Nat Eliason was no stranger to crypto.

He’d watched from the sidelines during the 2013 Bitcoin boom and dipped his toes into the market during the 2017 ICO craze, only to lose most of his investments.

By 2021, with the arrival of his first child, he felt the FOMO (fear of missing out) more than ever.

The promise of quick riches was too enticing to ignore.

BUT… here’s where his life took a huge turn.

(I talked all about it in my podcast with him back in July.)

Going All In

Nat didn’t just invest in crypto; he went all in. He taught himself Solidity, the programming language of Ethereum, and started building smart contracts.

Before long, he found himself deeply involved in a project called Cryptocraft, a game built on blockchain technology.

Nat’s work with Cryptocraft started with a modest payment in tokens, but as the game gained popularity, those tokens skyrocketed in value.

At one point, his holdings were worth over $13 million. But here’s the catch: in the world of crypto, liquidity is everything.

If the liquidity is low, the value of your holdings is often far greater than what you can actually cash out.

Instead of cashing out and securing his fortune, he reinvested, believing the value would keep rising.

Unfortunately, going all-in wasn’t the right move. His millions turned to dust.

The Chaos

One of the most striking aspects of Nat’s journey is the psychological impact.

The constant stress of watching your portfolio swing wildly in value, the fear of missing out, and the pressure from other investors—it’s a unique form of torture.

Despite the chaos, Nat remains convinced that crypto is here to stay. But the road ahead won’t be smooth.

We’re still in the wild west phase, with scams and Ponzi schemes lurking around every corner.

Yet, as history has shown, every financial innovation goes through this phase—just look at the dot-com bubble or the early days of hedge funds.

The next big wave? AI coins, decentralized AI models, and the tokenization of real-world assets.

Imagine a world where you can invest in someone’s future income, trade sports tickets as NFTs, or even use stablecoins for everyday transactions, cutting out the middleman and saving billions in fees.

The Takeaway

Nat’s advice to the casual investor is simple: unless you’re ready to dive deep and live in the world of crypto 24/7, stick to the basics.

The speculative side of crypto is not for the faint of heart. It’s a place where fortunes can be made and lost.

The best advice: Never invest more than you can afford to lose.

In the end, the best strategy might just be the simplest one: measure what matters, and don’t get swept away by the hype.

We have a special crypto service for that called Early Stage Crypto Investor.