October 2021 Update — Degen Crypto Journey

Alright bois. I’m back. This is going to be a weird one :)

I know we’re already halfway through November and shit, and I usually post these updates at the beginning of the month. However, I was busy with Apefest, and a bunch of random things, so let’s treat this as a mid-month update.

Also, I’m no financial advisor, and I’m just some degen-ass bum who may or may not have gotten lucky the past few months. glhf!

Some Changes

Let me first address a few things first before I dig into this month’s material. One of the biggest themes throughout these blogs is “transparency”. I was very strict on this self-imposing rule because I’ve always felt weird about “advising” my friends on investing strategies or picks. In all honesty, I’m just excited when I do find potential good picks, and I want to share them with my friends the same way that I’d want to take them to a dank-ass restaurant. The reason for the transparency is if I say “I’m investing $4k in this project, and I usually invest $1k for normal projects”, it conveys my conviction in the trade, as well as allowing my friends their own agency to decide what they want to do with their money. It is purely my opinion and advice, and that’s it. I don’t want to feel bad about recommending a Takoyaki appetizer when some people end up not liking takoyaki. You know what I’m saying? This is also the reason why I’ve never traded with my friends’ money, it’s strictly just been “advice”.

I want to remind people again that this whole blog first started as a place for me to consolidate my thoughts and let my close friends in IRL know what I’m up to, my outlook of the market, etc… This blog will still serve this function, but there will be some changes starting with this blog. The biggest change will be the removal of “transparency”. I will no longer post a detailed breakdown of how much money I’m up or down for the month and my asset allocation. Let me explain.

Real Talk — Let’s Get Introspective

Unfortunately, as words spread in my personal social circle, I’m encountering more and more people who I barely know are referring to me as the “crypto guy”. I actually don’t have a problem with strangers knowing what I do in general, since we’re starting off on a blank slate. What bothers me is the people I already DO know, and barely have a relationship changes their attitude towards me, just because I’m up a certain amount of money. Maybe it isn’t even because of the money, maybe it’s because they’re just genuinely excited about cryptos (oftentimes, I don’t think that’s the case haha). I’m really not sure, but this whole anon thing ain’t working out too well for me. LMAO

All I ever wanted was to share exciting finds with my “close friends”, and be treated like an unemployed bum by everyone else. Maybe it’s because I feel like a fraud. Maybe it’s because when other people acknowledge that I’m the “crypto guy”, I don’t feel like I’ve earned it yet. I mean compare to a lot of the people who’s been in the space for a long time, my knowledge in the space really is just a speck of dust in comparison. I started trading cryptos during a major bull run, it is quite difficult for anyone to lose money in these perfect scenarios. During a major bull run, everyone’s a genius…we will only really find out who’s smart when the market turns on us. So the shift in attitude in people or attention towards myself feels inherently wrong, and it’s also dangerous for me to think of myself as “successful”. How can I think of myself as a successful crypto trader, when I haven’t even exited this cycle yet. Additionally, while it’s encouraging that I’ve had some success within the market, I only really have the desire to share them with close friends.

You see…if there’s a yacht party going around, I don’t want to be the person who owns the yacht or the person who brings the beer. This is because everyone who attends the party will go and say hi to the yacht owner and high-five the beer guy. I want to be the guy who knows the person who’s hosting the party. So I can bring my 10 friends, and they’d be like “hey thanks for bringing me Jeff”, and no one else on the yacht would even know my ass exists.

Alright, I think this is all a very long-winded way of me saying I won’t be completely transparent in my earnings anymore. I dug deep into the reasoning of my decision because it’s been bothering me for months, and I just wanted to get it off my chest. whewww

Let me recede back to my anon shit-posting persona real quick. Let’s get it bitches :)

November Market Outlook

Look, this is an interesting time to write this blog and come forward with my November $BTC closing price prediction. We just saw a slight correction in $BTC, and as of my writing, we’re sitting at $60k levels. This serves as my moment to extend my loving hand onto your shoulder and to quote Jon “Hey, we’re gucci (insert annoying smirk)”

^This is an abnormally big picture, but whatever. It kind of conveys what I’m trying to say. I’m feeling like this hat-wearing, side-eye looking, lip-biting fuckboy towards the market right now. We’re good guys! At least in my opinion. Let’s see…we closed 44k $BTC in September and 60k $BTC in October…I’m thinking we close 95k $BTC in November 🤷.

I’m not going to post why or provide charts for this blog, because this shit is already long af, and I just got my COVID booster shot. I’m feeling some type of way from that shot no doubt LMAO.

NFT Market

The NFT market is interesting. BAYC, MAYC, that entire ecosystem is popping the fuck off right now. It’s really the blue chips that are making the most noise. I’m guessing we’ll see some of that money trickle down into the smaller projects if we remain bullish on the broader crypto landscape, and $ETH doesn’t do a major pump, and gas fees stay at a manageable level. Yeah…that’s a lot of “ifs”, but that’s just how things work in the NFT market. It is what it is. Speaking of MAYC, I documented my drunk-ass journey in buying one at 5.9 $ETH. The floor dipped as low to 3.5 $ETH at one point I think? Now, the floor for one is 7 $ETH. However, I’m bummed about the floor price being this fucking high. I SHOULD’VE BOUGHT MORE!!! Honestly FML…

Let me tell you about Ape Fest.

Ape Fest

Let me tell y’all a little story of how and why I attended Ape Fest, and why it was such a valuable experience for me.

10/28/2021 was a normal cloudy day…our neighbor’s dog is barking for no reason again…I don’t know why I’m writing this like this is a short story, but fuck it. Let’s change up the format of this shit. I knew Ape Fest was happening, but BAYC hasn’t posted a thing about it. I went on discord a couple of times the last couple of days to ask if anyone knew any information. Nada…nothing…没有

All of a sudden, BAYC drops the event schedule for Ape Fest on Twitter. I looked at it and thought well…it’s kind of late for me to book tickets and everything. Whatever man. Sam, my roommate was watching “The Boys” on T.V., and I joked about going to Ape Fest. He hit me with an emphatic “why not?”. I thought to myself yeah…why the FUCK not. I paid 5.9 $ETH to buy a god damn picture of a mutated ape, if they’re hosting parties and shit, why am I not going? I thought I do deserve some sort of break, I’ve been grinding in front of my two monitors forever…I haven’t bought clothes in 2 years, I haven’t “treated myself”…New York sounds fun…I…I want to go. I call up Caleb, convince his ass to go. We buy the plane tickets, book one of the cheapest hotels we can find, and there we are! At the Big Apple! It’s fucking magical. My driver charged me $65 from JFK to my hotel (pretty sure this fucker overcharged me), but I don’t even think about it, because I got my eyes set on exploring the city. I arrive at my hotel. There’s literally a pile of 30 garbage bags right outside of the hotel. No matter, I thought to myself. It’s fine…🤮 I go into my room…and that shit vaguely smells like mold. Uh…it’s 🤮 it’s fine…

We wake up early as hell on the first day of the event, and we got in line at 7:00 AM, and this is where I end this weird story-telling format since I want to portray what comes next as seriously as possible LMAO.

Look, we met some of the most caring, interesting, and smart people I’ve ever met in my entire life. It’s actually stunning to me since I wasn’t expecting much. I really looked at the trip as more of a vacation trip where I would go to NY and explore. Ape Fest was an afterthought, I didn’t think I’d meet genuinely cool people or people I vibe with. I was proven very wrong on the first day. We ended up in line for 4–5 hours and we talked about what we do for a living, when we got into cryptos, our outlook in the market, etc… As we were having our own conversations, I noticed other people were doing the same thing as well. I’m hearing words I only see on the internet being spoken out loud by people. Words like “generative art”, “deploying contracts”, “Defi protocols”, “Weekly RSI”, I was fucking blown away. I felt a weird sense of belonging…and it clicked for me. This is what these events are fucking about. It really IS about the community. Crypto people have at the most part, gone unnoticed for the last 10 years, and these events bring out a passionate crowd of people with interesting perspectives and varying degrees of skills. It’s something I’ve never experienced before.

Later on that day, I attended the BAYC Yacht party. I continue to meet interesting and thoughtful people in the space. I went on to buy BAYC merch the next day, and noticed that there was a huge line of people trying to buy the merch…it gave me Supreme vibes…I mean it’s unreal. I also attended the BAYC Warehouse party where they brought out Aziz Ansari, Chris Rock, Lil Baby, and more. I continue to meet more and more interesting people. I met devs, founders, early-crypto adopters, shoe flippers, cook group managers, directors, YouTubers, doctors, and more. Oh, and the people I met on the first day? We ended up going to all the events together as well. There are people I met at events where I would still text them here and there or even sometimes on a daily basis. This experience was unmatched and eye-opening. You see…I love the feeling of a small fish in a big pond. That’s who I was. Some of these people are immensely successful, and I felt all sorts of emotions because of it. I felt sad that I wasn’t as successful, I felt happy that there’s still so much room for me to grow in the space, I felt discouraged because I may not be as successful as some of these people ever, but I also felt optimistic about my career choice of quitting finance and working in crypto because we are so fucking early…

I remember face-timing Dixon and Jon and telling them about my NY experience, and I made up my mind about never selling my MAYC, because the reward for being a part of this amazing community is immeasurable…or well you know 7 $ETH at the time of this writing I guess. LMAO

Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with my MAYC…I might feel like I HAVE to sell if it runs up to 10 $ETH, but I get it. I get where this NFT thing is going in the future. It’s a ticket to a lifestyle, it’s a flex, it’s a gateway to a community of like-minded individuals. It’s fucking bonkers.

So, I guess that’s a short version of what went on during Ape Fest. There are some details that I could’ve definitely dug into more, but I’m going to forgo that. The point of the story is this…NFTs are real, and they’re here to stay. Just like all the hype projects in 2017, most of them will fail, but some will prevail and be market leaders as we see it today. I am so glad that I went to NY and instead of exploring the city and whatnot, I ended up spending most of my days attending events with some really cool people and made some lasting memories that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

Conclusion

Aight look…this was a pretty weird blog. Maybe it’s my COVID booster shot, but nonetheless, I wanted to share some of my thoughts and go introspective. I wanted to share a broad market outlook, and I wanted to talk about my experience at Ape Fest. OH! I guess most importantly if $BTC doesn’t close at some abnormally high number as I predicted, then my outlook of the market will change. I will keep you guys updated on that end. Later y’all.

Photo Dump from Ape Fest