I got into crypto because it's something technical and I felt, as a technologist that I should understand it. What I found was a whole world operating without me since 2009; an investment opportunity that I wouldn't let pass me by. I consumed all the information I could, and ended up mining Monero mostly because I could use CPUs to mine it. I had every computer in my possession running xmr-stak.

Uhh, don't use other peoples' computers to mine coins! Just don't. That's stealing…unless it's your wife's computer?

Trouble in Paradiso

In Hawaii we have backwards laws that sent Coinbase and other exchanges running. I ended up opening a Binance account because they are not subject to these money transmission laws. Hawaii is first in a lot of stupid legislation. What a waste to have such a government in paradise. Anyway, I sent a good friend in LA some money via Venmo (no fees), he opened up a Coinbase account, bought some Litecoin with his credit card (lots of fees), and sent it to my Binance account's Litecoin public address.

Hold on

I magically made $500 turn into $219.47! The reason I didn't get out of my investments on Binance is because:

1. I didn't want to make a hasty, emotional, irrational decision.
2. I knew I picked good coins and that their value would eventually come back up.
3. I wanted to wait a year to reduce my tax liability before selling any coins. I didn't know that you're not taxed on losses.
4. I hadn't discovered that I could move my investments into Tether until later. I'm not so sure about Tether though.

Mining is a Pain in the 6

In the meantime I had been growing my mining operation and finding graphics cards deals and sharing that info with you all. I may not be able to buy crypto with dollars in Hawaii but I can mine them. I'll have to pay earned income taxes on those earnings unless I run it through an LLC. If crypto went POOF I'd still have hardware I can sell off, or use in AI experiments, or some other type of data processing, or rendering video or animation. Certain new coins are not easily bought but easily mined like Graft. I would've preferred to buy crypto — mining is a pain in the 6 sometimes.

Don't Look Back

I was just able to get verified level 3 on Kraken and it only took two days. They have great customer service. I'm getting ready to wire some money to fund my account and continue on my crypto journey. I don't think crypto is going anywhere. It solves real world problems, especially for those of us with trust issues. I also want to diversify into other currencies because I'm concerned about the weak US dollar. The crypto market is down right now and it's almost time to make my next move.