0xPilgrimage

I got suckered into a full-on scammer ecosystem about 2 years ago. You get some good "alpha" from buddies you know and then you get welcomed into an "alpha" group where they all preside.

Little did I know that this new era would become quite the nightmare/hostage situation. I was able to buy in very early to one of their launches. I owned a nice bag of it and all of a sudden it went BONKERS! We rose from under 500k market cap to around $40m and, of course, I was extremely careful with my skimming. My integrity and love for my fellow holder just won't allow me to full stack dump a massive bag or even sell larger percentages. I usually go for 1-5% which will never allow you to pocket enough before the inevitable dipsy doo dunkeroo.

As suspected, this token peaked and was in a full "slow rug" status where the team or insiders slowly dump their tokens with not enough buying to offset the steady, consistent erosion of market cap value.

It was around this time that a much publicized pre-sale for a metaverse themed token relaunch came around at the perfect time when I was Eth heavy. They were the same guys that took care of me with this nice token run from 500k to 40m so it was a no-brainer for me to wanna jump in and support. Needless to say, we were promised this and that and a launch within 3 months from presale wrapup.

Hmmmm.....1.5 years later with people irritated and pretty much nothing to show in the way of metaverse. We were promised a virtual lounge to chill in and high-powered partners, well...we got suckered.

Finally, launch night and everyone is exhausted yet humbly excited. There is a massive green candle and it keeps going and going; 5m to 10m to 15m to 20m and then a selloff. Not too much to celebrate for us because non of the presalers had gotten their tokens yet, lol. Also, our buy in market cap price was 15m so as the chart dipped to 20m to 15m and finally to 10m, we were already underwater and this is after waiting 18 months for a weak, almost zero liquidity launch. I was already disillusioned from previous chats with others who did know this guy and hit ragged team. What's funny is that everyone says the same, even the team guys but no one can truly rebel because their tokens and funds are all held by one dude, one of the shadiest in all of crypto....I'm sure there are shadier but, in my case, this is the one.

The dips continue all the way to under 3m so we are close to 80% down on our presale contributions. We could have doubled our money just by holding Eth for a year and selling because its value had increase that much but here we are, 80% down and almost no hope. The promised bonus airdrops were distributed to some but not all. I never got mine because this dude also tracks everyone's wallets. He knew that I had sold tokens from another project when I needed to. He let me know that he knew, lol. I believe this is why I didn't get my bonus tokens, no worries.

I had gotten suckered already by staking tokens for 12 months (never staking again) and then there was a relaunch so my tokens were added to the new staking contract and for some strange reason the stake time (there was 6 months left) was extended to 12 months. I reached out to one of the admins and passed my wallet but then crickets, my tokens would not be freed. I had to wait until the unlock and you know that I had it calculated down to the second. I was ready and BOOM, as soon as they unlocked I pulled them and sold them off. One down and one more scam to go before I could be completely free of these nasty people. I was able to finally exit the other scam token just before he pulled the liquidity for a 3rd relaunch and more empty promises. I couldn't say anything because my wallet was still free, in the metaverse scam, aka not yet blacklisted because that's what this guy does when anyone speaks out.

I waited and waited for a good time to exit this last turd. Today, I couldn't take it anymore and realized I could HODL this warm, stinky turd for 6 months and still might not break even. I had to make a decision...

Anyway, I do not want to dwell on this negativity, I just wanted to tell a story with a lesson. I had a bad feeling about these people a long time ago...this is when you must act, do not hodl trash in the hopes people change or the token may go back up in price. It's always better to cut your losses rather than ride the ship into the ground. Sure, you will sell early at times and miss the pump but I guarantee you that cutting losses early will save much more capital than will be gained by that 1 in 50 where selling too early was a mistake. It's all a numbers game and we gotta stay in the casino (have dry powder) if we wanna win.

Today, I can happily say that I finally exited that scam ecosystem for good and I will not look back. I took a 5-figure loss but I know I can make it back by buying into trustworthy people and teams. Nothing goes up forever but you have a better chance than something that goes down slowly, forever, lol.

Know when to HODL (Hold on for Dear Life) and know wen to SFDL (Sell for Dear Life)!

Thank you for reading!