Realities in crypto land, just got scammed out of 14K

First, I'd like to say this is not a fear article about Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been the best thing that has happened to our family. A year ago, we started trading crypto-currencies with 8K which was our last money in the whole world and we were up to our necks in debt. Since then, we've come to gain over 1000% with my husbands novice trading skills. Basically, the way my husband describes it that Bitcoin IS the reset that all awake people and Patriots have been waiting for. In Clif High's words "we have averted Mad Max World and have officially entered into Sci-Fi World via the grace of the cosmos". Clif is one of our crypto-gurus and he's changed our lives.

About 2 months ago we took some gains and invested into a HIGH INTEREST YIELDING VEHICLE (HIV), i.e. Bitpetite, Crypto-Solutions, Controlled Finance etc. Most of these vehicles are set up as pyramid schemes. The idea is that the new money pays for the old money. Deep down, we knew that is was a scheme; however, we lied to ourselves in order to make the promised profits. We invested $1000 and shortly thereafter, the platform/website disappeared. LESSON LEARNED

This brings us to the present. After really thinking things through, the best perspectives in managing our crypto-goals were to build our investments and revenue stream sources. On the investment side, we have stacked some crytpos, but on the revenue stream side, you have to get really creative. At first, we thought it was over our heads but after educating ourselves we have begun to grasp and have decided to go with mining. We began searching for the best available machines. After doing some research we decided to go with a company called BitMain.

Now let me start by saying we are very aware of scammers, and we know what to look for when looking up websites, when going to crypto websites for commerce. We have developed rules now. Rule number 1: go into the search box and type it by yourself. Rule number 2: check the spelling. The third rule is to look at the contact information and read the entire site, looking for English grammar errors and misspelled words, clear indicators of a possible scam.

On the day that we were ready to invest and buy some mining machines, we got some really bad news. The bad news in combination with us hitting our investment saving goal led us to make a big mistake. We logged onto Google and typed in BitMain. the first company that comes up is a company called Bitmain-Alliance. The Bitmain part was spelled correctly and when we went to the site it had the Bitmain logo. The platform is very sophisticated and very user friendly. We went ahead with a purchase for mining machines and make the purchase, violating our third rule: to check the contact information. The next morning, we excitedly decided to look at the website again and review the fun little toys heading our way. When we looked at the contact information, our jaws dropped, our stomachs , we notice a US address with a WhatsApp phone number. We immediately began to investigate and came to find out that we had been scammed.

We had made a decision while emotional and did not execute our due diligence. There actually is a website called BitMain which is a reputable company (we think). However, it was the third selection down when you run the google search. Our scam website was the first selection on the google website. A year ago, when we started this loss would have been detrimental. By the grace of God, this will only be a very valuable lesson. To anyone who is wondering about mining and feels like the information might be over their heads, don't be discouraged. It's easier than you think; you must press on. This occurrence has really motivated us to learn even more about our crypto-journey.

The lesson we are taking away from this experience is that there are 2 financial worlds, one fiat and one crypto. The crypto world is what holds the most promise for humanity but it is very new and is like the Wild West. Absent of any government regulation and consumer protection (is that a bad thing when it comes to currency?). This is a beautiful concept, its going to revolutionize and force humanity to self educate and be self-reliant when it comes to responsibility for personal finance. We will become a more wealthy and educated community as we progress through our long journey to True freedom, let's hope.