2017 - The year I started involving in crytocurrency

2017 is a crazy year. At least it is up to the point when I am writing this post.

Late last year, I told my senior that I had the intention to stay in KL project for a period of time. The reason that I provided was because I will several family events in 2017. Well, that's partially true. However my family events will all be in the second half of 2017, not the first half. My true intention is to look for more investment or business opportunity. I realized that I wasn't growing up in term of mentality despite I was earning double of what I usually capable of. I realized working abroad is not a definite way to achieve financial freedom. I worried that the longer I stay abroad, my passion towards business will idle away.

So, I joined a local RAN project at the end of 2016 and since then stayed in the same project until present time. Throughout this 5 months, I need to find way to expand my passive income and thus I have done something with my friends. We started mining crytocurrencies. I started venturing into fintech sector and keep thinking what else can be done to earn more passive income.

Here I would like to summarize some of my experience of my current involvement in cryptocurrency. What I have encountered and what have I learned.

1. Earlier this year, before CNY, my friends who had started mining ETH earlier, brought up this matter during one of our yam cha sessions. It had caught my attention and hence I looked it up to know more. After reading up some information about ETH, I thought this cryptocurency has the potential to grow hence I requested to join them as partner. I invested one mining rig and in total we had 2 rigs running. We planned to let them run for sometime while looking for more fund to buy more rigs.

Here's a catch. When we started mining, the average price of an unit of ETH was USD10. By the time we had gathered enough fund to buy 10 rigs, which was sometime around early April, the price of one unit of ETH had soared up to USD40. Only if we had invested our cash in ETH directly, we would have 400% return in less than 2 months.

From this experience, we had lost a good chance to grab hold of 400% investment return. We were fresh to this activity and despite we believed ETH is a potential currency, we chose a safer way to invest our money.

2. When ETH was USD40 and when BTC was MYR4500, I did not have the courage to invest in them. I thought they were too pricy to invest in and hard to get an awesome return. Eventually, my reluctance had cost me dearly. In late May 2017, ETH price achieved new high and its peak was USD200 whereas BTC used to achieved MYR12000. These two coins shocked the world and made me cried without tear in less than 2 months.

This experience thought me that I should learn to do forecast. Once I have set a target price, I should be bold and go for it.

3. I started looking up XRP on early May 2017. My partner and I were discussing what to invest and they brought up XRP topic. After looking up some information about XRP, the business model of XRP interests me and I think it will be a big hit in future. Hence, I poured my hard-earned money into it. I had made several mistake throughout the May 2017 and investing without much preparation is one of them. I was being impatience. I invested XRP without doing much planning. Don't get me wrong, despite making loss currently, I still believe XRP will be a hit in near future. The part that I regret doing is entering XRP in wrong time.

Each unit of XRP was as low as USD0.05 sometime around March 2017. When I started entering the market, it was in its bullish phase and the price escalated like nobody business. I bought in when it was USD0.17 and several times more when the price was increasing. At late May 2017, the price dropped from its peak USD0.4 to USD0.2. This dropped has caused me severed loss as well.

From this experience, I have to learn to predict the trend as what goes up will eventually go down. The price of XRP has escalated too fast and price adjustment will soon to happen. I should remember this theory and be more careful when entering the market in future. Nevertheless, I still feel confident in XRP and hope it will achieve new high soon.

The feeling of losing

Have you ever experienced the feeling of losing something. Money or something you hold dear. In this post, I would like to talk about my recent defeat experience in a casino which is situated in my hotel.

Well, to be honest, it doesn't sound serious as it seems. I lost 2000 peso (approx RM190) on 16-Jul (Saturday) when I visited the casino with my colleague. The amount lost was not that great but it was sufficient for about 20 meals around IT Park, Cebu (To be honest, the thought of losing 20 meals kinda kill me inside). I gambled on Baccarat when I lost that amount. To be fair, I won a total of 3000 peso in the previous 2 weeks. So, I shouldn't be complaining but still the thought of losing money is not good.

After losing it, I had the tendency to continue putting money on the table in order to get back my initial bet. But I knew I should not do that. After bidding my colleague goodbye, I forced myself out from the casino and headed back to my room. I took sometime to reflect what had happened and honestly speaking, the feeling of losing is unbearable. 

In my previous post, I wrote about the feeling of achieving my dream (visiting Vatican City) was fantastic. Now, this current experience was the contrast. the feeling of losing is really not good. However, in order to cheer myself up, I kept telling myself the feeling was just temporary and I should remember how it felt so that I can endure something greater/worst in the future.

Without sadness, nobody will know what is happiness. We should embrace both good and bad experience in a positive manner and treat them with equal respect because there must be something we can learn from these experiences.

What I have learned from this experience?

1. When gambling, self-discipline is a must. If you win, walk away when you still have winning in your hand. If you lose, treat it as the fare you pay for the entertainment and the thrill. Do not linger. Set a limit for yourself to cut loss and walk away when it is time ( I guess nobody will set a limit to limit winning). And the ultimate rule in gambling is do not gamble you meal money!!!

2. Be mature in handling defeat in any form. Treat it as an experience and do better in the next round.

Bonus Share from Solution Engineering Sdn. Bhd.

A week ago, Solution Engineering issued bonus share and warrant for its shareholders. Since then, I have come across various terms and I took the effort to find out more about them.

Bonus Share
Instead of giving out dividend to its shareholders, some companies opt to issue bonus share as another form of incentives for their loyal shareholders. There are good and bad for shareholder receiving bonus share instead of dividend which could be more practical. Based on my finding, bonus share is issue after the company has gathered enough reserves (dividend which was not paid to shareholders) over the years and transfer them to company's capital. Issuing bonus share will adjust the market price for the share and thus drives volatility, making the share seems to be more affordable and attract more investors.

The following are some articles I have read about bonus share:
why-are-bonus-shares-issued-and-what-are-their-advantages 
bonus-issues-stock-markets

Besides bonus share, Solution Engineering issued bonus warrant for its shareholders. Actually, for this part, I have mixed feeling on this because unlike share, warrant has an expiry date. Well, the expiry date is 5 years from now. I will have to monitor closely to decide if I want to sell them when the price is right, or convert them into regular share.

Ex-Date
This is the cut-off date for which shareholders entitle to get the bonus share. Let's take Solution Engineering as example, the Ex-Date for the bonus issue is 24-Jun-2016 (Friday), which means anyone who holds 0093 until the market closed on 24-Jun, 5:00 PM is entitled to receive bonus issue.

Entitlement Date
This is another date that we should know, but not as important as Ex-date. Entitlement date is the date when shareholders are eligible to get the bonus issue. Malaysia exercise T+3 days, meaning any transaction made on T date, will reflect on Central Depository System (CDS) 3 days after. After T+3, Company Registrar will calculate your entitled bonus based on the record in CDS.

The following is a post from a blogger who explains Ex-Date and Entitlement Date in a very detail way.
鸟样股票: EX-date （除权日）和Entitlement date （可获得股息权力之日）

My Experience in Spain

Spain was the first European country that I visited and Madrid was the city that I supposed to spend 3 months there. I reached Madrid on 11-Apr-2016 and left on 20-May-2016. As much as I did enjoy my stay there, however, the one and half month time there was a waste of my professional time.

I supposed to support a project but that project got cancelled during my second week. I didn't really get upset that time because my mind just focused on the trips that I had planned earlier. But as time went by, I wasn't assigned any task, merely assisting a local colleague on some issues. I got fed up eventually and the project weekly reports that I sent to my department bosses were awful. Then my RDM told me that I should go back to Malaysia after my current resource period expired. I agreed to that. It was interesting to stay in Madrid, but I do not enjoy to waste time sitting in the office and act busy. The local team did "try" to ask me stay. But they didn't "try" hard enough. I tried to approach them, wanted to discuss the situation with them. But they didn't make the effort to at least meet me. So, in the end, I gave up as well. Maybe it is better off for me to do something else now.

Before I left Madrid, I did ask myself if I have done everything I could to make the business trip good. I would like to think that I have done my part to help and to communicate. But if there was no response from the counterpart. So, why bother?

Now, let's let go the not-so-good experience and embrace the memorable one.

During this period of time, I have visited 5 cities - Madrid, Toledo, Valencia, Seville and Barcelona. I enjoyed most of the cities but did encounter some bad experience during the process. The best experience would be Barcelona while the worst would be Valencia. Barcelona was best because of the places that I visited and bonus events that I encountered. Sagrada Familiar was awesome and I want to revisit when it is done on 2026. As for the bonus event, I participated in the victory parade of FCB. FCB won the La Liga cup the night the before (14-May) and had the victory parade around the city (15-May). I was so excited to be part of it despite I am not a football fan (at least for now). That experience is something you can't buy with money. It was about timing. On the other hand, Valencia was worst owing to wrong travel companion. After the Valencia experience, I have understood the importance of travelling companion. A good one will make the trip enjoyable. The wrong choice will just turn everything sour. This experience has taught me to find good travel companion or else it is better off travelling alone.

If I am to use short sentences to describe each city, they will be:
Madrid : It will be more fun if I could speak Spanish. A lot of events going on every weekday night.
Toledo : A beautiful ancient city but I did not have enough time to enjoy it.
Valencia : A nice coastal city, but wrong travel companions. The beach is nice but not as good as Bondi beach.
Seville : A rushed but enjoyable solo trip. I found the tapas there are really special. Not just patatas with mayo.
Barcelona : Encountering unexpected events are fun.

In nutshell, Spain is a good country to visit and it will be more fun if I know the language.

My Experience in Rome, Italy

Visiting Rome was probably be the most exciting trip I have had this year up to date. It was a spontaneous trip. I made the decision after confirming my early leave from Spain. Everything was booked in a rush, not much survey was done except the places that I wanted to visit. All I had in Rome was just 10 hours and within these 10 hours I managed to complete my Angel and Demon self-guided tour.

It all started on 20-May-16 (Friday) evening. I took a 8PM Ryanair flight from Madrid to Rome CIA airport. Upon reaching that airport, it was around 11PM and I had to make a quick decision whether to head to the city center or stay at the airport area. I had the temptation to leave for Termini (Rome central station) because I wish to get a early start of my trip the next day. However, after going through some comments over the internet. The reviews weren't encouraging so I decided to spend a night at the arrival hall.

I was happy that I had made a correct decision. There were other people spending their night in the arrival hall as well. The groups were quite diverse - there were couples, families, backpackers and lone rangers. All from different ethnicity and age group. I was happy that I had some company. Of course, I did take some time to do some preventive measure to avoid my property being taken away while I was asleep. However, I didn't sleep much though. People at my age does not suitable to sleep on hard floor anymore. I had a backache after taking a short sleep. I recalled it was about 4 hours max. I spent the rest of the time reading book (Elon Musk), wondering what're other people business and walking around to ease my sore legs.

When it was dawn, around 530AM, I wasted no time and carried my luggage from the airport to the nearest station. There was shutter bus service but the first car runs at 8AM. Since Casabianca station is not really far from the airport, I made the decision to walked there in order to save time. I needed to get to city and dropped my bag at 8AM sharp.

There was an minor incident happen that startled me. As I wanted to buy a train ticket before leaving to Cacabianca station I found the ticket machine do not accept 20 Euro banknote. Frustrated, I approached a group of people nearby hoping they would break it for me. However, to my disappointment, they claimed they do not have the change without considering. I was informed that Rome is not exactly a safe city to roam around so people may be a little more cautious when dealing with strangers. I understood they were not obliged to help me out. But, as a tourist, I found that cautiousness was not tourist-friendly. A mental note, remember to bring more small banknote when travelling Europe. Most of the places, even some big shops do not accept big note (The FCB official store at Barcelona refused to take my 50 Euro notes. Well, I attempted to break it down with my 8 Euro purchase).

After carrying and dragging my two luggage for about 1.4km, I reached Casabianca station and found another matter that startled me. There was no ticket machine. I made myself walking up and down twice the area to ensure I did not miss the ticket machine. When I was thinking how to react to the situation, the train came. I knew that if I miss the train, I would have to wait for some time before the next one arrived. So, I hopped on anyway, hoping no conductor would come around to check for ticket. I remembered staying at the at the train entrance compartment so that if the conductor came around, I could either exit the train at the next station or asked for mercy. Luckily, nobody bothered me and I got a free ride from Casabianca station to Termini station.

The following stories after I reach Termini station were ordinary. Not to say they were not memorable but just not as interesting as what I intended to share in this post. For my future reference purpose, I will just do a quick recap. 

0800 - Dropped my luggage at BagFree - a 5-minute walk from Termini station.
0815 - Rushed to Termini metro station and headed to Colosseum.
0830 - Arrived at Colosseum. I did not enter the Colosseum because it wasn't in my priority list. I just walked around it to see its exterior.
0900 - Headed to Roman Forum. An enclosed area of Roman ruins.
0930 - Arrived at Altar of the Fatherland (Altare della Patria). A magnificent building built in honor Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy.
1000 - Arrived at the infamous Trevi Fountain. There is a saying if you have your back towards the fountain and cast the coin with you right hand over your left shoulder. You will have chances to revisit Rome soon? The legitimate of this legend is unknown. Perhaps it is just some trick from an old movie. I did not think much and cast two coins. One was to hope to revisit Europe soon and another to hope to have my dreams come true.
1030 - Arrived at Pantheon. One of the oldest building in Rome and part of the clues in Angel and Demon. I took my time to admire the oculus.
1130 - Arrived at Fiumi Fountain - The fountain of four rivers. It is the "water" clue in A&D. I visited Sant'Agnese in Agone as well. A church situation next to Fiumi Fountain. The artwork in this church is just breath-taking.
1200 - Walked pass Castel Sant'Angelo (wished to visit the museum but it was not my priority either) and arrived at St. Peter Square.

Here I would like to highlight my experience of visiting Vatican City. As soon as I saw St. Peter Square situated no far from me, I was overwhelmed by emotion. Vatican City has always been one of the must-visit cities in my list. I had its picture framed in my room, looking at it day and night hoping my wish would come true. It came true, eventually. During that very moment, I was so overwhelmed and I wept. I found a place to sit, eating my sandwich while I was weeping silently. I was glad that I had my shade on so that nobody would see an Asian adult acting weirdly.  The feeling got stronger as I was getting close to the square. I was suppressing my voice so that nobody noticed me. I must say the feeling of achieving something was so good. The feeling of dream come true was so damn good. That's the feeling that I would never want to forget. At that moment, I told myself to remember the exact feeling and I want to have the same feeling again as I fulfilling more of my dreams in the future. I took my time standing next to the basilica to weep and enjoy that moment. After calming myself down, I went around to look for the entry to the Vatican Museum.

1230 - Entered Vatican Museum. The museum was huge. There was too much to see and crowded by tourists. I would revisit again in future and spend one whole day in it.
1500 - Exited Vatican Museum and waited in-line to enter Vatican church. It is the world largest church and the architecture is amazing (at this point, my foot were sore and tire and I was kind of  losing patience to admire all the work).
1600 - Arrived at Capella Chigi. The "earth: clue in A&D. It was a creepy chapel due to its death themed design.
1645 - Arrived at Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria. It is the "fire" clue in A&D. I was there to see the actual sculpture "Ecstasy of Saint Teresa". It is considered the most inappropriate sculpture to be placed inside a chapel/church in history. This sculpture was highlighted in A&D so I had to see it with my own eye.
1730 - Back to Termini station. Retrieved my bag from Bags Free.
Sometime around 1830 - Heading to FCO airport.

I was really happy that I made this trip happen. Although it was just a mere 10-hour trip, it was tiring, I didn't really enjoy it fully, I was still happy that I did it. I was happy I crossed off another line item in my bucket list.

I do not foresee me visiting Europe again in near future. But the next time I do it, I want to have another exciting memory for me to write about.

My Experience in Valencia, Spain

I believe most people have had some experiences which certain events in their life have made them roll they eyes, curse someone silently (or loudly) or simply want to punch someone in the face (if you are the aggressive person). I just encountered a series of event recently that had made me rolling my eye several times and ruined my vacation.

That particular event happened because people with different traveling goals traveled together. One wishes to spend most of the time on the move and save as much money as possible, whereas others want to have a slow and relax walk around the city and to try out the meals at local restaurants.

One thing we should have done but did not do is communication among the travel companions. We should have discussed about the trip together and got to know each other expectation of the trip. I did not ask too much about the trip because my colleague volunteered to plan everything. So, I thought it would be impolite if I questioned his plan. Also, I did plan to just sit back and enjoy whatever came to me. It was a wrong move. I should only do that if I know all companions have similar goals. Otherwise, when there are different opinions, it is better to make our personal plan and split up to enjoy doing what respective individual wants to do. Also, being thrifty or calculative when traveling is not a good idea. This type of person is a big no-no as a travel companion.

My trip to Valencia did not end well and there are lots places I have not visited yet. Furthermore, I suffered some monetary losses. This experience has changed my impression on a particular person and I have decided not to travel with that person anymore. He is not a bad guy, but just not a suitable travel companion for me. Sometime, it is more enjoyable to travel alone. Yes, it will be more hassle and lonely but you get to do things the way you want to do without compromising. If I really need a travel companion, I have to make sure we have similar travel goals.

My experience of staying in Philippine for 3 months

Philippine was the first country I visited this year and I think I had a good time there. It was suppose to be a project assignment trip but I ended up spending most of my time planning for my non-work activities. Throughout this trip, I had had done and experienced something totally different.

1. Meeting locals people and colleagues

I've used social apps and online platform to get to know local people that are equally interested to get to know foreigner. Also, my local colleagues were being nice to me too. They are friendly and kept feeding me information about where to go, what to try and showed me around the town. I had the chance to visit a local wine bar, visited restaurants where the locals people would visit, and visited a roof-top bar to enjoy the night view of Makati. I got all these experience thanks to the hospitality of the local friends.

2. Local food

To be honest, there are not many local food that suit my taste. I think the choice of food that make me want to revisit are just few - the BBQ chicken from Mang Inasal, Kare-kare from the NOC (my work place) and two restaurants in Greenbelt that serve local dishes. In my opinion, Filipino food has their distinguish taste which are not easily accepted by foreigners. Malaysians have the most versatile taste bud in the world (thanks to the multi-racial background of my country) and yet I can't find myself appreciate most of the food. I believe there are more to be explored and I hope I will have the chance to revisit Philippine.

3. Vacations

I was lucky to have a long weekend (Holy Week) during my stay in Manila and my friends and I took the chance to travel some places outside of Manila. We visited Pampanga, Nasugbu area and Tagaytay. Pampanga would probably be the most memorable trip because of the event I attended to. The event was held on Good Friday and there were crucifixion reenactment performances around Pampanga. It was one bloody event where the local self-flagellated, carried wooden crosses, crawled on rough pavement and the highlight of the reenactment was the performers getting nailed on crosses. This activity can only be observed in Philippine and no where else. As soon as I was told about this, I decided to see it for myself. The after-view comment, it was gruesome! People hit themselves to repent their sin. I could see blood dripping on the pavement as they walk from one point to another. As for the nailing, I am not sure if those men really got nailed on the cross or it was just a show, but they have to be under the scorching sun for quite some time and that was torturing enough. Personally, I do not agree with this activity. It's gruesome and I hope the participants would have done ample health and safety precautions. Even the local church authority does not endorse this kind of acting. Well, preserving traditional or not, this event does manage to draw in thousands of tourists to Pampanga every year. 

As for Tagaytay, I have been telling people I've visited the island-ception hotspot. It is a place where there is a lake on top of a volcano crater which happens to be an island engulf by a bigger lake which is in the biggest island of Philippine. The view itself is alright, not breathtaking enough compared to other places I had been, but it is the island-ception that makes this place special. Like the crucifixion reenactment, this tourist hotspot is the one-and-the-only. We visited some other places around Tagaytay but others were so-so.

4. Traffic
You have to be very careful when you are walking on the road or when you ride a car here. I've visited several ASEAN cities (not all but the cities but some) and I can say drivers at Makati have the highest steering control skill ever. I commuted with Uber in a daily basis throughout my stay in Makati. Sometime, if I was lucky, I would have polite drivers who drove nice and steady. If I wasn't lucky or if I take normal taxi, the experience can be life-threatening. When I just arrived at Makati, I really reluctant to take my company car or normal taxi in order to reduce the chances of me getting involve in accident. But after sometime, I got used to it (not totally got used to it but I was choosy anymore). Makati is a dangerous place to drive and even some locals dare not drive at this area.

5. Gambling
There are three casinos at Makati area and I had visited all three of them. Particularly, I visited one of them almost every weekend night. The names are, according to the sequence of my visit, City of Dreams, Solaire and Resort World. I have "contributed" a good sum of money to them, about my 11-day meal allowance. I know it is a bad and money-wasting habit and I kind of enjoy the thrill to be on the poker table. Since then, I have started watching poker videos from Youtube, trying to learn how the professional handle their games. I am not expecting to win big bucks, but the sense of achievement is there when the dealer pushes all those chips towards you.

Conclusion, Philippine is an interesting places to visit. It will not be the best place but definitely an not-to-miss place in ASEAN region.