How a Sugar Daddy Sparked My Journey into Cryptocurrency Basics

If you were to ask me about investing in cryptocurrency a couple of years ago, I would have said, “That’s for people in their 30s with a stable job and aging parents.” Not for someone like me, in my early twenties, who liked to party and was just trying to be responsible enough to have a dog.

Plus, every guy my age who talked about investing or crypto felt like such a boring loser. It felt like astrology for men.

But then something pretty shocking happened in my family. My parents declared bankruptcy. Apparently, their money troubles started many years earlier, but they always kept it from me. Up until that point, they had bankrolled my lifestyle, and I never once had to justify my financial decisions to them. A weekend trip to Rome? Sure, sweetie, use this credit card. Had to get my car fixed because of a fender-bender? Don’t worry about it; your dad will come pick up the car and bring it to the mechanic for you.

What that meant when we lost everything, of course, is that I didn’t know how to live without getting money from my parents. I had never had a job. Never had a budget. And when one of my roommates suggested that I sign up for a sugar dating website, I said yes. I was used to being around rich older men already; they might as well help me get back on my feet.

I think my forwardness turned a lot of men off at first, to be honest. I would go into the first date with a list of demands: “I want you to teach me how to invest,” “I want part of my allowance to go towards a savings account,” “I want you to help me file my taxes.”

A lot of guys weren’t really willing to take on the kind of financial advisor role that I was hoping for, so a lot of them never called for a second date.

Dale was different, though. He had gone through something similar when he was my age, only he had been thrown out of his family for reasons he would only tell me after we built up some trust. He said that he wished someone could have coached him through his twenties, and he wanted to help me if he could.

“Your best option right now,” he said, “is crypto.”

Immediately, I was hesitant. Was this guy just trying to swindle me? I felt like the crypto boom had come and gone. I had already missed the train. And I told him as much.

“No, no,” he assured me. “Sure, you’re not going to get rich overnight like the early investors. But if you’re looking for long-term stability and growth, you’ve gotta get into crypto. I’ll teach you.”

And so, we started putting together an investment plan. And we broke it down into more manageable chunks:

Choosing the right crypto coin for me

Out of the gate, I was overwhelmed by the number of options out there. Should I go with the one that everyone trusted most? Should I try something less well-known but with potential for growth?

Dale sat me down and gave me three options. He said, “I’m not going to make this decision for you, but in my opinion, these are the best options available.” And while he gave me a rundown of the pros and cons of each one, he said that I should do some research on my own to decide which one was most appealing to me. In the end, I went with the one that has the most name recognition. I decided that it was best to play it safe to start, and then I could always change my mind the more comfortable I felt in the crypto space.

Setting up the wallet

I thought that choosing the coin would be the hard part, but then I was met with a long list of further questions once it came time to actually set up my wallet. Should I go with a custodial wallet or a non-custodial wallet? What was the difference between a hot and a cold wallet? What about software wallets versus hardware wallets? And most importantly (apparently), I had to learn what a seed phrase was and why it was so crucial to keep it safe.

Again, the key here was Dale. He was able to explain to me what every term meant and what it would mean for my investment. He helped me to understand how every decision at this stage could impact the way that my investment grew over time.

Deciding whether to hold or trade

When I first started asking Dale about crypto, I figured it was one of those things that you just bought and sat on and hoped that it increased in value. But actually, I was wrong in thinking that was the only course of action.

He explained to me that, sure, that’s an option. I could buy with the intention of holding. And most likely, over the course of many months or years, my assets would grow. In fact, Dale told me, this was a strategy that tended to do even better statistically than active trading. But, he warned me, the long game only works for people who are psychologically ready to play the long game. If I were someone who would get spooked easily by changes in the market, long-term holding could be anxiety-inducing.

That being said, buying and selling crypto was another method, potentially one that could give me greater gains in the short-term. When I looked lost, Dale laughed and reassured me that I didn’t actually have to do the trading myself. There were trading firms that could oversee it for me, as long as I was willing to give up a cut of my earnings.

In the end, Dale suggested that I do a little bit of both. The crypto that I held would be there quietly, going through the ups and downs of the market. And the crypto that I traded would be the riskier bet. I could win big, or I could lose it all. It was a risk I had to be willing to take if I was going to invest in cryptocurrency.

Protecting my assets (and my peace of mind)

Getting such a detailed rundown of what it would take to start trading crypto really made me feel motivated to get started. But it still felt unsafe to me. As in, how could I be sure that I wasn’t going to get hacked or taken advantage of by a trading firm? What would happen if the grid went down completely and I had zero access to my blockchain? What if I wrote down my seed phrase only to have my house burn down?

I shared my fears with Dale, and he kind of shrugged them off, as gently as possible, one by one.

“Yeah,” he said. “I hear you. And all I can say is that I can help you bulk up your online security. I can give you advice on how to choose the right trader. I can tell you that, probably, the grid won’t go down. I can remind you to get a smoke detector. But, at the end of the day, it’s all risk. That’s all any of us are doing. I can’t promise that everything will go right, but I can tell you that as long as we’re seeing each other, I’ll try to help as much as I can to help you through the ups and downs.”

That was all the assurance I needed to take the first step.

Checking in

At the beginning, a lot of my relationship with Dale revolved around talking about crypto and setting things up and me texting him in the middle of the night with panic-stricken questions. And I’m so thankful for his patience. But over time, as I learned the ropes and joined a select number of online forums (if you listen to all the online crypto bros, it’ll drive you crazy), I started to feel more confident on my own.

It’s been about a year and a half since I opened my first wallet, and in the time since, I’ve also invested some money in a mutual fund to have a stable, low-risk investment on the side. Beyond crypto, I’ve learned how to manage my money a little bit more responsibly and have even been able to help my parents get back on their feet.

And hey, in case this story didn’t have a corny enough ending, remember how I said I was just trying to figure out how to be responsible enough to get a dog? Well, after a few months of feeling more financially stable, Dale and I went to the shelter, and I brought home my first puppy. His name, of course, is Token (the people who know crypto get it!)