In the cryptocurrency market, having the ability to adjust in an instant can mean the difference between thriving in this market, or losing everything. It is something that we were all reminded of this week with the FTX insolvency.
The mood in the market has quickly turned as well. Looking back to early last year, it was a place where money was being made everywhere. The ability to make passive income was easy as deciding what you would for dinner. The only difficult part was deciding which service you would use to earn. It was also a time when most people didn’t give a second thought to keeping their crypto on even the most reputable exchanges. Looking back, it all seems so peaceful, and we all seemed so naive.
While we were already in the bear market before last week, most would agree that the FTX fiasco has sent us to the absolute coldest depths of crypto winter. Things will likely become even worse once other companies begin announcing that they are also insolvent due to recent events.
In the past during market lows, I would use these times as a chance to build my war chest so to speak. Improving everything that I was doing so that I would be able to capitalize on it when the market recovered.
Throughout the last few years, one of my greatest areas of focus has been on building up my passive income with Bitcoin and Ethereum. While it is still easy to do with Ethereum by staking, in all honestly it was only a small portion of what I was earning compared to my Bitcoin lending. During this time, I always knew that this “golden age” of earning high-interest rates on Bitcoin probably wouldn’t last. I wanted to take advantage of it while the opportunity was still available. And I did.
But, now earning Bitcoin passively isn’t viable and I must adjust.
My focus during this Chaos
Self-Custody
I have mentioned it in other articles, but I have moved all of my liquid crypto into cold storage, with the only exception being a portion of my ETH that is locked up in staking. I feel confident that there will be further contagion effects due to this FTX situation. This means that I didn’t even want to take the risk of having Bitcoin on even the most respected exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken. I also decided to take a small hit and pay off the loan that I had at Nexo. A place where I had no confidence in their ability to stay solvent. While many of us in the crypto market may slightly be overreacting by withdrawing everything. However, it is better to be safe than sorry. People who had their funds frozen on Celsius, Voyager, BlockFi, or FTX likely wish they would have “overreacted and withdrew everything.
Accumulating, Accumulating, Accumulating
As hard as it is to hear with prices being lower than we ever thought we’d see again, and with so many people losing their crypto. There is no denying that the prices of crypto that we are currently seeing are unbelievable buying opportunities. Arguably much better than the prices we saw during the March 2020 covid price drop. Those people who can ignore the FUD, maintain conviction, and keep accumulating as hard as possible will be greatly rewarded whenever the market recovers. I have been devoting a higher percentage of my cash towards buying than before and am even selling things around the house to be able to buy more. I will either be very wrong or very right.
Writing / Building Side-Incomes
Since I lost an income stream by not lending out Bitcoin for the foreseeable future. I have been focusing harder on creating ways to replace that income. Throughout the last few years, I have maintained a crypto blog that became moderately successful, but wasn’t bringing in a lot of cash. Throughout the last few months, I have been focusing much more on my writing and the results have been impressive so far. The growth I have seen in places such as Medium has gone far above what I initially expected. This gives me great hope for what potential this may have in the future. All of which I will be reinvesting into buying more crypto.
For those of you who aren’t writers, there are several other things that you can do to earn your own side income. Such as starting a YouTube channel, flipping things on the internet, or even picking up a part-time job. The point is this. The bear market is a time when those who outwork others will end up being very successful during the next bull market. I don’t plan on letting anyone outwork me.
Along with these things, each day I’m trying to learn something new about this industry. Not only will that help with my writing, but will also keep me informed on what is coming next and hopefully capitalize on it. The key thing is that we use this time to do something. During the bull market craze, it can be near impossible to get anything worthwhile done. Now is the time to build. What you do today will determine how successful you are doing the next cycle.
How about you? What are your goals doing the bear market? What are you doing to ensure your future success?
Follow me on Twitter
https://twitter.com/johnwege
Follow me on Medium
https://medium.com/@johnwege
As always, thank you for reading!