Post-mortem of My First Crypto Bull Run

This is not to say that the bull run is completely over, as I still harbour a tiny sliver of hope for circling theories such as a repeat of a 2017 double top, Wyckoff distribution and what have you. It also remains to be seen what effect laser-eyed politicians from South America will have.

But from my perspective having bought my first crypto (Ether) a year ago in June 2020, I can see that we are clearly in a downtrend. And this is one rollercoaster ride that I have hopped off, for now.

I am still invested in crypto in many ways. I continue to write for a great crypto wallet and stack sats that way. I continue to contribute to crypto ecosystems and be a visitor of the metaverse. I also still have that one Ether which I haven’t sold.

All in all, I got away with gains as anyone who got in during the same time as I did would have. My crowning achievements would probably be buying that said Ether at around $220, HNT at $1.60 and SOL at $1.80. Those assets went on to reach approximately 18x, 20x and 40x respectively at their ATHs. But, I paper-handed them along the way, made rookie mistakes such as selling too early, and in the end, panic selling. However on hindsight, selling is the only reason I am not rekt right now.

Here’s a recap of the lessons I have learnt and I guess sharing them is also a way for me to process what has been a very intense, emotionally and mentally taxing period of my life, which I willing took part in and will probably repeat in the near future.

What generally kept me grounded and away from the mental noise of day to day was actually contributing to the growth of crypto and earning crypto in return. Rather than using my hard-earned cash, I was putting in hard effort and rewarded with a speculative asset in return. If I lost it all, I could just as well work harder to earn it back. This goes for all forms of money, and this mindset helped to create a detached buffer for me during periods of volatility.

Crypto is a steep learning curve, and the pay is commensurate for those who can get a handle on the topic. There are also numerous bounties out there such as from the NEAR protocol that reward community engagement, for example, if you are so inclined.

Earning crypto helps to mature its use-case and I am a fan of doing this. Like a regular scheduled DCA, I still think it’s the best way for a person to gain exposure to crypto with measured risks.

Definitely there were times where I sat shaking my fist on the sidelines seeing meme coins with absolutely no purpose pumping and outperforming every other asset. But doing the research and understanding projects that had great technology and future potential was my guiding light.

Knowing what the blockchain trilemma is, the trade-offs that different projects make, network effects and so on helped to inform my decisions in eventually picking great tech projects such as Ethereum and Solana over others. For what it’s worth, I am also watching how e-Radix develops over the next few years.

This time is not different. The warning signs were there but I chose to ignore it mistakenly believing it was mass adoption. It was also suddenly a lot more fun having friends come round to your isolated interests and it was easy to get swept away with the enthusiasm. My Whatsapp groups were dotted with mentions of Doge and Shibu, casual influencers were posting about HODL on Instagram, and well, my Dad who actually knew about Bitcoin in 2010 was messaging me to sell my Ether. (Thanks, Dad, but I am hodling).

When influencers start bragging about their gains, the top is pretty much in.

Knowing the tech is one thing, but the other side of the coin is tokenomics. I have been scalded by projects simply by not reading properly into the tokenomics. I have to admit, tech is more my thing. The financial aspect, not so much. Vested token unlock schedules is something I would take future note of and generally stay away from projects that disproportionately reward early investors to the detriment of future buyers.

I have a handful of embarrassing stories about greed that I won’t repeat here. But suffice to say, saving pennies on things such as transaction fees has led me to make even bigger losses. The crypto ecosystem is complex, and yes, there are many ways for the gateholders to siphon off fees at every checkpoint, especially if you are trying to be clever and jump through hoops.

My dabbles in DeFi also proved to just trim off profits due to gas fees or end up with me holding random protocol coins in minuscule amounts that are bleeding too much in value by the day for me to longer care. I never had the stomach to put in significant amounts to make a difference anyway, although it was still fun experimenting as far as I did.

Source: https://debbiechia.medium.com/post-mortem-of-my-first-crypto-bull-run-c1bcf531631e?source=rss——-8—————–cryptocurrency