It was just wild.
It’s really hard to explain it to an outsider.
These cryptocurrencies just kept going up in value,
just every single one.
It didn’t matter which one you bought; it just went up.
And turning $30,000 into over a million dollars
in the space of ten, 11 months,
it was hard to get your head around.
I was very lucky, and I got in early.
And, you know,
I wasn’t going to stop at a million.
I was going to make five, ten million.
Yeah, it didn’t work out like that, but I just got swept up in it all.
[Super_Users]
[Bitcoin King]
The first time I bought Bitcoin was back in 2012.
One of my friends phoned me up and said,
“Pete, there’s this website; you can buy drugs.
It’s like Amazon, but for drugs.
Weed, heroin, cocaine, crack,
like, every single drug you could think of.”
I was like, “OK, I’m going to buy some weed.”
But I had to get some Bitcoin,
so I went onto LocalBitcoins, and then I bought some weed.
And it was a bit like, “This is mental.”
And then, at the end of 2016,
my mother, sadly, she was dying.
She had ovarian cancer,
and we wanted to treat her with cannabis oil.
I bought some Bitcoin and went back and bought some cannabis oil for her.
Sadly, it was too late,
and Mum died in early ’17.
I was just sat in my dad’s house in Ireland,
and I’d gone to sell this Bitcoin back.
And then when I went to sell it back,
there was this other thing called Ethereum,
and I was like, “Oh, what’s that?”
I did some Google searches,
and it seemed to me like there was this new flourishing crypto industry,
whereas before, it was just Bitcoin back in 2012, 2013.
Ethereum is the do-it-yourself platform for decentralized programs,
also known as dapps, decentralized applications.
And I was like, “OK, this sounds kind of interesting.
I think I’m going to invest, and I’m going to try trading.”
And I did and spent probably at least a year,
close to a year trading.
It was kind of a wild year, really.
I put $32,000,
I think 25,000 pounds at the time, in.
I bought a bunch of Bitcoin and a bunch of Ethereum.
And the Ethereum I bought was, like, $9 when I bought it,
and then it rockets up to $150.
I bought all these other cryptocurrencies,
and just... I’ve never made so much money in my life.
There were some days you’d go to bed, and you’d wake up,
you’ve made $10,000, $15,000, $20,000.
You’re like, “What the hell is going on here?”
It was a wild year.
I think at its peak, I traded that $32,000
up to the equivalent of about $1.2 million in equity
in the cryptocurrencies I owned.
It was really hard to pick a losing coin back then.
We suddenly got a lot of money.
It gives you a lot of freedom.
And I was traveling. I was traveling out to America a lot.
I bought a new car. I bought a watch.
I was treating my family to things.
I was giving money to my family. I’ve gone out to dinner.
I was just living this really kind of... good life.
And, you know, maybe I’m an absolute idiot.
Maybe I should have recognized it. Maybe I got greedy.
I just wasn't overthinking it.
Honestly, to answer how I was going to spend the money,
the truth is, it’s really embarrassing.
You just sound like a dick.
Genuinely, I made an inquiry to buy Bedford Town Football Club,
which is where I live.
It’s a small, crap town. Our football team’s crap.
But I always kind of thought, “I want to own it.”
So I made an inquiry about buying that.
Yeah, just stupid, moronic things, really.
So, I didn’t really know what I was doing.
I was just getting lucky, really.
I was just **** about on this thing,
like a lot of people were.
Just going, “Oh, I’ll buy that, and it’s going up.”
And then I didn’t know that these kind of markets went in cycles,
and I wasn't prepared for the end of the market.
And then in, I think it was January 2018,
the market crashed.
And the value of my cryptocurrency holdings
just dropped quite heavily.
But I kept thinking it would come back, but it didn’t.
It just kept getting worse and worse and worse,
and by mid-2018,
pretty much everything I’d made had gone.
I had a very short period where I was like, “Oh, God, this is dead.
Oh ****, I **** up there.”
But there was no point I was like, “**** it, I’m done with this.”
I just became focused on Bitcoin.
I just thought Bitcoin was just a really interesting technology.
When you look at how people were managing to use it
to avoid capital controls in certain countries
or they were using it to get money just into a country
or that kind of censorship-resistant property
that allows you to send it to people.
I think what I learned coming back into the current cycle,
because obviously, if anyone's listening to this,
they’ve probably seen that Bitcoin’s at nearly $60,000 again,
and they’re seeing it’s fine, there’s a lot of interest.
There is a similar level of excitement between now and 2017,
and, I’m sure, 2013 as well, and the previous bull cycles.
And I always think the excitement is people are getting rich.
You know, you can't pretend that's not happening.
Some people out there are getting rich.
If I owned all the Bitcoin I had at the peak,
I would have over $10 million of Bitcoin right now.
And, look, I could dwell on it,
but I kind of got over it pretty quickly when it happened.
Yeah, it’s annoying, but I’m still OK.
Yes, I wish I had that ten million,
and I’d go out and buy a big house and a Lamborghini.
But I don’t, so, you know, **** it.
I came into this cycle a lot better prepared to be patient
and invest in a much more patient and... controlled way.
I’m only going to buy Bitcoin,
and I'm going to do it at a decent price.
I’m going to be very patient,
and I’m going to hold this Bitcoin for a number of years.
You know, discovering Bitcoin led me to starting a podcast.
And that podcast has become something that’s...
I’m really lucky that so many people listen to it.
I’m just some idiot from Bedford who started a podcast about Bitcoin
with no real objective or plans at all.
I have no training in economics. I’m not technical.
I just started this podcast.
And then, you know, it’s like when you log into the charts,
and you see yourself at number one,
and you see below, you’ve got Bloomberg
and BBC and
it’s a real surreal moment.
It’s a bit kind of hard to take in.
Sadly, I’ve never made a lot of money with Bitcoin,
but I know a lot of people have.
And I’m just going to go around to each of them and say,
“I need a bit of money from you and a little bit of money for you,”
and, “What a great story.
We could turn Bedford into the Bitcoin Football Club,
and we can try and get them in the Premier League.”
I’d love to do it. I don’t know if it’ll happen.
It’d be amazing if I could, though.
It’s just changed my life immeasurably.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to **** it up at some point,
but before I do, I’m going to try to enjoy it as best I can.