9 Lessons From A Crypto Veteran

I see a lot of new people in the daily and a lot of advice been people here who have only been in crypto for a few weeks with a few hundred dollars. I figured I would help share what I have learned from being in the scene since early 2013.

1. Don’t ever trust unsolicited messages about crypto. If you get DMed on Reddit, Discord, Twitter, email, or whatever else from a stranger, it’s a scam. Don’t click their links, don’t recover their seed phrase, don’t install their software, don’t take their advice.

2. Do Your Own Research. Never make an investment based on one source of information. Not Reddit, not your friend, not a social media influencer, not from a website. You can utilize all of these as part of your research, but always research from multiple sources and seek out opinions for and against your investments for the best assessment. Often times a single source will be biased or under-informed.**

3. Have a plan. Know what your goals are and stick to them. If you think BTC will go to $100,000 and if you sell yours then you can pay off your student loans, then set a sell order now for it and let it happen. Don’t watch it go to $115,000 thinking it will go to $200,000 now only to panic sell for $35,000 at the bottom of the next bear market. Remove your emotions and stick to your plan.

4. Invest for the long-term. Do not play / try to time the market. If you want to gamble with $50 for fun, sure. If you want to make meaningful money and get that financial independence, lambo, whatever, then find something you think will only be better in 5 years and hold it until you reach your goals. If try to buy low and sell high you will statistically do worse.

5. Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) works. Investing a set amount each paycheck helps to stick to your plan, remove emotion, avoid FOMO, and help you to secure a good price.

6. A hardware wallet is good for reasons you may not think. Yes, you can be your own bank. In the age of rug pulls, hack scandals, and more that IS valuable. What you might not consider is that it also creates an additional barrier to prevent panic selling. Several times I have been tempted to sell but the extra effort of needing to get into my hardware wallet and transfer it to an exchange to sell was enough to get me to keep holding.

7. Price does not matter. Market cap does. If a coin is only $0.01 that does not make it cheap, if there are 10000000000000000000000 coins in existence. If it went to $1 it would be more money than exists in the world. Measure a coin instead by market cap. (Price * total coins in circulation) if that meme coin got to a $1 it would be worth more than BTC and I wouldn’t count on that happening.

8. If you are stressed out all the time unable to stop looking at charts, you are over invested. Your mental health shouldn’t be neglected and the stress won’t help you make money anyway. Only invest what you can afford to lose, or at the very least can hold for years.

9. Don’t be afraid to take profits. You don’t have to sell everything, but if you 10x don’t be afraid to get out your initial investment and enjoy a guaranteed win. Bull markets come and go, small wins make holding long term that much easier.