Greetings Steemers! I am James Clayton of the Cryptocurrency Collectors Club! -- http://www.cryptocollectorsclub.com

My wild adventures began in early 2013 when I was just a mundane art appraiser and entrepreneur. I had a successful small business that sold unique items all over the world, but with international sales, and so many times we would get scammed it was hard to get ahead. I finally started looking to see if there was some kind of electronic cash under development that could replace Paypal. After a little digging, I found Bitcoin! At the time it was around $90 a coin, so I bought two of them to see if my customers would be able to use it. I had no intentions of making it my life, really, I just wanted to test it for customers.

Then the next day the price was above $100, and even with that small profit I could see what was coming. I quickly maxed out some credit cards, not recommended, even though I did well with it, and I bought a bunch of AMD 280x graphics cards, way overpriced from scalpers, and then built two mining rigs and started mining Litecoin! I chose this as I did some quick research and heard that the dev was somehow connected to Google, and I knew that people would see tons of value in it and that Litecoin and Alts would soon follow the path of BTC. So I took my two BTC and bought a few thousand Litecoin.

A few weeks later I sold all the Litecoins for a couple thousand dollars total, and gave myself a nice little pat on the back, as if I was Gordon Gekko himself! To my jaw dropping and veins going ice cold horror, a few weeks later Litecoin shot up to $45 each, and I realized I could have paid off my house with a bit more patience! Then it was all over, I was hooked, line and sinker, crypto addict for life... I was on the hunt for the next great whale, the next Litecoin! I also noticed an opportunity as there were essentially no Alt websites yet, other than by an anon dev named Hazard, and someone else I now forget. I knew people couldn't trust anonymous people for reviews, and I had a talent for quick price evaluation, so I figured I maybe could be like a good version of Hazard? (No offense Hazard, and thanks for the inspiration)

So, I was one of the first people using my real name and writing about cryptos, reviewing them, learning along the way. I was clumsy and too brave at first, and at one point I was even threatened by some Mafia in the UK, or they sure acted like they were. Simply as I said their coin was no good as they were doing a brand heist, and therefore I said they are scamming, at that point they said: “We are going to war with you, do you know who we are, do you know who the boss is!!!!” They DDOSed my Website, tried to ruin my rep as anon scammers, but in the end, I think they were interested in what I was reviewing and so they left me alone. I tried to avoid them and be as polite as possible, realizing there could be some level of danger, and I was still annoyed they DDOSed my business website until I shut it down. Forcing me to learn to trade better fast.

That is what made me decide to go underground a bit more and make a private group that I would try to only invite good people in. So, the Cryptocurrency Collectors Club was born! In truth, to hide from what I believed to be organized crime in the world of cryptocurrency. Indeed, it is there and quite real, and way too connected to big money to not take seriously. That was my introduction to how there is a very dark side of money, and that not everyone was some naive idealistic person with their head in the clouds like myself. There are also many horrible people preying on the weak, and so I silently vowed to myself to somehow try and protect them -- As the entire thing that I hated most and drove me to Bitcoin, scammers, were here, and even worse.

Skip forward a few years and countless ups and downs, so this isn’t 1500 pages… and I am now a successful trader, writer, consultant, and I have what many consider the number #1 Alt group on Facebook. I am also a founder of the #1 Ethereum Alt, Expanse (EXP) — and while I am almost always working, I am doing what I love and following my bliss! I have helped many thousands of people over the years, and without any doubt, have had the best of times and the worst of times. These days, at last, I think crypto is finally moving away from the darker days of the anon scam devs and into the light of mainstream, with great projects like Steemit and others, and I truly love it. So I am very pleased to meet this wonderful community, and I thank you.

James Clayton, aka Cryptoclub

#steem #steemit #introduceyourself #crypto #trading #cryptoclub