Confessions of a crypto cynic part 1: I usually pass on crypto

People always ask me the same follow-up question when I tell them what I write about — specifically, cryptocurrencies. How can they get rich investing in crypto?

Truthfully, I’ve been meaning to answer that question for a long time. I’ve invested in crypto before, but it was a long time ago — like, long enough ago that if I had held onto it, I would probably be rich right now. So earlier this year, I decided to see which coins had that “cha-ching” factor. How would Bitcoin, a “blue chip” crypto, perform against Fartcoin, a to-the-moon memecoin?

In my tool bag: $100 and a dream. The dream? My husband and I are living in Europe for the summer. We pull up in our yacht to the Monaco Grand Prix. In one hand, I have a Chanel bag (not sure which one yet, but I have time to decide) and in the other, a glass of bubbling Dom Pérignon. I’m wearing a new pair of CELINE sunglasses and a new sundress from Loro Piana. My husband flashes his Rolex Submariner, the sun reflecting on the green bezel. We throw our heads back and laugh that rich laugh — yeah, you know what laugh I’m talking about — the Jeff Bezos laugh.

Now, you might be wondering, “Well, Logan, how will you pay for it all?!” My Fartcoin gains, of course.

How hard could it be? Plenty of kids have done it with memecoins. A kid last year made a meme coin, then rug pulled his investors and made $30,000 in one evening. Is it ethical? No. But, if a 13-year-old can make that much money by scamming people, surely, I could make some cash by simply investing.

Confessions of a crypto cynic part 1: I usually pass on crypto

Before we get into how Fartcoin performed against Bitcoin, I have a few confessions to make.

Confession No. 1: I’ve bought Bitcoin before, but it was so long ago that I don’t remember when and even how much I invested. I’m pretty sure I made nothing when I sold what little I had. But, if I had held onto it, I would’ve been able to cash out a small portion to help pay for our family vacation last year.

Confession No. 2: My only crypto investment is a few shares of a Bitcoin ETF in an individual brokerage account. Those shares are such a small percentage of my portfolio that I don’t really notice an impact. It’s also not an investment that I follow closely.

Confession No. 3: Just last year, I hit the major financial benchmarks — emergency fund, manageable debt, diversified portfolio — that many financial advisors recommend achieving before investing in crypto. For my husband and me, that looked like bolstering our emergency savings and working on maxing out our retirement contributions. A financial advisor can work with you to create a balanced portfolio that meets your short- and long-term goals — and Bankrate’s AdvisorMatch can help you connect with a CFP® professional.

My playbook: Why I bought Bitcoin and Fartcoin

I decided to invest $100 total in two completely different types of cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, a more established “blue chip” coin, and Fartcoin, a wild, even-more-speculative-than-usual memecoin.

With a market cap that rivals the Magnificent 7, Bitcoin offers the relative stability that I wanted, plus it has a use case — albeit one that is heavily debated. But most of the “get rich quick with crypto” stories come from investing in memecoins, which have no use case and can skyrocket (or plummet) in a matter of days, sometimes minutes.

Then, I’d hold the coins for 90 days to see how they’d perform, tracking the daily closing price and my portfolio value. I invested on Jan. 14 and ended the test drive on April 14. I bought $50 of Bitcoin on Coinbase — 0.00051795 of a Bitcoin at the time, when the coin closed at $96,534. (All price data are from CoinMarketCap.com.)

But to really make some money, I needed a coin with serious growth potential, like Fartcoin, one of the hottest memecoins of the moment. Created by an AI agent in October 2024, Fartcoin ignited a frenzy, reaching a peak market cap of $2.4 billion in January — thanks to a 55.3 million percent price increase in three months.

It's up 62% in 7 days and now has a market cap of over $