It was upon the advice of his 62-year-old father, a former pilot with Emirates, that Jack Skipp first invested in Bitcoins in 2017.
A few years, and some setbacks, later and Skipp is now a millionaire, better known as Crypto Jack, with a YouTube channel where he shares his investment journey and advice with thousands of subscribers.
“Before I started in crypto, I was doing my training to become a pilot and had to save some money for the next portion of training. So I created a business which I then was lucky enough to sell for $20,000, all of which I invested in Bitcoin,” said Skipp.
“It was my dad, a retired pilot, who told me to get into crypto. Throughout his life, he was investing in different things and had invested in crypto a few months before I did. I did around a half-day worth of research before deciding to invest all the money I made selling my company into Bitcoin. Crypto was my first-ever investment,” he said recalling that the $20,000 he had was enough to buy him ten to thirteen bitcoins back then.
It was from that experience that Skipp “jumped into the rabbit hole of bitcoins and crypto, doing forums and YouTube videos,” he said during his interview on the Spencer Lodge Podcast. He started his own YouTube channel soon after, making money from ad revenues, then sponsorships and affiliates.
Crypto-investment advice
Looking back now, Skipp would not recommend that first-time crypto-investors put all of their money into digital currency investors from the get-go.
“Although it worked out well for me, looking back it was not a smart thing. What I tell new people in crypto is to buy $10 or $100 worth of digital assets, an amount which you don’t care if you lose,” said Skipp.
“This brings you into the ecosystem, allowing you to see what it feels like to have it in your wallet, what kinds of different wallets there are, buy, sell etc. You can learn a lot more just by doing it rather than watching or reading about it and if you don’t like it or it’s not for you, all you have lost is a minimal amount,” he continued.
Another way Skipp recommends newbies to explore digital currencies is through NFTs to get “a deeper understanding and I can guarantee that once people put in a little bit of money in, they are going to want to put a bigger chunk.”
For beginner investors, Skipp recommends sticking with Bitcoins and Ethereum before venturing into the hundreds of digital currencies out there.
“Once you have understood those and put some money in them, then you can start looking at other digital coins. Do your research first but if it’s outside the top 20 or 50 [coin types], it becomes more risky,” said Skipp.
“But that’s also where you can have the real kind of game. For example, what happened with the early investors in Solana [a type of cryptocurrency] who purchased it at only a few dollars and made thousands of percentage points’ gain,” he continued.
Skipp estimates that there are more than ten thousand types of coins but that “less than a thousand have real significance.
“When there are so many types of coins that all want a slice of the pie, only a few of them will survive the next ten years. I would say around 80 percent of them will fail long term so identifying the right one to invest in is difficult,” he explained.
Skipp believes cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and said that regulatory bodies will not “stunt its growth. I think regulation on the long term will be good and I am on a board working with Dubai Government to shape the law of crypto.”
Calling Web 3.0 “the future,” Skipp said there is a “big money” in the metaverse although it is still in its early stages.
Skipp said he’s made over $10 million in cryptocurrencies over the past two years – because he didn’t make that much money at first – but cautions that his story is not typical.
“Probably 99 percent of people who want to do like me will fail – it is just what it is and there are a thousand different ways they can fail. That’s why I tell people not to put everything in at the same time until they understand it more,” said Skipp.
“I am honestly not happier now than I was five or six years ago when I lived in a shared apartment when I was at school. When you see people buying a new fancy watch, home or car, you have to understand that once you bought this, it becomes the new norm, the feeling wears off. I am not significantly happier getting a new Ferrari than someone is getting a new Audi, it’s the same feeling” he added.
The Spencer Lodge Podcast focuses on entrepreneurship, personal and professional development, commercial confidence, leadership, and motivation.
Follow us on
