Warren Buffet is quoted as saying "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." He could not be more right with that quote. It doesnt only refer to the stock market, but many other markets as well, which is why I am writing this article today. People are screaming the end of cryptocurrency because of a large correction, but seasoned veterans knew it was coming for a while and also knew that waiting was always the goal.
Its hard to see the big picture when you entered a year or two ago and all you have seen were these massive gains ( many people are in this category), but you always need to expect that at any time the market could turn around. Even the greatest investors in the world get nervous when markets are too bullish, because there is no such thing as up without down. Corrections are healthy, even huge ones like this. They establish base levels and lows that you can move up in the future. Especially with bitcoin which tends to grow exponentially in short periods of time.
In 2008 people saw 35%-50% losses on their portfolios in a short time. Many who were retired at the time and hadnt saved enough couldnt afford to weather the storm and sold at record lows. Despite there being value in the stocks they were selling, people couldnt afford their mortgages or other daily expenses and had to cash some out. In under a decade if they held they would have increased their holdings by almost double what they had originally before the crash. The key isnt only not over leveraging yourself, but the key is also to always have a plan B and an emergency fund should something go wrong.
Right now we have seen many people overleverage themselves in crypto and now are watching as they, on paper, are losing thousands a day. You need to make sure the money you have invested is money you can afford to lose first of all and second of all, take a deep breath and step away from the computer, for a week, a month, half a year. I cant promise you that bitcoin will go up, but I can tell you what I think. I think in the long term we have another halving in 2 years which at that point will basically limit the inflation to a very small amount per year, there are many improvements coming on the way and the value proposition of a limited digital store of value still exists.
We are miles from where we were a year or two ago, not only in price still, but in how far the technology has come and the awareness around it. I dont expect it is simply going to disappear. There might be many altcoins that do disappear, but more likely than not even if there was a massive crash, bitcoin would still survive and keep chugging along. This isnt the first time people have declared bitcoin dead and wont be the last. If you cant afford to hold for a period of 5 or more years, I always tell people not to invest, this is a long game were playing. Things dont happen at the speed of light, its easy to forget that these days.
-Calaber24p