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2022 hasn't exactly been a banner year for cryptocurrency. Everything from Bitcoin to Ether has had value vanish into, well, the ether. So, of course, 2022 was the year I made my big "investment" into Bitcoin.

Okay, fine. It was more of a stunt investment than a real one. Towards the end of 2021, PayPal announced it was going to provide a Bitcoin wallet. You could transfer your PayPal funds to Bitcoin. I could not resist.

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So, on January 1, 2022, I bought a whopping$50 worth of Bitcoin. As I documented, it was not a smooth process. There were fees, and Bitcoin's vaunted anonymity went out the window in order to meet PayPal's verification requirements. But even so, I went through it all. Dear Reader, I did it for you.

But that's okay because I was gonna become crypto-rich. Not really. After all, fifty bucks can only grow so much. In my case, it grew -14% in a week. Yeah, it lost value.

After three weeks, I was down 28.11%. And that's the last time I updated you on how that investment has performed.

As of today, we're exactly six months into my foray to bootstrap my way to Bitcoin billions. So how am I doing? It. Is. Not. Pretty.

Yep, I'm 60.31% below where I started. Now, to be fair, I've only lost$30.85. And that's fine for me because I'm getting quite a lot of good article content out of this, which was my intent. I'll do another article at the end of 2022.

But what if I had been a serious investor with visions of crypto capitalism careening through my cranium? If I had invested$500 instead of$50, I would have lost$300. If I'd invested$5,000 instead of$50, I'd have lost$3,000. And if I'd invested$50,000 because I wanted to see big returns, I'd have lost a "mind bottling"$30,000!

So, yeah. Bitcoin. Yay?

Also: Let me be blunt: Don't buy crypto unless you're fully prepared to lose your shirt

Look, it could all turn around on a dime. After all, Bitcoin is imaginary fake money that's just bits in a blockchain. But as I mentioned back in January, I wouldn't recommend betting your bucks on Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency, for that matter) -- unless you're okay with losing your shirt.

Seriously, this is a volatile gamble. If you're comfortable gambling and you know exactly what you're in for, that's one thing. But you need to be prepared, willing, and able to lose your entire investment. If you're not able to take the hit, don't take the chance.

And, unless there's some really exciting Bitcoin news between now and then, I'll see you right after New Year's with my final tally on this 2022 investment experiment.

Live long. And prosper.

So, what about you? Have you made any crypto investments? Have I encouraged or dissuaded you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.

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