The Rp50.000 That Was a Game-Changer for Me
Andi's life, in one sentence: wake up early, work hard, go home late… and still be broke.
The alarm hadn't even gone off yet when Andi opened his eyes.
The small rented room he shared with his mom and two younger siblings was still dark, with just a bit of light slipping through a crack in the old wooden window. The morning air was cold but his head was burning.
Andi sat on the edge of a thin foam mattress, worn out and starting to tear in a few spots.
He rubbed his hands over his face, trying to shake off the kind of sleepiness that never really goes away. Next to him, he could hear the soft breathing of his younger siblings.
They were the reason he got up every morning—even if life hadn't given him much else to hope for.
But this morning felt different.
That burning in his chest had started last night.
It wasn't about the fight at home.
It wasn't about his boss nagging him again at the restaurant.
It wasn't even about money always running short.
It was that thing he saw on a customer's phone screen.
And for some reason... it stuck with him.
One small moment… and somehow, it felt like it split his whole reality in two.
Yesterday afternoon, around 5:14 p.m.
Andi was wiping down table five when a guy in his early 30s sat down alone.
Pretty standard look—black t-shirt, jeans, leather sandals.
But two things stood out right away:
the shiny watch on his wrist, and the latest flagship phone he casually set on the table like it was no big deal.
The guy opened an app that looked kinda familiar to Andi.
There were colorful charts, numbers moving fast, and one line of text that made Andi's heart skip a beat:
SHIBA/USDT is up 13.42%!
Andi pretended to rearrange the tray on the table, but his eyes were glued to the screen.
Then he heard the guy mutter under his breath, like he was just talking to himself:
"Not bad. Bought it this morning, and it's already up this much."
That sentence hit him harder than he expected.
Andi knew SHIBA was one of those "meme coins" people joked about in the crypto world, but beyond that? Not much.
He never really got what crypto was—besides the usual headlines about rich people getting even richer.
But for some reason, this time felt different.
He was more curious than usual.
Flash forward to this morning.
Using the free Wi-Fi he always borrowed from the neighbor, Andi opened up Google and started typing:
"What is crypto?"
"Beginner's guide to crypto investing"
"Can you start with just a little money?"
The search results hit him with a flood of unfamiliar terms:
blockchain, altcoin, DeFi, NFT, micin tokens, rugpull, airdrop.
It felt like he was sinking.
Time slipped by without him realizing.
His mom was already up, making a quick breakfast.
His siblings were getting ready for school.
But Andi was still glued to the screen—reading Reddit threads, blog posts, stories from people who used to be broke... and claimed they made it big through crypto.
"Started with just Rp100,000—now I own a house."
"I used to just have a little phone data, now I'm helping my parents out."
"If not now, when?"
Andi knew the internet loved to exaggerate.
But still… something clicked.
He wasn't chasing some get-rich-quick fantasy.
He just wanted to find a way to make an honest living
something real, something that didn't depend on a fancy degree or whether his parents were okay.
Andi knew the internet had a habit of exaggerating but his eyes lit up anyway.
He wasn't trying to get rich overnight. He just wanted to be part of a world that didn't care about diplomas or ask questions about your family.
The next few days were a total rollercoaster.
After work, he stopped going straight to bed.
He powered on his phone, screen still cracked, and opened a crypto simulation app called CryptoPlay.
The app gave him a fake $1 million balance to test out real-time trading simulations.
On his first day, he bought SHIBA at 0.000007 and watched it climb 6% in just an hour.
"If that were real money, I would've made like... Rp60,000," he muttered.
His brain kept looping the moment—over and over again.
And it wasn't even the dream that got to him.
It was the fact that, somehow...
the dream felt real.
Andi started taking notes on every new term he came across:
A digital wallet → a wallet you can't touch, but it holds your crypto.
FOMO → fear of missing out.
Rekt → total loss, like getting wrecked.
Bull trap → a fake rise that tricks people into buying.
Gas fee → just a transaction fee, especially on Ethereum.
HODL → "hold on for dear life." Originally a typo on a Bitcoin forum in 2013, now it's both a strategy and a meme.
Every night, without fail, he'd write the same sentence in his notebook:
"Today I learned one new thing."
Night one: "Crypto's not just about buying and hoping the price goes up while you chill. You gotta actually understand it."
Night two: "Don't just follow the hype. Bull traps are real—you'll end up frozen if you're not careful."
Night three: "Patience pays more."
By day four, Andi started feeling uneasy.
His bank balance was down to Rp70,000.
And that was after he set aside some cash to pay the electricity tab at the warung.
His monthly salary—just Rp2,000,000—was barely enough to cover the basics:
rent, food, mobile data, and his siblings' daily needs.
It disappeared almost as soon as it came in.
But he really wanted to try.
Andi opened the Pintu app and started the registration process.
His ID card was worn and nearly falling apart, but somehow it was still enough to pass the verification.
He stared at the screen for a long time.
His index finger hovered over the "Deposit Now" button.
A small note popped up:
Minimum deposit: Rp50,000.
That was almost all the cash he had left.
But this wasn't just about buying coins.
It was about belief—
about proving to himself that he was willing to start, no matter how small.
He took a deep breath…
and tapped "Deposit Rp50,000."
Balance in.
Andi gripped his phone tightly.
It felt like he had just stepped into a new world—
one he'd only ever looked at from the outside.
He immediately started looking for small, low-key tokens—the kind nobody was really talking about.
He landed on VEED, a tiny altcoin priced at just Rp120 per token.
He bought 400 coins.
Remaining balance: Rp2,000.
Was there hope in that? Maybe even less than that.
But that night, Andi looked up at the ceiling of his room… and smiled.
"I've started," he whispered. "I don't know if it's the right move or a dumb one—but I've started."
The next day was all about mental stamina.
VEED went up 0.6%.
Then it dropped 1.2%.
Then climbed again 0.8%.
The numbers were small. But his heart? It was riding a roller coaster.
Andi didn't tell anyone.
Not even his mom knew that his last bit of cash had turned into digital tokens.
Every night, he dove deeper—reading about whitepapers, altcoin trends, beginner guides to fundamental analysis, and scrolling through Telegram groups full of local crypto traders.
On Reddit, he came across a post that hit him hard:
"Being poor isn't about losing things. It's about giving up when the price drops."
That line stuck with him.
He wrote it down in his notebook like it was a mantra.
But the real world didn't care about mantras.
His youngest brother came home with a Rp25,000 school fee that needed to be paid.
His mom quietly told him there was no more rice in the kitchen.
Andi felt the guilt sink in.
But at the same time… he didn't want to back down.
That night, he sat alone outside the small rented house, breathing in the cold Jakarta air—no cigarette, just silence.
He looked up at the sky.
The air was full of pollution, but somehow it still felt wide and endless.
"Am I stupid for buying coins?"
"Was it selfish to use my last money on this?"
"Is it wrong to have a dream?"
He didn't have the answers.
But he knew one thing:
"It's better to be wrong for trying… than never try at all."
Two weeks passed.
His VEED balance had grown to Rp56,700.
Not much—but enough to mean something.
A small gain. A huge step for a heart that was still learning how to believe.
That night, he opened Telegram and saw a new post:
"Local crypto mentor hosting free Zoom tonight. Watchlist: small-cap coins with strong fundamentals. Limited slots available."
He signed up instantly.
In a world where nothing felt certain, Andi found one path worth following:
learn from people who've already made mistakes.
He knew this was only the beginning.
So he wrote in his notebook:
"Rp50,000 could've been gone in one day—on snacks or coffee."
"But with this Rp50,000, I unlocked a door to a world I never even knew existed."
"Today, I'm still broke. But now… I've got direction. And to me, that's worth more than money."