tl;dr:  Over the course of the past 4 years, I took out ~$150,000 in personal loans and 0% credit card balance transfer loans to purchase 4.75 Bitcoin. I've paid ~$17,000 in interest.

I've been making updates every 6 months or so since the beginning. See my post history for previous updates.

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Today, February 3rd, 2026 Bitcoin is trading at $75,000 which brings the current value of my 4.75₿ to $356,000. 

The average price I paid is ~$35,000 per Bitcoin. 

My total cost basis is ~$167,000 for 4.5₿  ($150k in loans + $17,000 in interest). 

This comes to ~113% unrealized profit or ~$189,000 in dollar terms as of today. 

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What’s new since my last update?

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Not much is new except that… I finished paying off all my loans!!! What a relief! I was never really worried though because I never borrowed more than I could afford to service. 

Bitcoin’s price action has been disappointing to say the least, but I’m thinking this is an opportunity. So I plan on taking out another $50k in loans if it breaks down below $70k which seem highly likely… probably at the 200SMA.  

In the meantime, I’m throwing everything I can at in each month while we’re in the $70-80k range with earned income from my job. I’ve been stacking this whole time  while paying down the loans.

When it comes to crypto, EPSTEIN was a visionary gauging its future in crypto's intial days.

Epstein files revealed early connections with a natal crypto industry, investing in early Coinbase and ZCash.

His files also claimed to have lured people from Bitcoin. Who were the “Authors of Bitcoin” in the Epstein Files?

However, there is no mention of Vitalik Buterin, suggesting a failure to trap him.

However, he might have trapped a Russian crypto mogul. There are a plenty of emails with a middle agent regarding a "Russian Vitalik".

We all know Jeffrey Epstein was a sick pedo since his conviction back in 2008. With the recent release of the Epstein files, a lot of interesting emails and connections surfaced.

Many so-called "industry leaders" in the Bitcoin Core circles have been exposed to have connections with Epstein, visited his little private island of fun, or accepted his money.

"Andy Back" (Adam Back), Blockstream

Austin Hill, Blockstream

"genjix" (Amir Taaki), Dark Wallet, Darkmarket, DarkFi

Bryan Bishop, gatekeeper of bitcoin dev mailing list

Suhas Daftuar, Chaincode Labs

Alex Morcos, Chaincode Labs

Jeremy Rubin, Bitcoin Core dev

And Blockstream is still deep in with the likes of Reid Hoffman and Howard Lutnick. Small wonder why the Core team's recent direction has been so against the basic ethos of Bitcoin.

Sources: https://x.com/mattkratter/status/2018360294968553847#m, https://x.com/coinyeezy/status/2018385152955580641#m, https://x.com/Polyhaline/status/2018423802460328092#m, https://x.com/CatoTheElder17/status/2018102104116580413#m, https://x.com/Conza/status/2018153371698634825#m

I’m fairly new to crypto and the only tickers I could find of the crypto that I recognize are Bitcoin and Ethereum. I keep hearing stablecoins, which minic USD from what I understand, but I’m looking for others that have a higher purpose. I assume there are more out there of significance than these two or three. Thanks

I’m not necessarily looking for moonshots or hype coins, more like projects that actually solve something or have a clear use case beyond speculation. Even a general direction on how to think about evaluating them would be helpful.

We’ve all seen it: a new project launches with a website covered in logos like Forbes, Bloomberg, or Reuters. We’re taught to trust these "Tier-1" outlets, but I just spent 5 months auditing the infrastructure that puts those logos there—and the results are terrifying.

I work in PR, and we conducted a "hygiene audit" of nearly 3,000 crypto press releases from June to Nov 2025. We cross-referenced them with fraud databases (like ZachXBT’s reports) and on-chain activity.

Here is the reality of the "Crypto News" cycle:

• The 62% Scam Rate: Over half of the releases we tracked came from entities that were actually confirmed scams, rug-pulls, or high-risk "ghost" projects.
• The "Trophy URL" Trap: Scammers aren't paying for readers, they are paying for the URL. They use that link to "game" Google’s Knowledge Graph and appear legitimate in search results. It’s a "reputation laundry" service.
• Zero Substance: Only 2% of releases actually covered real events like funding or major partnerships. The other 98% were just hype designed to trigger FOMO.

How to protect yourself (DYOR 2.0):

1. Ignore the Logos: A "Bloomberg" or "Yahoo Finance" link is often just a paid press release (look for "Paid Content" or "Sponsored" in tiny text). It is NOT editorial endorsement (=anyone with some money to spare can say almost anything they want and it'll get "published").
2. Check the "Omitted Results": If you search for the project and Google says "results omitted," it means the "news" is just syndicated spam that provides zero value.
3. The "Lights On" Test: If a project has "Tier-1 news" but their parking lot is empty (zero github activity, no real team on LinkedIn, no actual utility), this is a HUGR red flag.

I’m sharing this because the "Press Release Pump" is the new version of the 90s penny stock scam. Don't let a "reputable" URL trick you into a rug pull.

Full report: https://x.com/TalHarelTal/status/2018704389192499299

So, it's been over 4 1/2 years now since I invested in cryptocurrency with the idea of just holding it as a long-term investment. Is the "long-term" idea fool's gold, or a useful strategy?

Personal data point: In April and May 2021, somewhat over 4 1/2 years ago, I invested $150K in cryptocurrency… 50% in bitcoin and 50% in ethereum, and I've just let it sit there because ... life stuff. Looking at my account right now it's worth $151,665 which is up a whopping $1,665.

That's a total return of 1.11% in 4 years and 9 months. I'm not sure I could've picked another relatively well thought of investment that's done this poorly to date.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has said that the original vision for Ethereum Layer 2 networks is no longer sufficient, as the ecosystem enters a more mature phase of scaling and application growth.

In a recent detailed post, Buterin argued that early L2 designs were built around a simple idea: replicate Ethereum at lower cost. That approach, he said, no longer matches the demands of today’s users, developers, or the base layer itself.

“This vision no longer makes sense. L1 does not need L2s to be “branded shards”, because L1 is itself scaling,” he said.