Hello everyone!! My name is Rhys. I am an Australian in my late 20s living in the beautiful city of Hangzhou, China. I am an avid cryptocurrency investor and aspiring businessman here is my story:

Why did I move to China?

Firstly some background - I haven't really had much direction in my life. I have always felt I wanted a different path than others. At one stage I wasn't even going to university but I guess it was the 'safest option' so I obliged. University wasn't that great in my opinion, outdated content and a lot of non-practical theory, however there were a number of key concepts pertaining to finance that I learned and still apply to this day, in that respect I am glad I went.

After graduating from university I spent a number of years in the finance industry and eventually realised I was just not going to spend my life in an office working 60+ hour weeks climbing the corporate ladder to earn a good salary and hope for a couple of vacations a year. I wanted to live life on my terms.

In 2015, I visited China on holiday and was amazed by the place. When I arrived in China it was totally different to what western media leads us to believe. As soon as I stepped out of the Beijing airport I was amazed by the sheer size of the city, the speed of life and the feeling of being free from my small city in Australia. When I arrived back in Australia I started to study mandarin, not necessarily with the intention of living in China, however I believed that China was set to become the world leader economically and Australia had very strong business-ties with China which I thought I could leverage sometime in the future. While being back at work for the next two years I slowly started to resent my job, although I enjoyed finance and helping clients, the stress was immense and I realised it wasn't good for my health nor was I going to be able to achieve my financial goals. I decided to turn my attention to China, my plan was to acquire a teaching job that required minimum hours and provided decent accommodation in a tier 2 or 3 city. From there I would look to establish my own business or undertake some consulting. Luckily for me my experience in business and finance made it easy to find a job teaching.

Life in China

Once I arrived in China I spent most of time trying to network and meet as many people as possible. Networking is incredibly important in general but even more so in China. The great thing about China is most people you meet are always interested in making connections for business. In the 16 months I've been living in China I have worked for for a Chinese consulting company (story for another time!), open a trading and consulting company with some friends turned-business partners (another story for another time!) and found a number of personal consulting jobs. It has been a great journey thus far and I hope it mat continue.

Cryptocurrency & Investing

I had been investing in stocks for years with not much success if I'm honest. I think part of the problem was I was too much of a 'big picture guy' making macro investments without considering micro factors. Eventually I realised that I can't win in a game whereby I have no competitive advantage. I needed to have knowledge of trends that would put me ahead of the market, after living in China I feel I have that knowledge that I will use in the future.

I first invested in cryptocurrency in 2014. Honestly, I didn't know much about it then, however being in finance I worked with banks on a daily basis and knew just how ripe for disruption they were. Funnily enough I couldn't invest as much as I wanted at the time as banks in Australia started banning the purchase of bitcoin - which I need to trade into the cryptocurrencies I wanted. I am very much a long term investor and after buying crypto I turned my attention to different asset classes while occasionally checking in on coinmarketcap. Not much happened between 2014 & 2017 in the crypto market, then BANG in the third quarter of 2017 the market truly began to move. At this stage I started to do more research in crypto/blockchain and now I believe my future in terms of investing and work will be in crypto/ blockchain. My investment in 2014 coming to fruition has finally given me the confidence to trust my judgement.

My ambitions & Steemit

My plan is to continue to grow my business with my partners, continue studying mandarin and investing across cryptocurrency, stocks and property with the hope of not ever having to go back to a lifestyle that I don't have considerable control over. I just want a life where if I want to fly to London to watch my beloved Arsenal play football I can, if I want to go volunteer in a country I can.. essentially financial freedom.

Here on steemit I will post articles pertaining to cryptocurrency, business/investing, China & life. I feel there is a lack of commentary from expats in China pertaining to business and cryptocurrency, in addition there are a lot of misconceptions about the country. Through my writing I hope I can give people some insight on the country.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions I would be more than happy to answer.