The other day I had a bit of a disagreement with a Wall St type on twitter about HODLing. He couldn't understand how so many bitcoin veterans insisted on hodling their bitcoin even after the price fell from around a $20,000 USD high to around $11,000 at the time of the discussion. I get it, sell off your BTC and use your investing capital for something else until the price stabilizes then re-enter the market. At least that was his argument.
As always nothing here is meant as financial advice, this is merely my experience and my sole opinion. I get the argument, however, nobody wants to sell the bottom. Bitcoin is volatile, prices fluctuate by a thousand dollars or more in a single day. We can often take a nice nose dive down, then suddenly rocket back up. Obviously a $10,000 dollar change in price although drastic isn't unusual for people who have been around bitcoin for awhile. Frankly,it's just another day of trading.
I'm going to share a story with you of a simple mistake I think every noob entering the cryptocurrency market makes at one time or another. The story involves me and when I first got started in cryptocurrency.
As many of you know I started trading back when bitcoin was around $1000. Extremely skeptical of bitcoin, and the small somewhat shady exchanges that existed at the time, I didn't want to put any money into it, but wanted to learn about this technology and what was happening in the space. I began acquiring Dogecoin from different DOGE faucets around the internet and trading them on some of the smaller exchanges in the DOGE markets. For those that don't know, Dogecoin faucets would give you a few Dogecoin for free every hour as long as you stopped by the site, entered a captcha or played some silly game. This really amounted to mere pennies, but I was learning, and wanted no risk of losing money. I was employed part time then, and losing money just wasn't in the plan.
After I got comfortable with the technology and trading my few cents of dogecoin everyday for about a year, I was still pretty skeptical of it all, but immediately fell in love with the community, the ideology, and everything I was learning. I knew right away this was something that was big, and much bigger than all of us. The future was here and if we succeeded these would be some history making events I found myself right in the middle of. I just couldn't pass up this once in a lifetime exciting opportunity.
Only working part time I decided to sign up on Circle and purchased $10 of bitcoin every other week with each paycheck! Oh... The Dood was throwing caution to the wind and living dangerously LOL. At the time the price was around $1,000 USD. Each paycheck I'd buy a little bitcoin, and each paycheck the price of bitcoin would go down a little more. I was starting to believe though, it was a small investment, and I was sure things would turn around. How could this incredible technology get overlooked by the masses, I thought. When everyone realizes how great this is, it's moon! By the autumn of that year between my dogecoin trading and my $10 bi-weekly pittance dedicated to bitcoin I had amassed a small fortune of ½ a bitcoin with a value of around $150 USD. LMAO This was after close to a year of trading, saving, and hodling. I was proud of myself, but a little disappointed in the price.
Winter was coming and The Dood's shoulders aren't what they used to be. Winters are long and cold where I live and we generally get a lot of snow. Shoveling the snow is no longer an option for me. I decided I needed a snow blower before winter arrived. I was about a hundred dollars short for the snowblower I wanted, poor, and in need of money. Surely bitcoin would go down further. It dropped almost consistently the entire year. Why would it stop at $300? Who knows how low it will go. In a moment of weakness The Dood sold his ½ bitcoin to use towards the snowblower.
I got my snowblower and was happy. I considered my bitcoin a dysfunctional savings account with negative interest that I lost money on. At least I had saved something that year. The price did continue to go down and when it finally hit about $250 USD a few weeks later I said I'd take one paycheck and buy 2 whole bitcoins. I believed and I wanted my bitcoin back!
That Friday the price shot up to around $300 USD. Surely it would go back down. I waited and the price rose to $350. No this can't happen I want my bitcoin back! $400 USD OH DEAR GOD WHY!!!!! $500 The Dood starts buying back at $10 every other week and we consistently climbed back up since!
This story can be repeated a hundred different ways by a hundred different people. This has happened to just about every trader and investor once in this space. If it hasn't happened to you, you're lucky! This is why we HODL, and this is why we preach the HODL. We know! We've been here before and we'll be here again.
These markets move quick, and change quicker. What looks like a consistent downward trend can change in an instant. When it does it happens fast. Throughout the history of bitcoin HODLERS never lose has held true. If you bought in at $1000 and sold at $300 only to start buying back at $500 you've lost twice. Once when you sold and again when you bought back higher.
Is bitcoin guaranteed to return to $20,000 USD. Absolutely not! Am I telling you to hodl? Again No. You have to make your own decisions based on your financial situation and what feels right to you. Nobody knows for certain and anyone that tells you otherwise is a liar. What we do know is mathematics, supply and demand, and previous market history. With the exception of some black swan event, serious government regulation, or a loss of interest in bitcoin, chances are we will once again prove hodlers never lose. For now we can only speculate and wait patiently to see what the future holds!