# My crypto journey
Not just a degen story, but this is how I approached crypto, ignored, tried again, betrayed & trying again. As a submission to Spartan Labs, this is the first time I write down everything & it's very interesting to recall everything and remember why I started.

If you're reading this, Shaun, Hope it doesn't waste your time. Thanks for reading.

I first learned about Crypto/Blockchain since 2015-2016, with mining Ether. With my friends we set up some PCs with ATI Radeon VGA & mined ETH then sold for shirts, I was just a geek trying new tools with friends.

Completely ignored it until 2018, lot of success ICOs happened (globally & in Vietnam) - crypto/blockchain catched my attention one more time. I spend more time to read, research & learn carefully about what crypto/blockchain is about, and I was super excited about its future.

At 2018, I was and Engineering Head of an proptech UK company, leading Vietnamese dev center. A safe place to sit until my kids go to university. But with excitement I have with crypto, I quitted to join an ICO as Engineering Manager, to lead projects' development (dApp, wallet...). CEO was high reputation technologist, and the BOD was people who has great achievements & successful businesses. My family called me nuts, for quiting real-estate for virtual-money. And next 6 months was super roller-coaster to me.

Collaborated with great teams (mobile, backend, frontend, design..), We shipped our products on time with commited timeline to ICO's investors. We were so confident with the project. Over confident with market, I've put:

- My daughters' lucky money to multiple projects, buying lot of ETHs at $700 (just fomo, no nothing about BA, TA..)
- Spend saving money to run TOMO chain node (know nothing about node operation, just trust TOMO & team)
- Put most income into our ICO token (To the MOON!! We're confident right?)

Then, there's something wrong with BOD, CEO got beaten (physically) & kicked out. Rumors said that a rugpulls is prepared then all team got fired without notice or compensation. Not too long later, the winter began & our ICO token price gone to earth. I was financially serious suffered & super fear with Crypto, everything I believe was just crashed: ideas, people & next stage of career.

But I can't just quit. Especially when I see how people solved things that can't be solve back there in 2018, like
- With ENS so you don't have to remember your hash address
- With NEAR wallet, crypto access is much more easy
- With Defi, Gamefi.. serious things are built not just by selling "whitepaper"

So, I continue my crypto journey as a retail investor since Defi Summer 2020, and get involved into building with various projects. The story is going.