When I was 15, I signed up for an ASX share trading game as part of my economics class. We were each given $50,000 of paper trading funds to invest in shares, and everyone could see their rank on a public leaderboard. I can’t remember if I made or lost money (probably the latter), but the exercise sparked my interest in investing. I liked the idea that I could outperform other people by doing more research, finding out which companies could potentially do better, and then seeing that reflected in reality in my portfolio.
By the end of the competition I was hooked. I was working at a local butcher’s almost every day after school and had saved up a nice little pocket of money that I wanted to use to buy my dream car, a Landcruiser. If I could invest the money and expand my portfolio I could buy the car even sooner.
So I set out to find real shares. My journey was short-lived, however. I quickly learned that I had to be 18 to open a share trading account in Australia. Further research revealed that I could ask my parents to open a trust that would allow me to invest on their behalf until I turned 18, but the idea never came to fruition.
Undeterred, I continued to search for other things to invest in. I looked at gold bars, collectible coins, stamps – anything I could invest my savings in. I came across mentions of this thing called “Bitcoin” on an investment forum on Reddit. This led me to the temptation to find out what cryptocurrency was.
To be honest, at that point I was just interested in investing in anything, anything. I didn’t look into Bitcoin investment opportunities in depth. I just knew that Bitcoin would increase in value and that I could buy it without being 18, which was important to me at the time.
So I googled “buy bitcoin now” and clicked on the first link. It took me to a website that appeared to be based overseas and that detailed how to buy bitcoins via bank transfer.
Full of confidence, I walked into my bank the next day and announced that I was sending all my savings to Poland to buy bitcoins. Of course, the bank clerk didn’t take me seriously.
Undeterred, I eventually found some local Facebook groups of Australians interested in cryptocurrency. I got in touch with one of the more active members of the community and chatted to him on the phone to find out how to get started. It turned out he lived nearby and said he would be happy to meet me in person to explain some concepts and show me how to set up a crypto wallet.
He seemed genuine, so I arranged to meet him for coffee at McDonalds. I chose a busy, public place because I was wary of meeting someone online and thought that if I was going to break the golden rule, I might as well do it smartly.
Full of confidence, I walked into my bank the next day and announced that I was sending all my savings to Poland to buy bitcoins. Of course, the bank clerk didn’t take me seriously.
To my relief, he turned out to be honest and very helpful. He showed me how to set up a paper wallet and immediately sent me some bitcoins. And so I had my first little chunk of bitcoin. It wasn’t much, but for me it was the start of something big.
Little did I know that this was just the beginning of a journey that would take up the next decade of my life.
