Crypto bros. Congrats on your brand-new cars and welcome to the bull market. This might be the first bull run for most of you and it pleases me to see a lot of you all leaving the trenches. I bought my first BTC in 2016 at $900 (I believe) way before most of you knew anything about blockchain technology. Made close to $650k at the height of the bull market in 2021 and round-tripped the entire thing until I had very little to show for it. I do not want you to make some of the mistakes that I made so please take the time to read this post.
First, do not think that you’re now invincible cos you made life changing money from solana memes. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. They say “market giveth and market taketh”. The point of making life changing money is to ensure that your life is actually changed forever and that you never go back to the trenches. You need to be smart and be nimble about your strategy.
Sure by all means, treat yourself with your brand new cars, you’ve earned it. Whats the point of making money if you don’t change the quality of your life anyways but always remember that you need to have a plan. Take a chunk of that money out of crypto else you’d regret it.
Life-changing money means different things to different people. For some, it’s $1m and for others it’s even $10m or as low as $20k. I like to define life changing money as money that you’ve never seen in your entire life. The moment you see money that you’ve never seen in your entire life stacked in your wallet, you need to switch to defense mode.
Remember the golden rule; you build wealth by taking high risks and sustain it by switching to defense mode by taking low risks. So here’s what I would do if I were you:
1. Convert 30% of your portfolio into USDT and USDC. Split both equally and gradually increase your stables allocation by say 5% every month. When it gets to the 50% mark, reduce the allocation to 2.5% every month up until a max of 60% stables.
2. Hold some of that money in actual fiat. Open bank accounts with crypto-friendly banks like Xapo and Mural to have a stash. I don’t recommend keeping your money in any Nigerian DOM account.
3. Invest in real estate. Remember the entire idea is sustaining your wealth and not being aggressive.
4. Allocate another sum into stocks and ETFs. Frankly, just leave picking of stocks for the experts and put your money into ETFs. I have my money in QQQ, MSCI world and emerging markets MSCI. A good ETF delivers between 8-12% per annum net of mgt fees.
5. Startups: Thanks to platforms like https://hoaq.co, you can invest in vetted startups across Africa with as little as $1k I think. To be honest, startup investing is like the lottery. Many of the startups you’ll make investments in will inevitably die but it’s a numbers game and working with the experienced professionals at platforms like Hoaq improves your chances of making pretty decent returns from startup investing.
5. Self development: You see, I have been an investment professional for over a decade with experience that cuts across Corporate finance, Investment banking and Private Equity and across the entire spectrum, crypto is one where you don’t really need technical skills to make money except you’re a futures trader. Trust me, I know how to track wallets and use Bullx to find the next 100x plays but i stopped cos it’s no longer worth my while. Making money from solana memes is mostly about luck and getting the right info. You don’t really learn any real life skill of practical use in the real life. Take some days off to improve yourself. Take up soft and hard skills courses on coursera and Udemy so that the world doesn’t leave you behind while you’re neck deep in solana trenches. A word is enough for the wise.
Had to do this thread cos I have gotten a lot of messages from really young guys who have made life changing money this year and not sure what to do with it. Hope you learnt a thing or two. Selah