Part 1: My megalomaniac Bitcoin plan
TL;DR Luck. Through pure luck. Luck, coupled with youthful stupidity / idealism, some bad luck but ultimately even more luck. Of course, that had absolutely nothing to do with skill.
What is this all about?
About my investment history, wrong and right decisions, career paths and wealth accumulation with many diversions but without inheritance. You're not interested? I can understand that. Just keep scrolling.
Recently, inspired by @Simpson I recently benchmarked the current indices with my public (and real!) portfolio on getquin. The result for my portfolio in the mid 6-digit range surprised me somewhat.
- 👍 TTWROR MSCI World from 2011 to 2024: less than 400%
- ♥️ TTWROR S&P500 from 2011 to 2024: a good 650%
- 🚀 TTWROR Nasdaq from 2011 to 2024: just under 1,200%
- 🤯 TTWROR of my portfolio from 2011 to 2024: Fucking 26,150%
The good guy @Alpalaka commented that it would be interesting to hear my investment story. No idea if he meant that seriously. Anyway, now he has to read it 😁.
The beginnings
The little donkey attended a secondary school in a small town and started an apprenticeship in IT when he was 16. That was the first reason for my parents, who were at least involved in finance but only trusted their bank advisor, to drag me to various bank appointments, insurance companies, ... . Of course, I wasn't interested at 16, so I just did what my parents said. It looked like this:
- I took out a Riester pension. At least it was unit-linked and is still going well today
- Took out endowment life insurance coupled with BU
- Building society savings plan. Almost all my relatives live in owner-occupied properties. It's logical that the donkey will also buy or build a property for his own use at some point
- Bonus savings with the local VR Bank
I also had to give a few euros in "rent" to my parents. My gross salary of 600 euros in the first year of my apprenticeship was already largely used up 😭
But at least it was better than before. In the years before my apprenticeship, I received 10 euros pocket money from my parents. Per month. I earned some extra money by delivering newspapers. I probably also acquired my rather frugal lifestyle during this time.
The first big money and the first big panic
3 years later, I had successfully completed my apprenticeship and was taken on for around 26,000 euros gross per year. When I was 20, I also received the only major financial gift of my life: my parents had saved 10,000 euros for me ♥️. This went directly towards the purchase of a car. That made my long-distance relationship a lot easier at the time. And even though my parents' "rent" went up, I was now able to live large for the first time, treat myself regularly and save a few euros in my current account.
Until I decided to move out. Real rent is expensive. On top of that, there were additional expenses for furniture, food, a part-time degree and recommendations from my parents: more insurance (which you absolutely need...) and topping up existing policies (occupational pension, Riester for the maximum state subsidy, more in the building society, ...). At the same time, my salary has only increased marginally since the end of my training. That was the first time I really panicked. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to afford to live independently. And at some point I got the feeling that I was simply completely overinsured and was putting far too much into Riester/building society savings. At this point, I decided to hopefully take a few mini salary increases over the next few years and not to adjust insurance/savings rates upwards under any circumstances.
Pirate Party and Bitcoin
In my twenties, the Pirate Party made its grand entrance as a protest party in Germany. Unfortunately, it was then replaced by the AfD. But that's not the point here. In any case, the donkey was still young, rebellious and wanted to improve the world with his idealism. The Pirates came along just in time. They loved freedom and I was one of their supporters. All power to the people. More direct democracy. Down with the old system. With this mindset and my existence as an IT nerd, I was bound to stumble across Bitcoin.
The time had come in 2011. I don't remember how, but somewhere I heard about it for the first time $BTC (+0.74%) and was immediately fascinated. I had no idea about the technology (although I was an IT specialist) and also no idea about finance and economics. But I knew something had to change. And the promise of Bitcoin just sounded too good. So I set up an account with the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world at the time, Mt. Gox, and bought around 300 USD worth of Bitcoin. That was all I could and wanted to invest at the time. I also mined a few sats on my laptop.
Price fluctuations and my Bitcoin exit plan
In the early days of Bitcoin, daily price fluctuations of 5-10% were quite normal. As an IT specialist, I programmed software to recognize patterns in the Bitcoin price and started day trading - again without any sense or reason, of course. I had no idea. But because the fluctuations were so high, I was able to take some profits. In the meantime, however, the price plummeted to such an extent that I lost interest in Bitcoin (and the Pirate Party).
Fun fact at this point: As I am used to the fluctuations of the early Bitcoin market, I am not very interested in fluctuations on the stock market today. Years later, when I started to get involved in the stock market, I heard on the news that the DAX had collapsed. I expected it to fall by at least 30% in one day and was almost disappointed when it actually only went down by a good percent 🥲.
When Bitcoin prices rose sharply again in 2013, my interest also returned. At some point, I had turned the 300 USD into just under 10 Bitcoin and 1,000-2,000 USD. At this point, I came up with a megalomaniac plan. My Bitcoin Exit Plan:
I wanted to sell one bitcoin at every 1 and every 5 at the beginning of the price. So one at 100 USD, the next at 500 USD, then at 1,000 USD, 5,000 USD, 10,000 USD, 50,000 USD, 100,000 USD, 500,000 USD and 1,000,000 USD.
And I would have stuck to this plan. Unfortunately, my own stupidity got in the way and I lost everything. Twice 🤦. You can read how it happened in part 2: https://getqu.in/Ptei6g/
