A million in debt thanks to crypto
I am a well educated Australian man in my 30s who's lost more than $1.2m cumulative in crypto, most of it about 2 years ago, and am now $1mil in debt.
I started off buying bitcoin at around $1000 back in 2014, after seeing the vision. I sold at $300, being very young and unable to stomach the volatility, then came back for the 2017 boom where I managed to lose another $50k. Got scared of it then came back for the 2021 boom. Lost another $50k.
Then I made it big jn 2023, threw $100k in a memecoin and was up almost $300k, which is when the derealisation of money occurred. I began to have no regard for money and after inevitably the market crashed I believed against evidence that I would be able to find a way out of this. Perps, memecoins, trying to learn, etc.
In the space of a year I was down back to near buy-in and then below. Then well below. Then as panic started to set in and I realised the amount I was losing was more than I could easily earn back from earning, I spent more and more time and money reading, learning, trading, and losing. My family and I were going to go on a family holiday, so as I took a break from work I thought this could be time to "lock in" and make it all back. I lost $500k in 10 days with that mindset.
Since then I tried many times over the next 2 years to make it all back in memecoins, figuring that was my only way to clear this enormous debt. What always made it challenging for me to stop was the idea that there was more I could learn, that I was just paying the tuition to crack the code.
I know myself; I am smart, have a great work ethic, and learn from my mistakes. I could apply myself to learn everything there is to learn about crypto. But this is where the trap laid.
Gambling is an emotional trap. The emotion of hope, greed, despair, shame, then back again. Gambles like stock picking, perps, options, memecoins all have the tempting intellectual allure of being beatable if you just learnt how to play the game. Ultimately though they are driven by human emotion and market manipulation by sophisticated players. I definitely know I would not get tempted by slots. But I would get tempted by learning how to pick stocks. It is the ego, the belief that I am smarter than the market.
More than anything, I have lost so much life, time and energy. I had lost progression momentum in my career. I had lost time to play music, or to learn my in laws language, or read books. I had lost time during holidays trying to beat the market. I am a very optimistic and happy person by nature, and yet this trap I was in made me feel almost suicidal.
And most importantly I lost my partners trust and time. I kept this secret from them for the last two years, scared I would lose her once I told her. Yet because of this I did not give her my fullest these last years, and our relationship was rocky as a result.
Finally I told her about everything. It was extremely hard and she walked off crying. It was heartbreaking to see her like this and know I was the cause of her anger and sadness. I know there is a real chance she will leave, that in fact it is the most likely outcome, and it terrifies me. But I know that telling her and telling others, and facing the shame, will reframe it as an opportunity for me to grow from this, build my self confidence back up again, and help me move forward with GA, therapy, accountability and relinquishing bank control, and deleting all crypto related apps and accounts.
I have only made two good decisions in my life, my career choice and my partner. I think I made a third one today in facing the shame and being honest that yes, I am a problem gambler.