The $TRUMP Trade
It was a normal afternoon. I was on the lounge, watching Encanto with the kids, half distracted, scrolling Twitter. Then I got a ping on Discord:
“TRUMP coin just dropped.”
I didn’t think, I just opened the trading app and put in $40,000.
I'm not about to miss getting brutally rugged and raped.
But the transaction didn’t route properly.
I checked the app. I was down 99%.
I rushed to the PC to see what'd happened. My wife was jogging on the treadmill, right in front of my desk.
“I need the computer,” I said.
“I just started,” she said, already annoyed. “This is literally the only time I—”
“Trump dropped a coin!” I yelled, pushing her to the ground.
I sat down. The price was already 80c.
He had just posted it on Truth Social.
I ignored the loss, refocused, and started entering again, $10K at a time, up to $1.40.
$100K in.
It was still unclear if it was legit. Then the price dipped hard back to 80c.
Then Trump posted it again, this time on X. That was the moment I figured it wasn’t a hack.
Unlikely someone compromised both his accounts at once.
Even dropped $50K in for a mate who trusted me.
$250K in.
Then I shut the PC down, got the kids in the car, and went to the shops with the family.
I didn’t sit there watching the chart.
An hour later, I opened Phantom at the shops to see how it was going.
TRUMP – $1,000,000.
I still believed. Hadn't sold a cent. How am I gonna sell the presidents coin under $10.
Over the next 48 hours, it ran to $70.
My position hit over $8,500,000 AUD.
It felt unreal. This is what I’d always dreamt of. I actually couldn't believe it. I kinda still can't believe it.
I’d been around crypto since 2020, buying with a few hundred bucks and hoping for a miracle.
I flipped NFTs at 3am for $100 profit when I had work the next morning.
I ran around the room screaming when I made my first $10,000 on a memecoin.
I GRINDED my way to my first million.
I gave it my all for 5 years while working full time and raising two small kids, trying to make something out of my life.
This time, after years of building up my balance and confidence, I put $250K into something that was barely confirmed, and it paid off.
I told my wife to quit her job. She didn’t argue. Monday, I walked in and handed in my own resignation.
We had enough to pay tax,
enough to buy a proper home,
enough to live without pressure.
Most of all, we had time to be around the kids, to stop grinding out every dollar.
I'm still watching the markets, albeit a lot less fun nowadays. Partly because I'm a degenerate gambling addict. Partly because I want to catch the next one.
If I do find one more, it’s not for me anymore, it’s for the next fifty years of my kids lives.
And if not, that’s fine too.
I already got my shot.
And I took it.
We Judge People for Wasting Money....But Not for Wasting Time
The other day I saw someone on social media throwing money around on absurd, meaningless things. The comments tore him apart.
Everyone piled on....calling him reckless, stupid, a clown with too much cash and no sense of value. And to be honest, I agreed. The way he treated money was idiotic.
But then a strange thought hit me.
All of us were so quick to judge this man for throwing away value. But here we are, spending hours on this app, scrolling through the comments, throwing away something far more valuable than money.
Time.
And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that since.
When people waste money, we have a visceral reaction. It bothers us. It feels offensive, even if it has nothing to do with us.
But when people waste time....no one cares. No one flinches. No one comments. Why is that?
Is it because time can’t be transferred? Because I can’t spend your time and you can’t spend mine, we don’t care if others burn it? That made some sense at first. But then it didn’t.
Because the logic falls apart when you look closer.
Most people don’t want money for the sake of money. They want what money buys. And the most sought-after thing it buys isn’t cars or watches or houses....it’s freedom. It’s space. It’s being able to wake up when you want, say no to things you hate, and live on your own terms.
What we’re really after is time.
Wealth, at its core, is the ability to reclaim time.
You don’t want to be rich so you can work more. You want to be rich so you can stop trading your hours for someone else’s priorities. The whole point of money is to buy back time. So if time is what we’re truly trying to acquire, then wasting time is no different than setting fire to your wealth before you even earn it.
The thing is: money feels real. You can see the numbers go up and down. You can hold it. Track it. Measure it.
Time is silent. It passes invisibly. It never announces itself, and once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. That’s what makes it so dangerously easy to waste.
No one is going to pay you to spend time with your kids. No one will compensate you for showing up for your partner. You’ll never get paid to take care of your health, rest your mind, or go for a long walk.
But those are the moments wealth is supposed to protect.
We’ve got it backward. We think we create wealth by spending our time to earn money. But real wealth begins when you start spending your money to create time.
And yet, here we are: scrolling, watching, judging, laughing at someone for throwing away cash, while throwing away the one thing we can never get back.
Maybe the real stupidity isn’t wasting money.
Maybe it’s not knowing what time is worth.