In 2017, i first heard about chainlink. I was a yuropoor NEET without even my own bank account. I had no vector to buy at all. In december, i got a consolation price of about 400 bucks for a >dogecoin video competition a whale held. I put the entirety of that into Link to gain a small 620 LINK stack.

By 2019, i started earning my first money via self-made apps, though it was pathetic amounts... a bit more than $1k over a whole year. I promised myself i'd invest every penny of this into LINK... but then i hesitated. And didn't.

2020 i fell into complete apathy again, making no money whatsoever. LINK started going up, and i thought i was priced out forever, 620 LINK being all i would have for eternity.

2021 i started freelancing and landed some small dev work. After 2-3 months of that, a crypto startup hired me as their employee #2. I jumped at the opportunity, and to my surprise waging wasn't awful. It was actually fun, i had way more freedom than was reasonable for someone with my experience, and i delivered feature after feature. Soon i was the de-facto tech-lead for about half of the companies tech stack.

The company ICO'd and my team allocation, albeit with a vesting date a year in the future, went into the millions. But as the bullrun ended and the narrative of our project lost steam, our token slowly dwindled, and by the time my tokens vested, they were worth nothing. By 2023, i was given a c-level title, work was still fun, but my salary was low at $60-70k, and my tokens merely dust.
I invested in absolute garbage like TOMB and other alts, burned about $20k, and kept the rest in cash after getting burned.

In 2023, various public successes meant i had the opportunity to switch to a > silicon valley startup. Just in time as the crypto company started fading, i took the opportunity again for a big pay bump: >$200k.