I've had a Coinbase account for quite some time. I remember when Ether was $5 a coin and I remember seeing Litecoin at around $4. I tried to understand the tech. I really did. How could these coins compete with Bitcoin? I decided it wasn't worth the effort to figure out this complex technology. Smart contracts? wtf?
Like so many others, I simply assumed that no coin would be able to challenge Bitcoin in any way. I made the understandably foolish mistake of comparing cooperative blockchain tech to competitive corporate capitalism. Murica lives and breathes capitalism. Murica!
I created the Coinbase account to fund a poker account, so I had little interest investing in crypto. Unlike most people and speculators, I was actually using crypto to purchase a service.
I bought one Bitcoin for $600 and spent it immediately at a poker site. I am good enough at poker to be a professional, but I couldn't handle the grind and the volatile up and down swings. Racing the rake wasn't exactly my idea of a fun time. My money sat in the poker account for years. I only played a few hours. I only just recently cashed it out to reinvest into the blockchain.
Had I put that money into Etherum it would be worth $60,000 right now. I was seriously considering taking that gamble. Clearly, Bitcoin wasn't going to go up much farther than $600 but maybe Etherum might go x2 or x3 to $15 over the next few years... LOL.
I made all the mistakes. Unit bias was one of them. $4 for a Litecoin? Seems like a ripoff. $600 for a Bitcoin? Same story. I based my decisions on pure ignorance and the Halo Effect. I tried to apply what little I did know about the world to cryptocurrency, and my predictions were an abysmal failure. Now I know better.
This is my blockchain origin story; don't let it be yours. Don't be the surprised when crypto goes x100 again. A lot of people think they missed the train when Bitcoin hit 20k and then predictably corrected to where it is now (7.5k). If you know how corrupt fiat currency is and how resistant the blockchain is against corruption, the value of blockchain tech can only go up over time.
When Bitcoin hit 20k I didn't think that I had missed the train. I wasn't even concerned about my missed investment. Last December was an incredibly exciting time for me even with zero assets invested into crypto. The blockchain train was whistling at maximum volume:
ALL ABOARD
Was my interpretation of that event. This crypto train started as a bicycle with training wheels, but now it's ready to kick into high gear. Bullet speed is right around the corner. Before you know it, we'll have a fully operational spaceship on our hands. This is the speed of self-funding open-source evolution.
It was obvious to me that the correction was inevitable. It was pretty damn easy to outmaneuver that loss, and here I sit, slightly less than broken even at what I consider to be the valley of a peak that doesn't exist yet. Soon™.
I've even convinced two of my close friends that they should match me dollar for dollar on my investments. It's somewhat nerve wracking having that responsibility, but I believe the reward far exceeds the risk in the long run. Unlike poker, crypto has very little friction and greedy middle men. In fact, I hope to see a blockchain poker site that puts all those greedy middle men out of business. The blockchain may be volatile, but poker is even more so. This gives me a certain previous experience that allows me to make unemotional financial decisions.
We all need to step off the emotion roller coaster of daily price action. It isn't healthy. UP DOWN UP DOWN UP DOWN! Just ignore it and hold or figure out a predetermined swing trading strategy (like pulling out 10% of your investments whenever the price spikes 60%). I'm a firm believer of fundamental investment. Look at the tech and decide for yourself if it has merit. In the long run, this is all that matters.
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