In the Edeltalk podcast by Twitch streamer Kevin “Papaplatte” Teller (27) and Dominik “Reeze” (28) Reezmann, the two often share stories from their lives. The latest episode was particularly interesting for Papaplatte’s viewers: He confessed how he lost €50,000 in one night.
How did the loss occur? The streamer shared in his podcast that he had invested in cryptocurrencies for quite some time. Over several months, he managed to earn daily profits of €1,000-2,000 through so-called leveraged products.
He admitted that he didn’t really understand much of what he was doing and was driven by his profits. In hindsight, he realizes it was pure gambling, although he didn’t understand that at the time. Trading financial products is complex, and what Papaplatte did was, as he himself said, sheer gambling.
The two also discussed in the podcast that one feels as if they know what they are doing when profiting, but later it turns out it was just luck.
The profits Papaplatte accumulated over months, he reinvested repeatedly. By the end, he had a portfolio of about €80,000 in various cryptocurrencies. But as high as the profits were, trading with leveraged products is equally risky.
Papaplatte and xQc keep crossing paths. Here you can find out more about Papaplatte’s Twitch competitor.
Papaplatte: “I’ve never felt so empty”
How did he ultimately lose the money? Papaplatte lost the money because he was betting on so-called leveraged products. These are extremely risky and work like this:
You essentially borrow money from the platform provider on which you trade to increase your own profits. Instead of earning €1, you might earn €10. Conversely, you can also lose €10 instead of €1 if the price drops, and that’s exactly what happened to the streamer.
One evening, Papaplatte invested as usual in his leveraged product betting on the rise of Iota, a hyped cryptocurrency at the time, but the opposite happened. While he had fallen asleep with his phone in hand, the Iota bubble began to burst and according to Papaplatte, the price fell overnight from about $4 to $1.20.
That was so much that his budget of €50,000, which he had on the platform, could no longer cover further debts to the platform, and the position was thus liquidated. He lost everything.
The next day, I have never felt so empty, man.
Papaplatte in his podcast
How did Papaplatte feel after the loss? Papaplatte initially couldn’t believe his eyes. A look at the currency’s price probably disoriented him even more, as the price had already recovered to over $3. But because his leveraged product had already been liquidated, he lost all his money, not just the difference in prices.
On that day, he began to reflect more on the entire situation. “Fuck, what have I done” he is said to have thought. But instead of learning from his lesson, he made the mistake that many investors do. He let his emotions guide him and tried to get the money back.
You can watch the entire podcast episode here.
How did he plan to achieve that? He raised the risk to regain the lost money. With the same strategy as before, but with higher risk, he tried to get the money back. Just at that moment, however, the entire crypto bubble began to burst, and he subsequently lost the other €30,000 he had left.
Trading financial products is risky; Papaplatte had to realize that too. Many game developers also saw possibilities to make money with cryptocurrencies. One made a cruel joke, telling his players that his shooter would mine Bitcoin in the background.
