Redditor May Lose Young Family After Crypto Trading Addiction Spirals

A self-confessed crypto-trading addict and father of two faces the grim prospect of losing his family forever after secretly racking up $180,000 in debt from his crypto-trading habits.

Reddit user “Leather_Opposite2135” posted his story on the r/relationship advice subreddit on February 21, saying he started trading cryptocurrency around 2021.

Fast forward two years to today and he has been kicked out by his wife and is at least $180,000 in debt.

“It just started chugging,” Leather said. “It’s a technical area so I found it very interesting. Joined a bunch of online spaces (discord) and eventually saw a few people trading btc and was instantly hooked.”

Within a year, he had already “burned” $50,000 from cryptocurrency trading, with funds lost mainly from his software business.

“Skip another year and it got really bad,” Leather said, noting that his addiction had begun to take hold when he began to finance his dealings in other ways, such as personal loans and credit cards.

“I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but I found every possible way to finance it, including getting personal loans, credit cards, lying about everything.”

“I gambled on my phone when I went to the bathroom, when the kids were sleeping, on my computer when I wasn’t busy with work.”

Leather noted that about three weeks ago, he finally learned of the debt to his wife, who did not take the news well and threatened to leave him and take ownership of their house.

He has since banned himself from crypto, handed over control of his trading accounts to his wife, and has been seeing a gambling addiction counselor weekly, but admitted that shaking the addiction was initially difficult.

“Emotionally I was all over the place for the first 2 weeks. Cold turkey from something I spent 10 hours a day on (minimum) […] All the while the little voice telling me to go is looking at charts over my shoulder.”

The original post has since been deleted by Leather_Opposite2135 on Reddit, but is neither the first nor the last story to shed light on the potential dangers of crypto trading addiction.

Rehab centers around the world have begun to add crypto trading addiction to the list of services that treat compulsive habits, alongside alcohol, drugs and behavioral health.

“Clinically, we’ve certainly seen an increase in people coming to therapy reporting difficulty managing their crypto trading behavior,” clinical psychologist Dr. Anastasia Hronis told Cointelegraph in an email.

“Like gambling, many of them will report that it interferes with their daily lives, they spend a lot of time thinking about it, and may also experience financial difficulties as a result.”

Dr. Hronis noted that, like online gambling, there is an “readiness” of crypto trading “that can be quite dangerous for individuals.”

Related: How to build a crypto portfolio without spending money or time on trading

“A person can be seen to be engaged in their normal daily life, eg going to work, spending time with family and friends, participating in hobbies, etc., while still acting on the side. This means that an addiction actually can become quite serious before anyone else in that person’s life notices.”

“Given the newness of crypto trading, I think treatment is still catching up to some degree. While the general principles of treating an addiction can certainly be applied here, there are nuances of crypto trading that would benefit from being better understood for better to inform clinical treatments,” added Dr. Hronis.