I am glad that i have this place to act as a sounding board. I will say my bit and take the consequences. To be on the safe side I will say all that i write here just may be fiction,
To be honest I feel kind of stupid, being a "computer guy", and NOT entering the Crypto Currency market back in the beginning. My life was in quite a turmoil, since 2009 and not much seemed to be getting better. If I would of been less distracted by making a living playing poker and almost unplugging from the real world, after getting divorced then loosing a kick ass job, that I staked it all on and relocated for Political Reasons. I would not be writing this Horror Story, so either lucky or unlucky you.
My life long friend told me about Bit-Coin, and the Alt-Coin markets, this was 2014 right before Mt. Gox was hacked and Neo Bee walked out the back door with all the crypto currency, while they were cutting the Grand Opening ribbon in the front. Not a good first taste to get in my mouth. So I did not even think about crypto again, until late 2016, when I started to play video games again with my true life long friend.
We were out of touch for 19 months or so while my life was in complete turmoil. Including the worst event of all losing my Dad. Don't get me wrong, I ate, had a car and was able to pay bills no problem, but had to leave a great IT job I had working for a Huge Shoe company based in one of the nice or unique places to live in the world, Portland,Oregon. No need to feel sorry for me, as we all will have these things to do in our life, and while I was taking care of my parents I had a nice work at home tech support job, and was able to enjoy the last 6 months of Dad's life and was truly happy as one could be.
I tried to return to Portland, but things did not just work out as planned and I ended up in a small town with again a work from home job, and had things in order. I with all my luck break my arm and shoulder. I am not a young man anymore, and do not heal quite as good as I used to. They try to say that 40 is the new 25, i say whatever. This being said I was placed on disability, and was going stark raving mad, not working or making money. So I built a mining rig !!
I built the most "snag tooth" rig you ever seen, I had 3 used junker 7900 video cards, and one AMD 270 video card that were given to me, all nice and plugged into an Asrock H81 Pro BTC I was so proud I ordered. Stuck the mandatory EVGA 1050 Watt power supply on the Frankenstein rig, threw out the video cards, on to the table, I just screwed the mother board into the press wood folding table. And to my amazement this stupid thing started to make me a few bucks every day. I then got deeper, and started to learn how to patch the BIOS, and tweak the settings, I was getting 220 SOL per 7900 card now, and getting MORE! bucks a day. I was amazed and excited, yes it was only a few bucks, but it was in the all illusive market and i was buying and selling coins, and making lucky picks.
After about a month of mining and some quite lucky trades I was amazed to see a worth of $350.00 USD. My power bill was not too much higher than normal, *i did live in the dark most of the time. I was lucky I was buying ripple (XRP), Pink, SIA Coin and as much of it as i could when it was pennies. What else could a mining rig that made a few bucks do? I also happened to buy this other silly coin called Stratis. I dumped all my profits into that coin as soon as i read the details, and well again boom, 20-60 cents is now racing past 5.00 after Easter 2017. How can this be? I just made more money than my job would of paid me for 6 months I bought 3 new video cards, and threw away the 270. So where is the Problem?
A coworker from my past called me, and coworker was doing NADEX day trading and was doing quite well. Coworker claimed to make over 25,000.00 and was trying to get me involved. I learned my lesson on options trading back long before computer bots were standard. But I politely said thanks but no thanks, it is not for me. I deleted the emails with the how too and the link to what in my opinion is a SEC funded casino. I was still in the research phase of building my F'ugly Mining rig, learning about over heating, making the rig stable, and learning how to use wallets. All the rookie stuff, loving every moment of my new found hobby. I was invigorated, and doing something positive with my disability. Putting my hands on "new" computer equipment, for the first time, since i was building over 50 computers a month for a point of sale system, self employed. The coworker calls again, tells me how great things are and like a moron I mention that if coworker has all these skills in day trading, coworker might want to check out crypto currency, and the exchanges.
I give coworker the mandatory "Hey, do not invest what you cant afford to just burn right in front of me speech, as she just cashed in $25,000 in Nadex she should be able to learn this. I sent her a full list of mandatory videos to watch, technical ones, that explain what the block chain is, how it works, history lessons fully explained and gave the info of the 2014 crash, gave her 20-30 hours of stuff to study, all of it mandatory, and as you know just scratched the surface of Crypto Currency. Like a fool I tell coworker about Coin Base, and how you can link your Bank Account and buy bit coin. Bit coin was under 1300 when coworker bought in.
My Frankenstein Rig, and has run for less than 30 days. We are now in end of may early April 2017, Coinbase takes a good 7 days of waiting until you have the trade-able asset bitcoin to send from the Coinbase wallet to an exchange. While she was waiting, the Bit Coin started its historic rise to over 3000.00, coworker almost doubled what she invested before trading started. The coworker then after trading XRP, PINK, SC, and 2 other coins, that ALL skyrocketed,Ripple XRP was bought right when it was 1YEN, about 1.2 cents, I read an article about Japan banks were adopting Ripple(XRP), and reacted. Pink Coin gained huge, a true pump and dump was caught, and profited from. Coworker at one point had 3300+ Stratis when it hit the ALL TIME HIGH 11.00 USD /.004xxxxx BTC all off a coinbase max deposit of $2000 USD to bit coin start , and still should of had 23000.00 USD from NADEX. GO Coworker GO!
The horror story started with a simple question, "What is Mining?" Now remember this is not the first time i talked mining to Coworker, and by this time 2-3 weeks later, the 30-40 hours of truly professional educational materials should have been watched and made clear on the mining process. If i was sharp on my poker skills, i would of noticed this as the first tell. Coworker did not watch the videos read any document, and still has not a clue what is going on how it works, and why this stuff even has a value. I myself would not invest anything unless i had a fundamental understanding even a flawed one, of what i am investing in. The investment i made was time, a ugly mining rig and power bills. My silly rig started to make 10-15 a day when Zcash went from 50 to over 200. I was amazed and wished i had more hash power. Coworker tells me that they wanted to get into mining, and I told Coworker get the equipment set it up and learn about it. At this point an offer was made to buy mining equipment by her with the profits and her new found 33,000.00 USD. I tell her I would rather not but like an idiot I did not hold firm, and started thinking about an empire of mining rigs; A partnership is formed five days later, I tell Coworker i will build and operate and baby sit the mining rigs, one rig is mine one is yours, you pay the power bill due for your machine, I pay the power for mine. Parts are ordered. What did I change my mind !?!?
Welcome the gremlins to the story. It is now late may, early June, It started to smell just like 2014 i had a feeling every video card was about to be sold out. I went to all the regular places, NewEgg, Amazon, BestBuy and there was not one video card to be found. I tell this to Coworker and move on. A week goes by, the video card shortage is in full force. Stupid me, contacted a business partner that I bought my supplies from when i was building point of sale systems, and guess what they had, RX580 8G MSI units waiting for me. I contacted Coworker, and gave them the price, 5400.00 +- for all the parts, I designed two six video card rigs using 2 MSI Gaming 5 Motherboards, 2 CPUs, 4 RAM, 2 HDD, and two WAY overpriced and Power supplies. I returned the two 350.00 power supply units, and I order 2 nice open AIR mining rigs, with 1200 WATT power supplies and the 12 units of 1x to 16x riser card needed what a bargain! I called the manufacturer of the Mining rigs frame, to ensure they had product in stock, and get a delivery estimate, I was told, yes we have them! Here is the first problem.
Where are my RIGS ?, the company lied, and took over 40 days to get the parts delivered to me. I have a stack of video cards all dying to start making money, I get all the video cards ready to go using a 400 Watt Power supply i had, bios patch each rx580 one, get windows and linux systems ready, discover one of the mother boards is bad. I spend MANY hours, and have everything prepped and ready only to wait weeks and weeks more for the open air case company to deliver. Meanwhile I am called by the business contact that Coworker has tried to reverse the credit charge, and there was a problem with the order 30 days after the fact. I call Coworker and was told that this was just a mistake, and this is just the credit card being a problem. (*Lie 1)
A few more weeks go by, still no open air cases, waiting for RMA motherboard, and i get that phone call. Coworker changed her password and does not remember it and lost all her money, or so I was told, and still to not believe, and to compound the problem, Coworker's family member has now given Coworker 10,000 to invest in crypto that caught the light coin rise from 15$ to 40$ did lightning strike twice? Then i get the next phone call that she finally watched all the crypto currency study material and liquidated all her crypto back to CoinBase and into FIAT. Still profited 7,000.00 and states at least we still will have the mining rigs going.
The final parts are now here, and one of the mining rigs shows up with a bad PSU, I build the first rig, and have it ready to go, start testing power use, and start making the estimates of earnings. My daughter flew in from out of town, and i spend 2 weeks with her, return home, get both mining rigs operational, and the company starts mining the first blocks. 10 days goes by and I inform Coworker that the power bill for the month will be about 150.00, and Coworker refuses to pay. What i can only equate to a demonic possession is on the other end of the phone line. This is now July, 14th mining profits at that point are quite low. But still profitable after a rash of the most ugly series of words, Coworker demand that i pay her for the equipment in full because she is now flat broke, and needs the money. This person had over 50,000 cash to Coworker 's name in May when Coworker asked me to build the two rigs and start a company.
Today i am being harassed and my life has been threatened, by this now seemingly insane person. I gave the Coworker 3 options, 1) i will send both mining rigs read to run, and Coworker pays for my 1/2 of the partnership, 2) I will buy Coworker 's 1/2 of the partnership. 3) Coworker can pay the power bill and we can just move on and get the company working. 4) Sue me. Coworker said ok send me what you can and i will let you buy me out. Coworker accepted, I sent Coworker $500.00 at this point after the funds are received, instantly demands full payment starts with the death threats and worse again.
What do I do? What is the right thing to do? If I have the 5200.0 to spend on the equipment i would of without Coworker in the first place. I have the technical skills to operate the systems. I even invested money I should not of to get cooling and power ready to do the job. I took it as a chance for us to grow a partnership in a market crypto currency, that is still in the early stages, like the internet in 1980, it was there for use, but not to many knew about it. And now I am dealing with a crazy New Yorker who lost all the money for reasons i do not know and blaming me for all the problems in Coworker's life. Don't take this wrong I have empathy for the situation, this is why i offered to buy Coworker out with money i will have to get loaned to me. I did operate the mining rig as promised at the date agreed to. I even would let Coworker pay me back the 500 and the power bill and move forward. But after all the stress Coworker has caused me my friend, and making me go get a lawyer I just want to tell the Coworker Piss off.
Please comment below, let me know what is the right thing to do? I fell bad for the Coworker , but if I had 50,000 at some point of this year in both Fiat and crypto, I would not have lost it all, I would be debt free and still have 30,000.00. If this post makes any income, i will be sending it to Coworker when i have a signed agreement from Coworker. At this point I am not sending another dime and Coworker can talk to a wall or my lawyer. If i am, the ASS HAT in the equation let me know.