Why Wasn’t I an Early Investor into Bitcoin?

For a project planned, I’ve been spending the past 4 hours or so sifting through my blog archives for any mentions of Bitcoin. I’ve found comments on the site dating back to 2011, blogs from 2012 and up. Back then, and not until very recently, I was a harsh crypto critic, although I wouldn’t call myself a legitimate critic — more of an ignorant buffoon who used his platform to deride something he was wholly ignorant of — relishing in the setbacks of innovative and forward looking investors who took the plunge early and had the will power to see it through.

Quite honestly, reading 53 pages of Bitcoin FUD has made me question the very purpose of this blog. Because I know why I said what I said and why at $65 BTC I felt the coin was far too expensive and then laughed at it when it broke out above $100.

I have been blogging on the internet since 2001, finance since 2005. In some ways, I am like an NPC, routine oriented, cranky, and suspicious of new things. I was buying shipping stocks in 2013 when I should have been buying cryptos and I am doing it again — deriding NFTs — because I do not have any, and instead buy the same old stocks every day making 1%, losing 0.8% — rinse and repeat.

Repetition.
Ignorance.
A desire to be “right” because people read me.

What better way to be right than to bet against the crowd? The best feeling wins are always when no one else saw it coming. This is how I felt during the financial crisis — having successfully traded through it and just about every other major financial shock since the dot com melt down. I even panicked out of stocks in March of 2020 at the COVID lows — before acquiescing and getting back in and having my best year ever because of it.

In classic me form, I eventually sold myself on cryptos in early 2020 and bought a significant amount of Ethereum — making more than 15x my original investment. But this doesn’t make me a ETH guru, just a guy who finally caved and bought something that was down — in the hopes it would come back. I got into ETH mainly because of COVID and my desire to have a currency backup, since I feared the dollar could one day collapse. Saying that out loud makes me cringe also, since it’s more chicken little the sky is falling nonsense.

With nearly 22,000 blogs in the bank here at iBC, I can honestly say probably HALF of them are sensationalism, words crafted by a lunatic intent on getting a reaction out of people — stirring the pot if you will. I blog three times per day from Monday-Thursday and twice on Friday, once on the weekend — like a good NPC. I try to come up with things to say on days when nothing is new, other than my trading — which is always new and always different. Over the past year I have moved away from investing and into day trading, something I am quite fond of and enjoy a great deal. My blog has more or less become a denizen to post my notes and trade diary and admittedly isn’t all the useful for people reading me for day to day advice.

I probably do not need to be blogging every single day after 22,000 blogs and I probably shouldn’t think of things to say on days when there isn’t anything new.

I wasn’t the only one who missed BTC at $65 and I wasn’t the only one who said it was a big scam. I eventually did come around to the idea of making money in it — only after dozens of blogs decrying it worthless. As a reader of the site, I would be very hard pressed to take the advice of someone who flip-flopped on something he was so adamant about in the past. But truthfully, my best attribute as an investor is making money in spite of myself.

I trade against my own convictions all the time. I form ideas and attempt to hold true to them; but mostly I am a chameleon who adapts to the environ — typical of any species who wants to survive and thrive.

I could never have admitted any of this 3,5 or 10 years ago —- since my ego wouldn’t allow it. I was raised to be strong and always felt like the underdog and worked extra hard to disprove “haters” real and imagined. I never felt at ease without enemies — which is probably why I pick so many fights with people online.

But honestly, I swear, I am no longer this person.

I missed Bitcoin from 2013-2020 because I was too lazy and ignorant to immerse myself into something new. I looked down upon anyone who didn’t have a series 7 or series 65 and felt I knew more because I had worked at a big firm with bloomberg terminals and knew people who were very very rich who hated Bitcoin or anything new. It’s worth noting, these people still hate Bitcoin.

I remain very long ETH now, not because I am constantly researching it and investigating its prospects — but because I am riding the wave and my basis is so low — it makes little sense to sell it now.

I will not change, in spite of my desire to want to change, but I will also continue to invest successfully too —- because for whatever demented reasons involved, I am good at what I do and eventually, almost always, catch the wave.

I was going to build an entirely new platform for cryptos but have decided to at least integrate on a basic level cryptos to Stocklabs in our next project. After that, options.

For now, I will apply our technical algos and curate some of the largest cryptos and embed them into our powerful screener. It should be fun. After a while, perhaps I can apply the intelligence and mean reversion algos to them. We’ll see.

Today we finalized a major feature add to the system applying percentage returns for all stocks, indices and sectors to analyze returns on a 30 second, 1,5,15, and 30 min time scales. This is the opening salvo in what will be a slew of quantitative tools designed for high speed data transmission and trading.

The way this works is as you would imagine. Nothing gets by me now. As soon as I can start seeing the market better, I’ll be unstoppable again.

I was right and deserve credit — for calling today’s crash in cryptos. I see there is a small bounce here, as retards ebb into ETH sub $3400 hoping for some elasticity to propel them tonight back to $4k; but that has been canceled.

Although very long and very bullish for the long term, I do believe the NFT market has caused a bubble that we have not seen since DOGE topped us out that one Saturday amidst Elon Musk chicanery.

Markets look ok — but I suspect the selling in the crypto market isn’t done yet. I’d look for a retest of $3k for ETH before even thinking about adding to an already large position.

The last time we had a market like this in cryptos was May 2021, when morons pilled into DOGE, CUM ROCKETS and other unsavory coins — laughing whole heartedly because pretending is fun. Now we have a perverted craze in NFTs, of the likes I never thought possible. People are paying $50k for complete nothing. To facilitate much of the “art” payment, SOL is used. Over the past month SOL has gone from $35 to $187, straight parabolic to the upside.

Like DOGE, this will not last and the idea of SOL displacing ETH due to expensive gas fees is not going to happen.

I’m not a crypto seller, but be careful up here — especially new jacks wanting quick gains.

We have a new suite of tools in Stocklabs that I am thrilled to use today — % change over 30 sec, 1,5,15, and 30 min time frames. Sounds simple and it is, but when used with our volume tools — straight crack.

Those are the biggest movers in Pre-market, sorted by volume and gains of +0.5% or more over the past 5 mins. When in the trading session, I can pair that with our volume surge analyzer on a 5 min scale to find anything that is moving and be first.

Early going, I am +80bps, eager to begin the Fall trading season, hoping for something exciting to happen.

I was disappointed this morning when I read this and had planned a parody blog where I suggested it’d be vital to the national interests to turn away the fats from hospitals, if resources were scarce. But then I changed my mind about it because I love some fat people and half my family could be considered the fats and I’d not like to see them die a dogs death.

What have some of us become?

I turned away from religion a long time ago, in spite of being raised catholic and served as an altar boy until I was 13. I did so because, well, I stopped believing in the divine. But if there was a time for some people to seek God and the virtues celebrated by religion — it is now.

People are hesitant to take the vaccine for good reason, for one it has proven to kill people, not that often, but often enough that you notice it even with the censored media. It’s like winning the lottery, but with better odds, and when you win — you die. The other important fact about the vaccine  — it does not stop a COVID infection, nor does it stop one from dying or being hospitalized. It might mitigate severe illness and death — but it does not stop it. So don’t be shocked and surprised when good meaning people, your neighbors and your friends, choose not to enroll in the vaccine lottery due to attendant risks. You are guaranteed a shot at death with the vaccine, but if you’re a careful person and keep your mask nice and tight — you may never get COVID. To date, about 1 in 10 Americans have gotten COVID.

See the logic? I hope you do.

We all have hopes and dreams, some of them simple and honest and others with greater aspirations ebb on the grandiose — and we do not exist on this planet for very long. We are all sons and daughters, have people who love us and share ideals and passions with — enjoy to laugh and loathe to cry. We have our favorite foods and books and never turn away a good cocktail, especially during a show, an enchanting melody, or perhaps a sporting event. We love to live — because living is wonderful and meeting other people is what makes it more special.

To be lucky enough to be alive in America in the 21st century is a gift. Our gift is not the government who maliciously governs us but the land and the people who inhabit it. I am and always will be bullish on people. But sometimes, as is the case now, they get hamstrung by psyops and demonize one another for reasons that are wholly emotional. Be charitable and empathetic — and let’s get thru this terrible time with dignity and honor, lest we’re no better than all of those people we so frequently like to point fingers at.

I felt good this morning, thin, healthy, tanned. I was up 2% and everyone else was having a mediocre day and because of this I felt supremely confident in my decision making process.

This is how is started.

Then I dove into BTCM — ETH miner and all, felt good about her. I saw the rally in cryptos and felt it would continue. Then the price dropped 4.5% below my basis, so I bought more at 13, original basis $13.83. The stock continued to drop, so I booked gains in my only other two positions: HVBT, BTBT — especially since they were in the same space. The stock dropped again and I declared “I am prepared to deploy a Martingale Stratagem” to the gentlemen inside Stocklabs. I reduced my cost basis to $13.26 with a third average down — representing 15% of my portfolio. At this stage I am on tilt because my daily gains are dissipating and I feel the pressure of doing something that feels wrong. Clearly the stock was going lower and there wasn’t any bids.

I deployed some money back into the market and had to close them out for additional losses.  At the point I feel like a fucking moron.

Then tech at iBC announced our latest price movement tool was finished and launched. What the tool does is pretty amazing when paired with our volume tools. It measures the % gain of any stock on a 30 second, 1 minute, 5 minute, 15 minute, and 30 minute time scale. When deployed inside the platform, I see all. This doesn’t mean I am able to bring the fire. This only means I have more options available to me. A trader is only as good as his tools and his instincts. If he isn’t a good trade, he should focus on being a Quant or long term investor — both admirable and profitable avocations.

I deployed more money using these price tools and came out with some gains.

Like so many times when struggling intra-day, I came back to breakeven from a depth of -1.5%. I was tempted to sell it all — but then I reminded myself of the original thesis for being long BTCM — a long rich weekend of crypto buying was ahead, surely I didn’t want to miss out on this.

I closed the session -64bps and these blogs discussing my shitty trading are getting repetitive. But the good is nothing without the bad, the corrosive mannerisms of the markets tends to weigh on me and makes me pine for better days. Sentimentality does us no good and cutting losses in the face of so many facts is the very lynchpin between a good trade and a bad one. I permitted feelings get in the way of a good time and because of it — I ended the week down -0.27% — but up 0.6% for the month. I will have time to play with the new premium offering this weekend and I strongly advise you to start using them ASAP — if a member.

Away from my day trading, I have two other accounts, A best Ideas long term +0.8% and my Quant +0.78%.

Have a good weekend and stay healthy.

Show some fucking respect to the ETH millionaire here. Sure, it has been several months since I’ve had this status — but I’m back and with ETH above 4k, you need to show me some god damned respect.

Speaking of which — are you prepared for the weekend run? Are you at all exposed? If you do not own ETH or another coin — why don’t you gather up the courage to grab one or two or even three crypto miners?

There are several who mine for ETH — including HVBT and SOS. Some of the larger miners like BTBT have been hamstrung due to Chinese operations, but they have since moved out and operating at capacity again.

I was fortunate to be invested wisely into the open and am up nearly 200bps again today, making that 4% in the last two days. I am mostly cash, trading small and with purpose, with the intent on circumventing the current market malaise, which is fucking small caps, and just gain and maintain exposure to the crypto markets — which in my opinion are on the cusp of a severe melt up.

I traded a whole lot and ended up just about where I started the day, +200bps. I caught a nice AH ripper in MMAT to boot and now wait for the LAW to post earnings. I cannot think of a scenario where a law firm misses earnings during this litigious era of American depravity.

Everywhere I turn is an asshole trying to tell me what to do — how to behave — what drugs to inject into my body. Go fuck yourselves. Sorry for that — but I am very past the point of patience and ebbing into a furious state of being, not only for what my piece of shit government is doing — but just about every western country on the planet.

For now, I control this and I find comfort in knowing that if I am a good trader I can make money. There aren’t any short cuts and it’s more or less the purest form of financial combativeness — as everyone in the arena attempts to front-run one another for the prize.

I am close to doing a blog about the current vaccination craze we’re in and have been biting my tongue for months now. I was hoping it’d pass and I would not have to really strike a cord — but that appears not to be on the table and I’ll probably have to record my thoughts here, at least just once, before I get shut down on Twitter.

I worked really hard to achieve my 215% gains this year — endless trades, scores of emotion, and a never-ending toil that has probably reduced my life expectancy by 5 years.

And then I had a conversation with Ragin Cajun today, who is elbows deep in NFTs — who tells me he turned $10k into $130k by purchasing pictures of Apes on Opeaseas. The fuck am I doing here anymore? I might as well just buy some Apes and smoke cigars all day long.

Reporting from the plantation, +2.5% for the session, side-eying all of you NFT buying fuckers.

Since I’ve been trading like a baboon, I’ve decided to take away most of my bananas. I will not oversee mediocrity largess, only small sized. Heading into today I bet correctly in a sundry of crypto related names, Chinese burritos and such, and now find myself +200bps. Very good indeed, but not so fast fucked face. I will not allow myself to exceed 30% equity exposure, maybe 35% if I have a bit of a cushion, in order to limit the sort of baboon and ape like moves I have been presiding over the past 3 months.

I will trade small and trade right, or not at all.

I have a distinct bias and did some homework last night on crypto miners and feeeeeeel most of them are extraordinarily undervalued, with respects to their BTC or ETH holdings vs what the market is saying. Perhaps if these fucked for faces would take said BTC and pay dividends to shareholders then we could really get an interesting scenario into quarterly reports. But unless they’re able to produce something other than treasure and mining equipment without a goal in mind, I am afraid these stocks will continue to be cheap. Having said that, several of them standout as interesting plays off the crypto bonanza. My favorites are BTBT, BITF, HUT, HVBT and there are several others — none of which you’ll buy anyway. You’re all consumed with your own worlds and ideas and value the opinions of NON-BABOON brained persons with blogs, so let me get to righting my ship and then I’ll come back here to talk shit.