Hi, I’m Node_Z. Before you ask, yes, I am anonymous. I live in a country who’s crypto rules are arbitrary, vague, and can be used to prosecute anyone at any time, and for any reason if they really want to. I can’t tell you the name of the country, but its initials are “The United States of America”….haha.
Anyways, maybe someday I can come out of the shadows…however I strongly doubt it. The day the elite’s of the world decide that crypto can compete with the dollar is the day I will believe that I don’t live in the most propagandized society in the world. Which, I do, so that will never happen. In fact, the rumor lately is that the U.S. (probably along with other five-eyes nations) are getting ready to ban crypto…at least certain versions of it (like anything that allows anonymity) or making it so that you cannot invest without going through some kind of “registered advisor” who will undoubtedly steer people into Bitcoin for large fees, etc… (this is ironic as you’ll see further down). Maybe that’s a good thing? Maybe John Q. Public should stay away from the Uniswap’s of the world. But no doubt anything this government does will be more restrictive “for your safety”. Certainly that is a theme these days, in many areas of western society.
So, who cares “who I am”? Am I so self-important that I need to make a Medium article about who I am, while still not revealing my identity? Yes. Yes I do. And the longer the article, the better, so I can clearly and succinctly articulate just how important I am to the world.
Haha, just kidding! The real reason I am writing this “about me” is because I am currently involved in crypto project and thought I would outline why I am anon, what my background is, and why you should (or should not) trust me.
I started investing in Bitcoin right around the time when you could send money to Bitstamp and they would turn your fiat into Bitcoin. This was before the Mt.Gox episode (which I understand repayment is still ongoing to this day…yikes). So I’ve been around a while. My first purchase of Bitcoin netted me 5 whole Bitcoins for a total of $500. When it mooned to $600, I sold and spent some of my profits on the now long defunct “Silk Road”, who’s architect will spend not only 1, but 2 life terms in prison. Ah, those were the days. Poor Ross. And this, my friends, is why I am anonymous. Because the ruling class of the United States isn’t ready for the new world that crypto is trying to usher in. And if the powers that be come after you, you WILL lose everything.
Anyways, like most of you, I have a long, love/hate relationship with crypto. Over the years I’ve either held too long, or sold to early, or some dreadful combination where I just can’t seem to get the timing right. Always chasing my dreams of lambos and early retirement, and always disappointed in my inability to time the market, or invest in the right coins, or just “hodl”. The top 10 coins were “too boring” for the likes of yours truly…I wanted to hit it big, and quickly! Who wants to wait 5 years to be rich when I could be rich in 5 weeks! Haha!
Yet I would only find disappointment. I made some large gains in 2016–2017 like everyone else, only to be destroyed in the crash at the end of that bull-run. Not because I held too long, mind you, but it was my first painful lesson in crypto: the scammers really come out at the end of a bull-run. I jumped in to the next generic iteration of Bitconnect (2 or 3 of them actually) thinking that I would just wait out the bear market and collect my sweet passive dividends. And I did too, until they stopped coming. Lol. How stupid and naïve I was back then.
Blah blah blah, get to the point. “Who are you sir?” Yes, yes, well, really, I am nobody. I work I.T. for an insurance company. I have kids. I was married once. I have a degree in engineering and have been a full stack programmer for over 10 years. ASP, PHP, SQL, Python, Javascript, all that stuff. I live in a small town and keep to myself.
In the summer of last year I had invested in a few promising projects. I had been relatively out of crypto (other than holding a few moonshots that never really panned out). I started paying attention again when Chainlink started mooning. “It’s going to $100!” I told myself. So I got drafted as a Link Marine and started getting that old fomo feeling like I had in 2016. “This time I would get it right” I told myself. And I did. I managed to turn $15k into about $150k in the span of 6 months using the strategy of holding 2 microcaps and when one moons I sell that one, and buy more of the other, and then sell that one when it moons. Rinse and repeat.
What I didn’t get right is what to do after you’ve hit a few winners…instead of stepping back, taking a break, maybe putting some into stablecoins, taking out my initial investment, etc….I jumped right back into some very dodgy projects…and turned $150k back into $15k in the span of 2 months (unfortunately all of this happened during a mini-correction, doubling the damage). In one of those projects I sold the bottom just days before it rugged. Another 48 hours and I could have lost everything. So there I was again…all this time, feeling I would learn from my mistakes, only to repeat them and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory….
But then something happened to me internally. I said to myself, “Why am I leaving my financial fate in the hands of things I cannot control, like, the market, or projects that can come and go in the night?”. And all at once it hit me: I needed to get off the sidelines of crypto as just an “investor”, and actually get involved. I have vast experience not only with programming, but technology, tokenomics, as well as project management. I also have years of experience in financial markets (in trying to become a registered investment advisor [the irony!] I’d passed most of my FINRA exams….ok well 1 out of 3 isn’t bad…don’t judge me ok they aren’t easy and I failed two tests by a total of 3 points). I thought, “Why can’t I run my own project?…Why can’t I create my own coin, or tradebot, or something where I won’t have to depend on someone else for my success?”
So from that day until now I set about learning crypto. The development side. I bought books on Ethereum & Solidity programming. I completely rebuilt 2 PC’s in my house so I could host my own BSC and Eth mainnet nodes. I learned Nodejs and Web3. I played around deploying contracts with my buddies Rinkeby, Kovan and Ropsten. I created telegram bots and tradebots (on Uniswap and BSC). And while I was busy doing all of that, the new projects I invested in did very well. I got somewhat wealthy while learning how to get wealthy. Strange how that works sometimes.
So who am I? I am still trying to figure that out. My desire to hit it big and get rich has been pared down to just being content with what I have now. I don’t need to be a millionaire. But I can tell you who I am not. I am not a scammer. I am not a rug-puller. I have never stolen crypto money from anyone. I feel bad even selling my holdings sometimes, because I know it will hurt others who just bought in (temporarily, at least).
So you see, I need to be able to close my eyes at night knowing that I added to the world, and not having taken away from it. Because the Universe keeps a balance sheet, and I need to be on the correct side of that ledger. In my younger years (before Bitcoin was ever “a thing”) I racked up a pretty large debt to society. Now, I am only interested in being square with the house. Because ultimately when I do that, I am well taken care of. I hope I can bring that same spirit to whatever projects I am involved in…perhaps it will be just as contagious as crypto itself.
So for now, I am Node_Z. If you share this same sentiment, you can find me on telegram: @nodezy
Please feel free to say “Hi”.
