I can still remember the first time I dropped a significant amount of money into Bitcoin (BTC) - at least significant to me at the time. It was in early 2015, BTC was around $250 and I was STRESSED. I had recently dropped out of college and taken a portion of my remaining "scholarship money" to buy into this whole crypto thing in hopes of making it big. What followed was 6 months of nervously checking CoinMarketCap every 10-15 minutes just to find out that, yup, the price is pretty much the same.
Around mid-late 2015 I ended up selling out, the market had taken a mild increase up to around $280 but looked poised to decrease again so I could not hold it anymore. Come to find out if I had waited even 6 months later I could have increased earnings by 100%, one year later and it could have been up 4,000% and today (with BTC @ ~$50,000) the amount I had bought would be worth $600,000. I was a victim of Paper Hands.
The Two Mentalities
There's a couple different ways to interpret the above experience, the first way is what I like to call the "Uncle Rico" mentality. It's the mentality centered around what could have been. While it's always fun to look back and talk about/reminisce on past experiences there's certainly a danger zone one can enter. I know for me when I focus too much on what could have been I start getting "Rosy Retrospection" - essentially I start seeing things as better than they actually were or could have been. This is not productive for anyone as it doesn't focus on moving forward or progress, it's a mentality firmly rooted in something that's uncontrollable, the past.
The other mentality is the "Growth" mentality. Where instead of reminiscing and bragging about what could have been, you take the experience and try to draw the lessons out of it. It's the embodiment of the "Try, Fail, Adjust" approach as opposed to the "Try, Fail, Try Fail, Try Fail" approach. Now I have to admit I didn't initially adopt the Growth mentality after I saw this whole thing play out. I was very much hurt and embarrassed that I had cashed out just before a bull run of epic proportions. Once I got over my pity party and started thinking about why I had gotten out early and why I was so stressed to begin with I started to realize some of the mistakes I made.
Diamond Hands
I had gotten into the "Get Rich Quick" mindset, I was hoping that by investing in some magic internet money it would save my whole life's outlook. The result of that was stress, crazy pressure and anxiety day in and day out. The reality is that there is no get rich quick. If we take a look at some of the biggest lottery winners, most don't have a very happy ending to their story. Money's not bad but when people come into it all at once it can reveal who they truly are. So I had to get out of the get rich quick mindset and learn how to get rich slowly. I had to learn how to make wise investments and not just put it all on a hopeful moonshot, as if I could learn how to make it once I could certainly do it again.
For me personally I decided to never again jump out of the market when I saw all red. I decided to have Diamond Hands. The next time I would invest I would hold strong until the goal I had set previously was reached. Instead of jumping out in every dip I would buy more into every dip so on the next peak my earnings would increase that much more. I can tell you from experience it's a much more exciting way to invest, when you know that you're in it for the long haul then the small market bumps up and down have no affect on your attitude or mindset.
I've already outlined how last year I was able to make a pretty decent amount by DCA'ing into BTC/ETH with DeltaBadger. That's one example of how Diamond Hands has helped benefit me, but don't just take it from me, there's also the 461,546 unique BTC addresses (according to bitinfocharts.com) that went over the $100,000 mark due to the recent bull run on BTC.
Final Thoughts
Obviously I'm not advocating for you to simply dump your life savings into BTC or ETH and hope that it will eventually increase in price. What I am hopefully portraying here is to not just jump out at the first sign of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Find some projects you can believe in and support, then stick with them till you hit your target mark. Then either jump out or flip it into another project you can get behind. I've seen it happen too many times where a novice crypto investor/trader will get in during an upswing, make a few bucks then as soon as the market turns a little red they jump out in fear. While those who stuck around made 10x what the novice did by not just sticking through the dip but buying into it to increase their profits more.
As usual I'm not a financial advisor, these are simply my opinions and experiences above. I will 100% of the time advocate you to do your own research, don't fully believe anyone online. But with that being said I hope something above was of some value to you. If you disagree with my ideas I'd love to know in the comments, if you agree I'd also love to know why. Thanks for taking your time to read this, don't forget to follow, tip and like the post if you want more. Happy earnings!
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