With just four weeks to go before we enter another year and the expectation of a bull market in the crypto sphere, it might be time to examine how crypto investors are doing. Perhaps there is an explanation for the enormous volatility that can be found in crypto.
No Idea What A Blockchain Is
Imagine this: you are a crypto trader, your sunglasses on, your virtual Lamborghini is outside the door, and you are ready to take on the world. But wait a minute... you have no idea what a blockchain actually is. Welcome to the world of 75% of crypto traders!
According to a recent report by PiP World, financial literacy among crypto investors is so low it is almost laughable. Only 25% of the crypto community has sufficient financial knowledge. The rest? They probably think that "HODL" is a new dance move and that Bitcoin is just free money that falls from the sky.
The report also shows that 76% of respondents regret their investment decisions. Gee, why am I not surprised? When you know that seven out of ten crypto investors suffer losses, it is not surprising that they regret it. More importantly, it is important to know why they all suffer so much loss. For example, one of the reasons is that they trade based on emotions instead of rational analysis. You often see this reflected in the fact that many people only start chasing tokens that are doing well, forgetting that this is precisely THE recipe for making a loss. For others, it sometimes seems as if they base their investments on their horoscope of the day: "With Jupiter in Gemini and the sun in the second house, it is a good day to put all my money in Punky! I know for sure that this token will go to the moon!".
And then there is the group that thinks that spreading risk means that you divide your money across different types of cryptocurrencies, without realizing that they are all in the same digital basket. This is really the same as putting all your eggs in different baskets, but then leaving all those baskets on the same table. If that table falls over, all your eggs will still be broken. Spreading risks really means something different than owning 40 different cryptos.
What we can conclude from this report is that the 25% of investors who do get it, may have been able to boost their wealth even more through ignorance and at the expense of the 75% who do not get it. A good "How To Crypto" course is not an unnecessary luxury. And you don't become the Warren Buffet of crypto just like that. Perhaps it is better to let the "HODL-and-hope" strategy make way for a little more knowledge and a little less gambling. **DYOR **is often said, and literally every crypto investor knows the expression, but it turns out that only a few people take this advice to heart. Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to your hard-earned money.
Throwing Millions Around
Someone who does not worry about money is Justin Sun. Last Friday he enjoyed a $6.2 million banana. And he spent about $30 million on Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial project. Although Sun claims on his X account that he does this because he has so much confidence in Donald Trump and that he wants to help "Make America Great Again", I have some doubts about that. But time will tell. For now, I have little confidence in World Liberty Financial, and my confidence in Justin Sun is not that high either.
BTC USD 37K
A consideration that I want to give everyone this week is not to let yourself be fooled by a Bitcoin price that has now fallen back to USD 95K. If we look at earlier this year, this is a significant increase that the price has made. But here too you can say that appearances are deceptive. The trading price is now around the magical limit of USD 100K. But the REAL value of Bitcoin is significantly lower. To be specific, it's not higher than $37K. Now you may be wondering how this is possible.
To calculate the real value, we need to look at the average price at which people have bought Bitcoin. And that turns out to be around USD 37K. This is called the "Realized Price". This means that we have a lot of people who have bought Bitcoin at much lower prices and are holding on to it. However, this is not all negative because this realized price was initially USD 32K. This means that more people have bought Bitcoin at higher prices, and that could indicate growing confidence in Bitcoin.
However, this is something to keep in mind. The gap between the market price and the realized price could indicate an overheated market. We also have to deal with speculation, where investors use borrowed money to gamble on further price increases. This gap AND the speculation could lead to big price drops if the market corrects.
It's not something to worry about right away, but it's definitely something to keep in mind. Especially since we know that a bull market doesn't last forever! A bear market is guaranteed to come.
By the way, this also makes me curious about what the "Realized Price" of Hive would be. Does anyone have an idea about that ... or even want to get involved?