My First Loss and What It Taught Me

"Down? What do you mean down?"

Andi stared at his phone screen, blinking in disbelief.

Everything was red. Bright, screaming red.

The $KRNO chart looked like a plane crash—straight down.

From $0.0082, it had climbed briefly to $0.0095.

But now?

$0.0051.

All in less than 14 hours.

A 40% drop. Overnight.

His hands were trembling.

He kept refreshing the app, hoping it was just a glitch.

Nope. Still red.

Red.

And more red.

His stomach turned.

"These aren't just numbers. That's my food money for the next three days," he whispered.

Let's rewind a bit—to last night.

After selling half his VEED to buy $KRNO, Andi went to bed with a swirl of feelings in his chest.

Proud of the move, sure. But anxious too.

Before sleeping, he checked the Telegram group one last time.

CryptoGhost: Try not to check the chart all the time.

Focus on learning. Money is a bonus. Knowledge is power.

At the time, Andi actually felt pretty chill.

That line hit like a mantra.

Yeah, he thought, I'm in this to grow, not just to get rich quick.

But now?

That same sentence felt like a joke.

A cruel, sarcastic joke.

The next morning, just before heading to work, he unlocked his phone.

His notifications were flooded.

PumpHunter69 just left the group.

Heads-up: RakaToken was deleted by the admin.

CryptoGhost changed the group description to: "Stop panicking. Learn why you lost."

Andi's chest tightened. He opened the chat.

The group was blowing up—but not in the fun way like before.

Now it was panic, finger-pointing, people cussing each other out, and full-blown conspiracy mode.

"That rug pull was insane."

"Why are all the whales dumping at the same time?"

"Was this a setup? Is the admin screwing us?"

"Bro… I just lost 700k."

"I literally joined yesterday and I'm already traumatized. Thanks a lot."

Andi just sat there, frozen.

His eyes scanned every comment like they were headlines from a nightmare.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to blame someone.

But… who?

Who was really responsible for this?

At the restaurant, Andi was zoning out while refilling the drink dispensers.

His mind was blank.

He nearly dropped the bottle cap—his hands were still shaking.

"Yo, Di, you good?" Bagas, his coworker, asked from behind the fryer.

"Yeah… just tired," Andi mumbled, barely looking up.

But it wasn't tiredness.

What he felt was something heavier.

Not heartbreak from love—but from loss.

From trust broken. From hope slipping away.

Later that evening, back in the tiny rented room, Andi sat cross-legged on the floor.

His phone glowed in front of him, screen pulled up to the $KRNO chart.

$0.0047.

Almost half of what he paid for it.

He stared at it for a long time.

"I'm such an idiot… I really thought this was the beginning of something big."

His eyes were burning. Not from tears, but from frustration.

He didn't even know what emotion to feel anymore.

Cry?

Scream?

Just give up?

Then suddenly, a notification popped up:

CryptoGhost replied to your message:

"If losing makes you want to quit, it's better to stop now.

But if losing makes you learn, you're just starting to understand this world."

Andi stared at that message.

Part of him wanted to throw his phone and scream,

"Man, I don't want to learn. I just want to eat."

But somewhere deeper, quieter inside him…

a small voice whispered:

"You really thought this was gonna be easy?"

That night, Andi didn't go straight to sleep.

He opened up his old, borrowed laptop—the one he usually used to stream YouTube or do basic admin gigs.

But this time, it wasn't for entertainment.

Not tonight.

He started typing into Google:

"Why do altcoins crash out of nowhere?"

"How to avoid crypto pump and dump scams"

"What is tokenomics (for beginners)"

Hours passed.

His eyes burned.

But slowly, things started making more sense.

Lesson One: Low liquidity = high risk.

Andi realized $KRNO had a huge total supply—but barely any daily trading volume.

What does that mean?

"If one whale dumps a billion tokens in one go… boom, price tanks instantly."

Lesson Two: Devs can dump on you.

Many new tokens are launched quietly by developers who wait for a price pump…

then cash out and vanish.

Legal rugpulls, he thought bitterly.

Lesson Three: Don't trust the hype—do your own homework.

Most of the Telegram and Discord "hype" accounts?

They were just fake profiles made to pump coins.

Even CryptoGhost, who wasn't asking for money, didn't guarantee success.

"Maybe he was wrong… or maybe this was part of the test."

Andi leaned back.

His chest still felt tight.

But now, his anger had turned into something else: understanding.

Painful, expensive understanding.

It was 2:41 a.m. in Jakarta.

Andi reopened his portfolio.

KRNO: down 47%

Remaining balance: Rp28,000

VEED: basically wiped out

No savings.

No GoPay balance.

Just two crumpled Rp10,000 bills and a lonely Rp500 coin sitting in his wallet.

He stared at the screen for a moment, then slowly shut his old laptop. The fan made that dying sound again. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. A faint light was sneaking in through the cracked wooden window. The city was still asleep. But his mind was racing.

"I messed up... but I also finally get it now.

So if I quit here, it's not just about losing money—

It's like walking away from the lesson before it's over."

This wasn't just about numbers on a screen.

It was about the fact that, for the first time in his life, he had taken a risk.

Not because he had to. But because he chose to.

The next day.

During his lunch break at the restaurant, Andi bought the cheapest instant coffee from the vending machine and took it to the quiet corner behind the back door. The air was hot, mixed with the smell of grease and mop water. He didn't care. He needed space to breathe.

He opened the Notes app on his phone and typed:

Crypto Journey – Day 5

Andi's Takeaways:

Don't jump in just because everyone else is.

Always check transaction volume and tokenomics first.

Never use food money for investing.

Learn how to DYOR (do your own research) before buying anything.

Losing sucks, but it's not the end—understand why it happened.

He looked at the list. It didn't fix his financial situation, but it made him feel like he was growing. Like maybe the old version of him—the one who used to just accept whatever life threw at him—was fading away.

That day, Andi still cleaned tables. Still wiped sauce off trays. Still carried gallons of drink mix.

But his heart was just a little bit tougher than the day before.

That night, while lying on his thin mattress and scrolling through YouTube with barely 9% battery left, a notification popped up:

Recommended for you:

"How I recovered from losing 90% of my crypto and kept going."

Channel: AltcoinMentor

The thumbnail was basic—just a 30-something guy's face staring into the camera, with a caption in big red letters:

"Profits come from effort. But your mindset is your real capital."

Andi stared at the screen for a moment.

No dramatic music. No edits. No Lamborghini in the background.

Just a quiet face. And honest eyes.

Without thinking, he tapped play.

And just like that… something in him shifted.

He wasn't sure what this guy was going to say, or even if it would help.

But for once, he wasn't watching just to pass time.

He was watching because he wanted to understand.

And in that moment, with the city outside half-asleep and his world barely holding together—

Andi felt something rare.

Hope. A quiet one. But real.