No better way to start off my first post on Steemit than with a lesson learned. I told some friends earlier this morning that Litecoin taught me a valuable lesson over the past day. That lesson is this: Sometimes the best thing you can do is just HODL. Let me explain what I mean.
I'm still very much a "n00b" when it comes to cryptocurrency. I've been a convinced Libertarian that has run in Anarcho-Capitalist circles for several years now. I've sat at the feet of men like Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, Woods, Rockwell, and so on. I'm someone who's been "woke" to the evils of the Federal Reserve for a long time. But, for some reason, I never pulled the trigger on getting into the world of cryptocurrency until back in the summer. But, when I finally did it, I fell in love.
When I first fired up Coinbase on my iPhone, I was blown away at the price of a single Bitcoin. So, like most other n00bs, I thought, "well, I can buy a few of these Litecoins. I'll just buy a few of those, and keep buying fractions of Bitcoin." Eventually, within the first few months, I was able to buy 3-4 Litecoins whenever it was around $40-$50. Around the same time, I was doing insane amounts of research on cryptocurrency and investment strategies. I learned from others how to read charts, how to day-trade, and within just a few days I was making some pretty decent profit.
Long story short, this morning after doing the math, I figured out that the profits I made day-trading weren’t nearly what I would have taken away HODL’ing. Don't get me wrong, I made some nice profits. But today, with Litecoin mooning to an all-time high of $341.72, if I had just HODLed, I would have made better profits.
Moral of the story is this. Having a strategy is good. Taking profits on occasion is good. Day-trading isn't inherently bad. But sometimes, the best thing you can do is just HODL. Keep HODLing, my friends.