How I got into crypto, got free crypto, why I’m getting out and what I’ll do with the money.

I'm a website developer in my early 40's. To be honest, I should have gotten into crypto much sooner. I read about Bitcoin in the early 2012 or 2013 but I never really thought it would take off. To be honest, I thought it was one of those E-gold scams that used to exist back then. Every now and then I would read about it but I never had any interest in Bitcoin or any other crypto. In fact, I always thought Bitcoin was the only crypto that existed.

That changed in December 2017. I had a Shih Tzu named "Gizmo" who I had since he was only a few weeks old. Because I was always self employed and working from home, when he was little I would always keep him on my lap while I was working. And for the next more than 10 years, he would still sleep on my lap for hours, even though he got bigger and heavier. My legs often fell asleep but I didn't want to wake him up. Unfortunately, that day in 2017 Gizmo had a seizure. We raced to the vet in the middle of the night but it was too late. We never found out what really happened because I didn't want an autopsy. It was too painful. We opted to have him cremated and his ashes are still with me in my home office.

As I walked out of the vet office and I went to the counter to pay, the vet refused to take any payment. He did say however that he would accept a donation for an animal shelter if I insisted on paying. I gave him $100 and he asked me if I had a Doge wallet. That is the first time I had ever heard about it. Long story short, he introduced to me and as a "thank you" sent me back 4000 Doge, which I later found out was worth around $10. That was the first time I ever held any crypto.

I went home and forgot about it until a few months later when I found it had almost tripled to $30. I decided to buy another $200 worth of Doge and I now held a total of almost 30,000. Shortly after I bought more, it dumped hard and I thought I pretty much lost all of my money and therefor also lost interest in crypto.

Eventually, I changed mobile phones, too. For the next 3+ years, I didn't touch anything related to crypto even though I worked in web development every day. We got a new dog and although he has his own great personality, he can never replace Gizmo. And he doesn't need to. Anyways, this is not about my dog, I just wanted to mention that.

My non-interest in crypto came to an end in early 2021 however. Doge was suddenly all over the news and I searched all the boxes where we keep stuff we don't need anymore for that mobile phone. I found it after looking for almost an hour. I didn't have a cable to charge it anymore so I had to wait until next day to go buy one. I finally got home and it still worked. And I was still able to access my wallet.

Suddenly, my interest in crypto returned. I held my bag even though I everyone told me to sell in the past few months. I also bought some BTC, ADA, ETH, BTH and ATOM. I must admit, I didn't really do any research when I bought. I just bought the top ones and got lucky. I didn't lose any money and actually made some. But the best performed by far in my portfolio is obviously still Doge.

In the past 3 months, I've learned a lot about crypto and I'm ready to invest in it. But because of my newly acquired wealth of crypto knowledge, my run with Doge must also come to an end. I don't know if it will go on to $1 or even $10, but I've decided that it's now too risky to keep holding my $17,000+ worth. I predict that it will dump after this weekend but I could be wrong.

It's been a good run and I'm happy about it. I am going to symbolically keep 1 Doge in my wallet, forever. I will transfer it back to my original wallet and let the batteries run dry for one last time. And it will forever have a special place in my heart.

As for the money I will get, I will donate $5,000 to an animal shelter in my area that is in desperate need of funds. In the spirit of crypto, I will ask them about accepting the donation in crypto. If they do, I will make sure they understand the potential volatility. $17,000 is a lot of money for me because we live basically paycheck to paycheck depending on how much work I have so I can't afford to donate more. If I had more money, I would donate it all. And if I ever do make a lot of money with crypto, I will keep making donations. We also decided to get one more dog, a Shih Tzu once again. My girl joked about naming him/her Doge but no decisions have been made.

Anyways, that's it. Thank you for reading (if anyone even reads this) and for letting me share my story. I see a lot of negative opinions against certain coins around here and I just wanted to write something positive. We don't need to attack each other just because we hold different coins. Not everyone bought a specific coin because they saw it on TV and thought they could make a quick 1000x and not everyone who still holds a specific coin is delusional. We all have our opinions and reasons and we should all respect those of others who may be different than our own.