Unless you are brand new to crypto (and I mean hours-new) or you've been living under a rock for the past days, you know that the market flash-crashed yesterday. The reasons for the crash are not important to the objective of this article, and therefore, I won't get into them. In this case, the fact and the aftermath are the only things that matter.
In a matter of minutes, big momma Bitcoin took a dive and brought mostly everything else with it. Even Hive wasn't spared from the generalized dump that took place yesterday.
Things have somewhat stabilized now and many investors, myself included, are processing what happened and planning their next steps.
When things like this happen, a lot of people get destroyed and experience huge losses but there are also those who, by chance or by having a proper strategy, win big.
I didn't do too badly myself, as I was quick to act and made some moves that paid off in the short term. I could still do even better depending on what happens in the next few days but given the magnitude of this crash, I can't help but wonder: should I have done anything differently?
Hindsight is a cruel mistress. Things seem so obvious after the fact and we tend to rate our wrong moves much lower than they actually were and our right moves much higher but the truth is it's hard to assess how prepared we actually are.
I'm a bit skeptical of technical analysis and I don't think it has enough predictability to be a reliable indicator. That can be attributed to a skill issue, no doubt, but that's just how I see things and events like the one we just went through seem to corroborate that point of view.
Whatever the case may be, and even though I made it to "the other side" in a better situation than when we got in this mess, I keep thinking if I should have done anything different to "prepare" for the next one.
Should I have more alarms set up? Should I invest in bots to be the first level of defence in extreme situations? Should I have more liquidity available? Should I remove my LP positions at the very first signs of huge volatility?
I think these questions are tough to answer because, in most cases, tradeoffs are involved and the ROI can be hard to measure.
Perhaps the fact that I did quite well should be reassuring enough for me not to even think about it but I can't help it. It's probably the Project Manager in me urging to run a Lessons Learned ceremony and document the improvements needed for the next endeavour.
While I don't have the answers, one thing I take from it all is that one of the things that gave me an edge over some people I know who didn't do quite as well is diversification. I simply know more than some about how things work and this gives me options that some people don't even consider and if there is a lesson in it all is that you can never have enough knowledge.
As experienced as I am, there are still some areas of crypto that I have never dabbled in and moments like this recent crash are a great reminder that I need to keep pushing myself to never stoip learning.