How I Lost $100,000 in Crypto and What I Would Do Differently (Spoiler: Almost Everything)

Hype, hope, and a bit of delusions of grandeur

It started like it does for everyone.
A little bit of Ether to try it out. Some Bitcoin “for the future.” And then — trading, forks, airdrops, DeFi, staking, farming, and everything that sounded like a stomach disease but promised millions.
Spoiler: promised doesn’t mean delivered.

How I got in: up to my ears and without a plan

I read “analytics” in chats from guys with nicknames like CryptoIzya.
Every coin was “the next big thing.”
Every drop was a “correction.”
Every loss was “long-term.”

I bought:

• tokens from a project that promised a “new paradigm of internet infrastructure”

• an NFT hybrid of a dog and a turquoise cloud

• and invested in a coin no one had heard of, but “it’s coming”

When things went bad: suddenly and all at once

1. One project turned out to be a scam

2. The second “temporarily suspended operations”

3. The third just vanished from the blockchain map

4. The fourth was real, but just plain stupid

I refreshed my portfolio like a sick person checks their temperature:

— Maybe it’s still 36.6?..

But instead:

• minus 50%

• minus 80%

• minus “blocked by regulator’s request”

What I learned (and you can too)

1. Don’t invest in what you don’t understand.
   If a whitepaper sounds like an invitation to a cult — it’s not an investment project, it’s an invitation to a ritual burning of your funds.

2. FOMO is your worst enemy.
   “Everyone’s buying — I will too!” is a classic path to financial harakiri.

3. Profit in crypto doesn’t come from “holding.” It comes from “exiting.”
   While you’re “holding for a 10x,” the smart one already exited at 2x and is sleeping peacefully.

4. Diversification is not a myth. It’s a way to stay alive.
   Don’t put all your coins in one basket. Especially if the basket is a token named after Elon Musk’s dog.

5. Invest no more than you’re ready to lose. And then divide that amount by two.

What I would do differently:

• Wouldn’t go in on emotion

• Wouldn’t play with margin

• Wouldn’t think “just a bit more and I’ll buy an apartment”

• Wouldn’t trust channels where the admin types in caps lock and swears when the market drops

Moral: crypto is a casino, but with a whitepaper

You can win. You can lose.
But if you don’t know the rules of the game — you’re not a player. You’re a chip.

Now I’m still in crypto.
But with a cold wallet, a cool head, and very warm experience.