It’s the 9th of May, 2021. Eyes glued to the laptop screen. Coke can open and flat. Heart beating fast. Phone on the table, with my WazirX open. I had my finger hovering above the ‘Sell’ button. Let me give you more context.
The day when Elon Musk appeared on SNL
It’s Saturday Night Live (SNL). Michael Che is sitting at that very familiar desk with Elon Musk posing as the “financial expert” Lloyd Ostertag. The advocate for humanity living on Mars is talking about cryptocurrencies. It’s happening. It’s really happening. Just like they said on Twitter (now X).
I had been accumulating so much Dogecoin over the past few months, I was beginning to see the dog in my dreams, floating around in the background, giving me that sideways look as I stumbled along. The craze began when Musk had tweeted multiple times about his love for the memecoin, starting with this one:
And so the mental picture began to form. I would start buying up this really cheap token, as the hype takes hold of its price. Clearly it was going to go to the moon because Elon Musk, of all people, is part of its narrative now.
It wasn’t just me. So many people had the same idea, as they were also “aping” (used when someone gets into it without a second thought) into it. Classic crypto bro mentality. I embraced it. So, after months of hoarding, it was announced that Elon Musk would show up on SNL.
You’re wondering: “So what? What does this have to do with your rather strange opening?”
I was wondering whether I should go all in on Dogecoin just before the show starts so I can maximise profits. And that’s what I did. Obviously.
He’s sitting there in a strange getup, trying to explain what Dogecoin is to Che. Every word coming out of Elon Musk would either make me rich, or make me start over. The price was inching upwards every time he mentioned it. He’s going to explain why it’s not just hype, it’s a new financial frontier. I’m going to be loaded.
“It’s a hustle.”
My heart dropped. And so did my net worth. I watched in shock as the price was free falling. “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT?” is what my mom heard all the way from the first floor. Traders on Twitter flooded my feed with resentment and outrage. I was one of them. The next few days were filled with hate towards Elon Musk, SNL and that dog, with its very cute expression.
Finding out about Axie Infinity
Not long after, I was hearing a lot of buzz on Twitter about NFT pets in a game. People were posting non-stop about selling their “Axies”. I dug deeper and found myself in a Discord community called Axie Infinity, a web3 game. They were buzzing about how much they made after selling their NFT. My hope gradually began to renew. I scraped together some cash to buy some Ether (ETH), and bought the axolotl-inspired creature and began to play.
The game’s native token SLP, expanded as Smooth Love Potion (I know, weird) was rising as the game’s popularity grew. More players, more Axies, more tokens, more sales. The project even raised more than 400 million dollars. Things were going really well. Until the web3 game sector crashed along with NFTs. All the money I put into the projects fell by 90% over the next few days. I remember sitting on the grass in my backyard, sipping on some warm tea, promising myself that I was done with crypto.
You see, this is what the life of the average crypto trader is all about. You follow narratives and community sentiment on Twitter (now X) and you make yourself believe in the supposed value and future of a project, or a coin and invest in it. A very money-minded approach. This is part of the process. Once that phase is done with, you begin to ask questions.
“How do these coins even work? Why did it crash so hard just from a statement on TV? Is this why regular people don’t trust them?”
You see, when you get washed out, that’s when you have no choice but to look at the other side of crypto: the tech, the community of developers, the ingenious strategies that projects cook up to dominate in its niche. It was so weird and lively in its own way. So I went deeper. I searched for thought leaders and communities that truly believed in putting the power of finance into the hands of the people.
Looking elsewhere
I started to look into the infrastructure and the complex system of smart contracts and products that began to arise as developers became more sophisticated in the art of building DeFi protocols. I needed something which wasn’t just hype. After months of searching, I found it. A small team, working on a liquid staking protocol on an ecosystem called The Cosmos Interchain. After following their updates for a while, I reached out to them, wondering if they needed some help with their marketing and design. They took me in and showed me how crypto really worked behind all the noise and charts. It was complicated, but it was worth it. I built a career in crypto as a part of the team behind protocols and projects, and I find myself much more fulfilled than when I was a trader.
Over time, I’ve come to respect crypto. Not because it can make someone rich overnight, but because of the people that come together and want to innovate. There’s a vision for an ecosystem where money flows between people, projects, and apps, all automated by code. There may be a future where this comes to pass, and I want to be here for that.
