I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 16 years old. I started investing and playing poker when I was 17 years old. One day I skipped school because I bought warrants for 1 200 USD and I wanted to monitor the situation. Within 3 hours I made $5 000. I sold it quickly and went to school. During a sociology class in high school, I played heads up for $1 000. I lost, but it was fun, and my friends were watching. I know about the “urge” to earn money quick. It gives a kick; your adrenaline starts pumping through your veins. It becomes an addiction. It even get’s fun to lose money. This is very dangerous.
I must admit that I see a lot of the same “rookies” in our community on Workplace. My guess is that many of our members are chasing profits on a daily basis and get kicks out of watching the prices move up and down. I cannot blame them either, as I was, and probably is, like that myself. I’ve always been impatient. It has been both a blessing and a curse. It has made me a lot of money, it has made me lose more money, it has made me miss huge gains and I’ve been struggling with FOMO (fear of missing out).
Humans aren’t wired to trade
I believe that humans aren’t made to trade. It’s not something we have in our DNA. It is something we must learn how to do, and how to disconnect our human emotions. People that lose a trade tend to risk more on the second trade to earn back what they already lost and then some. It’s a far too common mistake, which I have done myself many times. You have to be able to disconnect your emotions and to follow a strict strategy that you stick to no matter what. You are allowed to change your strategy and tactics, but that should not be something you do daily.
My biggest mistake?
I sold all my bitcoins (800) in 2015 when they were at their lowest (200 USD). I made a lot of money on trading cryptocurrencies, but I was too obsessed with it. I was watching the charts daily (like most of you are doing now). And when the prices started to gain traction in 2016, you can believe I felt an intense FOMO. However, I had decided not to go back in as I wouldn’t want to become obsessed with the charts once again. If I had invested my bitcoins in ethereum in 2015, I would have had more than 50 000 000 million USD today. Chew on that for a few seconds.
But I’ve realized that I didn’t need to watch the charts on a daily basis. I could simply have told myself that: “I want to hold these bitcoins for three years no matter what.” Or that I wanted to buy ethereum for all my bitcoins and then leave them for four years or more. Then I would be able to disconnect myself from the daily charts and probably have reached “financial freedom” by the age of 26.
As you might imagine, it has been hard to see that your prediction back in 2014 and 2015 came through, bitcoin reached 3000 USD, and ethereum is killing it. I’ve been working with myself on getting over the fact that I could have made 50 000 000 USD. What comforts me is that these opportunities happen all the time. I know there’s thousands of investors that have experienced the same. Not only with cryptocurrencies, but with stocks (look at Tesla), commodities and so forth.
You don’t earn money; you steal money
Another interesting aspect of trading and investing is that you are not making money on good trades or investments. You are taking money from other traders and investors. The price of bitcoin is purely based on supply and demand. I bet you can find a person that wants to sell you a bitcoin for 10 000 USD, if you buy that bitcoin then it is worth 10 000 USD. But you have to be able to sell it again to capitalize on the asset.
Investing and trading are money changing hands. Nothing more, nothing less. Money isn’t created, money isn’t lost.
What I’ve learned
The most important lesson I can teach you is to have patience.
HPS! (Have Patience Stupid!)
Create a strategy that you think will win, and stick to it. Don’t be obsessed and follow the charts minute by minute, it will only drive you crazy. When I talk about patience, it could be one-year horizon or even a ten-years horizon. Not a daily horizon.
I’m more experienced, more patient, more intelligent. I’ve learned the hard way, and you should learn from what I’ve done (and not done).