Great article @rok-sivante! This is a timely topic these days. I, like you, made a lot of Steem in the early days of Steemit and I've had an experience somewhat similar to yours. The very first thing I did was pay off all my debt, which was pretty substantial due to the 2008 Housing Crisis here in America. One of my early crypto mentors taught me to cost-average, sell little bits all the way up during a bull market and never try to time the market. That advice proved invaluable.
Thankfully I got that far before disaster struck. That disaster was the Bitgrail exchange hack. When the price of Nano (formerly Raiblocks) spiked in late 2017/early 2018 I was selling it on that exchange. I wanted to sell it before the price dropped but they were limiting how much of my Bitcoin I could withdraw in a 24hr period. Long story short, Bitgrail locked down the wallets before I could withdraw it all.
Shortly after that the news of the hack hit the news cycle and the exchange was closed indefinitely. When the dust settled I lost 73 bitcoin, the equivalent of nearly a million USD at the time. I come from a lower middle class background so this is more money than anyone in my family had ever dreamed of. I should have known better than to keep that much on an exchange but greed got me, Bitgrail was the only exchange that had any real volume for that particular coin and I didn't want to miss out on the tremendous spike in price. The euphoria of that incredible price spike was dizzying and disorienting to say the least. I'll never forget I was in a cab in New York City when I first saw the coin reach ATH's. Before I knew it Bitgrail was limiting withdrawal amounts and then locked the wallets...I fell for the bait.
I joined the class action lawsuit but it's being handled by an Italian court (Bitgrail was an Italian company). They've been dragging the case out for over a year now and keep delaying a decision. I have no faith at this point that we'll receive any kind of a refund.
To be clear...Nano is an amazing coin with a promising future, the Nano dev team isn't at fault. Most people think it was the exchange that conducted the hack (or at least covered it up). If I think about it too long it can take me to a dark place so I just try to keep my mind occupied and focus on new opportunities.
Despite all this I'm still a firm believer in cryptocurrency and I'm very grateful for it. Steemit allowed me to write full time for almost two years but I'll be having to find new revenue streams soon. I just think some very drastic measures need to be made to make exchanges and wallets easier to use and more secure before cryptocurrency will ever reach true mass adoption.
Try publish0x where you can still write for crypto.. Heck, cross-post your STEEM posts there after payout (for a content 'refresh' and because posts can earn indefinitely there.. and all you need to do is put a line at the end citing it was cross-posted and link back to your STEEMit and there will be no problems.
I'll check that out @kharma.scribbles! Thanks for the recommendation.
Holy shit, well now I don’t feel quite so bad for losing $5300 with the QuadrigaCX fiasco!
Man, I feel your pain. Losing that much simply cuz of not selling at peak, over months, is certainly a different matter than a case like what happened to you in a flash.
Big risks and big rewards here, in the wild Wild West of these still “early” days...
Absolutely, without the risk there wouldn’t have been the rewards. Despite what happens from this point on it’s been an incredible journey.