Crypto Addicts – B2 English Reading Test — Explanation

Crypto addicts

“I did not become interested in cryptocurrency because I understood the technology,” says Daniel Reed. “A colleague showed me a trade that had doubled in value within days. I opened an account that evening because I was afraid of missing the next rise.”

Daniel's first purchases gained value quickly. That early success convinced him that careful instinct, rather than a rising market, explained the result. He began checking prices before getting out of bed and during meals. When prices fell, he bought more because recovering the loss felt like a problem he could solve.

“Eventually the money became less important than the movement,” he explains. “A quiet market felt unbearable. A sudden fall gave me a task: find the trade that would rescue everything.” He borrowed money but hid this from his partner. He also stopped meeting friends because conversations seemed slow compared with charts that changed every second.

The turning point came when Daniel missed an important family event while watching a price collapse. His partner did not demand a promise to stop. Instead, she showed him how many nights he had slept badly and how many debts he had concealed. He contacted a service that supports people with gambling-like behaviours and gave a trusted relative control of his trading passwords.

Daniel believes app design intensified the problem. Constant notifications turned every price change into an urgent event, while messages celebrating gains appeared more often than reminders about losses. Online communities also rewarded dramatic success stories. People shared winning trades publicly but rarely posted complete records, creating the impression that everybody else was making money.

He does not argue that every trader will develop a problem or that digital assets should simply disappear. Instead, he wants platforms to offer clear loss summaries, optional waiting periods and easier ways to block deposits. “Risk information exists,” he says, “but it is usually separated from the exciting button that lets you act immediately.” Recovery for him now means accepting that missing a market movement is not an emergency.