Hargrave - Blockchain for Everyone: How I Learned the Secrets of the New Millionaire Class (And You Can, Too)

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.

When I bought bitcoin in 2013, the price was $125. Four years later, that same bitcoin was worth $20,000a staggering 15,900 percent gain .

Swept up in the excitement, plenty of investors bought that same bitcoin at $20,000. A year later, the price had plummeted to $3,500an equally staggering 83 percent loss .

Like the gold rush of the 1850s and the dot-com boom of the 1990s, investors in this world of new money are mining massive wealth, seemingly overnight. Great fortunes are built before breakfast, then lost along with lunch.

How can an ordinary investor build a fortune, without betting the farm?

Like you, Im an ordinary investor. And I did bet the farm.

Thats the hilarious, harrowing story Im about to tell you. I won big, then lost big, then... well, youll see. Its an adrenaline-fueled roller-coaster ride, full of colorful characters straight out of central castinga strangely addictive story youll want to read cover to cover. Maybe in a single sitting!

Along the way, youll learn about bitcoin, the underlying technology called blockchain, and a strategy for making responsible investing decisions with this new money: how to build a fortune without betting the farm.

Im an ordinary investor, not a financial adviser, so its important to read the entire storyboth the stomach-churning risks and the money-earning rewardsbefore you make your own decisions. Do your homework. Think for yourself. And never invest more than you are willing to lose.

I was willing to lose a lotand I did. But I gained something priceless: the knowledge Im about to share with you. Use it well.

Health, wealth, and happiness,

Sir John Hargrave

I got you a surprise.

The year was 1995, and my wife, Jade, and I were standing outside the technology media company where I worked. A black stretch limo, sleek as a hot buttered dolphin, rounded the corner and drove up to us.

I laughed and squeezed her hand. This is the best birthday ever.

It gets better, she promised.

Sticking his head out the sunroof, my coworker Ned yelled, Wooo! Happy thirtieth birthday!

The limousine doors opened, and out spilled a raucous group of friends and coworkers, young technology professionals riding high on the dot-com bubble.

This is really something else, I observed as Jade and I climbed into the limo. Our company had recently gone public on the New York Stock Exchange, and everyone was celebrating: party hats, champagne... There was a platter of oysters perched precariously on a seat, and when my friend and coworker Genevieve climbed in, she accidentally sat on them.

Gen sat on the oysters! Chris shouted, and everyone erupted in howls, including Gen.

Have some shrimp! Chris shouted, throwing a shrimp at me. And a boilermaker! He handed me a drink.

Whats a boilermaker? I asked.

Beer with a shot of whiskey! Chris responded cheerfully. Boilermakers for everyone! He stuck his head out the sunroof as the limo pulled out. Boilermakers for Boston! He grabbed a handful of shrimp and tossed them at an innocent pedestrian. The limo erupted in laughter.

A drive-by shrimping! Gen laughed.

This will end badly, I predicted, taking a big swig. It tasted like jet fuel and hops. Where are we going?

Thats the best part. Jades eyes sparkled. You know how youve always wanted to see that comedy hypnotist?

Get out, I said. The one who gets you onstage and makes you think youre a donkey?

Thats the one.

You are the most thoughtful wife ever. I squeezed her thigh.

Hey, whats our stock price? Ned asked.

Closed just above $19, Gen replied, dabbing at the cocktail sauce on her dress with a handful of napkins.

There was a brief silence as everyone calculated the value of their stock options while pretending not to. I did some quick mental math and had one of the greatest shocks of my life.

I was a millionaire.

True, it was just on paper; I didnt have a million dollars in cash. I had stock options worth a million dollars. That meant if I stayed with the company another year and the stock price stayed at $19, I could then sell the stock, making a million dollars in the trade.

Who cared? Technically, I was a millionaire. On my thirtieth birthday!

No one knew how many stock options everyone else held, so we had to keep all this to ourselves. Suddenly a dam exploded, and the limo erupted in cheers. Woo-hoo! yelled Chris, lighting up a Roman candle and firing it out the sunroof. FOOM.

What are you doing?! Genevieve laughed. FOOM.

Hey! The limo driver pounded on the glass partition. You have to stop that. FOOM.

I looked over at Jade. I knew she had already made the same calculations, probably figuring in tax and depreciation. She had also mentally run several what-if scenarios with best-case, worst-case, and likely-case stock prices in a year, when we could cash out. We shared a kiss.

Get a limo, you two! Chris shouted now, then stuck his head out the window. Limos for everyone!

Maybe it was the boilermaker kicking in, but the scene suddenly seemed surreal. I had grown up in a middle-class neighborhood in Ohio, then moved to Boston to become a comedy writer. I wasnt born into wealth or privilege; my trust fund was a Honda Civic. Now I was a millionaire riding in a limo?

Head spinning, I tried to reverse engineer how this had happened.

True, I had worked like crazy since graduating college five years earlier. But this seemed too good, like something youd see in the opening chapter of a book. I looked around, wondering if we were already at the comedy hypnotist and I was dreaming the entire scene.

When the Internet happened, it was the right place and the right time . I had landed a job with a media company that published computer magazines like PC Magazine and Computer Shopper . (For younger readers, magazines were stacks of colored paper that were sold in things called bookstores.)

We understood this stuff. The company was one of the first to start publishing its articles online, so we were well-positioned when Internet companies started taking over Wall Street. We were not only reporting on dot-coms; we had also built one of the biggest dot-coms. We were dot-com double dipping.

I was also following my passion : the Internet was so intellectually fascinating, so technologically seductive, that I couldnt stop playing with it. I wanted to share it. So I fused my comedy writing with my love of technology to become a comedy-tech writer, explaining the Internet in a way that was simple and fun.