The price of ETH continues to dip, bottoming out at $366 overnight.
Anybody holding ETH over the past 4 months has certainly gone on a rollercoaster of emotions.
The feeling of watching your money triple within weeks – only to “lose” it all over the last 2 months – is not a fun one. If you’re looking at your Coinbase account value daily, you probably feel a bit queasy.
I know this feeling too well, and while Crypto has hardened my emotions over the past few years, that queasiness can be extremely hard to suppress.
Some people have it way worse – anybody who entered Crypto over the past 4 months are now deep in the red. (Including the hedge funds)
These are testing times for anybody invested in Crypto. There are two things I do to help manage my emotions in these times –
Stop Looking at Coinbase; This is a Long-term Play
Checking your account values can be extremely addicting – especially in moments of high price volatility. One thing that helps me in moments like these is just not checking my exact account value.
If you’re looking at this as a long-term investment – which is my personal philosophy – then constantly checking your account value is not only unproductive but unhealthy.
Learning From Mistakes
Often this “queasiness” comes from feeling “overinvested” – or having too much at stake relative to your overall savings.
I’m definitely guilty of this. It’s a mistake I’ve made a few times over the past 2 years, and each time I try to get better and learn from it.
Sometimes I get caught up in my own logic –
If I think ETH is a long-term play, why would I sell? Isn’t that trying to time the market?
What I’ve learned is that logic gets overwritten when the paper profits you experience become significant enough to protect.
Taking Profit Along the Way
After making the mistake early in 2017 – watching the price dipped from $420 to $120, I did take some profit over the past few months. Certainly not as much as I should have.
I have one friend who I gifted $400 worth of Crypto on January 12th, 2017. That $400 turned into $30K on January 13th, 2018. It’s now under $10k.
Did I think at that time – when it was worth $30K – it would go up to $100K? Very strongly. Do I still feel that? Yes, equally as strong.
But at $30K – a definite milestone – I wish I had recommended profit taking. I still believed it was going higher, and I still do. But now the money was significant enough that it was time to take a little profit.
Cash Out Milestones & Moving Forward
Moving forward I’m implementing for myself, and recommending to others, ‘Cash Out Milestones’ – or dollar values where the money has become significant enough to protect / take profit.
I do my best to learn from my mistakes, but all I know for sure is that I’ll keep making them. Just hopefully different ones.