Betrayal of waves Â
December 22, 2020
the functional side of Anatoly was occupied with spider production. this usually took place from ten in the morning until six in the evening. during this time, Anatoly cut kilometers of microtubing, dividing it into equal parts of half a meter and then attached them to a dropping tube, creating a so-called "spider." he was paid 800 rubles a day for this.
but that's just the functional side of Anatoly. his soul was far away from the despised mechanical labor he engaged in and from the walls of the building covered in slurs, from which he emerged every day at 9:25.
his soul was further, much further — poetically speaking, where the arrow of time leads us, where calculations crumble to dust, where chaos and ancient night reign, where the cry of "lesssgetit" transforms into a scream, and where the ruin of life is contained in a sequence of numbers. in other words, Anatoly dreamed of a future in which the word "blockchain" would become as habitual as the bullies near his house, and in which cryptocurrency would also play a significant role.
the reason for these dreams was simple: inspired by Kiyosaki, out of the 800 rubles he earned, he saved 500 to invest. it turned out that these investments went into one single asset, the only asset Anatoly believed in, knowing that if global progress followed the path predetermined for him, then this asset would be worth hundreds and thousands of times more.
for five months, this investing had been following the same scenario. Anatoly, having received crumpled banknotes from his grumpy boss, would go to a small shop near his workplace, enter his phone number, and deposit the money into his Qiwi wallet. then, when he returned home, he exchanged them for XRP on Pay-Market, sold the unamusing Ripple in exchange for Bitcoin, and opened the cryptocurrency Waves’ chart.
this chart was his life. this chart was the guarantee that sooner or later he would be able to cease merely existing and start truly living. that at least once in his life, he could go to Turkey, bask on the beach, swim in the Mediterranean Sea, and shout the infamous "Tagil" while jumping into the pool. sometimes his thoughts went even further—he imagined not Turkey but the Emirates, not "Tagil" but a polite "thank you sir" uttered to a courteous waiter.
Waves came into his life entirely by coincidence —one April evening, while reading articles, he came across one about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. the excitement hadn't died down back then, and Anatoly read it carefully. the authors predicted that Ethereum would increase in value by tens of times by the end of the year, and their arguments were quite convincing. like any poor person, Anatoly was not a stranger to the desire for free money, and he was ready to invest all his savings, a mere three thousand rubles, in ETH. However, it turned out that besides Bitcoin and Ether, there were many other cryptocurrencies, and Anatoly began to study them intently.
this study lasted just over a month—during this time, Anatoly watched dozens of YouTube reviews and read no fewer than a hundred articles. all cryptocurrencies seemed incredibly promising, and he wanted to invest in all of them. but after enduring plenty of agony, Anatoly singled out just one. the initial reason was that its CEO was a pleasant-looking fellow comrade with a Russian name and a common surname, "Ivanov." the second reason ran deeper—Anatoly estimated that Waves, with a capitalization of 210 million dollars, was two hundred times smaller than the capitalization of Ethereum. it was hundreds of times smaller, but the asset itself was hundreds of times more promising—Anatoly had already read about scaling issues and the difficulties developers faced with smart contracts or the need to create an ERC-20 standard token. Waves was better, Waves was cheaper, and Anatoly immediately concluded that he should invest in it—and as soon as possible, since it could close this price gap at any moment. one day Waves could surpass ETH, which meant it would be worth 200 times more. and that's assuming Ether stood still... but Ether wouldn't stand still; it would grow...
he was buying in June. the exchange rate remained stable. he made purchases in July, in August, in September -- the rate only slightly declined.
"does nobody realize that Waves will inevitably increase tens of times?" Anatoly wondered.
nobody did. moreover, it seemed that everybody held the opposite opinion and had only been dumping. Anatoly, on the other hand, continued to buy. he bought in October and in early November, but then something that Anatoly did not expect happened. the Bitcoin rate began to drop, and at the same time, Waves started performing a stunning spike. Anatoly watched as the 400 Waves he had been accumulating rapidly depreciated.
when the first dump wave ended, he was filled with optimism. obviously, it was done to shake off redundant passengers from the market, and Waves were about to enter a growth phase. when the second dump began, Anatoly opened the Bitcoin monthly chart for the first time. all he saw was a high peak and a deep abyss below. what if Bitcoin was just a pyramid scheme? it's just lines of code, virtual, intangible. how could it hold any value? was Anatoly a fool for investing all his money in it? did he fall for primitive PR?
when the third wave of decline started, Anatoly couldn't take it anymore. he sold and withdrew his money without hesitation. he was left with about 25,000 rubles, and he could spend them on enjoying himself. Anatoly went to a convenience store, bought expensive alcohol, snacks, and after returning home, he drank and fell asleep peacefully for the first time in months. he no longer needed to constantly watch the charts and wait for the moment when he would get rich.
the next day, he still did check the chart. Waves continued to fall, and Anatoly was finally able to calm down. he drank again (although he shouldn't have in the morning) and went wandering around the city. he ended up in an electronics store, where he was convinced to buy an electric grill and a yogurt maker. he took them home and continued his wandering. somehow, he found himself in a tobacco shop where he was persuaded to buy a hookah. during his third return home, Anatoly brought back nothing but his body, and even that was causing him extreme difficulties.
for several days, he skipped work, citing illness, and continued his binge-drinking. as a result, he was left with only 7-8 thousand rubles from the money he had. but then something urged him to check the chart. Anatoly looked at it and his gaze became paralyzed. Waves had returned to the average price of the autumn and was worth twice as much as the price at which Anatoly sold them.
tears streamed from his eyes. he immediately remembered the full potential of the platform and all the growth opportunities that Waves had. cursing himself, he gathered all the remaining money he had and bought back in. he bought 50 Waves with that money, which was eight times less than what he had before.
he had made an unforgivable mistake that would not be repeated. he would never lose faith, and all he would do from now on was work, buy Waves with his earnings, and hold. hold onto them until the price of the coin reaches the place it should be in.
he did just that. for a brief moment, the price of Waves reached $4. Then the pump ended, and for a couple of months, it fluctuated between two to three dollars. during this time, Anatoly worked tirelessly and kept buying more Waves.
he managed to change jobs and became a courier delivering dental implants. the pay was better, and soon Anatoly regained his 200 Waves and started accumulating more. When Bitcoin entered an uptrend, Anatoly believed that Waves would skyrocket. sometimes he would check the charts multiple times during his lunch break. when Bitcoin surpassed $10,000 and the market went into a frenzy, Anatoly convinced his coworker to loan him thirty thousand. he promised to triple the amount within a few weeks. with that money, he bought Waves and began to wait. Bitcoin surpassed eleven thousand, twelve thousand... it seemed that altcoins were about to take off, just a little more to go...
however, the unexpected happened. when Bitcoin crashed, Waves plummeted as well, and by the end of July, the asset's price was below $1.5. when Anatoly's friend asked about the money, Anatoly had nothing else to say but mumble,
"yea-yea, just wait… just wait a little longer..."
by the end of August, Waves were valued at one dollar. Anatoly sold 500 Waves to repay the debt. by October, Waves were worth 0.8, and by the end of December, 0.5. He lost five times more than he did during the November crash. at that time, Bitcoin's chart looked extremely concerning, hovering just above seven thousand dollars and occasionally hitting the support level unpleasantly. it seemed like it was about to crash again, down to three thousand.
human memory is short—Anatoly sold everything once again. he no longer cared whether the market would grow a hundredfold or collapse just as much. the past year had drained Anatoly completely—due to poor food, he developed stomach issues, and lack of sleep resulted in dark circles under his eyes. at that point, he had about two thousand Waves left in his balance, and Anatoly sold every last one, withdrew the money, and started looking for vacation packages to Egypt.
it's not hard to guess—the price started rising again. Anatoly panicked once more and, forgetting about all the trips to Egypt, quickly deposited his money back into Binance, losing about 10% in fees. he did this in a rush, dropping items from the table. only when he managed to buy 800 Waves did he calm down. then he got up from the table, approached the image of Christ hanging on the wall, and solemnly declared:
"never. i will never sell Waves again. i solemnly swear this. i will not sell them for a single cent or for ten dollars. i will not sell them to conquer a woman, pay bills, buy food, or simply survive. i will not sell them even if i lose my job and have no food to eat. i swear. i swear that i will not sell my Waves..."
despite that, on March 13th, when Anatoly saw an impressive red daily candle, he sold everything.
"damn me for getting involved with crypto," he muttered, running around the room and expressing himself in much less refined language. "to hell with it. just to hell with it." (here it should be noted that "to hell with it" was substituted by an expression of more vulgar nature, that includes an infamous word starting with the letter "f" and ending with "k", which we will have to replace with an expression that is very similar in meaning: "to hell with it." :)
"to hell with it," Anatoly continued. "to hell with it, damn it, to hell with it. damn it, damn it, damn it. they've been fooling us for two years, damn it. they say buy the technology, and they themselves, damn it, dump these worthless goddamn blanks."
afterward, Anatoly's speech turned into interjections, and the need to convey it is not apparent. however, that day left such an indelible impression on him that Anatoly didn't think about Waves until July when his boss inquired:
"you were into those, what do you call them, Bitcoins, right? i heard they did well. did you make a lot?"
"no, very little," Anatoly answered, fearing a reduction in bonuses. "don't think about it. It keeps going up and down, up and down, and it will continue like that for several more years. by the way, how high this time?"
"up to 12,000, i think," the boss replied, lazily picking at his nails.
"what?" Anatoly exclaimed. he had sold his Waves when the price was below four thousand dollars.
when he came home and opened the chart for the first time in six months, he indeed saw Bitcoin at 11,700 and Waves at 1.6. this time he didn't feel like buying. he even felt some satisfaction that his favorite coin had grown weakly from the bottom, compared to Bitcoin.
the chart looked bad, and the mood in cryptocurrency chats was excessively optimistic. Anatoly knew that the euphoria couldn't last long. Bitcoin had to dump, and Waves would follow. perhaps he would buy a little after the drop. Anatoly now knew that buying during an uptrend was excessively risky.
he waited for the dump for a day, a week. the continuing euphoria and constant growth were starting to get on his nerves—what if a real bull run had started, and he didn't have a single token? everything was growing, and Anatoly was becoming restless. when would this damn Bitcoin crash? when? on August 12th, his nerves gave in once again. Waves price jumped to two dollars, then three, and three days later, it was above four. that's when Anatoly deposited what was left of his savings back into the exchange.
"if i hadn't sold... if i had never sold..." he mumbled to himself, studying the charts. "i would have had at least a million by now... just think about it—once i had two thousand Waves! and i just... just sold them. now it would have been a whole eight thousand dollars... and if i kept buying them, then it would be twenty..."
Anatoly felt bad. he realized that it didn't make sense for him to enter the market or buy the surging Waves with the meager amount of money he had. so, he started looking at the charts, trying to find an asset that hadn't risen yet. it was difficult—there were hardly any, except for currencies with excessively high market capitalization. however, finally, Anatoly managed to find one.
it was RVN. it had barely moved from its bottom and practically was flatting during the six months when Bitcoin was rising. Anatoly immediately understood the reason: RVN was a pump coin, that should experience a sharp and unexpected growth. additionally, Anatoly noticed a checkmark next to the ticker indicating "5x." without hesitation, he opened a margin position.
out of decency, RVN twitched convulsively until September 2nd, and then its price collapsed along with Bitcoin. Anatoly lost everything. he grew to hate exchanges, cryptocurrencies, and all his desires were focused on the recent surge turning out to be a classic pump-and-dump scheme, hoping all the assets would once again update their lows. at first, his interest in this was fairly passive, but by mid-September, when the slaughter reached its peak, he gathered new funds to short the market. in his imagination, the classic scenario played out: pump as a crowd trap, followed by a dump that shook off that crowd. however, Anatoly failed to consider that the beauty of scams lies in the ability to change their structure.
he shorted, of course, Waves—almost everything was falling at an insane pace (especially DeFi tokens), but Waves remained stagnant. until October 11th, he wasn't worried too much, but after that, both Bitcoin and Waves that he sold using a third leverage went up. on October 16th, he had to add margin from what remained of his salary. the position nearly got liquidated. on November 13th, he added margin again, and on the fourteenth, he got rekt. on November 17th, the price of Waves reached five dollars. on the 18th, it was five and a half. on the 19th, it was six.
on November 23rd, with the token's price at eight dollars, Anatoly fell to his knees before the image of Jesus. if he had invested in the coin during all that time he had planned, he would now have several million rubles.
"oh Lord," Anatoly said. "oh Lord... Lord! why, for what sins did you deprive me of my Waves, Lord? for what? FOR WHAT DID YOU DEPRIVE ME OF WAVES?" with these words, Anatoly burst into tears.
all his life problems, his poverty, his loneliness, were the consequences of just one transgression—the eternal betrayal of Waves. it was punishment first for his disbelief, then betrayal, and ultimately an attempt to fight against the all-consuming energy of waves.
he laid before the image, crying and lamenting.
"Waves... my Waves... oh Lord... Lord..."
he remained in that position until the end of the day.
as night approached, he managed to get up and, walking zig-zags towards the phone, he opened his personal account on Tinkoff. there were 520 rubles on his card. while browsing Best.Change, Anatoly struggled to find an exchanger that accepted less than a thousand. he found one called "Farm" that charged an absurd fee but, having no choice, Anatoly used it.
in exchange for his 520 rubles, he received 5.2 USDT. Depositing them on Binance, he bought 0.67 Waves and then withdrew them to Atomic.
he approached the window. in the dim light of the street lamps, people went by, and a few cars passed.
"they still don't know about Waves," Anatoly thought. "but very soon... very soon..."
he moved away from the window. taking the phone in his hands, he checked if the transaction had gone through. indeed, after paying the withdrawal fee, 0.57 Waves appeared in his Atomic balance.
Anatoly set aside the phone. tomorrow he would buy more.
the price was heading to the moon.
the next morning, upon waking up, Anatoly got out of bed and, being a civilized person that he is, he brushed his teeth. after spitting out the toothpaste, he casually uttered:
"ah... if only there were some donations..."
then, as if by chance, he voiced his BTC wallet address:
16ifhP3DK6c7ueWTmXrt1fCp1TgvnHaEfh
after a brief moment of thought, he also mentioned his ETH wallet address:
0xb802e511af4642113d83e8325ba01bbf2c156624