Gary Fairchild

I just got a cold call from him and we spoke a couple of times. He told me about how it all worked, where it was heading and all that sort of thing. This is going back three years… So this is going back three years, and back then I think Bitcoin was only worth about three grand, I think it was. Three or four grand at the time.

 I started with a $2,000 mining agreement, US. So I just watched that for while, tick along, and I’m going, “Yeah, that works all right and the price is starting to go up and whatever.” Make a little bit each day from the mining agreement, so since then I did roll over some of my Super…

I just had the normal superannuation through CBUS. Jeff guided me through a self managed fund and packed that up, and then rolled some into the crypto mining. Since then I sort of understand it a bit more on what it is, I don’t think I understand it because I don’t think we use a lot of it round here, do we? We don’t really use Bitcoin payments for anything or things like that so much in Australia, but I think they do more so in American and Europe. It’s bigger there. So I don’t fully understand how it works, I mean people have explained it to me so I think I get the gist of it now.

I was skeptical because Jeff rung and I didn’t know Jeff, and then he went on to say that he lives in Bali and whatever, and I’m thinking… At the start I didn’t give him a hard time, but I said, “Mate, Bitcoin was big two year…” Well, we’re going back three years so I said, “Bitcoin was big 18 months ago. It was worth 20 grand and now it’s worth three.” I said, “You’ve missed the boat on Bitcoin and it’s no good, and it’s terrible.” And he goes, “No, but this is what’s going to happen. It’s going to get popular and it’s going to do this and do this.” Like I said, because I didn’t know how it worked, but he explained it.

I’m going, “All right, fair enough.” So that was why the initial agreement was only two grand because I didn’t think it would go too far, didn’t think it would do much, but I thought, “Well, we’ll have a try. It’s something new and I did hear it was worth about 20 grand for a Bitcoin.” And now we’re getting in and it was worth three or four, I think at that time. So I thought, “We’ll get in and dip me toes in the water.”

Then that’s when I was happy to roll over the bigger agreement, because I was fairly confident with NGS on what they were doing. Every time I’ve run Jeff he was able to guide me through or answer all me questions, and then since then I’ve dealt with Brett a bit and he… I mean every time you ring him he’s just a very positive, passionate, Bitcoin or crypto person, so he just loves it. That gives you a bit of confidence if you’re going to invest with him, that’s what you want to hear.

I suppose the potential for a higher return was what got me over the line, but also Jeff, talking to him. He’s fairly passionate about it and confident that it is a way of the future, and I think he thinks it’s a store of value as well. So a lot of the conversations that I’ve had with him were about all those things and, yeah, just trying to make some better money than leaving me money in the Super account. Where it’s getting 9% or 10% I think it makes a year, roughly, the Super. But with crypto you can make a bit more, and have done, so that $40,000 mining agreement I started 18 months ago, because we had such growth with Bitcoin in the last six or eight months or 10 months, everyone, I’d actually accumulated .8 of a Bitcoin from that initial 18 month period.

So I actually sold that, or redone another mining agreement with NGS. I don’t think it was at its highest, but it was at pretty high. The Bitcoin value was pretty high, and I clicked the button on the screen which rolled it over into another agreement. So me 40 grand initial investment, now I’ve got another 44 grand into another mining agreement from my profits.

Yeah, I was rapt with that, and I actually done it by accident because I’ve turned on me computer and I’m looking at it, and there was a green light saying something of a higher interest rate if I done this and done that. Anyway, I thought I could click on it and read more about it, but I clicked on it and agreed to it. Anyway I’m thinking, “God, what have I done? Maybe I’ll ring Brett and say, look, I doe it by mistake. Can I just go back to what it was?” But then anyway the Bitcoin started coming down, so then I thought, “Well, I probably done the right thing then by clicking on it.”

I’ve mentioned it to a couple of other people, but a lot of people when you mention Bitcoin or crypto, they very skeptical and think that it’s very risky. Just the volatility, I think, because it… But also I don’t think they understand it, and like I said, I understand a bit about what it is now but it’s taken me… Jeff’s explained it to me a dozen times I think. I’m going, “What is a Bitcoin?” And you explain to someone that there is no Bitcoin, it’s just a symbol of a gold coin with a B on it, but you don’t get a Bitcoin when you invest in Bitcoin. You don’t actually get a gold coin or nothing, there’s nothing there. You’re investing in some technology, and I don’t think people understand that. They’re going, “Bitcoin, what is a Bitcoin and how can you buy stuff with it?” And whatever. So I think people just don’t understand what it is and how it works. Transactions of money, and blockchain and all that sort of thing, I don’t think people understand fully how it works.

I said, “Digital currency is like an email now, and normal Eftpos or BPpay transactions, they’re like the old writing a letter, putting a stamp on it, posting it, takes three days to get to where you want it to go, and then the person has got your letter.” I said, “That’s what a BPay is or an Eftpos, and that’s comparing an email to cryptocurrency, and that’s the speed at which it works, and you can send money to America or England or whatever by a Bitcoin transaction or a digital transaction and they’ve got their money straight away.”

If the kids are traveling and they need money and there’s no exchange fees or all that sort of stuff, and I said, “So it will be very popular and it will be the way to go in the future.”

Get on it. Buy in the dip, I suppose. So we should be investing in it a bit more at the minute, I suppose. But everyone’s probably a little bit skeptical and, yeah, just be careful I suppose.