I've seen posts published by different people about one of their biggest mistakes in the bull market: jumping from token to token as one is flat and another is pumping.
That is definitely a mistake for most people and leads to losing the uptrend for all or most of your tokens, plus losing on fees and spread by regularly trading tokens. A select few may do better than just hodling what they chose at the beginning, but if they are, it happens usually because they join certain movements early and they turned to be successful (which you rarely know for sure).
Either way, this is not what I want to talk about. I did this mistake too, during the 2017 bull market, and decided to never make it again. And I haven't since. Not in a significant way, at least.
The other big mistake I made during bull markets was to not take profits at the right time. This would be the first cycle when I don't want to do this mistake again.
It's not like I haven't taken any profits or that I followed every project to the ground. Because I haven't. There have been good choices I made in the past, and that gives me hope that I am capable of taking the right decisions again, if I put my mind to it.
But the one that hurts the most, and judging by the sentiments that are sometimes spilled regarding the project, others are in the same situation, is Splinterlands.
At the top of the 2021 bull market and with Splinterlands assets to the moon, my holdings in the game were worth around a quarter of a million dollars.
Generated by Venice AI.
Now, 3 years later of almost full reinvestment in the game (as before), my holdings are worth about 14k...
Quite a difference, huh?
I remember the feeling during that bull market and the huge amounts of rewards we earned every day in dollar terms. On one side, I realized this couldn't continue much longer. On the other side, the incentives of the SPS airdrop to keep as much of the Splinterlands holdings, the impressive daily rewards, made me reluctant to sell. And I ended up pretty much a hodler... from 250k to 14k.
I did sell a few things, but not enough. I remember I sold a plot of land at a price that covered the full investment in my tract. The plot I sold was received as a gift/bonus for participating in the land presale. So, my 100 (+2 I sold later) land plots are pretty much free now. At least this one I did right. Better would have been to sell all land and buy it back later when the price dropped. Or not buy it at all, if it wouldn't have dropped or I had other plans.
Then I sold a couple of cards that were sought out on the market and I didn't have them maxed out or I had them doubled. The mistake was that I purchased some cards I wanted with the DEC I received. Wouldn't have been better to turn those into HBD, put them in savings when interest was offered and maybe buy those cards (or others) now when prices are so low?
Yeah, I know... Hindsight is 20/20. But every sign was screaming hype. And I didn't take profits. And there was time, it wasn't something like a spike for a few hours or a few days that you could miss. So yeah, this remains my biggest regret for not taking profits in 2021.
And I hope you'll be smarter than me this cycle, if you have the chance. I'm not referring to Splinterlands, but to taking profits in general.