You’ve heard all the legendary tales about crypto investors who put in a few thousand dollars and became millionaires. One thing all these investors have in common is they all cashed out when Bitcoin was at its peak. At $20,000, Bitcoin had already skyrocketed by 2,000 percent in just 12 months. Those who cashed out were the lucky ones and they have grabbed all the headlines since. There is however a second group, one that never cashed out. This group rode the wave all the way to the top, and then all the way dow to $4,000.
One of them is Peter McCormack, a British crypto investor whose portfolio hit $1.2 million at the height of the crypto rally. McCormack had stumbled into Bitcoin as far back as 2013. He however invested four years later and made a fortune. As fate would have it, he was one of the many who never cashed out and his portfolio has shrunk by 80 percent in 2018. He is still all in on cryptos and he continues to make a living from the industry.
The Roller Coaster Ride
McCormack heard about Bitcoin in 2013, back when it was just a topic that circulated in the tech world. He immediately got fascinated by the technology and decided to put a few hundred dollars into it. As with many other traders back then, he lost the money after a few weeks and ended up exiting the market. Four years later in December 2016, he got back into Bitcoin to pay for some medication for an ailing relative.
This was when he decided to do a bit more research and find out what Bitcoin was all about. Fascinated for the second time, he invested $32,000 into Bitcoin on Coinbase. This time, the market was kind to him and he was part of the 2017 price rally.
As the value of his portfolio continued to expand, so did his spending. He bought himself the things he had always desired, a new designer watch, a Mercedes Benz, expensive vacations, first-class flights and more. However, McCormack spent his savings and not his crypto fortunes. As he admitted on a recent podcast with Bloomberg, this was “quite stupid.”
McCormack diversified his portfolio over time, a wise move by his admission. He stated:
I bought Dash because it seemed like a different kind of Bitcoin. I bought Ethereum because it was like this world computer and it sounded interesting. I bought Monero because it was a private coin. I bought Ripple because it was a banking coin.
I’m in It for the Long Haul
McCormack is unfazed by the 80 percent drop, he revealed. He still believes that the technology behind Bitcoin and most altcoins will take over in the long term. He still holds a small amount of Bitcoin, having exited all his altcoin positions. He also has a sizeable mining operation although due to the price bloodbath, hasn’t been profitable for some time.
Even more crucially, he started a crypto podcast entitled ‘What Bitcoin Did.’ The podcast has been quite a success, with McCormack’s honesty being refreshing to his ardent followers. His latest episode has over 100,000 downloads, earning him a cool $10,000 per episode on average.
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