My journey from $7 p/BTC to $1000 p/BTC and beyond

Hi everyone!

This is my first post here on steemit and it will be a wall of text. I hope that you, the reader, will learn something from my experiences. My father used to tell me to learn from others as much as possible so I could replicate successes and steer away from failures in my own life. Its with that I will now tell you all a little about my journey :)

My name is Mark Sapolinski and I've been passionately in love with blockchain tech since I first heard of Bitcoin back in 2009 in Australia. Been bullish ever since!

Having made 6 months salary in 4 days (I was working a great job as a project manager for Standards Australia) by simply buying and selling bitcoin (btc value was $7 roughly), it is easy to say that my life was changed forever because of bitcoin.

I experienced extraordinary highs and lows in capital growth from 2012 onward. Price of bitcoin itself was moving so rapidly back then and with the very few exchanges that were around getting hacked or closing shop, extraordinary banking red tape, and scammers, I eventually moved the majority of my capital out of btc when price hit over $1000 USD. In hindsight this was my first significant mistake.

I then realized quickly that having access to capital was itself a full-time job juggling capital preservation vs capital growth.

From BTC to Africa

I started travelling and surrounding myself with more educated successful people than myself and started learning about other sectors that would have been out of reach if it wasn't for trading bitcoin back in Australia. However I was still learning and made a lot of mistakes during this time. I felt I was in a rush. I took all my savings and invested it all into a project my team and I believed in.

What I decided to do in roughly 2014-2015 was to invest my capital into a renewable energy project in Guinea, West Africa (note for everyone - putting all your eggs in one basket is another big lesson I learnt the hard way about). So to make my dream a reality, I put together a team of investors, engineers, a consul (to manage governmental relationships), lawyers, accountants, office staff, construction staff, security and started building great relationship with the government to pass on our intentions to them. In the end we received the correct licenses, land and started building a secure compound for a bio-diesel oil refinery (carbon positive - no negative environmental impact at all!) which gasified plastic and refined used motor oil etc under pressure (think of a big pressure cooker).

Why Guinea and why a renewable energy bio-diesel refinery do you ask? Well, I saw a serious need in Guinea to provide a solution for their environmental problem (plastic and used motor oils were being incorrectly disposed of in makeshift landfills and the ocean) but also to provide jobs in a place that paid on average $3 usd a day for each worker and of course turn a profit so I could expand my operations nationwide and internationally.

Unfortunately I was not prepared for political unrest and when the President refused to step down and was taking measures to remain in power by seeking constitutional amendments I knew then that I could not continue investing everything I had into an unstable region. i am now in the process of selling everything on and I hope to recoup my costs.

Facing the real possibility that everything would be lost, I made peace with it (took me 2 years I wont lie it was soul crushing) and came back to my original love - anything and everything blockchain.

I realized that the market had developed significantly and that projects I saw launching in the early days such as Ethereum had revolutionized the space and were gaining public traction. I moved to Cyprus and after trying to work with a few startup blockchain projects I found a group of like minded individuals at Universal Crypto (UC) - a blockchain consultancy company (www.universalcrypto.org).

Initially at UC, I focused on trading OTC mainly but realizing that the space was full of bad actors I severely limited my clientele and focused mainly on providing liquidity and exchange advice to clients. My position with Universal Crypto is that of a liquidity consultant however I work on a wide range of projects now because at the end of the day I love blockchain!

I know good ol' Warren Buffett isnt exactly the most forward thinking person when it comes to understanding the purpose of blockchain officially, but this quote is exactly how I feel.

Quote from: https://www.thebusinessquotes.com/warren-buffett-quotes/

From infinity to beyond

One of the projects I am working on now is a project being spearheaded by Matt Starkey (Oracle-D) and once I understand completely what can be disclosed I will happily write more about it here on steemit.

What I have come to understand is that the moment I decided to step into the unknown of blockchain and bitcoin in the early days and chose it over the safety net of a typical job, I found it more fulfilling and it shaped my perspective from that moment onward.

I am grateful and humbled to be now a part of Steemit and I hope you the reader may have learnt something from my first post :)

Mark Sapolinski
Email: [email protected]
Universal Crypto