This time, I followed one rule:
“Not your keys, not your coins.”

I had already lost access to my Cryptopia account and missed the claims process. Another painful reminder.

Still searching for the “next big thing,” I avoided BTC and ETH—they felt too expensive. I explored altcoins, hoping for overnight gains.

Most didn’t move.

Liquidity was limited. Options were few. So I opened an account with OKX.

Back then, they gave small amounts of BTC daily just for logging in.

It wasn’t much—but it kept me going.

Every day. Every night. Logging in. Watching. Waiting.

Rebuilding trust in crypto—slowly.

FOMO and Frustration

Then came 2021.

The hype around Shiba Inu exploded. Everyone was making money—or at least it seemed that way.

I joined the wave.

I bought. I held. I panicked.

I sold at a loss.

Same with BabyDoge.

That cycle—FOMO, buy, fear, sell—taught me another hard truth:
Emotion is the most expensive mistake in crypto.

A More Grounded Strategy

After 2021, I changed approach.

No more chasing hype. I started focusing on projects I believed in.

I began DCA (Dollar-Cost Averaging) into:

• XRP

• Hedera

At one point, I held:

• 500 XRP (bought around $0.50)

• 10,000 HBAR

But life intervened again.

When Typhoon Odette devastated our area, survival once again came first. I invested only what I could afford to lose.

Eventually, I no longer held those coins when they finally performed in late 2024 and early 2025.

Another lesson:
Timing the market matters—but life doesn’t wait for markets.

Rebuilding with Hard Lessons

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