A Crypto Investment Story: Why I Bought DOGE And SHIB

All the kids at school around me were collecting and sharing the hologram Pokemon cards from their latest pack they managed to get ahold of by begging their parents or scrapping up a few dollars from their chores.

I thought it was pretty stupid at first...

Eventually, my best friend got me into them. I collected a few, from which I found a few moments of joy sharing what I had unpacked. But then the fad was gone, and I like many others moved on to the next entertaining moment of childhood.

Many of the cards simply got put away in drawers, thrown under the bed, and eventually made their way into the trash. But a few in a niche of diehard collectors stored them away in protective cases, or did not even open the pack at all!

These pokemon collectors then played a long game of HODL.

Pristine Pokemon cards — which cost a few chores not too long ago — have fetched tens of thousands of dollars in various auctions, with a rare 1st Edition Shadowless Charizard selling for nearly $380,000.

See Also: Dogecoin vs Shiba Inu Token

Why I Bought DOGE

As DOGE ran up in value earlier this year, I’m not gonna lie, I was first a bit of a hater.

Sure, I was jealous of all the gains people were getting, but still, I thought DOGE was just another shitcoin that has many flaws from a technical standpoint.

Then I learned DOGE is actually merged mined with Litecoin, and as a result has some level of network decentralization and security. My opinion began to change.

So I made the purchase.

Taking a step back, my experience with Pokemon cards and Dogecoin have strong parallels.

The purchase was to be a part of something bigger than myself. A moment in time where both culture and technology meet, and being a part of that with others was something I just had to do.

I won’t lie and say there was not a speculative side to my purchase with hopes that it would continue to rise and I could make a quick buck. That's part of what makes speculating fun. But that said, I only bought with money I was okay with losing in its entirety.

Fortunately, I made enough to take out my initial investment, plus a little, and still hold an insubstantial amount of money in DOGE compared to my overall portfolio.

See Also: How to Buy DOGE

Why I Bought SHIB

Right when I thought all of this was behind us, along came SHIB. A day after DOGE hit its all-time highs, SHIB blasted off for the moon, gaining over 1,000% in just three days.

I did not buy during the run-up, as I’m not necessarily a gambling man, and figured I would not roll the dice twice. Of course, the mania had to end as early buyers began to take their profits and fear took over. This sent the price tumbling upwards of 87% (exactly why you only put in what you are willing to lose).

Time went on, and I figured the interest was over as everyone who seemed serious was talking about Bitcoin and Ethereum (my top two holdings at the time) as the prices of the two assets continued on to new highs.

Then this September, a second wave came. Mostly on rumors that Robinhood could potentially list the token. It made me begin thinking...why?

Unlike DOGE, SHIB is an ERC20 token that exists on the Ethereum network along with many other tokens. Because the token exists on Ethereum’s blockchain, it’s technically a lot more interesting than its DOGE counterpart.

With the ability for the token to interact with smart contracts, the SHIB development team built their own decentralized exchange ShibaSwap. Where individuals can directly trade peer-to-peer using smart contracts to swap SHIB with Ethereum held in your metamask wallet.

See Also: What is MetaMask?

Not only that, the team created two other tokens.

• First, BONE, a token earned by running a smart contract to "Dig", a cute adjective for the mechanism of providing liquidity, in effect facilitating peer-to-peer trades.
• Second, LEASH, a token with a far more limited supply of just over 100,000. LEASH was used during a recently launched NFT project, Shiboshis, a private club, enabling NFT holders direct communication with devs, alphas, and team members including privileged news about updates and upcoming NFT/Gaming releases.

Aimed with this knowledge, I took a step back and thought this is just a perfect way for the masses to learn how to participate in the world of crypto and educate themselves in the future of finance. Gain interest with a cute dog meme, and learn their way to financial freedom.

This is where I made my purchase. I bought 15.8 million SHIB on Coinbase PRO for a whopping 0.00315 cents ($500), and at the time of this writing have a respectable return of 108%.

I’m still holding my SHIB, as the speculative side of me thinks if this does get listed on Robinhood, and people ape in, eventually, the users will make their way through the rabbit hole and play the all more entertaining game of decentralized finance.