I've only been in the crypto game since mid 2017. I remember back then when I was assessing the market, BTC was below $1k a few months earlier, LTC was around $4 that January and by the time I finally got in BTC had more than doubled to around $2,500 and LTC was $30. I thought ETH and XRP (and everything else) were just shitcoins because I didn't know shit and I just listened to the herd (Back then the argument was "Bitcoin is digital gold and LTC is digital silver and everything else is a scam.") Now, I'm pretty invested in several coins, because this market is anything but rational.
Screw off if you think otherwise. Try to think logically in this market, and you're going to get smacked in the face.
After exchanging my first fiat for crypto, in the next couple of months the market "crashed" and I was fearful. By crashed, I mean BTC went from $2,800 to $1,800. I just decided to let my cryptos ride. I pretended that money was gone, but I'd check prices every day for whatever damn reason.
I wasn't even putting that much in. Hell, I would spend more eating out and going to the bars every weekend with friends or work colleagues than I was dropping into BTC. It was pretty common that I'd drop $100 a night on sushi, beers, and Sake Bombs. But, when money you could get back loses value, it makes you feel dumb for putting money in. Logic is out the window when I can't get that $100 back from my sushi and drink purchases, but my crypto dropped 30% that week, so I was dumb for investing in crypto but not for my $500+ per month on eating out and drinking with friends.
Several weeks later, I was back to even on my crypto investments. Well shit, that was fast. Then I was suddenly up 25%. "Fuck it, I'm just putting money in. I'm not missing out."
By the the winter of 2017, I was up over 10x with my crypto speculation. My initial LTC went from $30 to over $350; my BTC went from $2,500 to $20,000. I also just threw $300-$1,000 here and there on random sub-200 market cap coins only to see them 6x in a few weeks.
I remember thinking how stupid I was for not buying during that dip down to $1,800, but how good of an investor I was because my gains. What a fucking dope I was.
I was sitting there looking at my account on December 10th, 2017. I was about to sell because I could have paid off my car and 50% of my student loans. I wasn't even using my car because I was in another country traveling.
"Nah, I can't sell. This is just the beginning; let's wait until I can pay off all my student loans" my delusional self said.
I never cashed out. I remember sitting there with a dude who had his GDAX account open after BTC "crashed" from $20k to $13k two weeks later. We just got back from surfing.
He was still sitting at $250,000 in his account and was nervous as shit. "What should I do?" he asked rhetorically. Then immediately answered himself, "It will rebound," he said, "it always does." This guy had been through the MTGOX hack and gave me plenty of advice while we surfed.
And I listened as if he was prophetic.
What a fucking dope I was.
When hopium is in the air, we all get irrational.
I still wonder about that guy and his cryptos. He went north back home for the Christmas holiday, while I headed south for more traveling, and I've never seen him again.
February 2018 was both euphoric and scary as shit. "Holy shit! BTC is under $10k I never thought it would be down here again. But it could keep dropping. But it was just $20k a month ago."
I was skeptical that it wouldn't keep dropping so I waited. Then, I didn't want to miss out. BTC was making a run from $6,500 up to testing $10k. "If it breaks $10k, I'm getting back in."
A short time later, it did break $10k, only to be hit a wall at $12k, then again...then, the inevitable crash to $6,200 happened where it fluctuated in August - November of 2018 up until, what, November 10th-ish when BCH shitfork shat out and then BTC-Shit-Vision and BTC-LMNOP started paying miners to mine their forked fork of BTC and everyone shat themselves as the market tanked yet again.
That was it for me. That was the day I stopped caring. I remember thinking how stupid I was to invest so much time in this.
You can't predict this shit.
I didn't regret investing in crypto, I regret all the time spent looking at my portfolio, trying to time the market, pretending I was some guru in my head because I threw $300 at POE when it was less than a penny and weeks later it was selling for $0.21 and could buy another trip to whatever country I wanted.
Sure, you can use TA to see what support or resistance is there, but it's still a 50-50 chance whether Fake Satoshi is going to spoof trade or some rando is going to drop three 7,000 BTC market buys to break through resistance.
So, what did I learn through this whole experience?
Other than what I've already stated (You have no way to predict whether it's breaking through resistance or crashing through support).
I just remember the main thing that has persisted this last two years. "I wish I could go back in time to when BTC was around $3,000 and LTC was $30."
When BTC dropped below, $4k that was heaven. I never thought it would get back to when I was buying when I first got into the market in 2017.
So, I bought, and I bought hard.
This time around, I have strong buy strategies and sell strategies.
They are set; no question.
For me, I'm not selling until two weeks before the LTC halving in August.
Even then, I'm only selling my LTC for BTC. Then I'll sell 25% of my BTC for fiat 2 weeks before the BTC halving in 2020.
I will never have less than my preferred number of BTC's, ETH's, LTC's and a few others.
Don't follow my advice here, I'm just saying I know what I want and what my strategy is.
You need to have a strategy to buy and strategy to sell. Be reasonable. I previously had a "strategy." It was once I could pay off my student loans with all of my crypto gains minus taxes, I would sell. Yeah, well, looking back if I would have just sold when could pay off my car and 50% of my student loans, I would have been able to invest even more when BTC was down in $3,xxx range and LTC was $22-$35, etc from December 2018 through March 2019.
DCAing is the way to go. No question. You don't need to do TA, you don't need to check your portfolio, you don't need to do shit but either 1) setup an automatic buy order with your exchange or 2) login and buy whatever you want.
You have your buy strategy (DCA at x interval) and you have your sell strategy.
Figure it out. Don't pretend you're gonna time the market. Don't pretend you're some guru.
Those people, like me, learn the hard way.
No TA, no waiting for google searches of BTC to increase, no waiting for BAKKT, no waiting for Faktoshi to shut the fuck up.
Before November 2018, I would only throw money when BTC was on a run. "Oh, we're finally on the way up. It's time to buy!" Like when it went from $2,800 up to $6,200 in the summer 2017, then from $10k to $20k in late 2017. Or when it went from $6,200 back up to $10,000 then to $11,900 in February of 2018.
I would think I could time the market. What a pathetic loser, right?
Some people grow up in this market like the cable version of themselves only to transition to the directv version. Listen to us dopes that have been there and done that.
Learn from our mistakes, but also don't think that we have all the damn answers.
Anyone that comes in here acting like the 2nd coming of Craig Wright's dumpster twin, you can be rest assured they are as delusional as Justin Sun. The problem is, even if they are delusional, this market is anything but rational, so they might just be proven right enough for you to think you should follow their advice.
This shit is crazy. Stop acting like you've got it figured out.
Nobody does, but it feels good to have confidence in this random speculation, right?
I'm here to tell you this. My life has drastically improved since November 2018 when I started viewing Crypto investments like a bill. Every two weeks, I would send money from my paycheck to my exchange. Then, I'd buy a certain amount every single week after it had cleared.
That money, is all but "gone." It was a "bill" I paid.
When the market is going down, I send more fiat and I buy more crypto. When it is rising, I still buy, but not as much; I pull back. You may say I'm trying to catch a falling knife. I just learned that the way I was investing before was bad practice. I'd rather people think I'm trying to catch a falling knife than to feel that FOMO and only buy when the market is up.
Right now for example, I'm not buying this week. Not because I think I know what hell is going to happen, but because it's my strategy to not chase a run, and to spend more when it drops.
I'll wait until next weekend and see what the market is doing.
What happens in between now and next weekend, I don't give a shit.
Could I miss out on another run? Sure, but I don't give a shit. Maybe it's because I'm 2 years in and I've seen this shit before, or maybe it's because I've been buying BTC when it was around $3,000 both in 2017 and just about a month ago, so I feel fortunate to have gotten another chance at BTC at $3,xxx.
I also learned my lesson that fakeouts happen. I've been burned enough to not give a shit about being BTC going from $3500 to $5,200 in the last, what, 5 weeks?
Been here, done it, don't give a shit.
I don't know if this helps anyone, but seeing the last two years of this shit, I don't care about some random 30% pump. I also don't care that BCH is up 86%, or ADA is up whatever it is. I'm not into them, but if you made gains, I'm happy for you.
I'm serious too.
Maybe you're new to this game, or maybe you've only been in since $20k. If so, you're still here, and there are plenty others like you. I'm not a BTC maximalist, I don't think LTC is the truth, I don't think only ETH is the dApp platform.
I don't know shit. I'm just some speculator that is speculating on some of this sit.
There are also plenty of people that were like me in 2017 that are waiting in the wings, only to buy when the market is on the rise. There are plenty more that buy when it's rising then set stop losses that whales will fish for only to wreck the market in a day then to see a bounce back even stronger while those people FOMO back in.
Also, the turd version of satoshi could start shitting in public this week and the media could write about how Satoshi is literally shitting on a physical Bitcoin as we speak and some shitcoin creator then posts a Twitter video that goes viral about how the hashrate and energy consumption of the satoshi shit-pile is not sustainable and then some whale market sells down to below the new TA shit-support level of $4,400 and then all the dopes with stop losses in that range get shit fucked only to see a spoof limit order set at $4,400 of 10,000 BTC and everyone's dick shrinks into their stomach as they hurry to Tether as BTC drops back down to $3,500 before whale #2 shit fucks your emotions with a $1,500 green dildo in a 15 minute span sees the "sell wall" disappear which starts the next FOMO run on up to $6,200 a few weeks later while TAers say "We broke out on great volume" then other TAers agree and the self-fulling prophecy starts another run only to get hit with more whale fuckers.
You can't predict this shit. Give it up.
Market goes up, market goes down, can't explain that.
With the LTC halving in August, the BTC halving in May 2020, I think we are about to get into the 2017 euphoria again though. We are getting closeTM to the point you could just thrown money at any coin and get 10x your investment.
What does "close" mean? I have no idea. Eff anyone that thinks they know. Someone could predict it is this week, next month, or after this current fakeout bull run, or in December, or next Spring, and someone will be right.
The only advice I have is to do your best to not get emotional about your money or crypto. It's going to do the exact opposite of what you think it will. Even when you try to do the opposite, crypto will shit-fuck you in your sleep.
If you believe that the sentiment is changing, and let's be real, we are in speculation phase and this is all based on hopium and belief, then DCA at certain intervals.
This isn't some cult. It's all based on sentiment. If you think people are starting to get interested, then that is a sign speculation is about to be in our favor.
If you are putting money in that needs to be rent money, do yourself a favor and just walk into a casino and put it all on red. If you win, then put your winnings in crypto. If you lose, I saved you the anguish of checking your portfolio every hour only wish you would have done the opposite of what you did.
You're welcome...
Or, do the opposite. Check the market every hour for the next 12 months only to look back and realize that you kept buying on the way up, got scared and sold on the way down, and then FUD yourself in your sleep because of your stop loss sells were triggered while whales were fishing for fear.
So, there are all of my shit thoughts. What are yours?
What are your strategies?
There are plenty of people that have been in longer than me, what are your strategies?
Are we heading for a the next bull run? Is the bottom in? Do we still have a massive, short-lived capitulation event coming?
Let's chat.
TL;DR: You can't predict this shit, just DCA, live your life, get a buy strategy, choose a sell point, make this shit as simple as possible. If you try to complicate things by predicting the next run, the next drop, the next consolidation, then you're probably going to be wrong like 99% of people. And don't be that guy that ends up $250,000 in your account in the next bull run only to see it drop down $67,000 literally a week later.
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