Income Report Feb 2021 – Crypto Peak

Welcome to my income report for February 2021

In February I have earned $86 in total. 57% less than in the previous month.

What I Did In February

So what happened in February?

Nothing much really. I have spent 80% of my free time doing videos while hustling on other projects for the remaining time. February would be uneventful if it was not for yet another crypto rally.

Crypto Peak and Algorithmic Trading

My relationship with crypto is cursed. I can count countless occasions when I could jump on the bandwagon soon enough to retire for life, but I didn't.

The first time I read about blockchain was back in 2011. Right, when BTC was rallying to 1000 USD. I thought it was crazy and that price was rigged. But I also understood the revolution behind blockchain technologies. I liked the idea, It was mathematically sound. I just didn't have money to invest and was afraid of price manipulations. Hell, I didn't even have money to buy a graphic card for mining.

So I stood aside. Told my investor we should not invest in BTC right now at the peak, because it will fall and demand is artificial. You could not buy any physical product with it and conversion to fiat was difficult. As a responsible money manager, I correctly advised against risky investment.

But you know what? I was missing the point, the big picture. Money managers actually don't make money from the gain they made to investors, they make living by collecting fat fees regardless of the performance!

Yes, BTC fell to low hundreds for few years, but then it raised again and timing the market would end badly, mostly in the loss.  As someone poor, I did everything wrong while investing. I tried to squeeze every market movement. So I traded intraday candles on 15-minute charts. And I didn't believe in buy and hold in the long term because again, I was obsessed with outperforming the stock markets with 1-5% gains every day.

But the more I researched algorithmic trading nuances, the more I saw blew up accounts, and overleveraged attempts to beat the market. There was no shortcut, there was no free lunch. Instead, If I listened to my gut and went with technology beliefs and risked even 50 USD, then I would be better of.

But to calm you down, I would have to invest 10000 USD into BTC. And as a student with 500 USD in the bank, making 400 USD a month by doing a mind-numbing office job, I automatically discarded BTC as too risky. Better to spend my money on traveling and coffee.

Half a decade went by and I stood again in front of the same question. Should I invest in crypto? But this time, crypto evolved, hell I evolved as well.

I had a stable 9-5 job, more than 1000 USD in the bank and I could afford to risk at least 100 USD on risky bets. At that time, a new guy joined our team, a student, that was born with a silver spoon and so his YOLO attitude and lack of risk aversion brought him a fortune, repeatedly, over a span of multiple years.

I guess not having to fight for survival, not caring about the income, food, and shelter gives you the confidence to take an enormous risk, because, in the worst case, parents will back you up.

So we took this guy to lunch on his first day and he tells me he heard about ETH. A new big thing in crypto space. A game-changer that is undervalued at only 25 USD. Hurry and buy some right now!

Wow, I have never seen such enthusiasm and passion for innovative things from anyone else I know except myself. He reminded me of myself in my university days. But this guy, I barely know him. I had experience with trading and he didn't. How could I ever follow his advice? I won't pour my hard-earned money into some unknown hype.

So I did some research, technology was sound, I understood the value, but I didn't believe this guy for whatever reason and ignored the cold blood facts. Buying ETH was difficult and I preferred comfortably doing nothing than taking an action. It could go to the moon or it could bust.

As you know, It went to the moon. The very same year, 6-month later the crypto boomed to the moon and ETH rose from 25 USD to 1000 USD. At that time, it was too late to enter the game. Had I listen to him, vet the facts, did my research properly, listened to my gut, and applied risk management practices, then I could be closer to retiring completely.

OK, to be fair,  I would have to invest 16K USD to retire, which is far from the pocket money you can lose. To buy an apartment from the profits, I would have to invest close to 4K USD. Still, a lot to lose.

Do you know why gambles gamble? Because they make a lot of small bets, like 10-500 USD, regularly, which on day to day basis does not seems to be much, but on a large scale, it is their entire life savings.

And I have the risk threshold at an even lower level. I can accept a loss lesser than 10 USD. Anything above is painful, because I sacrificed my time, my life earning that money slaving at 9-5 job. It is hard to erase part of my life that easily away.

So I missed the train again.

But at least this time, I took action and jumped on the bandwagon right before the peak. I learned how to code trading bots myself from scratch, not having to rely on anyone else. I remember spending the whole 2017 Christmas coding the bot and staying late each midnight so I can execute the trades.

It was fun and stressful, but the knowledge gained proved to be useful years later. Which leads to the present time.

As you may notice from the news, crypto boomed again to new highs. BTC crossed 50K USD and it became an interesting asset again. And since my bot, which I was running for a while captured a part of the growth, I decided to expand its logic to other assets as well.

Because the skyrocketing growth stopped to be the crypto domain only, it spilled into stocks as well. Thanks to the horde of retail investors or Robinhooders speculating on MEME stocks, I can actually make significant gains, if I catch the right signal at the right time.

So therefore I shifted my focus from web development to trading and I will work on expanding my bot in few next months. In February, I spent 53 hours coding the core logic and I am nowhere near production-ready, day-to-day trading condition.

The point being, I missed so many opportunities in my life, just because I was lazy, didn't trust my gut, didn't take a risk when I should have, or was oblivious of the chances.

That regret should be minimized once I finish my bot because then the only mistake I can do is to not trust my gut. As we age, there is less and less time to capture the low probability, highly impactful events, that can change our lives forever. So there is no time to stand by and watch. Instead, take risk-adjusted decisions based on gut feeling.

So my ending words are: take control, manage your destiny and minimize any regrets.

Live projects

The Hustle App

I was on the verge of letting my domain expire, but I renewed it after an internal battle between taking a loss and moving on to the next shiny project or trying to revive and keep those hundreds of hours of my free time spent on development alive.

Renewing costs 18 USD, so it ain't cheap and I set the goal to refactor the project before letting it go. I have one more year to do that. This time, I won't have any excuse.

Good House Music

At the time of writing this post, it grew to 223 subscribers. A 6% increase over the previous month.

I have uploaded 0 DJ mixes and 8 new single tracks. The most viewed track recorded 310 views.

I will keep uploading till I reach 269 uploads, then we will see if it is going anywhere.

Personal Youtube Channel #1

In February, I posted 8 new videos on my personal Youtube channel, that I don't want to share yet. My most viewed video posted in January got 31 views. My other videos averages about 5-20 views after publishing.

I will keep uploading till I reach 246 uploads, then we will see if it is going anywhere.

Personal Youtube Channel #2

In February, I posted 5 new videos on my personal Youtube channel, that I don't want to share yet. My most viewed video posted in January got 100 views. My other videos averages about 5-10 views after publishing.

I found this channel to be more demanding than I anticipated. Two videos a week, or 30 hours of grind is not sustainable and I failed to keep the schedule by end of the month. I felt so burnout from churning new content on time I had to take two weeks off.

There is only so much free time every day and I would rather take it slow and grow the channel over multiple years, than growing a little faster at the cost of feeling miserable.

The dread from starting all over again after publishing the video took all the fun from the process. I know it's a perception thing and I should treat it as creating a long-term digital asset, that builds my brand passively while I am sleeping, but I would have to go full time and make a career out of it to stay sane.

Anyway, I will keep uploading till I reach 30 uploads, then we will see if it is going anywhere.

Financia

In February, I slacked hard on Financia, mostly doing nothing...Except for the last week, when I finally took action and started adding more content.

And once I get into the groove, I am sure my persistence will make me finish the thing I set as a goal. After that, I will be either burn out and focus on other projects or I will keep grinding and create a mailing service MVP.

Income Report Breakdown

P2P Lending

Nothing has changed in February.

My P2P strategies are turned off and I am still waiting on the sideline. Most of the defaulted lenders are on an ongoing debt recovery plan, that will fulfill all the debts in the next ten years.

In February, I took all the free balance and moved it to other assets. P2P lending will stay dead until governments insist on long-term lockdowns.

Savings Accounts

Nothing has changed in February. There is a big consolidation in the market. One bank was acquired by a much bigger bank. And another one closed its doors. The one, that offered 1% lowered the rate to 0.6%.

Savingcalypse seems to found a new bottom. God, I hope we get into negative rate territory.

Stock Investing

From now on, I will document my stock investing journey here on my blog as a part of income reports. As of now, I already opened a trading account on one of the reputable brokers and I am waiting for my options trading request approval.

Used Stuff Sales

My path to life minimalism went well in February. I got rid of some CD singles. The fewer material things I own, the more freedom I get.

Plans, dreams, and wishes

My goals for March are the following. Make Financia better, work on the authority website and Ecom site, and produce video content on regular basis.

That would be it. Thank you so much for following me on this journey and see you in the next report.