I bought acid for “$200,000”. Sounds crazy? Well here’s a small journey of a young adult discovering crypto to becoming where I am now (mid 20’s). A successful man with a wonderful job, a successful crypto trader (not crazy, maybe 7k gains the past year), but someone who could have been a millionaire.
So around 2009, I started getting into pot as any bored Northeastern American boy likely does. Being the poorer kid at the rich school leads to a lot of weird feelings, seeing all the toys the rich kids have and seeing them as bored as me. We are talking dirt bikes, top of the line gaming, rifles and guns galore. Daddy owns boats and a yacht. And me? Well my family was getting by around 80k a year total. Luckily those same kids had the drug connections. Pot back then of course was a weird thing and still pretty big deal in our area, like it is gonna ruin lives and yada yada yada.
But ok enough of that. I had a friend that blew glass and made pipes and jewelry, and, he tended to have his ear to the ground better than me. Let’s name him Dan. We graduated high school and started college, and, we both wanted ways to make more money. So Dan heard about “the Dark Web,” the mystical awful place that we all probably know well now (but back then, it was fucking crazy). At the time, the Silk Road was in its first incarnation and we had a field day when we discovered it. We found all the drugs we wanted to dabble and try (mainly psychedelics, we knew to avoid the dangerous stuff). Guns and a number of other illicit materials were available too.
That was a shock obviously and then we discovered. Huh…. They are paid by….
Bitcoin?
And boom, we dove in. We sold his pipes and glass work to buy acid, ether (not ethereum!), shrooms, pure mdma, dmt whatever. It was coming straight to our door. It was amazing. What a summer, exploring and discovering the world in a new light. We were buying from a guy in Arizona who basically said he was a biochemist at university and refused to say anymore. I think it was Walter White.
But back to what matters. Bitcoin. The Blockchain back then was simply just an anonymous payment where we could get anything. Of course the danger of this also shows in other areas too, but whatever, enough drug crap. Bitcoin was worth about… Maybe 5 cents or so when we used it? We obviously went through a lot. The biggest thing in my mind is remembering at the height of our escapades BTC hit a dollar. We had 300 at the time and spent it on cannabis seeds and a few other final parting gifts. We both got yelled at by our ISP’s for torrenting games and music, so we got spooked.
So 300 dollars of bitcoin basically.
300 bitcoin.
Let that sink in.
300…
Flash forward to April of this past year, a coworker and me talked crypto and I knew it grew… I knew how much, to be honest I see it as hindsight. We never knew it would be what it is today. We literally had what would have been about 2 mil then. I traded all through the year successfully and saw it grow. By the end of the year BTC was worth fucking 18k. The 300 btc would be 5 mil. So doing the math out, I bought acid for likely around $200,000.
Yeah. It hurts a little. But at 17, 18, you don’t think for the future. No regrets. I got to watch this journey of technology and currency in a very different light and I’m proud to still be a part of this. More active than ever, here’s to crypto future and changing the world. We are going to be the creators of our new world. Cheers!