“I Thought I Was Just Driving a Passenger. But It Was the Beginning of My New Life:” How an Uber Driver Made 308,000 USDT in 5 Weeks

A Morning That Was Nothing Special

Alex, a 36-year-old Uber driver from Austin, woke up at 6:10 a.m. to his phone vibrating. It was a new day and a new shift. He quickly washed his face, drank yesterday’s coffee, grabbed a lunchbox with nuts, and drove out in a 2015 Mercedes E class with air fresheners, an old Power Bank, and a half-dead tablet inside.

“It wasn’t a bad life. But it wasn’t mine. I was always driving someone except myself.”

Alex spent 14-16 hours in traffic every day. The driver listened to the conversations of his customers, smiled in response to their stupid jokes, and nodded where necessary. He regularly heard: “I bought crypto, its price grew 4 times,” and “Bitcoin flew up again.” But for him, it all sounded like something from another world. Alex had large loans, alimony, dental debt, and other family problems.

That Passenger

It was a regular Tuesday. The app showed: “Business class, 18 minutes, downtown.” The driver drove up to a luxury house. The passenger was an ordinary man in a T-shirt without logos, about 40 years old, confident, clean-shaven, with a pleasant smell of perfume, and somehow very happy. He sat in the back seat, gave the address, and immediately turned on the voice message:

“…if the difference between the crypto exchanges remains for more than 5 minutes, it’s a red signal that it is too late to make a deal. Liquidity will soon rise, the rate will stabilize, and you will earn nothing. Be sure to enter quickly – as soon as you see a fork between the exchanges. I take it through fusionrelic.com, veiledsignal.com, or quantumdusk.com. When it’s green – I enter.”

– What does “green” mean? – the passenger answered. – Please explain in more detail. I don’t understand.

Alex accidentally heard familiar words: crypto exchanges, rate, green… He focused his attention and waited for the passenger’s response.

“…well, you can only make money if the market is volatile and not standing still. When unexpected events happen, news appears, or someone bribes crypto bloggers to pump a coin – a sharp price increase or decrease… it doesn’t matter. Such events promote forks, which I track through these three crypto scanners.

For example, you are monitoring the exchanges, and you see that on one of the exchanges, the rate of some coin is $1.83, while it is $1.87 on another exchange. After that, you need to buy coins on the exchange where they are cheaper, transfer them to the exchange where they are more expensive, and sell them. You must do that within 5 minutes until the rate stabilizes.”

The passenger began recording his voice message: “And how much can you earn in a day or from one deal? What will happen if you don’t have time and the rate stabilizes? And why will it stabilize? Please explain this point, which is not very clear to me. Why is there a difference in rates?”

The driver was getting nervous since he was already turning onto the street where he was supposed to drop off the passenger in a few kilometers. He had to slow down and catch the red lights to get more interesting information. There was one intersection left. A new message arrived.

“… You can earn as much as you want – the larger your deposit, the faster you will increase it through reinvestment. If you have a $100,000 deposit, you can move it around 2-3 times with one deal and earn a few thousand or $10,000. It all depends on the difference in the exchange rate, which can be from 0.5 to 9%. When Bitcoin increases or decreases by 5-10 thousand in either direction, some exchanges may have up to 13% forks. It happens due to sharp price movements. Not all exchanges have enough liquidity to buy or sell suddenly formed volumes. You need to delve deeper into this topic – I can’t explain it in a few words. Let’s meet this evening, and I’ll show you how it works on my laptop.”

Then came another message, but it was too late. The car had already arrived at the final destination. But something inside Alex pushed him, and he couldn’t help but say:

– Sorry, I didn’t mean to listen. You were sending voice messages, and I couldn’t help but hear, but I… this… can I… Were you talking about cryptocurrency?

The passenger was surprised but answered reservedly:

– Yes, about cross-exchange arbitrage. Do you understand anything about it?

– No, but according to your conversation, the same coin can cost differently on different crypto exchanges. You buy it, send it to another exchange, and sell it. No risks at all! You get a profit if you do it in 5 minutes, and if you don’t – you don’t lose or earn anything.

– Sounds easy, yes. But I haven’t fully delved into this topic yet, so I don’t want to give you the wrong information. Thank you! Have a nice day!

– Sorry for my persistence, but could you give me the links to those crypto scanners your friend was talking about? I feel like this could change my life, bro! Or would that be too hard for you?

– It’s too hard to be poor, bro! – the passenger replied to the taxi driver, returned to the messenger, and turned on the voice message again.

“… сoinsnipe.com, deltasplit.pro and arbimap.net…”

– Thanks, bro! You saved my black ass! Here’s my business card. You got free rides if that somehow compensates for my impudence.

The passenger looked at the card and replied with a smile:

– See you, Alex!

The First Spark

That night, Alex didn’t go to bed. The man opened his laptop, found the necessary websites, and delved into the topic: numerous articles, videos, comments, and Reddit. The price differences were real. He couldn’t believe his eyes. 1.3%, 2.7%, and sometimes even 6%. For a moment, he remembered how he used to buy a Pepsi for $1.20 at the gas stations and tried to sell it at another gas station for $1.40, with a spread of 20 cents. And there was the same logic, but about officially trading cryptocurrency.

“It looked like a clear business in Excel, where you only need the Internet, a phone, and start-up capital…with endless possibilities instead of reports.”

He bought a notebook and began to study all the coins that are subject to high volatility and are present on crypto scanners. On the fourth night, he realized it could bring him good money.

There Was Only One Problem: Money

He had $2,500 – a reserve for three weeks of rent and food. But he no longer doubted. He couldn’t forget the passenger’s phrase:

“It’s too hard to be poor, bro!”

Alex decided to take a risk. He opened accounts on all the exchanges, studied the commissions, and started trying.

First Steps

Buy\Sell – plus $23; next deal – plus $8; next – zero. Next – $57, $114, $29, $0, $70… He kept analyzing and studying, carefully read every news item and article, and looked for patterns, especially after Trump and Jerome Powell’s announcements.

12 hours of crypto trading every day. Uber gradually faded into the background when the driver earned his first money. Eating on the go, sleeping in the car at lunchtime – Alex made $960 in the first week.

“Not enough? But it was more than three days of work behind the wheel.”

Working at High Speed

On the 11th day, there was a rare fork with a difference of 9.2%. He invested $3,500. He made it. The profit was $322. The next day, there was another one: the rate difference between the American and European exchanges was 8.3%. Alex earned another $310.

And then, the tailwind began: the market flew up and down for two weeks in a row, and the rates did not have time to stabilize on all exchanges. During that time, Alex managed to increase his capital by 22 times. On the 35th day of trading, the balance was $55,200, starting with $2,500.

He sat down, put his hands on his knees, and cried.

What Happened Next

Alex didn’t quit Uber right away. He bought a new Mercedes E class, worked there for a couple more months, earned another $280,000, and finally paid off all his debts. Later, he rented a comfortable apartment, bought a MacBook, sent his parents on a 12-month cruise, hired four employees to whom he delegated most of the tasks, and went on a round-the-world trip.

“I just dreamed of paying off my loans. And now, I can buy a house and solve most of my loved ones’ issues.”

The passenger never called back after many months of waiting.

“I don’t even know that passenger’s name. But he changed my life dramatically because he said out loud what 99% of people would have kept silent about. I achieved my goal. I overcame my fear and shyness. No one cared about my life, so I took it into my own hands!”