Let me tell you about when I first came into contact with the crypto world:
Every story is a real experience that closely relates to our lives. It allows us to empathize and gain insights.
The protagonist of this story is Awei, a post-90s individual. He lost 1.6 million trading cryptocurrencies and once attempted suicide but failed. With the help of his family, he overcame some difficulties and wants to share his experiences about how he fell into the abyss of cryptocurrency trading, driven by human greed, which ultimately led to his downfall. He advises those still trading cryptocurrencies to stop in time and return to a normal life.
In conversations with Awei, I felt a deep connection. I would constantly check market trends on my phone, had trouble sleeping at night, and sometimes experienced nightmares. My mental state deteriorated, and my health was also not ideal. I felt like I couldn't do anything besides trading cryptocurrencies.
The following content is Awei's self-narrative, hoping it will provide some advice to everyone.
After graduating from college, I had done many jobs, including tourism sales, and I had worked in financial loans. I had also done e-commerce with friends in Jinhua. Later, I made a bit of money, and at that time, I had over 800,000.
In May 2019, I had over 800,000 in hand, but I didn't cooperate with him anymore. After not cooperating, I rented an apartment in Jinhua. My wife wanted to join me in trading. My wife and I got married in 2017, and we had a daughter that same year. She came to find me to trade together because her job was relatively flexible. Since my lease in Jinhua hadn't expired yet, I didn't cooperate with friends anymore, and we traded in Jinhua.
During the process of trading, I felt like I had this money but didn't know what to do with it. I thought about doing something because back in 2017, I had heard a university friend mention virtual currency. He had only mentioned it once, but I didn't know much about it. Later, I started searching for it on my phone.
Around May, Bitcoin rose again from over 3,000 USD to over 9,000 USD. In May 2019, there were a lot of reports about it. I called my friend to ask how to handle it and how to download it. He said I could search online and mentioned there were exchanges.
He didn't teach me how to operate, so I had to figure out the installation and download everything on my own. I searched for various information online and downloaded an exchange. Initially, I invested 50,000, but by the end of May, I had invested a total of over 400,000, while still keeping around 400,000 on hand. After investing, I bought spot Bitcoin. Later, in early June, it dropped again to a low point of around 7,000 USD. I lost about 40,000 to 50,000, which made me quite uncomfortable because it felt like I had no other income, and losing 40,000 to 50,000 made me feel very uneasy.
Later, I found many interfaces on the app, including spot trading, leverage, and contracts. I clicked on everything. After selecting options, I checked some introductions. I chose a leverage for operations, and I bought it when it rose. I used about 400,000, and I should have used 1.5 to 2 times leverage. By late June to early July, my account had around 700,000, and I tasted the sweetness as my 400,000 turned into 700,000.
After I tasted the sweetness, in July and August, I still didn't fully understand how to play. I downloaded Weibo and followed some people. There were many opinions on Bitcoin analysis, and I thought one person's opinion was quite good, so I added them as friends and followed them. I also downloaded an app called Coin World, which was popular at the time. Now we have been blocked from it. People would post opinions in Coin World, and I found some of them useful, so I added them on WeChat. They would send me some analysis and opinions. I would send them a red envelope occasionally, but during that time I didn't earn much money. I followed them for more than a month, but the situation wasn't very ideal. At that time, I gave them over 2,000 in red envelopes.
About a month later, I bought Bitcoin again. My Bitcoin account had around 700,000, roughly 10 bitcoins. In early August, I started buying again, using 5 times leverage. One night, at the end of August, Bitcoin fell below 9,000 USD, dropping to around 8,300 or 8,200 USD. I received a margin call text, and I quickly tried to add funds to my account. Because I didn't have enough time to recharge, I hurried to close my position, but it was too late. My account was liquidated, and it seemed like there was only about 50,000 to 60,000 left. This was my first time experiencing a leveraged liquidation, and the whole process felt like a roller coaster.
I wanted to break even and recover my losses. I was feeling very uncomfortable. I told my wife that when we only had 50,000 left in the account from trading virtual currencies, I explained my feelings to her. She comforted me and told me not to be sad. I felt very upset and said I wanted to take some money out to make a comeback. I believed Bitcoin was a good investment, relatively stable and safe, and that I could earn back the money. I just used too much leverage, or perhaps I was a bit emotional and didn't control myself well.
She is from Wenzhou and is an only child. Her family has two resettlement houses, and one of them could be sold. Originally, it was meant for us. My wife and I sold one of the resettlement houses that had just been delivered a few months prior. We sold it at a cheaper price because we hadn't received the property certificate yet. We completed the transaction at around 90% of the price, which should have been around 1.08 million, maybe 1.07 or 1.08 million. After deducting the agent fee, the total was 1.05 million. We only received around 900,000, with 150,000 still outstanding. After receiving the 900,000, she gave over 200,000 to her father and then gave me 500,000.
So I invested another 500,000 in November. When I first started, I was still playing with Bitcoin. I watched my account balance slowly decrease, and I was very anxious. Sometimes I would wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, and sometimes I would have nightmares about liquidating my position, sweating profusely while sleeping, which led to poor sleep at night. Back and forth with these operations, my account had about 900,000 left.
With around 900,000, I found that storing and withdrawing money was quite troublesome, especially since it was in USD. At that time, I didn't have much other money I needed. So I left the money in my account, and I didn't withdraw it. I kept trading back and forth. In the end, while speculating on altcoins, my account had only 40,000 left. In around September 2020, I withdrew that 40,000, thinking I would save it for living expenses. I resolved never to trade cryptocurrencies again.
In October 2020, at the end of September, a friend called me. This friend was a former elementary school classmate. He asked what I was busy with and what I was doing. I told him my job wasn't very ideal. He mentioned he had a project and asked if I was interested. He said he needed a few more people and that we could make over 20,000 in a month. I asked what the project was.
This project was also related to virtual currencies. After two months, the government implemented regulations, so I stopped. During that time, I kept watching the market, feeling that I could recover my previous losses. I felt restless, but I had no money. After realizing I had good credit, I thought of applying for a credit card to get around 200,000, but I felt that wouldn't be enough and thought about making a bigger move.
Then I discussed with my wife about our house in Ningbo being delivered. I said I could use that house as collateral. I told her that my classmate had a reliable project that would definitely make money. I suggested we put in 800,000 to make money. After negotiating with him for over half a month, on January 20, we went to the bank for a loan. The loan was approved in two or three days because both of us had good credit, and the amount was not large, just 800,000. We deposited the money into our account. However, I became too greedy, and at one point our account reached 2.8 million. We were unwilling to stop, and later we ended up with only about 50,000 to 60,000 left in the account. I didn't know what to do after that.
I was thinking about where to get money to recover my losses. I later cashed out 200,000 from my credit card and put it directly into buying a virtual currency. At that time, my mindset was already very unstable and erratic, just thinking about how to recover my losses. I traded with leverage, and before long, that 200,000 was also lost.
I was in despair during those days, constantly searching online for various ways to die: jumping off a building, hanging myself, taking sleeping pills, which require a prescription and I couldn't buy on my own. I thought about jumping off a building, but what if I didn't die from the fall and ended up as a burden for my family? Ultimately, I chose to hang myself. I read many articles online about how many college students have died in various ways. Some said you could use a regular household wire, like the kind we have at home, to tie and hang yourself.
I just happened to have some wires at home, and I also took the household jump rope and the power strip wire, putting all of them into my backpack. I turned off the face recognition on my phone and wrote a will in the notes. I also wrote a physical will on paper. I found a hotel, told my wife I was going to meet a friend who wanted to chat. On the 20th of December, I went to the hotel. When I got to the room, I worried that the sound insulation of the hotel room wasn't good, so I played music on my phone. After that, I organized my will and ID, and wrote down some situations, apologizing to my family. After preparing everything, I was ready to commit suicide. In the bathroom, there was a kind of iron railing, and I hung myself there.
I initially used a wire, but I weighed over 140 pounds, and the wire was too thin, so it broke. I then tried using jump rope material, but that broke too. After that, I used the type of wire from a power strip, wrapping it around my neck. However, this wire was too hard and uncomfortable. I felt dizzy, and everything went dark. I struggled and fell beside the sink in the bathroom.
I felt like I was fading out for over half an hour, everything was gray, and I was in a daze. When I woke up, I found my ears were purple, probably from congestion, and there were marks on my neck. I thought that the rope was not right. I considered going to a hardware store to buy a proper rope. Then, I thought that maybe fate didn't want me to die because the wire I had tried to use had broken, and it allowed me to struggle out of it. I cried in the hotel, and after crying, I called my wife, saying I had deceived her. I told her that no friends came to find me as I had said. In fact, I was preparing to commit suicide in my room. She took a taxi to the hotel to find me, and when she arrived, we embraced and cried together. After we finished crying, she said we should go home.
After returning home, I knelt in front of my parents and told them everything. The family and relatives pooled money to pay off the mortgage on the house.
I still have some burdens in my heart and want to talk to someone. I hope that by sharing these experiences, everyone can learn from them. Trading cryptocurrencies harms both oneself and others, causing immense losses and psychological damage to oneself and one's family.
Awei's situation is relatively better. I know many friends who traded cryptocurrencies and either ended up heavily in debt or lost their families, with some even unable to afford meals.
Awei's story ends here. He was once carefree but ultimately took his life because of trading cryptocurrencies. Perhaps, as he said, fate didn't favor him. I hope he won't fall into the temptation of the crypto world again and will live a good life.
Everyone dreams of getting rich quickly, but when you participate, you don't realize you're just someone else's pawn. Waiting to be harvested by others, trading cryptocurrencies not only involves money at any time, but also brings immeasurable psychological torment. Cherish the past, reflect on life before trading crypto, stay away from the crypto world, and live a normal life.
If you want to share your story, contact me. Thank you for reading.