1. Using 5,000 yuan tuition fees to make millions of dollars
The year Zhang Yan entered the cryptocurrency world was also a turbulent time for the cryptocurrency world. That year, Zhang Yan, who was just a sophomore, joined the cryptocurrency world because of his hobbies and interests. Unable to afford the expensive Bitcoin, Zhang Yan chose to spend 100 yuan to buy Litecoin (LTC) as a trial, and he earned one yuan the next day.
So, Zhang Yan recharged more than 5,000 yuan from his account for tuition into the 🔥coin platform. The impulse soon passed, and the money he recharged did not arrive in his account. He didn't know whether it was an operational error or some other reason, but the jumping numbers aroused him all night. After tossing and turning all night, Zhang Yan finally took the money back.
This choice allowed him to successfully avoid the famous "94 incident" in the cryptocurrency circle. On September 4, 2017, seven ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Preventing Risks of Token Issuance and Financing", officially halting ICO financing. As soon as the announcement came out at 3 pm that day, the token prices of various exchanges plummeted, with the highest drop exceeding 90%.
But in the following four years, after two rounds of bull and bear markets, the consensus on Bitcoin investment has grown rapidly in the mainland at a visible speed. I don’t know whether it was lucky or unfortunate, Zhang Yan escaped the “94 incident”, and was afraid to enter the market, so he avoided the Bitcoin bull market at the end of 2017. Until he mustered up the courage to join the cryptocurrency circle again, he directly ushered in the Bitcoin bear market in 2018.
The market was sluggish, and many people chose to withdraw. Only Zhang Yan persisted, and from time to time he recharged hundreds or even thousands of living expenses. Zhang Yan's experience was not smooth sailing, and there were even some ups and downs. In February 2020, fc0in (a virtual currency trading platform) in which Zhang Yan invested a lot of money ran away, which caused all his income to be wiped out; afterwards, he encountered the "312 incident" caused by the epidemic and the global economic environment. The currency circle was turbulent and many people were persuaded to withdraw, but Zhang Yan persisted.
This persistence is largely due to Zhang Yan's major in school, which is blockchain. He recognizes the value of Bitcoin and firmly believes in the future market of Bitcoin; at the same time, he believes that the cryptocurrency circle is the place with the most advantages in technology monetization. "In my opinion, there are only three types of people who can make money in cryptocurrency trading: one is the talented type, one is the technical type, and the other is the person with information advantage." Zhang Yan believes that the cryptocurrency circle is quite friendly to technical talents.
Judging from the results, he was indeed successful. Relying on quantitative and arbitrage methods, he gradually accumulated hundreds of thousands of profits, and used these hundreds of thousands as an entry fee. In the social DeFi (liquidity mining) boom that began in June 2020, he successfully earned more than two million.
DeFi, the full name of which is "decentralized finance", has triggered a wave of enthusiasm since June 2020. DeFi has introduced traditional financial methods such as lending and mortgage into virtual currency transactions through various smart contracts. Not only that, DeFi solves the problem of intermediaries earning price differences based on distributed accounting, eliminating the trust issues between the two parties of the transaction. For cryptocurrency speculators, DeFi means high entry barriers and super high returns.
Wang Jiajian, a staff member of Babbitt Information, recalled that in the DeFi teaching course previously launched by Babbitt, most of the participants knew nothing about DeFi, and there were many "aunties" among them. "They came because they heard that they could make money, but they couldn't even get over the firewall, so it was impossible to teach them." The various contracts and ever-changing yields in DeFi exchanges directly lead to only a few people being able to participate in DeFi.
Today, Zhang Yan is the director of the Zhejiang University Blockchain Club, and his income from the cryptocurrency industry is close to 10 million yuan. He said with a smile that he is still a "small leek" and cannot compare with others who have made a lot of money. He no longer has the anxiety of being unable to sleep because of the thousands of yuan in tuition fees more than three years ago.
2. After becoming rich through cryptocurrency speculation, people believed that “studying is useless”
Some people rush into this circle, while others quit when they see the good. At least in the small circle of cryptocurrency trading on university campuses, such things often happen. After all, in the undercurrent cryptocurrency circle, a student who has just entered university will appear impulsive and reckless if he rushes in.
It is already nearly June, and Zhang Han, who is already a senior, does not have any anxiety about graduation season. He plans to try the postgraduate entrance examination at the end of the year. A large part of his calmness comes from his relatively abundant savings, especially this savings is not from his parents, but mainly from the income from the cryptocurrency circle during his four years of college.
After graduating from high school, Zhang Han took the more than 20,000 yuan reward from his relatives for his college entrance examination results and entered the cryptocurrency circle. As a beginner with no basic knowledge, without anyone to guide him, Zhang Han could only rely on following cryptocurrency bloggers and lurking in some group chats to accumulate his own experience. He would also spend a lot of time sitting in front of the screen and staring at the market, fearing that he would miss the opportunity to go long or short. As a result, Zhang Han would often curl up in a chair and slowly fall asleep at night when his roommates had already fallen asleep. On the other hand, considering that the 20,000 or 30,000 yuan he entered the market with seemed insignificant in the entire cryptocurrency circle, Zhang Han tried the risky approach of leveraging. Looking at the numbers constantly jumping, he frankly admitted that he could not contain his excitement, "At that time, it was normal to make or lose 10,000 or 20,000 yuan a day."
Before entering university, he had a dispute with his family. His parents wanted him to major in science, but he insisted on choosing the media major because he liked photography. Zhang Han's parents eventually gave up their efforts. "Later, they basically ignored me. I think a big part of the reason is that I don't want living expenses. If you don't want living expenses, there's not much they can do."
Zhang Han's parents believed that virtual currencies were often associated with high risks and various scams, but considering that Zhang Han was only trying out the 20,000 or 30,000 yuan in red envelopes given by his family, they thought that he wouldn't lose much. It was not until Zhang Han made money that his parents began to realize that their son was not just playing around in front of the screen all day, and they began to support Zhang Han.
The gains from cryptocurrency trading were not entirely a good thing. The money affected Zhang Han’s “values” for a while. For a long time, he believed that “studying is useless” and “hard work is useless” and that money comes from chance. At the same time, he began to lose interest in studying. Frequent lateness and skipping classes put him at risk of failing many courses.
3. Hackers sneak into the lab and blow up the computers
At the end of April this year, a user who claimed to be a "senior graduate of Zhejiang University" shared his experience of using 1 million yuan of capital to speculate in real estate, cryptocurrencies, and stocks after graduation and successfully made tens of millions of yuan to achieve financial freedom in the campus exchange forum. Although this was just an ordinary experience sharing post, it was boycotted and abused by a large number of students in the comment area, with the reasons being nothing more than "spreading anxiety" and "no social value."
On the one hand, college students' sensitivity to virtual currency comes from the comparison of living standards with their peers. Those peers who have become rich by speculating in cryptocurrencies have exacerbated the anxiety of college students, making them naturally reject the cryptocurrency circle. On the other hand, the word "virtual currency" often appears in anti-fraud propaganda cases, and college students also consciously refuse to accept information from the cryptocurrency circle. Those individuals who make money are regarded as gamblers who "do not generate social value."
When the cryptocurrency community enters campus, it is inevitable that students who speculate in cryptocurrency and mine cryptocurrency will have conflicts with ordinary college students in their daily lives. A month ago, Hu Wei, a student at a Shanghai university, entered the cryptocurrency community and chose to move out of school and rent a house. In the school dormitory, the noise of the fan during mining affects roommates, and others find it difficult to tolerate the hot air blown out by the chassis. Once it is discovered that you are mining, it is easy to have conflicts with roommates over the settlement of electricity bills.
In the school library, some students started to complain about their neighbor’s laptop because he was suspected of stealing electricity to mine cryptocurrencies, simply because his laptop kept making fan noises. Due to the lack of hosts, many new cryptocurrencies in universities also choose to use computers at workstations in the campus labs, although everyone understands that this is clearly a case of using public electricity and public resources to benefit the public at their expense.
Hu Wei learned that many students used computers in the lab to mine. In addition, some computer experts in the school also began to frequently invade the lab to speculate in cryptocurrencies using technical means.
At that time, a classmate in the laboratory found that the computer at his workstation became abnormally slow and the memory was full. After inspection, it was found that a mining Trojan was implanted.
These laboratories often have high-configuration computers, and students lack security awareness, so they can easily be attacked by hackers without knowing it.
Shanghai Jiaotong University encountered a similar incident. A teacher who was doing numerical calculations and machine learning bought a 2080ti graphics card for the server. Later, the server was hacked and a ransomware virus was implanted, making it unable to work. The hacker sent an email demanding 5 bitcoins, otherwise all data in the server would be deleted. The teacher finally handled the incident by calling the police. After that, Jiaotong University began to prohibit off-campus IPs from accessing the servers of the on-campus laboratories...
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