Here's a shiny new coin from the Royal Canadian Mint. It has a $50 face value, which seems like a lot until you realize that's only 1% of its price. There's 1 troy ounce of 99.99% pure gold bullion in this coin, giving it a melt value around $5000 CAD right now. But I just like the design. ; )
The 1oz gold maple leaf is recognized around the world. You can walk into any town on the planet with nothing but this coin in your pocket, and get whatever you need with the snap of your fingers. (And the same is true of a gold coin and any town on Earth at any point in the past 5000 years.) This is real money.
The obverse isn't as attractive, but here it is anyway:
I ordered a random year, and ended up getting 2023, which is fine with me.
It's in mint condition, and sure feels nice against my skin. Heavy, dense, cold, real.
Why did I buy gold at the all-time high? That's sometimes a questionable move. 2 main reasons:
- Because I believe it's going much higher.
- Because I bought it with cryptocurrency that is also at the all-time high.
When BTC hit $123k a few days ago, I pulled the trigger on this coin. When it goes to a new high (such as 130k), I'll do it again.
I'm also going to be unloading my altcoin positions over the next several months, also likely into precious metals. I don't really believe in holding fiat currency for very long. It's a tool to be used when necessary, and that's about it. Dollars aren't money.
GOLD is money!
Got gold? I do!
That's me playing with 2 full tubes of gold maples earlier this year. I got them with BTC and converted them to cash a few days later. The cash paid off a $100k debt that had been crippling my life for over a decade. Crypto had a big part in helping me get my life back together, I can't deny that, and have to acknowledge it.
Once the debt was gone, I was allowed to begin rejoining the rat-race (general society) again. It has taken 6 months to work my way through all the hoops and fees, but I now have my passport, driver's license, and other 'permission slips' (official documents). I received my DL card in the mail today. Not looking quite as chipper as I did at 16 when I first got it, but happy to be alive.
Of course I have to get myself a vehicle, or at least rent something. But now that I've got the license, and some savings, that's going to be possible. I am going to take my 6 year old son to see the ocean for the first time in his life! We're going to drive (about 1 hour) to the beach next month, to spend a Summer day exploring and making memories. He deserves that, and he wants that, and I can finally provide it for him. Excited!
Crypto and gold were part of it all happening. At Christmas I had no idea how I was going to make it work. But an exit plan finally came together, and the price did what I thought/believed/foresaw it doing. Some skill, some help from others, and some luck all came together for me. I am blessed.
Short version of my story
I helped a lot of people learn about crypto in 2013 (and even earlier) on my YouTube channel. Previously I had talked about gold and silver, but branched out into Bitcoin when I learned about it early. Many of my viewers got quite rich. I stayed out of it for personal reasons, believing it to be a form of investing, which I personally avoid. (I now see it more like adopting a new paradigm, not really investing... so if I could go back in time I would embrace Bitcoin from the start at like $20.) In 2016 I agreed to get myself a wallet and learn more about using crypto (not just predicting prices). Some viewers donated and soon I had 0.2 BTC. That's far less than the hundreds I had been offered by many friends and followers for years, but better than nothing.
I put that 0.2 BTC into STEEM, powered up, and started grinding in early 2018. It went nowhere. Steem fell apart so I moved to hive and bought HIVE with my entire savings/earnings. Then the downvote cabal struck once I finally started to pull in $25+ posts regularly. Back to zero. So I came to blurt and put it all into BLURT, and started grinding and curating. But the price fell by 99% and has not recovered.
And yet...
One of those subscribers I helped out and got rich, also became a friend. He valued my predictive powers of the BTC price, and we were bothers in freedom. He got cancer. He used the money he made off BTC to fight it with all kinds of alternative treatments, which made him feel better and prolonged his life, but ultimately he lost the battle.
Toward the end, in chats he told me he was going to give me a bit of BTC in his will. I said just spend it on your health! He did, of course, but after he died I received 1.0 BTC to my cold storage wallet. I didn't even notice, at first. Once I did, I sat quiet at first, because it wasn't worth enough to pay off my big debt and get my life back.
But late last year, BTC prices exploded. By Christmas, I was buying huge amounts of gold with it. I paid off my debt, got my balls released from the vice, and I've still got a little bit left over. I moved some of the leftovers into DOGE and a few other altcoins, for a momentum swing play. No trading, just buying low (once) and selling higher (once). In and out, no messing around.
So my main play (Steem, Hive, Blurt) did nothing. I put years and years into creating content, curating relentlessly, and promoting the platform every way I could. But I've got $3000 worth of tokens I probably can't even sell. Whatever.
Doesn't matter, though. I accidentally/randomly got a gift for helping people out, and correctly handled that gift until it was enough to change my life, then put it into effect. I got what I needed done, just not in the way I was originally planning to. I can't be anything but happy about this. I'm counting my blessings and thanking my guardian angels, believe me.
As altseason comes on, DOGE and my other picks are beginning to bubble on the launchpad. I'll soon have handfuls of these 1oz gold maples... and no debt.
Get your shovel and frisbee, son, we're going to the beach!
DRutter
