I've never traded Hive. As many times as it's rallied over $1, $2, even over $3, I've never sold any. In fact, on most of those occasions, I've been the poster child for the "buy high/sell low" faction that gets killed in the markets. The only difference for me (and my one saving grace) is that I have never done the "sell low" part. I've just kept every token I own and powered them up.
I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to FOMO. I get sucked right into the fear that this is the rally that's going to vault Hive into the mainstream and if I don't buy it now--at $1, $2, $3--I'm going to end up paying $5, $10, or even $20 to get the stake I want. So I own my fair share of Hive over $1. I've at least been somewhat smart about the fact that I haven't chased it too hard on the way up. I've let it spike and then bought it on the "dips" on the way down. lol But those dips were still a helluva lot higher than it is now.
That said, I don't regret my actions. Whether I should have known it would come back down or not, the fact is I didn't. All I knew at the time was that I didn't own enough so I bought what I could and watched. As time passed and it came back down further, I bought some more. And some more. Finally, on this last dip to 26 cents, I went in and bought another big chunk and I have finally reached my core goal.
That goal has always been to achieve Orca status. That's around 56k HP. While I'm still about 3-4k short, I'm to the point where I can actually reach it without having to buy more Hive. I'll get there on the curation and interest alone over the next year. So, now comes the fun part. Can I trade Hive?
There are a couple of reasons I've never done it in the past. The first is everything I just wrote. I've never had enough and I didn't want to risk losing a percentage of my hard-earned stake by trying to make a few extra dollars trading it.
The second reason I've never traded Hive is I have never known where to put it if I sold it. Over the last few years stablecoins have dealt with a lot of FUD, some of it very legitimate. Take #LUNA, for example. One day it's here, the next, Poof!, gone. #Tether, #USDC, #BUSD, all have their detractors and there have been at least a handful of other stablecoins that no longer exist. It's one thing to watch your investment drop 70-90%, it's another to have it go to zero.
What about putting it in Bitcoin? The problem with that is that all of crypto is tied to Bitcoin. When it goes up, everything goes up. When it goes down, everything goes down. So, trading out of one crypto to buy a different crypto (this one with transaction fees) hasn't made much sense to me either. Why pay fees to move things around when they're both going to do the same thing anyway? That's been my logic at least.
But that has now changed with the steady performance of HBD. Over the last year we've been able to watch it maintain it's peg through some pretty significant market moves. There have been a few dips and spikes, but it has stayed within a moderately tight range throughout and when those events have occurred, it's returned to it's peg fairly quickly. In essence, it has become the stablecoin we need it to be.
I now feel comfortable using it as a place to "park" monies I want to use for trading, and as I said, I finally have enough Hive that I feel I can risk selling some without being devastated if it just keeps going up and I can't buy it back.
With that in mind, that's what I did last night. I came home and found Hive at 41 cents on a spike. I quickly checked Bitcoin and saw nothing had changed there so I decided I'd take a shot. I sold 300 Hive into HBD at like $0.416 and went to bed. This morning I got up and saw that it had dropped back down to 38 cents. So, because I'm a nervous nelly, I bought 327 Hive back with that same HBD. Woohoo! 27 Hive added and the price is now back where it started around 37 cents. A 9% gain overnight. I'll take it.
In conclusion, I think Hive is now a tradeable crypto. In fact, it may be one of the better cryptos out there to trade due to the crazy pumps it gets now and again. The fact there is now a trustworthy stablecoin available in our Hive accounts is a massive plus to doing this as you should be able to comfortably trade into that stable while waiting for the market to move.
For me, now having my "core" stake within sight gives me the freedom to take a few more trading risks without having to worry about it running away. Ideally, I'll add to that stake and have more to trade with down the road. Instead of selling 300, it would be nice to sell 3000 and make 270 Hive vs 27 but...baby steps. I'm now 1 for 1 in trading Hive. Hopefully I'll be able to continue taking advantage of Hive's inherent volatility and increase my stake both organically and through the markets. Time will tell.
Obviously this is not financial advice. People need to do what's best for them in their current situations. This is just what I'm doing right now.
Thanks for reading.