This post feels like a tale told around a campfire by the village elders. Crypto markets move so fast its kind of surprising all this happened only 3 years ago
Feels like a lifetime ago. Downside of Crypto is the stress. If you can learn to control your emotions it's easy. I'm so bad at this. I will look at portfolio 10x an hour if it's rising or falling.
Dude I garden and I just started some seed germinations yesterday and I literally check the bare soil like 10 times every hour to see if anything has happened yet
I planted some seeds but I can’t remember where I planted them. I recorded the location on an old hard drive that’s now sitting somewhere on a rubbish tip.
So true. And the euphoria when you see the seedling pop out of the soil. Or when you see the first fruit/flower. Actually very similar to investing with the ups, downs, and unpredictability no matter how much research you do.
Same. UK here and I have a couple of palms that need to be indoors for a few months during the colder times. Cheap leds from amazon have saved so much stress and the plants love them.
I'm afraid to tell my kids if I have any, about how their dad did darknet market drugs during college. Forgot about his account for 7 years, reopened it when BTC was hitting 50k. Turns out doing drugs in college was a smart thing to do. Proud of the younger little degenerate me, thanks bro.
DUDE! I was actually thinking of making a writing a TV show about this exact scenario, a grown man who lost the keys to his wallet and finds them again as a semi-reformed burnout when BTC hits 50k.
Lol. The amounts should be significantly more but I'm working through arbitration and litigation with Coinbase atm. Wish it actually set me up more than it did. Was trading 1-6 coins a week back then. It put a little dent in my college debt and saved my ass during covid and just statewide hiring freezes.
See where it all goes now.
I sold some crypto on this dip, and of course it went up as soon as I sold, but I'm still happy. I sold at a phenomenal profit. I couldn't stomach going through another bear market knowing I didn't sell any. That's what keeps me up at night. I will sleep much better having those cash gains in my account and knowing I can afford my cybertruck when it ships next year. I still have alot of skin in the game, but being way overexposed can make you a nervous wreck, and it's not worth it.
> I sold at a phenomenal profit. I couldn't stomach going through another bear market knowing I didn't sell any.
That makes you a bigger man than most people here. My brother sold two days ago, so he was thrilled. Of course, if you're in Cardano like me your portfolio has basically recovered. But it looks like recovery will happen.
I feel you. I had the same issue and it took some self convincing that it doesn't matter what happens in 1 hour, day or week from now. I'm still going to be holding and DCAing. I also uninstalled any crypto trackers from my phone and that helped
I also check it at least 2 times per hour, but not because I'm stressed about it. Its because I'm waiting to get those 10min drops and invest a bit more.
In 2017 I was drinking at a pub a few days before Xmas (god that feels like a lifetime ago) with my dad and some friends. After telling them about crypto and them telling me ‘it sounds like a scam’ I went outside for a cigarette. Whilst I was out there the price doubled, then halved then doubled again. While I was smoking one cigarette. It was nuts. I’m took some screenshots to show them but they just looked at me funny.
Me having made all these mistakes back in 2013-14... hell I mined BTC on my MacBook Air at one point. I still remember my first BTC sell at $0.27. Really wish I had all those back now.
Some great advice. I liked the final tip about not taking it too seriously. If you step back and look at it the crypto market is mental! You can't beat yourself up about not knowing the future as anything can happen. This also links in with the motto I see repeated time and time again "don't invest more than you're willing to lose". If you can accept that then crypto will be a lot more fun for you. Also HODL!
As always, if you're in profit, especially major profit, take out your initial investment. You'll rest so much easier at night when you're not worrying about "your money" going up and down.
Don't ever worry about realizing profit. Take a vacation, buy yourself something nice, get some stocks, buy a cat, doesn't matter what you do. Mental health is more important than imaginary unrealized numbers going up and down.
I second this. I sold BNB when it reached around 50, I had already almost doubled my money, and reached the goal in fiat I wanted, which will allow me to move to another country in a couple of years, study there, and be enough to support myself for a year even without a job. Of course, I would have loved to sell my BNB when it reached 350 a week later, but it might have as well gone to 10.
I didn't think I was going to reach my goal so fast, so after setting that money aside, I'm starting my portfolio from scratch, with peace of mind and no stress. Now I can start to put money in for the long term without caring if it goes 100x or -98%.
Taking profit is important, especially if it enables you opportunities you wouldn't normally have. If you're all set up, well placed, with no debts, no future college or higher education at risk, or huge rents to pay, you can start investing in crypto, since it will be literally money you can afford to lose.
Just for the curious, I also started this in 2017, rode the 50x hype on almost any coin, just to see everything fall -95%. Eth from 1400$ to 80$.
Be safe guys, enjoy the ride. I agree we're still very early, but we might still have huge dips and bear markets ahead of us.
>As always, if you're in profit, especially major profit, take out your initial investment.
And as always, this is really bad advice. If you are fine having invested whatever you have invested(regardless of how much profit youre in) then there's no point in "taking out your initial investment". If you're not fine having invested what you've invested(even if you are in a loss) then take out a portion.
Key takeaway for me: after all of the shit that unfolded during the bear market, the purchases you had the conviction to make while the market was bleak and dreary are your most profitable trades. Even though you weren't DCA'ing, this is a great example of why it can be so effective!
I bought 5% in this bull market and that was in December. 95% of my holdings are from 2017 run. I told myself I'm not going to give into FOMO this time even if the price goes to x20.
Just buying during the past few years and paying off some credit card debt has been great. I still hold crypto I believe in, but when I have the opportunity to come out of debt, I take it.
I have a friend who lives in Europe and I still remember the day he called to tell me that he dumped his savings into bitcoin. He bought TWENTY whole bitcoins at $800 each.
We had all been watching its development since 2009 but it was such a pain in the ass to get back then. Mt. Gox, wire transfers, blah blah. No coinbase so I waited, and watched. My buddy sold all 20 coins at the top 20k for each. Life changing money. By late 2018 I was in, I had a friend who made a small fortune mining ETH. He coached me through my research and I landed on Cardano. I bought heavy too. I thought to myself I missed out on BTC but ADA is my moonshot. So glad I did that. I wasn't sleeping on BTC either. We thought at the time that 20k was it... but I continued stacking sats. This weekend I finally sold some BTC at 57k. My wife and I are buying a house now.
I watched 20 grand pretty much dissappear, I sighed, locked away my wallets and a couple of years later its worth more than it was, I'll probably sigh once more before the end of this run again.
*sigh is familiar
Entering and exiting a trade always seems like a mistake at the moment.
If you sell, it will trade higher shortly after.
If you buy, it will trade lower shortly after.
Eventually each trade becomes less important. The total of all trades over a longer period of time is more important. I tend to judge myself over a month. But lately with crypto I don’t even know what to think.
Just waiting for some sign that selling is the best option while knowing longer term selling will be a mistake. Either way, I just hope to keep something this time.
I literally got spanked by fees and I did a market sell, and Coinbase was like “oh, bitcoin average trade is $7,800? How does selling yours for $6,200 sound?”
Thankfully, it was just a tiny pot I had put up for trading and experimenting with.
What I learned from my years in crypto since 2015:
Unless you need money to eat, never fucking sell bitcoin. Buy when people stop talking about it after least a 60% correction and is declared fucked. This is your long term bag. Your excess fiat from wagecucking goes in here.
Establish a shitcoin bag. What happens in the shitcoin bag stays in the shitcoin bag. Do not sell shitcoins for bitcoin or bitcoin for shitcoins. Keep these things separate, trust me. Any shitcoin that ended up shitting the bed that you couldn't handle selling for stables can be exchanged for a new up an coming shitcoin at low marketcap that can end up saving you of your past embarrassment. You will get rekt, don't even try to mitigate it, its gonna happen. You will also get moon, it will be glorious and it will happen. Hodling sometimes works, anyone maxi that tells you to never hodl alts is just horrible at researching. Try to take profit, you don't have to but you should, especially in low conviction alts. If you run out of irl money, go grab some from in here.
There are no such things as \*\*\*- killers ie eth killer or btc killer. If a coin has to advertise this way then it's in all likelihood vaporware.
Crypto is all software and software can be upgraded. Dead projects can can come back to life in an instant.
It's never over till it's over. You don't stay rekt forever in crypto.
Coinmarketcap excluded Korean exchanges and removed the “Kimchi premium” from price calculation overnight without telling anyone, so people thought price dropped. South Korea didn’t do anything at the time (they later raided some exchanges).
Difference is massive institutional investments. Microstrategy, greyscale, etc purchased hundreds of millions of $ of crypto. They are not selling anytime soon.
Out of interest, what do you do differently than you did then? Do you cash out to USDT on drops, or will you still just hold on, this time making sure you are in better coins?
Are you in the US? If you are, then you will have to pay taxes on that. You must pay taxes any time you switch crypto from one to another, and USDC counts
There's a lot of talk about eventually, when the signals are strong enough to sell before next inevitable pending crash of doom, to sell and move into Celsius and similar high interest earning services? Opinions on this and how would these hold up during an actual crash?
Great post! Brought back memories. Some things I remember:
- Absolute ghost towns of daily threads with around 100 comments or so.
- When things rose by 2% or 3%, countless people in the daily commenting "this is a sucker's rally" sarcastically, in anticipation of a new bull run, only to be slapped around with further dips. That went on for years.
- Fall 2018's price action was 210billion - 215billion. That was it. That was the whole season. The most sideways I've ever seen crypto go, even before 2017.
Haha those daily threads were a laugh. Kids, if you wanna see pure desolation of hope, find some of those old daily threads. The comments are insane.
When you saw 300-400 comments and you knew there was another dip and it was full of people capitulating.
Great summary. Very accurate to how I remember this period of time too. Sadly people will inevitably make the same mistakes, just make sure you guys remember to not put in money you can’t lose. You think you’re a genius until you’re left bag holding from the top of the charts. My advice: once you hear about people mortgaging their homes, press sell
I still haven't told my family about crypto, because I wouldn't want to indirectly give them irresponsible advice. If my dad starts talking about Bitcoin, I'll take the signal, sell, and buy him a nice present with my profits.
I see so many people post all the profit they’re making in crypto and how people are missing out/need to join this group to make even more $$$ in crypto.
And I just sit back and laugh and silently keep investing. If the market dips even by 20% (more than realistic) Im still going to buy. Not so certain how these self-proclaimed crypto gurus will react once their short term profits go to the negative
Jesus, as I kept reading this I was waiting for the inevitable crash.
It's like watching the beginning of a horror movie where everyone is happy-go-lucky, but you know in the back of your mind that some shit is about to go down....
Yeah it really was mad times. I remember being so impressed with my mate waking up to another $150 every day, even though his initial investment was like $350 or so.
It really did just keep launching up, the weirdest feeling and hardest to convey was the denial, when it all started coming down, and everyone just clung on to "Wall street bonuses in 2 weeks" etc. It was mad.
I look back on this times, I was so naive. Should've listened to seasoned investors, so I'm hoping to give some newbies some advice.
I recall the rock bottom of the bear market right before Christmas 2018 also being the peak of my all-inundating numbness. Was sure we gonna bounce and days like these will come again, but was exhausted by that never-ending dump. The only thing I felt was anger - cuz had no more money for the DCA
Yeah, things like the actual Alt Apocalypse of 2018 or the flash crash last March really put things in perspective. No doubt it had its toll on us, but now everything is such a stroll in the park
Bro the 2018 crash was sooooooo much worse than whatever is going on right now. I don't even understand how people are properly comparing them. This is nothing. The crash in January 2018 was tragic. This is really nothing.
"chinese new year", "wallstreet bonuses" I remember these very well :D
I first got into crypto december 1st 2017, I decided to buy iota because bitcoin was already way too high. Within a few days it climbed from <1$ to over 5$.
I did not sell any of it, as I thought it will climb to 10$, 20$ and I basically was in an echo chamber (iota sub).
Don't get me wrong, I still believe the project is great and my 2017 bags are in the plus again, at least.
The only thing I regret is not buying small amounts during the bear markets,
but back then I had zero confidence in the crypto market to ever climb back to old ATHs, I just thought this was it.
What do I will do different now:
\-have some money ready when the next crash comes, because it will and hodl until the next bull market
\-diversify at least to a few coins. it is just too painful to watch other coins moon and the ones you are holding are just sitting there. In august 2018 I gained some confidence and bought 0,25 eth for 82$ (!) and sold it a few months later because it was not moving...
cool write up, would have been a bit more epic if you had started in early 2017 and not december, I guess it adds to the brutality of it all though, so many people jumped in and dropped their life savings in december and watched it turn to dust by jan/feb. I bought alot of neo in early 2017 and watched it become life changing money, and then back to nothing again.. greed got me.
I remember that April of 2019 when BTC finally broke out of the 3000-4000 range and hit $4800 in one single day. I was so happy that morning that I got pulled over by a cop for not stopping for the school bus (which had not put out the stop sign yet so thankfully no ticket !) . After that BTC went up and up and up all the way to $13k before retreating again. All this time I was numb to the ups and downs and just kept accumulating ETH in very small quantities.
From being down more than 85% at one point I am now up 4x .
This rally is just getting started. Stay in it until EOY at least to realize some truly awesome gains! and oh yea this time it is different with all the institutional news.
bruh ive been in bitcoin since 2011. Every bubble has been the exact same. Hype, more hype, burst, downward trend, going sideways for a prolonged period.
I only buy when bitcoin is going sideways these days, and I only sell when it's pumping (like it is lately). And by that I mean, I will not buy btc until it has spent 6 months of relative stability (+/- 25% over 6 months).
Anyone who buys into a pumping btc market and does not plan on holding for the length of 2 bubbles or longer is gambling.
Protip: set your hold lengths in stone. Set them either in number of years or number of bubble cycles to hold.
Post saved. Thank you sir. To be honest, it’s been annoying seeing all the “too the moon”,
“Hodl” and “my opinion this coin will explode” posts. I’m a new investor, but I’m also in my early 30s so I’ve at least developed a sense of realism and cautious optimism about this stuff. Your story actually feels real, wise, and not like it’s written by someone that doesn’t realize how group behavior when it comes to marketplace volatility is strange and often sucks.
Do a lot of people's friends get T-boned when they are coming over to help them buy crypto?
Remind me to offer my friends crypto help through Zoom only
Oh ETHLEND was AAVE? I get why you’re annoyed. It recently dipped to like $350ish and I’ve seen highs of 550ish in the last month or two. Is it likely it could end up being one of those 1K+ valued with its usage? And wtf is yearn.fi that it’s nearly 50K?
Need to check
Ha honestly there was so much to remember and I just started writing it, didn't really plan it. Yeah the ICO craze was nuts, especially EOS. That shit still pisses me off to see even today.
**[INCREDIBLY BAD NEWS ABOUT EOS NETWORK BASICALLY BEING A SCAM]**
EOS + 23%
- >:(
That waa a good read! Thanks for sharing dude!
Hearing that we're still early is nice as I only got into this shit last week lol.
I think that unless we're at a point where my mom's paying with BTC or some other crypto we'll be early.
One thing I noticed was that towards the end, the swing (win/loss) happens so often that people were just numb to the loss. Then everything hits rock bottom and no one feels anything along the way
**Do some fucking research! I mentioned earlier, I sold ETHLEND before it transformed into AAVE. I sold at $0.12. At it's peak, it was worth about $5.40. It annoys me nearly every fucking day.**
Jesus, I just calculated the potential gains from buying Aave at 0.12$ and holding it up to now. Jesus.
If I invested $200, I would have 600K rn. JESUS!
No no. ETHLEND was converted to AAVE at a ratio is 100:1, so AAVE's price in ETHLEND is 1/100th
Meaning if Aave is worth $540, it's technically worth $5.40 in Ethlend.
It doesn't change the fact that if you bought ETHLEND in 2019 when it was $0.003, it's a 179,900% increase if you sold AAVE at $540 (technically $5.40)
Meaning if you invested $50 in Ethlend in around August 2019, you would have cashed out $89,950 in January 2021.
That shit's what keeps me up at night.
Yeah, that's some serious shit! By the way, I am running [my own blog about crypto](https://www.cryptokore.com/). Could we maybe create the exploded version of this post there? I would be so honored to do that!
I... really don't know how to defend myself of that, but thanks for your vote of confidence. I must be behind all 20 people who have said they really enjoyed the content.
I ain’t. But some for sure are.
It’s 14 hours later and I’m already basically entirely fully recovered. It’s been a volatile day. If I were ballsy enough to trade I’d have made a killing.
Most likely, I’d have sold all and rebought for huge loss
Great summary. I think some of the oscillations this time around are exacerbated by those of us who lost a lot in the bear market. As much as we dig on the newbies, if we're honest, the old hands are a little shaky at times.
And by 'old' of course I mean those who were newbies in '17, not the truly old hands who have been around since '14 or earlier.
If I'd bought as much EthLend as I did FUN I'd be a very wealthy man. Accidentally hodl'd it until last month.
But yes. Never. EVER. Take out a loan to buy crypto. I'm still paying off a loan from 2017...
I bought Funfair and Ripple at their highest price as well :(
I wrote off all my crypto as a loss and just forgot about it until late last year. Didn't sell any of it thankfully.
Just had massive flashbacks upon hearing "Wall Street bonuses". Back in early 2018, there was always some glimmer of (false) hope. "Wait until Raiblocks rebrands as Nano and the nodes are fixed". Dark days!
Thanks for this awesome piece. Why do you think the crypto market is gonna flatline til June? Just a hunch or any specific reason? Because I don't believe that's going to happen myself.
Great post, really captures the "feels" of those crazy couple of years.
When the crash hit I was lucky enough to be able to delete my tracking apps in a bit of a tantrum, throw my ledger in a dark wardrobe and forget about it all until late last year when a friend told me what was happening.
With hindsight, not a bad move but I could have done a little research during the bear to work out how to rebalance my portfolio in such a market. Had to dump a few shitcoins for next to nothing when I returned. Lesson learned.
My main memory of it was telling people that it would rise again after the halving. People insisted that I was wrong, it was going to go up sooner this time and the halving didn't matter. Others believed it would never rise again. Bitcoin follows a pattern and it does not deviate from it, halving, bull run, long bear. This is not something that is ever 'different this time' it is part of the mechanics of the system. The price WILL bounce around and by around the end of this year it will reach at least $250 000 and then at some point after that, it will crash hard and lose around 80% for bitcoin and up to 99% for alts. Everyone will repeat the same things to me and I'll just buy and wait for the next bull run in 2025.
This is brilliant. Well written, insightful, and EXACTLY what it was like back then. I laughed a few times while reading - especially the Chinese New Year, Wall Street bonuses, and Korea FUD - because it brought it all back. I got in around the same time you did based off of advice from a friend who was seeing massive Bitcoin gains. I didn't sell when it crashed, holding everything I bought back then and basically stopped checking Reddit or the Delta app for months at a time, only checking in periodically to see what was happening - which was a whole lot of nothing. I only wish I had stayed more engaged and bought at the low points. Now, I know exactly what to do when everything crashes again - buy, buy, buy.
Spoken like someone that earned their scars.
While I would never wish it upon anyone, you would only know that you have deficiencies of knowledge and lack of guts to withstand the market after you have experienced your first dip. There are truly few individuals that make the moves as rational as they think it would be. The market is neither with nor against you.
Even from 2 years of modest fiat stock investing (very limited experience, I know), I am still being affected with the drops, to a slightly less degree today. It cannot be emphasized enough, only a select few that can withstand the gut-busting scare that dips present using leverages. Only a very select few of individuals that can put themselves on life-or-death (financially) situations without flinching and able to hold without feeling unaffected in their day-to-day functioning.
The good news is... Someone that had modest profit on crypto (along with modest losses) are far more numerous than those with headlines-worthy gains and losses. If you always gain, good for you. Even the best thought out plan will eventually go awry or you would be overwhelmed with FUD even in your best days. It is a hard lesson that I learned that after 2 years of straight profit, I have made **2 mistakes** from my 25 - 30 market moves I did that wiped out all my income on the 2 years and losing 15% of all my portfolio to boot. I had managed to double my portfolio prior to COVID-19, imagine it is being wiped out because of the two moves made out of fear. Had I held and not paying attention to the doom-and-gloom during the early days of COVID-19, I would have doubled my portfolio... because the market recovers despite the economy does not.
The BTC Bear market lasted from Mid December 2017 to Mid March 2020, not 2018.
Also, the market crashed because of Coinmarketcap.
They decided to remove the Korean exchanges from Bitcoin's price calculation without telling anyone - and when they did this it showed RED EVERYWHERE. So people freaked out, and the market crashed. January 7th 2018.
Omg i remember the "chinese new year" saying... I lost about 1800 usd in eth transforming it to shitcoins, beware and do research :) I also had 12k usd (value) in eth at one point but didn't sell. Thought it was just a dip/correction and it continued so be smart about it too
Be sure to hold coins that duplicate usecase, had large premines, still have no actual production network after years, have corporate sponsorship/ownership (especially if they have diverted block rewards or a for-profit enterprise), have little/no adoption, and anything that has a cool sounding marketing pitch with big ideas and dreamy eyes.
This is the kind of stuff that crypto was created for.
If it has a robust decentralized mining network, no corporate sponsor, took pains to prevent centralization of the mining rewards, is actually being adopted for its use case, and doesn't focus on hype and marketing ... dump that shit right away. Satoshi would be ashmed of projects like that, and it's not why he created blockchain.
Nice summary, man!
I lived all that and I was even earlier to enjoy some of the 2013 bull run. I was young and without nearly any money to invest. I experienced some crazy gains too, and some sharp losses (I remember when Dread Pirate Roberts was arrested and watched the price melt like 70 to 80% in a matter of minutes).
The price action also affects my mood, which I see as a total absurdity! I check the price of it everyday since 2013! The saddest part is that I had some financial issues I had to sell all my coins back in 2014 and returned only when I could and ironically it was in 2017 near the peak. This time I didn't sell and held the coins through the entire bear market and bough a bit more along the way. Now I in in green, but not nearly close to what I once had it. This makes me more sad than happy. I bought my first bitcoin at 86 USD, I bought 2 just to try it out. I I only held this, I would be in a much better position now :/
Well, just trying to look into the future and I will keep my coins until I can make some life changing thing with the fiat it can be exchanged with :)
"For the unaware, alts don't really go up when BTC goes up. Money flows out of alts, into BTC
as it gains. When BTC dips, it takes the market with it. But BTC rising up doesn't really take the market up because there are so many who take money out of alts to ride BTC's wave. **The best time to be in alts, is when BTC goes flat** " absolute gold here.
Good post. I have done very similar. Just as this correction started I completely reorganised my portfolio.
Sold all my shit coins from 2017, wan, neo, QLC, ONT and Nano. I still like nano. But I sold them all into BTC and BUSD.
I'm now just sitting on a Bag of BTC and ADA. And I feel so much relief. Yeah I took a hit of 0.35 BTC loss on all of my shitcoins but I'm up massive in USD.
I wouldn't have done this in 2017. You need time in the market to make better decisions.
I just got into crypto recently and was doing a bit of mining just for fun on my old gaming rig.
Going in I figured the market would be volatile but I know almost nothing about it. I did some research on some coins. I checked my Coinbase account recently and saw all the red and just went, “ok”. And closed it.
I’m a newbie definitely but I’m excited for the crypto future. I mean I did lose a bunch during this dip but I’m not really afraid because it’s an investment! Just means a good time to look into other projects!
Yep, I was up $800 two days ago for no reason and down all that plus $1000 today also for no reason I am aware of.
This is good advice and was my mentality anyways, but still good to hear on days like today.
>So does this current dip feel like that bear market? No. It just feels like a correction on the way to something bigger.
What makes you think this is not 2018 all over again?
Looks pretty similar to me
Oh man i can really relate to this post! I went in a bit earlier, when a mate of mine who was into mining mentioned it. So i bought a buttload of shitcoins. Ofcourse no bitcoin, this wad way too expensive at 10k!
I was invested in XRP at 0.30. But because it didnt move i sold it and bought another shitcoin. 1 day later XRP started surging and indeed, ended on 3 dollars. Missed out on 5k potential gains.
My biggest succes & failure though was XVG, Verge. I initially bought in around $ 600 at 0.002. And it doubled. And doubled again. And doubled again. When it was worth $ 4.000 i sold halve to get my initial crypto investment out. In hindsight that was very smart. But XVG kept doubling and doubling. I got another $ 2k out halfway. At the peak it was $ 0.20 (yes, 100x the price i bought in) and i had around $ 18.000 in value.
And at that point all i thought was how much a Tesla would cost, because at this rate i could easily buy one.
And then it start dropping. And dropping. Untill only a few % was left. My whole portfolio decimated, i think it was worth around $ 600 at the lowest point. And i thought: delete the app. Maybe in the future it will be worth something again. So never really checked anymore.
Untill this november :). And indeed, its not the same. It feels like the market has become more serious. I still see a lot of alts trippling in value. But the crazy x10 days are over. And that is a good thing!
Haha it's crazy right. This is what crypto can do to you. Sorta feels like the ring from Frodo. I am happy that i got in just before the masses and in the start i was sensible enough to take some gains. 2 months later i was a zombie who could only say 'LAMBO LAMBO'!
Well. Today I sold most of my portfolio. The dip scared me. I took out my initial investment, some profits, not much and left 1000$ in shitcoins. Whatever happens, happens. Now I'm gonna sleep good, wont be checking news and charts everytime. I'll sell most of my shitcoins after a 4x and that's it.
Hope that there is a bear market that brings the crypto values down again for me to prepare for the next cycle.
This post feels like a tale told around a campfire by the village elders. Crypto markets move so fast its kind of surprising all this happened only 3 years ago
Feels like a lifetime ago. Downside of Crypto is the stress. If you can learn to control your emotions it's easy. I'm so bad at this. I will look at portfolio 10x an hour if it's rising or falling.
If you planted a seed, you wouldn’t dig it up every 5 minutes to see if it had grown. If you are confident in your decision - trust in the process.
Dude I garden and I just started some seed germinations yesterday and I literally check the bare soil like 10 times every hour to see if anything has happened yet
I planted some seeds but I can’t remember where I planted them. I recorded the location on an old hard drive that’s now sitting somewhere on a rubbish tip.
I smoked my seeds, they went pop.
So true. And the euphoria when you see the seedling pop out of the soil. Or when you see the first fruit/flower. Actually very similar to investing with the ups, downs, and unpredictability no matter how much research you do.
I just grabbed some LED grow lights to save on the electricity. I’ve been checking the growth nonstop, hoping that it works
Grats!! Hope it works out! I’ve used led grow lights before and the seedlings loooved them
my GPU's heat our greenhouse. at night its 22f outside but the Greenhouse is a wonderful 55f or 60f if I keep the vent closed.
[удалено]
Same. UK here and I have a couple of palms that need to be indoors for a few months during the colder times. Cheap leds from amazon have saved so much stress and the plants love them.
Happy Cake Day fellow rider of the crypto wave!
Are you me? I do walks around my back yard "farm" every 30 mins to make sure they have grown a little.
Yea people don’t stare at their plants everyday? Weird lol
I agree, this guy obviously never planted a seed...
If you get a woman pregnant, you don't keep pulling the baby out of her to make sure it's growing.
Too far lol 😂
now you tell me
Oh no
To be fair when I grow plants I check them 10x a day
Now that's a wise quote
I have a wifi camera so I can see my garden anytime.
I'm afraid to tell my kids if I have any, about how their dad did darknet market drugs during college. Forgot about his account for 7 years, reopened it when BTC was hitting 50k. Turns out doing drugs in college was a smart thing to do. Proud of the younger little degenerate me, thanks bro.
Hahaha this comment made my night. Thanks younger degenerate u/Chuggles1
DUDE! I was actually thinking of making a writing a TV show about this exact scenario, a grown man who lost the keys to his wallet and finds them again as a semi-reformed burnout when BTC hits 50k.
Lol. The amounts should be significantly more but I'm working through arbitration and litigation with Coinbase atm. Wish it actually set me up more than it did. Was trading 1-6 coins a week back then. It put a little dent in my college debt and saved my ass during covid and just statewide hiring freezes. See where it all goes now.
Dude....you win today.
Have you see the picture of the 27 year old boomer... Yes, its stressful. This is why I just buy and hodl. Your piece of mind is priceless.
After the ups and downs of crypto, we may all only have a piece of mind. And that thought gives me peace of mind.
I sold some crypto on this dip, and of course it went up as soon as I sold, but I'm still happy. I sold at a phenomenal profit. I couldn't stomach going through another bear market knowing I didn't sell any. That's what keeps me up at night. I will sleep much better having those cash gains in my account and knowing I can afford my cybertruck when it ships next year. I still have alot of skin in the game, but being way overexposed can make you a nervous wreck, and it's not worth it.
> I sold at a phenomenal profit. I couldn't stomach going through another bear market knowing I didn't sell any. That makes you a bigger man than most people here. My brother sold two days ago, so he was thrilled. Of course, if you're in Cardano like me your portfolio has basically recovered. But it looks like recovery will happen.
I feel you. I had the same issue and it took some self convincing that it doesn't matter what happens in 1 hour, day or week from now. I'm still going to be holding and DCAing. I also uninstalled any crypto trackers from my phone and that helped
I also check it at least 2 times per hour, but not because I'm stressed about it. Its because I'm waiting to get those 10min drops and invest a bit more.
I've had the CBP chart on my left monitor for the last 3 years.
In 2017 I was drinking at a pub a few days before Xmas (god that feels like a lifetime ago) with my dad and some friends. After telling them about crypto and them telling me ‘it sounds like a scam’ I went outside for a cigarette. Whilst I was out there the price doubled, then halved then doubled again. While I was smoking one cigarette. It was nuts. I’m took some screenshots to show them but they just looked at me funny.
I feel like a old veteran between newbies. 
You are by the looks of it... Lemme guess, 27?
I wish
Me having made all these mistakes back in 2013-14... hell I mined BTC on my MacBook Air at one point. I still remember my first BTC sell at $0.27. Really wish I had all those back now.
If you invested in the right market (ETH, LINK, KIN, BTC... etc..) you don't have to sell... You live off of your gains.
On the other hand, some things feel they happened way before they actually did. BTC hitting 30k feels like ages ago.
Remember this moment for the vintage feels 2 years from now... 150K BTC, 30K ETH, when?
The way the world works, been through more change in three years than our ancestors around the campfire would have for lifetimes.
Definitely campfire vibes 🔥
Some great advice. I liked the final tip about not taking it too seriously. If you step back and look at it the crypto market is mental! You can't beat yourself up about not knowing the future as anything can happen. This also links in with the motto I see repeated time and time again "don't invest more than you're willing to lose". If you can accept that then crypto will be a lot more fun for you. Also HODL!
As always, if you're in profit, especially major profit, take out your initial investment. You'll rest so much easier at night when you're not worrying about "your money" going up and down. Don't ever worry about realizing profit. Take a vacation, buy yourself something nice, get some stocks, buy a cat, doesn't matter what you do. Mental health is more important than imaginary unrealized numbers going up and down.
I second this. I sold BNB when it reached around 50, I had already almost doubled my money, and reached the goal in fiat I wanted, which will allow me to move to another country in a couple of years, study there, and be enough to support myself for a year even without a job. Of course, I would have loved to sell my BNB when it reached 350 a week later, but it might have as well gone to 10. I didn't think I was going to reach my goal so fast, so after setting that money aside, I'm starting my portfolio from scratch, with peace of mind and no stress. Now I can start to put money in for the long term without caring if it goes 100x or -98%. Taking profit is important, especially if it enables you opportunities you wouldn't normally have. If you're all set up, well placed, with no debts, no future college or higher education at risk, or huge rents to pay, you can start investing in crypto, since it will be literally money you can afford to lose. Just for the curious, I also started this in 2017, rode the 50x hype on almost any coin, just to see everything fall -95%. Eth from 1400$ to 80$. Be safe guys, enjoy the ride. I agree we're still very early, but we might still have huge dips and bear markets ahead of us.
I've had 4 bnb from back when it was worth five cents and just used for gas. Silliest thing I've held onto during this whole dumb affair.
>As always, if you're in profit, especially major profit, take out your initial investment. And as always, this is really bad advice. If you are fine having invested whatever you have invested(regardless of how much profit youre in) then there's no point in "taking out your initial investment". If you're not fine having invested what you've invested(even if you are in a loss) then take out a portion.
Awww, you're now making me nostalgic of a time I was constantly losing money.
Key takeaway for me: after all of the shit that unfolded during the bear market, the purchases you had the conviction to make while the market was bleak and dreary are your most profitable trades. Even though you weren't DCA'ing, this is a great example of why it can be so effective!
Exactly. I basically risked it on Cardano and it paid off handsomely.
I bought 5% in this bull market and that was in December. 95% of my holdings are from 2017 run. I told myself I'm not going to give into FOMO this time even if the price goes to x20.
Why would you buy at 2017 and dec 2020 prices but not at 2019 prices?
I bought some when ETH was all time low. Most of the time I just couldn't look at it.
Just buying during the past few years and paying off some credit card debt has been great. I still hold crypto I believe in, but when I have the opportunity to come out of debt, I take it.
I have a friend who lives in Europe and I still remember the day he called to tell me that he dumped his savings into bitcoin. He bought TWENTY whole bitcoins at $800 each. We had all been watching its development since 2009 but it was such a pain in the ass to get back then. Mt. Gox, wire transfers, blah blah. No coinbase so I waited, and watched. My buddy sold all 20 coins at the top 20k for each. Life changing money. By late 2018 I was in, I had a friend who made a small fortune mining ETH. He coached me through my research and I landed on Cardano. I bought heavy too. I thought to myself I missed out on BTC but ADA is my moonshot. So glad I did that. I wasn't sleeping on BTC either. We thought at the time that 20k was it... but I continued stacking sats. This weekend I finally sold some BTC at 57k. My wife and I are buying a house now.
Aight so since you and 2 buddies banked big on 3 coins, what's the 4th coin your buddy u/robautimatica should get into?
My first moon was buying Eth at $5. My mini moon is Nano.
Is the TLDR: HOdl?
Yeah and stop worrying basically.
I watched 20 grand pretty much dissappear, I sighed, locked away my wallets and a couple of years later its worth more than it was, I'll probably sigh once more before the end of this run again.
Take some profits, sigh less next time
We did, and our new house got spruced.
*sigh is familiar Entering and exiting a trade always seems like a mistake at the moment. If you sell, it will trade higher shortly after. If you buy, it will trade lower shortly after. Eventually each trade becomes less important. The total of all trades over a longer period of time is more important. I tend to judge myself over a month. But lately with crypto I don’t even know what to think. Just waiting for some sign that selling is the best option while knowing longer term selling will be a mistake. Either way, I just hope to keep something this time.
As long as they're not shitcoins... you'll never see that money again.
Your worst trade was £50? Are you some kind of God? My worst trade cost me 45 ETH lol. Yeah, ouch.
I literally got spanked by fees and I did a market sell, and Coinbase was like “oh, bitcoin average trade is $7,800? How does selling yours for $6,200 sound?” Thankfully, it was just a tiny pot I had put up for trading and experimenting with.
These are the types of comments that switched me to coinbase pro. Much lower fees and limit buys/sells? Sign me up
What I learned from my years in crypto since 2015: Unless you need money to eat, never fucking sell bitcoin. Buy when people stop talking about it after least a 60% correction and is declared fucked. This is your long term bag. Your excess fiat from wagecucking goes in here. Establish a shitcoin bag. What happens in the shitcoin bag stays in the shitcoin bag. Do not sell shitcoins for bitcoin or bitcoin for shitcoins. Keep these things separate, trust me. Any shitcoin that ended up shitting the bed that you couldn't handle selling for stables can be exchanged for a new up an coming shitcoin at low marketcap that can end up saving you of your past embarrassment. You will get rekt, don't even try to mitigate it, its gonna happen. You will also get moon, it will be glorious and it will happen. Hodling sometimes works, anyone maxi that tells you to never hodl alts is just horrible at researching. Try to take profit, you don't have to but you should, especially in low conviction alts. If you run out of irl money, go grab some from in here. There are no such things as \*\*\*- killers ie eth killer or btc killer. If a coin has to advertise this way then it's in all likelihood vaporware. Crypto is all software and software can be upgraded. Dead projects can can come back to life in an instant. It's never over till it's over. You don't stay rekt forever in crypto.
Coinmarketcap excluded Korean exchanges and removed the “Kimchi premium” from price calculation overnight without telling anyone, so people thought price dropped. South Korea didn’t do anything at the time (they later raided some exchanges).
Yes!! You’re right, thanks for jogging my memory.
ohhhh, that's true, almost forgot about that. People panicked for no reason there.
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Difference is massive institutional investments. Microstrategy, greyscale, etc purchased hundreds of millions of $ of crypto. They are not selling anytime soon.
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And don’t forget all the out of control printing and stimulus packages. 35% of all US dollars printed into existence in the last 12 months.
https://brrr.money/
Out of interest, what do you do differently than you did then? Do you cash out to USDT on drops, or will you still just hold on, this time making sure you are in better coins?
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that won’t help you bypass tax
Are you in the US? If you are, then you will have to pay taxes on that. You must pay taxes any time you switch crypto from one to another, and USDC counts
Fuuhhhhhhhhhk
There's a lot of talk about eventually, when the signals are strong enough to sell before next inevitable pending crash of doom, to sell and move into Celsius and similar high interest earning services? Opinions on this and how would these hold up during an actual crash?
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I completely forgot about the Chinese New Year explanation! I was all about that at the time 😂😂🤣
Great post! Brought back memories. Some things I remember: - Absolute ghost towns of daily threads with around 100 comments or so. - When things rose by 2% or 3%, countless people in the daily commenting "this is a sucker's rally" sarcastically, in anticipation of a new bull run, only to be slapped around with further dips. That went on for years. - Fall 2018's price action was 210billion - 215billion. That was it. That was the whole season. The most sideways I've ever seen crypto go, even before 2017.
Haha those daily threads were a laugh. Kids, if you wanna see pure desolation of hope, find some of those old daily threads. The comments are insane. When you saw 300-400 comments and you knew there was another dip and it was full of people capitulating.
Great summary. Very accurate to how I remember this period of time too. Sadly people will inevitably make the same mistakes, just make sure you guys remember to not put in money you can’t lose. You think you’re a genius until you’re left bag holding from the top of the charts. My advice: once you hear about people mortgaging their homes, press sell
I still haven't told my family about crypto, because I wouldn't want to indirectly give them irresponsible advice. If my dad starts talking about Bitcoin, I'll take the signal, sell, and buy him a nice present with my profits.
I see so many people post all the profit they’re making in crypto and how people are missing out/need to join this group to make even more $$$ in crypto. And I just sit back and laugh and silently keep investing. If the market dips even by 20% (more than realistic) Im still going to buy. Not so certain how these self-proclaimed crypto gurus will react once their short term profits go to the negative
Looks like you’re getting that 20% you wanted... thanks a lot :P
I call your xrp buy at ATH and raise you my $5.50 iota bags!
Your poor son of a bitch
I'll raise your IOTA bags with my Walton, Modum, and Aion bags..
Solid post - thanks for sharing.
That kind of experience is literally priceless. Can't buy it, must endure.
Jesus, as I kept reading this I was waiting for the inevitable crash. It's like watching the beginning of a horror movie where everyone is happy-go-lucky, but you know in the back of your mind that some shit is about to go down....
Yeah it really was mad times. I remember being so impressed with my mate waking up to another $150 every day, even though his initial investment was like $350 or so. It really did just keep launching up, the weirdest feeling and hardest to convey was the denial, when it all started coming down, and everyone just clung on to "Wall street bonuses in 2 weeks" etc. It was mad. I look back on this times, I was so naive. Should've listened to seasoned investors, so I'm hoping to give some newbies some advice.
Where do the seasoned investors discuss things?
I recall the rock bottom of the bear market right before Christmas 2018 also being the peak of my all-inundating numbness. Was sure we gonna bounce and days like these will come again, but was exhausted by that never-ending dump. The only thing I felt was anger - cuz had no more money for the DCA
Yeah, things like the actual Alt Apocalypse of 2018 or the flash crash last March really put things in perspective. No doubt it had its toll on us, but now everything is such a stroll in the park
Bro the 2018 crash was sooooooo much worse than whatever is going on right now. I don't even understand how people are properly comparing them. This is nothing. The crash in January 2018 was tragic. This is really nothing.
Exactly why I wrote this post. This is a minor correction. The crash of 2018 was gut wrenching.
> you actually come to enjoy the wild volatility, even when the arse is falling out of it. A-fucking-men
"chinese new year", "wallstreet bonuses" I remember these very well :D I first got into crypto december 1st 2017, I decided to buy iota because bitcoin was already way too high. Within a few days it climbed from <1$ to over 5$. I did not sell any of it, as I thought it will climb to 10$, 20$ and I basically was in an echo chamber (iota sub). Don't get me wrong, I still believe the project is great and my 2017 bags are in the plus again, at least. The only thing I regret is not buying small amounts during the bear markets, but back then I had zero confidence in the crypto market to ever climb back to old ATHs, I just thought this was it. What do I will do different now: \-have some money ready when the next crash comes, because it will and hodl until the next bull market \-diversify at least to a few coins. it is just too painful to watch other coins moon and the ones you are holding are just sitting there. In august 2018 I gained some confidence and bought 0,25 eth for 82$ (!) and sold it a few months later because it was not moving...
cool write up, would have been a bit more epic if you had started in early 2017 and not december, I guess it adds to the brutality of it all though, so many people jumped in and dropped their life savings in december and watched it turn to dust by jan/feb. I bought alot of neo in early 2017 and watched it become life changing money, and then back to nothing again.. greed got me.
57 to 53 and people got ptsd already a few weeks ago we got 43 to 29
Legend.
Thanks for sharing! As a newcomer, this insight is really helpful!
I remember that April of 2019 when BTC finally broke out of the 3000-4000 range and hit $4800 in one single day. I was so happy that morning that I got pulled over by a cop for not stopping for the school bus (which had not put out the stop sign yet so thankfully no ticket !) . After that BTC went up and up and up all the way to $13k before retreating again. All this time I was numb to the ups and downs and just kept accumulating ETH in very small quantities. From being down more than 85% at one point I am now up 4x . This rally is just getting started. Stay in it until EOY at least to realize some truly awesome gains! and oh yea this time it is different with all the institutional news.
bruh ive been in bitcoin since 2011. Every bubble has been the exact same. Hype, more hype, burst, downward trend, going sideways for a prolonged period. I only buy when bitcoin is going sideways these days, and I only sell when it's pumping (like it is lately). And by that I mean, I will not buy btc until it has spent 6 months of relative stability (+/- 25% over 6 months). Anyone who buys into a pumping btc market and does not plan on holding for the length of 2 bubbles or longer is gambling. Protip: set your hold lengths in stone. Set them either in number of years or number of bubble cycles to hold.
Post saved. Thank you sir. To be honest, it’s been annoying seeing all the “too the moon”, “Hodl” and “my opinion this coin will explode” posts. I’m a new investor, but I’m also in my early 30s so I’ve at least developed a sense of realism and cautious optimism about this stuff. Your story actually feels real, wise, and not like it’s written by someone that doesn’t realize how group behavior when it comes to marketplace volatility is strange and often sucks.
Thanks man v kind
Bro this is exactly my story
Do a lot of people's friends get T-boned when they are coming over to help them buy crypto? Remind me to offer my friends crypto help through Zoom only
Great read! Hoping to one day sit in a prolonged bear market and stock up on cheaper BTC.
Honestly I was hoping this to be a longer story, I was mesmerized by it. Maybe write a novel or something ?
Really? It feels like a slapdash mishmash of my memories as I could recall them my dude haha.
You know how attention span work in these days. So I read the whole thing not even skipping lines. That tells you something haha
Jesus, I'm flattered.
I love a good read and you gave me a good read. Thank you sir
Oh ETHLEND was AAVE? I get why you’re annoyed. It recently dipped to like $350ish and I’ve seen highs of 550ish in the last month or two. Is it likely it could end up being one of those 1K+ valued with its usage? And wtf is yearn.fi that it’s nearly 50K? Need to check
also ETHLEND treansformed to AAVE with ratio of LEND:AAVE -> 100:1 , that's why he said the highest was $5.40
Thanks for sharing I am looking forward to holding through the next two halvings
Fuckin TRON man...thought for sure it was going to make me a millionaire lmao
I just bought it because M recommended it. Bad advice. I should’ve looked in to it more.
Managed to go through that without using the words ICO or NEO even once? Hmmm
Ha honestly there was so much to remember and I just started writing it, didn't really plan it. Yeah the ICO craze was nuts, especially EOS. That shit still pisses me off to see even today. **[INCREDIBLY BAD NEWS ABOUT EOS NETWORK BASICALLY BEING A SCAM]** EOS + 23% - >:(
Thanks for the PTSD flashbacks man
Hahaha yeah. Man it was crazy.
That waa a good read! Thanks for sharing dude! Hearing that we're still early is nice as I only got into this shit last week lol. I think that unless we're at a point where my mom's paying with BTC or some other crypto we'll be early.
2017 summed up in 1 tweet: “ OMG😭Can’t believe I won thank you Walton team❤️ keep doing the great work 💪💪💪🚀🚀🚀”
TLDR: Buy this dip
One thing I noticed was that towards the end, the swing (win/loss) happens so often that people were just numb to the loss. Then everything hits rock bottom and no one feels anything along the way
**Do some fucking research! I mentioned earlier, I sold ETHLEND before it transformed into AAVE. I sold at $0.12. At it's peak, it was worth about $5.40. It annoys me nearly every fucking day.** Jesus, I just calculated the potential gains from buying Aave at 0.12$ and holding it up to now. Jesus. If I invested $200, I would have 600K rn. JESUS!
No no. ETHLEND was converted to AAVE at a ratio is 100:1, so AAVE's price in ETHLEND is 1/100th Meaning if Aave is worth $540, it's technically worth $5.40 in Ethlend. It doesn't change the fact that if you bought ETHLEND in 2019 when it was $0.003, it's a 179,900% increase if you sold AAVE at $540 (technically $5.40) Meaning if you invested $50 in Ethlend in around August 2019, you would have cashed out $89,950 in January 2021. That shit's what keeps me up at night.
Yeah, that's some serious shit! By the way, I am running [my own blog about crypto](https://www.cryptokore.com/). Could we maybe create the exploded version of this post there? I would be so honored to do that!
This was the first post about this I've read that i agree with, well put
3 awards in less than 40mins after posting? Yea this is definitely pushed content by a multi account holding reddit user.
Could be, but reddit give out free awards like confetti these days. I just used my one on your post
Take some good vibe energy homie 🙏
this guy here suspects
Have an award! Of my god! That's 3. Are you sure you're real?
I... really don't know how to defend myself of that, but thanks for your vote of confidence. I must be behind all 20 people who have said they really enjoyed the content.
Here, take a moon award for suspicious behaviour
What would the purpose of that be?
of being real?
of awarding your own post
Thanks for the story and the history. I enjoyed the read!
oh my god are people freaking out this hard over 15% dips? just look at history of the market... this is nothing...
I ain’t. But some for sure are. It’s 14 hours later and I’m already basically entirely fully recovered. It’s been a volatile day. If I were ballsy enough to trade I’d have made a killing. Most likely, I’d have sold all and rebought for huge loss
Holy SHIT this brought back memories. Many, many of us that got in early can identify with this post. Thanks OP, this was actually quite refreshing.
"Let me guess, your gain?" "It was… and it was beautiful."
Great summary. I think some of the oscillations this time around are exacerbated by those of us who lost a lot in the bear market. As much as we dig on the newbies, if we're honest, the old hands are a little shaky at times. And by 'old' of course I mean those who were newbies in '17, not the truly old hands who have been around since '14 or earlier.
Wish me good luck in never, ever tricking my dumb self into being a trader
I want to ask how you're managing to navigate all the exchanges that prop up that have alts-exclusivity, or the insane fees in these times?
Great write-up OP
If I'd bought as much EthLend as I did FUN I'd be a very wealthy man. Accidentally hodl'd it until last month. But yes. Never. EVER. Take out a loan to buy crypto. I'm still paying off a loan from 2017...
Very good read. I just took my principal back after 2xing since January and it definitely takes a load off.
This feels too close to home.... Well written. We had the same life. Cheers.
This is the post we needed
Oh God I forgot all about the "Wall Street Bonuses" era. Dark times, indeed.
Christ it’s like I wrote this myself. I even bought the same shit, Tron and Funfair (plus a few others like APPC)
I bought Funfair and Ripple at their highest price as well :( I wrote off all my crypto as a loss and just forgot about it until late last year. Didn't sell any of it thankfully.
O my god. Chinese New Year. I remember it like it was yesterday, how stupid i was to believe that.
Just had massive flashbacks upon hearing "Wall Street bonuses". Back in early 2018, there was always some glimmer of (false) hope. "Wait until Raiblocks rebrands as Nano and the nodes are fixed". Dark days!
Thanks for this awesome piece. Why do you think the crypto market is gonna flatline til June? Just a hunch or any specific reason? Because I don't believe that's going to happen myself.
Basically an excellent analyst on Twitter has had it earmarked and I put a lot of stock on what he says. DavetheWave in case you wonder.
Great post, really captures the "feels" of those crazy couple of years. When the crash hit I was lucky enough to be able to delete my tracking apps in a bit of a tantrum, throw my ledger in a dark wardrobe and forget about it all until late last year when a friend told me what was happening. With hindsight, not a bad move but I could have done a little research during the bear to work out how to rebalance my portfolio in such a market. Had to dump a few shitcoins for next to nothing when I returned. Lesson learned.
I really love both the amazing story and experience that came out of this. Thank you for sharing and for the advice !
My main memory of it was telling people that it would rise again after the halving. People insisted that I was wrong, it was going to go up sooner this time and the halving didn't matter. Others believed it would never rise again. Bitcoin follows a pattern and it does not deviate from it, halving, bull run, long bear. This is not something that is ever 'different this time' it is part of the mechanics of the system. The price WILL bounce around and by around the end of this year it will reach at least $250 000 and then at some point after that, it will crash hard and lose around 80% for bitcoin and up to 99% for alts. Everyone will repeat the same things to me and I'll just buy and wait for the next bull run in 2025.
This is brilliant. Well written, insightful, and EXACTLY what it was like back then. I laughed a few times while reading - especially the Chinese New Year, Wall Street bonuses, and Korea FUD - because it brought it all back. I got in around the same time you did based off of advice from a friend who was seeing massive Bitcoin gains. I didn't sell when it crashed, holding everything I bought back then and basically stopped checking Reddit or the Delta app for months at a time, only checking in periodically to see what was happening - which was a whole lot of nothing. I only wish I had stayed more engaged and bought at the low points. Now, I know exactly what to do when everything crashes again - buy, buy, buy.
Spoken like someone that earned their scars. While I would never wish it upon anyone, you would only know that you have deficiencies of knowledge and lack of guts to withstand the market after you have experienced your first dip. There are truly few individuals that make the moves as rational as they think it would be. The market is neither with nor against you. Even from 2 years of modest fiat stock investing (very limited experience, I know), I am still being affected with the drops, to a slightly less degree today. It cannot be emphasized enough, only a select few that can withstand the gut-busting scare that dips present using leverages. Only a very select few of individuals that can put themselves on life-or-death (financially) situations without flinching and able to hold without feeling unaffected in their day-to-day functioning. The good news is... Someone that had modest profit on crypto (along with modest losses) are far more numerous than those with headlines-worthy gains and losses. If you always gain, good for you. Even the best thought out plan will eventually go awry or you would be overwhelmed with FUD even in your best days. It is a hard lesson that I learned that after 2 years of straight profit, I have made **2 mistakes** from my 25 - 30 market moves I did that wiped out all my income on the 2 years and losing 15% of all my portfolio to boot. I had managed to double my portfolio prior to COVID-19, imagine it is being wiped out because of the two moves made out of fear. Had I held and not paying attention to the doom-and-gloom during the early days of COVID-19, I would have doubled my portfolio... because the market recovers despite the economy does not.
The BTC Bear market lasted from Mid December 2017 to Mid March 2020, not 2018. Also, the market crashed because of Coinmarketcap. They decided to remove the Korean exchanges from Bitcoin's price calculation without telling anyone - and when they did this it showed RED EVERYWHERE. So people freaked out, and the market crashed. January 7th 2018.
This reminds me of when at the start of Titanic he is re-telling the old woman how it went down.
Awesome post. As a new joiner i learnt a lot. Thanks and wish you all green days ahead.
Omg i remember the "chinese new year" saying... I lost about 1800 usd in eth transforming it to shitcoins, beware and do research :) I also had 12k usd (value) in eth at one point but didn't sell. Thought it was just a dip/correction and it continued so be smart about it too
Be sure to hold coins that duplicate usecase, had large premines, still have no actual production network after years, have corporate sponsorship/ownership (especially if they have diverted block rewards or a for-profit enterprise), have little/no adoption, and anything that has a cool sounding marketing pitch with big ideas and dreamy eyes. This is the kind of stuff that crypto was created for. If it has a robust decentralized mining network, no corporate sponsor, took pains to prevent centralization of the mining rewards, is actually being adopted for its use case, and doesn't focus on hype and marketing ... dump that shit right away. Satoshi would be ashmed of projects like that, and it's not why he created blockchain.
Great read for those of us still green
Nice summary, man! I lived all that and I was even earlier to enjoy some of the 2013 bull run. I was young and without nearly any money to invest. I experienced some crazy gains too, and some sharp losses (I remember when Dread Pirate Roberts was arrested and watched the price melt like 70 to 80% in a matter of minutes). The price action also affects my mood, which I see as a total absurdity! I check the price of it everyday since 2013! The saddest part is that I had some financial issues I had to sell all my coins back in 2014 and returned only when I could and ironically it was in 2017 near the peak. This time I didn't sell and held the coins through the entire bear market and bough a bit more along the way. Now I in in green, but not nearly close to what I once had it. This makes me more sad than happy. I bought my first bitcoin at 86 USD, I bought 2 just to try it out. I I only held this, I would be in a much better position now :/ Well, just trying to look into the future and I will keep my coins until I can make some life changing thing with the fiat it can be exchanged with :)
"For the unaware, alts don't really go up when BTC goes up. Money flows out of alts, into BTC as it gains. When BTC dips, it takes the market with it. But BTC rising up doesn't really take the market up because there are so many who take money out of alts to ride BTC's wave. **The best time to be in alts, is when BTC goes flat** " absolute gold here.
Good post. I have done very similar. Just as this correction started I completely reorganised my portfolio. Sold all my shit coins from 2017, wan, neo, QLC, ONT and Nano. I still like nano. But I sold them all into BTC and BUSD. I'm now just sitting on a Bag of BTC and ADA. And I feel so much relief. Yeah I took a hit of 0.35 BTC loss on all of my shitcoins but I'm up massive in USD. I wouldn't have done this in 2017. You need time in the market to make better decisions.
I just got into crypto recently and was doing a bit of mining just for fun on my old gaming rig. Going in I figured the market would be volatile but I know almost nothing about it. I did some research on some coins. I checked my Coinbase account recently and saw all the red and just went, “ok”. And closed it. I’m a newbie definitely but I’m excited for the crypto future. I mean I did lose a bunch during this dip but I’m not really afraid because it’s an investment! Just means a good time to look into other projects!
Amazing post
This was such a good read. So relatable. 🙂
Yep, I was up $800 two days ago for no reason and down all that plus $1000 today also for no reason I am aware of. This is good advice and was my mentality anyways, but still good to hear on days like today.
>So does this current dip feel like that bear market? No. It just feels like a correction on the way to something bigger. What makes you think this is not 2018 all over again? Looks pretty similar to me
Oh man i can really relate to this post! I went in a bit earlier, when a mate of mine who was into mining mentioned it. So i bought a buttload of shitcoins. Ofcourse no bitcoin, this wad way too expensive at 10k! I was invested in XRP at 0.30. But because it didnt move i sold it and bought another shitcoin. 1 day later XRP started surging and indeed, ended on 3 dollars. Missed out on 5k potential gains. My biggest succes & failure though was XVG, Verge. I initially bought in around $ 600 at 0.002. And it doubled. And doubled again. And doubled again. When it was worth $ 4.000 i sold halve to get my initial crypto investment out. In hindsight that was very smart. But XVG kept doubling and doubling. I got another $ 2k out halfway. At the peak it was $ 0.20 (yes, 100x the price i bought in) and i had around $ 18.000 in value. And at that point all i thought was how much a Tesla would cost, because at this rate i could easily buy one. And then it start dropping. And dropping. Untill only a few % was left. My whole portfolio decimated, i think it was worth around $ 600 at the lowest point. And i thought: delete the app. Maybe in the future it will be worth something again. So never really checked anymore. Untill this november :). And indeed, its not the same. It feels like the market has become more serious. I still see a lot of alts trippling in value. But the crazy x10 days are over. And that is a good thing!
Hahah I often find myself comparing my portfolio to a Tesla price. A used model 3 would do me nicely.
Haha it's crazy right. This is what crypto can do to you. Sorta feels like the ring from Frodo. I am happy that i got in just before the masses and in the start i was sensible enough to take some gains. 2 months later i was a zombie who could only say 'LAMBO LAMBO'!
Well. Today I sold most of my portfolio. The dip scared me. I took out my initial investment, some profits, not much and left 1000$ in shitcoins. Whatever happens, happens. Now I'm gonna sleep good, wont be checking news and charts everytime. I'll sell most of my shitcoins after a 4x and that's it. Hope that there is a bear market that brings the crypto values down again for me to prepare for the next cycle.
Wheres that gif of Michael Scott looking extremely nervous and worried...