
Iām only going to buy Bitcoin,
[362]
and I'm going to do it
at a decent price.
[364]
Iām going to be very patient,
[365]
and Iām going to hold this Bitcoin
for a number of years.
[368]
You know, discovering Bitcoin
led me to starting a podcast.
[371]
And that podcast has
become something thatās...
[373]
Iām really lucky that
so many people listen to it.
[377]
Iām just some idiot from Bedford
who started a podcast about Bitcoin
[380]
with no real objective
or plans at all.
[384]
I have no training in economics.
Iām not technical.
[387]
I just started this podcast.
[389]
And then, you know, itās like
when you log into the charts,
[394]
and you see yourself at number one,
[395]
and you see below,
youāve got Bloomberg
[397]
and BBC and <i>The</i> <i>Financial Times</i>,
[399]
itās a real surreal moment.
[401]
Itās a bit kind of hard to take in.
[403]
Sadly, Iāve never made
a lot of money with Bitcoin,
[405]
but I know a lot of people have.
[407]
And Iām just going to go around
to each of them and say,
[408]
āI need a bit of money from you
and a little bit of money for you,ā
[411]
and, āWhat a great story.
[412]
We could turn Bedford into
the Bitcoin Football Club,
[414]
and we can try and get them
in the Premier League.ā
[417]
Iād love to do it.
I donāt know if itāll happen.
[419]
Itād be amazing if I could, though.
[421]
Itās just changed
my life immeasurably.
[423]
Iām pretty sure Iām going to
**** it up at some point,
[426]
but before I do, Iām going to
try to enjoy it as best I can.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage