Why I go by "wiser"steemCreated with Sketch.

in #cryptocurrency7 years ago

I'm sure some of you out there are curious: why am I called "wiser?"

It's actually pretty embarrassing. A little over four years ago I heard about Bitcoin for the third or fourth time. It was a good friend of mine and that time I decided to look into it further. The rest, as they say, is history.

Back then websites that paid out in Bitcoin for various online tasks were a thing, and Bitcoin was only worth around $90. The money wasn't great, but it was a good way to get my hands on some of it. I also outright bought around $30 worth from Coinbase.

I knew enough about mining to be truly dangerous, especially to myself. I knew that Bitcoins were mined into existence but I had no idea of what could be considered to be a reasonable rate of return. I knew that my own computer wasn't going to be able to mine much of anything, though, because of this thing called "difficulty level." So when I saw this website called Mining United which promised to mine Bitcoin 24/7 on my behalf, I believed their story and sent my Bitcoin. I did get the first round of Bitcoin sent back to me with interest as promised, and that would have been a great time to quit. However I figured if I sent even more Bitcoin to Mining United I'd get even more back, so off it went again.

You guessed it. Mining United was a scam. I waited and waited beyond the promised return date for my Bitcoin. They never sent it back. The website changed names and still I hoped to see my Bitcoin come back. Eventually the site closed down and that was that. Six weeks into my cryptoadventure I'd lost everything. It was an awful feeling.

In the process of researching Mining United I came across the Bitcoin Forum. They had an entire thread about the Mining United scam which consisted of a number of victims bemoaning their losses and a generous smattering of know-it-alls calling them idiots in all kinds of creative ways. At some point I wanted to share my own sad tale. I think I was hoping someone would feel sorry for me and send me a generous donation of the amount of Bitcoin I'd lost. Nope. I think I got called an idiot and a sucker along with everyone else in my boat.

In order to post my tale of woe on the Bitcoin Forum I needed a user name. By then I'd learned quite a few things about how those scams operate. Painful lessons, but I figured the only way to redeem the experience was to learn as much from it as I possibly could. In the end I consider the $45 or so that I lost to the scam to be very cheap tuition considering I can now spot those scams pretty early on. I'll have to share some of what I learned in a future post, although other Steemit authors have done a great job, such as with this article evaluating the current BitConnect scam.

By the time I registered on the Bitcoin Forum in order to share my own experience I felt like I'd learned quite a bit and that I was much more street smart. I had gotten wiser, so that's what I registered as. At the time I was considering just walking away from cryptos for good, so it didn't really matter what handle I used. Of course I didn't walk away, the handle stuck, and I've used it pretty much everywhere else I've ventured in Cryptoland.

Who knew back then what a nice ring "wiser the whale" would have on the as yet not even a twinkle in anyone's eye blockchain based social media platform called Steemit?

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Excellent story! :) SteemIt is my intro to the crypto world. I should have used @lesswiser. Eh, bad joke.
:)

Whatsup works, though. I can say "Whatsup Whale?"

Nice of you to help us be wiser, too. Good story. May next time be better.

I've had plenty of "next times" which have been better. I'm doing quite well with my crypto-adventure, despite my rough start. Thanks for stopping by :)

haha nice read! great story @wiser

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