Why I Lost $10K—and Found My Voice in the Silent Chain

The Quiet Market

I remember 2018—the bear market didn’t kill my portfolio. It killed my illusion that markets are rational. I sat alone at my Manhattan apartment, watching OPUL flicker between \(0.0389 and \)0.0449, transaction volumes spiking like breaths in a silent room.

The Glitch in the Data

Four snapshots. Three with identical prices but wildly different percentages. One surge—52.55%—echoed through 610K trades while price stayed frozen at $0.044734. That wasn’t movement. That was manipulation disguised as momentum.

Code as Law

I’m trained in finance, raised by a poet and an engineer—raised on equations and empathy. Opulous didn’t move because of demand. It moved because someone wrote code that locked liquidity into a loop—and no one saw it. This is not crypto speculation. This is civilizational architecture.

The Voice Beneath the Noise

We treat blockchain like financial scripture when we’re told to trust algorithms. But algorithms don’t feel loneliness. They don’t cry when prices collapse. I do. And that’s why I write—not for clicks, not for returns—but so others might ask themselves: What would you lose if you were free?

Reflection Prompt

What would you lose if you were free?