Bitcoin Story is a series that tells the eventful stories of Bitcoin and crypto traders. Every week, we’ll interview a Bitcoin or Crypto trader about their experiences and share them with you. This includes everything from those who have it rough to those who smile to the bank. You can also share your story with us.
I had to start from somewhere
I stay home and trade Bitcoin with my trading partner almost every day. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s my bread and butter, my sugar and spice. Haha. I didn’t start trading Bitcoin early, but I started well. This is my Bitcoin Story.
My journey started in 2018. Before that, I was a forex trader. I was also in the middle of a chronic depression that almost pushed me to suicide. Life just wasn’t going the way I planned. So naturally, in that state of mind, I was skeptical about everything, including Bitcoin. My friend told me about it but I didn’t take it seriously.
Months later, I was going through some old stuff and found one of my old Bitcoin notes. I finally decided to buy Bitcoin but didn’t know what to do with it.
In 2019, I visited my uncle, a full-time Bitcoin trader, in Edo State. He told me there were many legitimate ways to make money trading cryptocurrencies. He also trained me but I had to work hard on my own. I read crypto guides, joined an exclusive trading community, and stayed updated.
The first trade that didn’t suck
After training me for some months, my uncle gave me $45 (₦16,000) to start trading properly. I went in with all the knowledge I got from him and turned my capital into $60 (₦22,000) after 2 weeks. You can’t imagine how motivated I felt. After a while, I realised that trading was going to need a lot more capital for two reasons.
Firstly, I knew I had to trade in other cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoin if I wanted more profit.
Secondly, if I wanted anyone to take me seriously in the crypto space, I had to show my profit. So I added my savings to my capital and continued trading.
I’ve come a long way since then. In 2020, I made $1,600 (₦617,000) in one day from trading YFI, a decentralised finance token. Let me burst your head! It is more expensive than Bitcoin ($41,000 at the time of writing). This amount has become the standard for me.
Like everyone else, I had my bad days
Even though my first trade was good, there were bad days. During the Covid-19 lockdown, I thought the price of Bitcoin would drop. So that’s what my trades were based on. There are several ways to trade Bitcoin. These include swapping, scalping, airdropping, and vendoring amongst others. In this case, I was scalping. This method allows you to gain a bunch of small profits as the price of Bitcoin changes instead of one huge profit.
After one week of scalping, Bitcoin went from $9,000 to $10,000. Normally, I do something called a stop-loss, which interrupts your trade when the currency drops below a price. But I was so confident in my prediction that I didn’t set a stop-loss. I lost ₦150,000 that day and almost fell back into depression. But I made ₦600,000 back over the next couple of weeks.
What it’s like to trade Bitcoin with a partner
A perfect day for me is any day that ends with profit. And since I found a trading partner, there have been many perfect days. I trained my partner and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. He’s a medical doctor and Bitcoin trader with a nose for information.
Most days, we stay awake trading Bitcoin. In the beginning, I would give him tasks after which he would come back and surprise me with new information. Since we started trading as partners, we’ve made more money. We recently made the decision to trade DeFi tokens together.
The struggles I have to deal with every day as a trader
My biggest struggle with trading is the mobile network here in Nigeria. One network provider almost ran me mad. I thought my village people were doing their thing. I didn’t even know it was a network issue until someone else complained. Fortunately, I used a different network so I didn’t lose money.
Another challenge is training people who are not ready to work hard. This one really frustrates me because it takes time and effort.
Life as a Bitcoin trader today
Bitcoin allows me to control my day and work from anywhere. It has also improved my quality of life. For example, I recently bought a plot of land and put a down payment on a new house in Lagos. I’m not where I want to be yet but looking back at when I was depressed, I’ve come a long way.
I want to prove to people that you can have a legit business in Nigeria and be fine. I hope to inspire those coming after me. I also want to move my crypto training from an online platform to an academy.
I want to make sure that when I’m done training people, they succeed and it’s worth it. This is one of my major dreams. Next, I want to build a house for my mum. She has done so much for me. I’m fine with not driving the best car or clothes as long as my mum’s life is set.
Disclaimer: Please don’t take any information in this story as trading advice.
Want to share your Bitcoin Story?
If you want to share your Bitcoin story or your experience with crypto, we would like to hear about it.
We want to hear all types of stories, the good, the bad, and the rough so we can share all sides of Bitcoin and crypto.
