Well, that was fun while it lasted. With it becoming crystal clear that the bull run is well and truly over, and having failed to take sufficient profits, its time for a reality check.
Back to the real world.
This week, reality finally hit home for me that I had to go get a job. I've been out of the fiat workforce since January, and crypto has not been kind ever since. Luna was probably the last straw, but it was likely inevitable regardless. The plan had always been to keep working through this run, and keep accumulating through the bear market that was likely to happen (and is now well and truly here). But, because of being at a company that mandated the vax, and being unvaxxed, I found myself not welcome at my former employer for 14 years. I could still shop there, but I couldn't work there.
Anyway, not going to get all political in this post. I thought that taking a break and seeing if I could make a go of full time crypto would be a good idea. Obviously, the market had other ideas.
So, a few days ago, I asked at a competitor of my former employer if they had any jobs going. The manager (who I knew and had worked with previously) said she was hoping I'd be interested, and had a job available for me. Simple as that, I have a job again. No interviews, no resumes, just right place right time. My wife and I have recently started home schooling our 2 kids, and this position will fit around that nicely. Also, I get to contribute to building up this store, and hopefully take some business off my former employer.
Plus, it wont be too stressful, and I'll still have plenty of time to devote to crypto.
Lessons from the last couple of years.
Now that the bear market is confirmed, it is probably a good time to look back, and learn some lessons of how to make the most of a crypto cycle. Here is a few thoughts:
Greed will ruin everything. Holding on to a position, or not taking profits is a mistake. Keeping everything riding during the good times leads to bad times.
Don't be afraid to sell an airdrop. During the last 12 months, a ton of drops happened in the Cosmos eco-system. Instead of selling the ones I was not real fussed about, around day three or four after listing when they hit their high point. Staking, and then watching them go -95% or more was silly. Should have sold out and staked up more on the high conviction investments.
Do more research. Look for people criticizing a project, and read through their opinions carefully. I had some doubts about LUNA and UST, for example, but never really dug in to why. There were plenty of warnings from credible people that Terra was shit, but few listened to them. While I never really got involved directly with the chain, holding the tokens locked in an LP on Osmosis was a bad idea.
Keep more liquids. One thing I've been really bad at is having liquid funds available. As soon as funds were there, they got staked somewhere. This means there is no funds to buy dips, and by the time funds unstake, the market crash will be all over. Keep liquid funds.
Take profits. Selling on the way up, buying on the way down. Pointless watching your bag moon, only to watch it drop to ATL and become practically worthless.
Don't stop working. When things are looking good, it is easy to sit back and watch. Take HIVE for example. When we had the nice little pump of HIVE up over $3, things looked sweet. But had I kept more active, and had some decent posts paying out around then, the HBD portion would have been significant. Squandered that opportunity by being patchy and inconsistent.
I'm sure there are more lessons, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.
Time to work out a new plan. Now that I have a new fiat job, the pressure will ease on having to sell crypto regularly to pay the bills and put food on the table. So now, I need to re-asses the entire portfolio, and plan ahead.
I'm not sure yet what the plan will look like, but the first thing will be to focus in on the high conviction investments. Keeping in mind the lessons I looked at above, I'll re-work my crypto strategy and figure out where to focus what's left of my resources.
One thing is for sure, LEO and HIVE are a core component of my crypto life, and any future plans will have this community as home base.
I'd love to here what you learned over the last couple of years. Let me know in the comments section below.
Thanks for reading,
JK.
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