Introduction
I always wondered why the majority of traders/investors keep losing in a bull market
Looking back at the chart, we only need to spot buy + buy the pullbacks to make money on mega bull runs
But obviously, a lot get liquidated and miss the easy tailwind
Psychology and Health
1/ Bear markets are brutal, but bull markets can be just as tough in other ways. Seeing random people suddenly 30x their money in scam coins (or maybe quality that you missed) is rough.
Trying to keep up with the constant flood of news and opportunity is exhausting.
2/ Euphoria over lifechanging gains.
Then a gambler's craving for just one more hit of that same euphoria.
Here's my advice, including some hard learned lessons from the last bull/bear cycle.
3/ Go all-in mentally.
This *is* an incredible opportunity.
But...pace yourself.
This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Maintain your health, good sleep and dietary habits when possible, and your sanity.
4/ Stay grounded.
Hang out with non-crypto people, friends, family etc.
Go for a hike, go camping, get away from screens on occasion.
Read a book. Meditate.
Do things that bring your cortisol and adrenaline levels down.
5/ perhaps most importantly, don't blow up.
It's amazing how many people end bull runs with less money than they started.
The easiest ways to blow up: FOMO'ing in to positions after they've outperformed with big chunks of your portfolio, leverage, and shorting.
6/ the biggest/hardest question: when to sell?
No easy answer to this unfortunately. A reasonable approach is to very gradually scale out of positions on the way up.
For example, you could sell 20% every 2x or (20 every 5X or 10X on coins you got in the presale or near the listing on DEX or CEX)
Not optimal, but will likely result in a fine outcome with less stress
7/ One tough thing about parabolic markets: no matter you do, you're almost certain to end up with 30%-50% less money than you had (or would have had if you weren't scaling out) at the absolute peak.
And that's a pretty darn good outcome.
Your paper gains are "real", but, best to think of it as "found money" until you realize the gains.
If you put $100k in, turn it into $3m, it can still be psychologically painful and lead to poor decisions to end up exiting with $1.5m.
Remember that's a great outcome!
8/ lastly - while I'm obviously a highly convicted bull, these are truly risky and speculative assets.
Even if they do change the world as we hope, that doesn't mean the price of an asset can't fall 80% and stay there for years as even the highest quality cryptocurrencies do.
9/ I'm gonna tack on a re-iteration of the things that make people blow up.
A. FOMO - chasing a parabolic move.
Basically - don't do it, and if you're gonna do it, do it small and/or with a stop limit.
B. Leverage - this is a hype volatile market, you don't need it.
C. Short selling - rarely worth doing in a bull market at all.
Markets can and will gap higher. You can't trust stop limits since exchanges might go down when you need them.
Why take the difficult route when you could go with the tailwind?