Hey folks, so if you’ve tried accessing any of my articles on Medium over the past couple of days, you probably would have seen one of these errors:
Noticing this immediately after I published my last article on Sunday, and my heart immediately sank. I knew that writing about crypto inherently had its risks, but I thought I would get my wallets rekt 10 times’ over before actually getting my medium account shutdown.
Originally I chose to focus the primary bulk of my content on Medium because not only is it known for being very crypto-friendly but it has some of the most respected cryptocurrency-related writers in the space, and my aspirations has always been to be one of those writers. The following is not only an account of what caused my account to be under investigation of the first place, but what things I’ve realized over the last couple of days that I hope will keep pushing me forward.
My account wasn’t even under investigation for anything I had written.
Or at least I don’t think it was. I’ve been using Medium for nearly two years now, and as far as writing goes, I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent. Sure I’ve talked about low marketcap coins, getting rekt on centralized exchanges, but (hopefully) not only has my writing improved, but I want to believe that my content and analysis has as well too.
So what put me over the edge? It was a Zealy sprint run. I won’t name names because I don’t want to assign any blame for actions that I took, but essentially I had completed more than 10 Zealy quests which involved multiple ‘claps’ for several different of the project’s medium articles — all in a very short period of time. Hindsight is always 20/20, but now looking back, what I thought was efficient, most likely looked like pretty suspicious bot activity.
The fact that my account could potentially get shutdown for something so arbitrary was probably the most disheartening. I’ve put hundreds of hours of work into this blog, and to have it come down for a Zealy quest…it made me realize how fragile everything really was.
I never realized how much I cared about my writing.
If you go back to my very first medium article, “Bad news about Korea’s CHAI crypto card — a bust for new cardholders” back in February 2022, I felt that I needed to get an article out there talking about how much I felt duped by Korea’s CHAI card. At the time I couldn’t find a single article online (in English or in Korean) that talked about how the partnership between Terra and CHAI had been discontinued, let alone that it had been discontinued for several months.
Of course now we know that the whole Terra Luna project was a complete scam, but at the time the purpose of me writing was to inform others of not going down the same rabbithole that I did. My initial vision for blogging wasn’t for anything besides a formal note-taking process for what I was learning about everyday from jumping into crypto.
When I got the rug pulled from underneath me last weekend, I still had access to my account and all of my articles, but what I found myself most upset about wasn’t that — it was the fact that I no longer had an audience, albeit relatively small as it might be.
I’ve gotten so much great feedback and thoughtful questions and comments from my writing, and it’s helped propel me further into the crypto-jungle. And without that outlet, I found myself crushed and extremely disconnected to something I didn’t know I was that connected with in the first place.
Touching grass is important.
Last weekend without the outlet to write, I spent a lot more time with my family and a lot more time contemplating about whether or not this journey has been worth it. My wife has always been extremely supportive of my crypto, and she’s seen it as a hobby for me to express a creative stream I didn’t know that I had.
Although it was done forcefully so, I spent a lot more disconnected from Crypto than I have for a long time, and instead about thinking about what to write or what to research, I thankfully spent a lot of quality time with the ones I love, and realizing what’s more important than what crypto offers — friends, family, and community. It’s extremely easy to get wrapped up in the crypto bubble, and as exciting as it may be, touching grass is extremely important because the world doesn’t revolve crypto, crypto instead exists because the world revolves around people (not banks).
What to do if your own account is under investigation:
Stay cool. There’s an algorithm that flags accounts that need to go over review (i.e., like giving several articles likes in a short period of time), and just because you violate one rule one time, doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the world. Additionally as I mentioned before, all of your content is still accessible, it just isn’t accessible to the public.
Medium also has its own specific policies on cryptocurrencies and I highly recommend if you’re a fellow cryptocurrency blogger, that you read them. There are different rules for organizations, but for independent writers such as myself, they detail:
In my instance, I’m pretty certain that I got flagged for “inauthentic activity.” If you have any further questions, or if you need immediate assistance, I would contact trust@medium.com and they’ll respond pretty quickly (however I’m pretty sure they don’t work on Sundays).
Conclusion
Meaning this now more than ever, thanks for taking the time to read this, and if you have any comments, questions, or any ideas of where I should take this journey next, please hit me up in the comments below.
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and this is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please as always, do your own research and find what investments are best for you. Cheers everyone!