Crypto can absolutely transform your life. Very few things can radically accelerate the growth of your wealth like crypto can. Take mine for example… 5 years ago in May 2020, we were renting a 3-bedroom apartment in the Bay Area with 2 kids under 2. BTC was sub-$10k and I 100% believed it would get to $100k in 5 years or less so I was focused on stacking what I could before then. At the time, our expenses were: + $3k/mo for rent + $4k/mo for childcare + $1.5k for food + $300/mo for student loans totaling $15k Plus, maybe $20k saved + $30k in a crypto portfolio at March covid crash lows. You can see a screenshot below of my March 2020 monthly cash flow report excluding some income/expenses from my wife’s job. Many months were like this where we barely broke even or were in the hole. In May 2020, CA State came calling for a mistake on our taxes in 2016 that would cost $10k in fees. Just demoralizing shit that would eviscerate our small savings for a future home. Anyways, we worked hard and lived paycheck to paycheck with no hope in sight of ever saving enough towards a home. But I kept finding ways to scrape together a few hundred or thousand to buy more BTC and ETH. Eventually, hope came in the form of DeFi. I earned a few airdrops, $10k here, $20k there, it was surreal to have any liquidity. At some point I crossed $100k for the first time in 2020 and began to believe I could do more with this money onchain navigating early DeFi during the mania. Back then, I didn’t sell much believing many tokens could go higher but I did take some profits into ETH sub-$1000 and BTC sub $10k before they would go on parabolic runs in 2021. About one year later in April 2021, we closed on a home. A wild series of events changed everything in one year. The key was I was making more than we did living paycheck to paycheck but we never stopped living like we did paycheck to paycheck. I was blessed with being so accustomed to having less money and living under a budget, that I scraped every bit of my new wealth into a growing portfolio of BTC and ETH, while saving each paycheck. We later borrowed against BTC for the down payment, probably was more dangerous in retrospect but my timing worked out, we bought a home, I paid off the loan to fund the down payment and went back to spending like we had $0. Eventually 2021 would come back to haunt me in the form of taxes due to yield farming and countless other taxable events but that’s another story for 2022. Point is we went from a little apartment to a beautiful single family home we love today. We have settled into it over 4 years by continually reviewing our spending habits, making sure we stay on track with budgets, and staying ahead of growing expenses so we can invest substantially more. I track it all meticulously out of habit from when we could afford nothing, but now it’s just bigger budgets with bigger goals for investing and saving. Anyways, as I was reviewing this data and how our budgets have drastically grown as our family has grown, I was reviewing what % of income we spend on the mortgage vs travel vs childcare vs food etc. It really is an incredible perspective to gain looking back 5 years ago. I realize I am living a life I dreamed of. It’s not living in a mansion, flying pjs, buying expensive cars. It’s having the ability to: + Own a beautiful home + Comfortably afford monthly expenses + Be generous with friends and family + Not worry about affording healthcare + Take meaningful family vacations + Have time/money to prioritize my health Don’t get me wrong, the lows have been brutal. 2022 felt like I could lose it all but I always had conviction long term that crypto (namely Bitcoin, Ethereum, DeFi and a few other ecos) would exponentially grow. All this to say, if you’re in crypto and you can survive 5+ years, and stay as long as possible exposed to the upside of this space, you can radically improve your life. Just takes a lotta patience and grit.