“We (miners) store up cryptocoin and HODL it. Just HODL, no selling, cuz we don’t expect to suffer torturous FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Say you sell it at 1,000 yuan today, but what if it rises to 100,000 yuan tomorrow? We’d rather live poor and have pickle for meals than sell a coin. My girlfriend could have been my ex for this.”

Sell cars and house to buy in “coins”

I’m from Longyan, Fujian, a province on the southeast coast of China. Since my teenager in high school, I’ve been a self-trained good gamer. In 2014, I broke up with my ex-girlfriend and decided to have a big go at my business – a street vendor selling trivial stuffs. I believe I’m good at long-term strategy, so after selling accessories for a few months, I turned to online business and once joined the Internet Water Army as a paid poster in social networking software like QQ and WeChat. In those days, e-commerce was in full bloom, but I turned to bitcoin. I picked up bitcoin reading a web fiction in 2015. The first sight I saw bitcoin I fell in love with it. After researching it for a whole week, I sold my cars and house to buy bitcoin which was priced at 1500 CNY back then. From then on I’ve get acquainted with this world full of overnight rich dreams and fantasies. The world sees me as a mad, but I see the pathetic world.

Hard times

My personal wealth is limited, to get start I have to raise fund. A friend introduced me to an investor who is committed to blockchain projects including the global first blockchain-related companies. In this industry I think he is the top guy. This guy, in order to help us get start, moved from a villa near the beautiful West Lake in Hangzhou to our neighborhood in Guangzhou, guiding us for two years. Later, even my early partner quit for he could not bear the poverty.

We miners lead a quite plain live without much consumption. We often have instant noodles. I heard there is a buddy who makes mining rigs in Beijing holding 200,000 bitcoins but living in a small old room far away from the main urban area. Many people cannot understand him.

Fourfold return of investment

In those early days, we mined in those remote mountains or deep forests. I, with 4 guys, drove 2,000 km from Guangzhou to Lijiang, Yunnan, during the journey west I finished 20 electrician-must-read books, as I knew we have to do all the infrastructure work ourselves.

If the mining machine is not running well, you may lose hundreds of thousands or even millions in one day. In fact, mining itself is not complicated, purely automated, but electricians are needed to be around. Except the tough labor work, we did nearly everything. And it turns out that it is indeed lucrative. We can have an average annual return around fourfold. To mine a bitcoin, it may cost 20,000 CNY, we sell it at the price of 100,000. By mining and confirming transaction we make money, not by pump-and-dump.

Veteran miners are now gradually cashing out, withdrawing and making asset allocation. It’s time to enter the miners’ 2.0 phase where computing power is the big game. In the future, bitcoin is not a symbol of wealth, but how much computing power you have is.

Bitcoin mining is running out the world’s electricity?

Many people then will ask the question, is bitcoin mining worth in the cost of so much electricity? My point is that if the entire earth’s wealth is put on the blockchain in the cost of some electricity, it is too cost-effective. The Internet solves the problem of connection, and the blockchain solves the problem of trust between human beings.

The rich in physical world is not that welcomed

The first daredevils gain a great wealth at a very low cost, and the followers use a lot of time to strive for a bit of wealth. This is the reality. When everyone sees it lucrative, it becomes an issue of timing. Many who do great in traditional industry are quite low-key when in this industry. Why? Because they never know the bookish guy sitting by you holds much more bitcoin.

The rich in physical world is not that welcomed in this circle. It’s not a matter of wealth, but the mutual consensus. Say you need 50 million, alright, I’ll transfer it to you without signing contact. We are credible and in good faith, not crazy (as many think so).

Many people get-rich-quick has not had such wealth for the past decades and totally have no idea what to do with it. I am not getting rich overnight. Strictly speaking, I realize “understanding cashing out” through firm investment in value and long-term efforts. Mining is indeed a quick money maker, but my goal is to make 100 billion, not 100 million or 200 million only by mining. (unwilling to disclose his asset now)

People around me know my experience will ask me for advice. I told him not to invest five-star hotels any more, but he couldn’t understand it. I told him to cut off some dying business and manage risk control, but he couldn’t make it.

They sell us high-priced house, we sell them coins

It must be clearly realized that this is the process of redistribution and recirculation of the global traditional wealth. That I mine bitcoin is to sell it to those who want to have bitcoin, just like that in the real estate, wealth-stimulated people will go to the real estate and be the property speculator. This is the redistribution of wealth.

The earliest miners are born in 1980s and 1990s, most their elders born in 60s and 70s could not accept it at first but later change their mind. Whether they accept it does not matter, it is the youth’s idea and action that matter. The future belongs to the young man. Those elders or precisely property speculators sell us house in high prices, and now we sell them “coins”.

As for you are the one who get reshuffled or the one enjoy the reshuffle, it depends on your timing and capability.

To be the Ant Financial in blockchain industry

My earliest understanding of the industry is that I wanna be the one “selling water” in the gold rush. To put it bluntly is that they go mining, we sell shovels. However, it was later discovered that this model may not be sustainable in the long term in the domestic context. That’s why we finally chose to go to the deep forests. With so many startups engaging in ICO, I feel very shocked. I think they are in the wrong way.

There are a lot of blockchain projects nowadays, to judge the project good or bad, its team and business model are quite essential. And if its token has a lock-up period, it’s a show of their attitude. I think it takes a good blockchain project 3-5 years to make something. For now, it is still in the time of bubble for most projects, and this is why I chose to be a miner first.

In fact, we have layout 1 million units of mining machines early in Romania and some countries in North America. Now I’ve decided to put the mining business out of the company and into a subsidiary. The parent company has now become an investment company that specializes in investments in blockchain projects and providing financial services for the entire industry chain. Our ultimate goal is to be the Ant Financial in the blockchain industry. I think you must aim big, or else you’ll have rivals everywhere.

As to whether we can make it or not, time will tell.