2021 has less than two months left and some analysts have expressed their point of view that the best moments in the current bull run will soon occur.
My Crypto journey throughout the four and a half years I am following crypto and Blockchain technology has had lots of trials. I’ve been through thick and through thin and wondered if I am just doing it all wrong. Although one thing was certain, I knew I shouldn’t give up.
One of my ex-colleagues called me earlier this year to thank me for opening his eyes to investing in crypto when everyone was claiming it was already dead.
The year 2017 was joyful for crypto investors. It will probably never be repeated, but perhaps these two last months of 2021 could begin resembling it.
We often read how cryptocurrency valuations are just a bubble. In 2013, 2017, 2021. Even in 2011 at a $1 price, some “analysts” were calling Bitcoin a bubble. Just take a careful look at the zoomed-out chart of BTC to understand how this market works and why there are these boom cycles of extreme euphoria, followed by a bearish cycle of extreme pessimism and abandonment.
Pure speculation causes this, however, making crypto work for millions (or billions) can stop these cycles and allow organic growth instead.
The 2017 Bull-Run on its final Stage
2017 was majestic, especially at the end of the bullish cycle. For many months, we had the incredulous Bitconnect supporters that kept promoting a scam with or without the knowledge. Although, even the scammers back then, had a better understanding of the blockchain world in a technology aspect.
Everyone was joyful since most were making enough with their trades. The Lambos were real too, but mostly for those being into crypto since 2013.
Live chat rooms were scarcely populated with just 20-30 people watching and commenting. By the end of December, they all were reaching thousands, if not tens of thousands, of participants.
I don’t think there wasn’t a day without something funny to discuss. There was also a strong enthusiasm and support for a change to the corrupt banking establishment. But there were also far too many shills trying to manipulate the mind of the most clueless and force them into certain investments.
The top fun moments from 2017 will probably not going to be relived.
I remember always being in a rush to finish work, not staying for overtime, but often excusing myself to leave earlier instead. Just to move in front of my desktop screen and open all tabs of exchanges and websites I was using for trading. I was also following various trading channels on YouTube and some on discord and TeamSpeak, just to have a better idea, although there had always been far too many shills, often making chatrooms horrible.
It wasn't just trading though, it was a whole world of joyful and intelligent people. When in good profit, all people become good guys. It was also the memes that had been amazing. The cries for "hodl" even after BTC reached $10k.
Even the incredulous Bitconnect supporters and promoters were fun to watch. Even these scammers understood Bitcoin better than the promoters we see today in social media and YouTube.
I traded since I didn't know what else to do. It took me months to begin understanding what was going on. I was trading anything on any exchange. I was using Bittrex, Kraken, Binance since the first days it was released to the public and various other exchanges that today don't exist.
I had a Youtube account under the name "When Moon?" and spamming nonsense bullish messages in live chats for hours daily, since September 2017 just for fun.
This was my first Bitcoin Cash purchase (trade not investment) on Kraken exchange, back in November 2017.
I had no idea what the scaling debate and the Bitcoin fork were about and took me a long time to clear all the details.
It is a problem for Bitcoin Cash when having to explain the reasons it is Bitcoin to those that are still new and lack a certain background in this field.
There is another hidden trade (BCH/BTC, at a certain bounce I switched to BTC and back to BCH) missing from the total, but you get the picture.
This was about 1000 euro profit made in 7 hours. Basically, throughout 2017, I was rooting for these trades to profit.
If I remember correctly, it was a Saturday morning, and I skipped sleep on Friday night. It was right after Roger Ver announced support to Bitcoin Cash and started selling his BTC, causing extreme price turbulence.
I was day trading for profit. Adjusting and making different trades. On Kraken, I wasn’t using leverage, but also had a Bitmex account I was frequently using. However, I felt I would not make it at Bitmex and this was mostly gambling than correct trading.
Kraken didn’t even demand KYC back then.
The 2018-2019 Bear Market
2018 and 2019 was neverending sorrowful bear market. The opportunities were limited and I still remember some prices of crypto assets that I invested in but didn't have the guts to follow.
I lost money later (not too much to bother) at Cryptopia, Livecoin, and later at more exchanges that were shut down.
Although this was also temporary.
I don't want to remind myself of these two years. I wasn't into crypto but just for 6 months fully, and the market had just started a bear that lasted for another two years.
2018 was a terrible year for crypto. BTC had crashed and kept crashing. It also kept increasing in dominance since the rest of the cryptocurrencies were crashing even faster.
I still hold hundreds of tokens and coins that lost 99% of their value since 2018 and never recovered. These are all abandoned projects today, with no chance of recovering. Some of those I held, I managed to sell three years later for a profit, others, just made it at a certain point but never reached new ATH.
In 2019 the signs for recovery appeared, with a Chinese Ponzi using cryptocurrencies and luring investors in China and SE Asia convincing them to invest billions of dollars. Eventually, the Ponzi collapsed and Chinese authorities captured all culprits. The keys to the crypto wealth amassed had been handed out to Chinese authorities and the Chinese government today holds a vast fortune in various cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, EOS, XRP).
In Conclusion
I doubt that anyone in Crypto is not in it to make some excellent investments. I have never been a shill to just spam nonsense on a certain coin, although I did sometimes follow the crowd in the past. It is a mistake any new and naive investor will make (following random recommendations), and avoiding this requires experience.
I stopped following the crowd, and while many will claim to make a good profit with Shiba Inu, I’m sure they are the same that lost a lot in the scam Squid Game Token. Some coins are just a gamble and when gambling; I prefer the odds in my favor.
The hype is not when we are promoting one cryptocurrency that may seem better than others. It is when there is nothing in the background but just promises of unreasonable wealth.
Hype is when billionaires don’t understand the technology but will just invest and call Bitcoin a brilliant investment. When asked what BTC is used for exactly, they simply can’t tell. They got trapped in this price action and thought to take part in increasing their influence. Perhaps this is all about the Twitter number of followers.
I’m glad today that some billionaires understand Bitcoin maximalism is a destructive approach towards innovation.
Lead Image From: Unsplash
Follow me on: ● ReadCash ● NoiseCash ● Medium ● Hive ● Steemit ●Vocal ● Minds ● Twitter ● LinkedIn ● email
Don't forget to Subscribe and Like if you enjoyed this article!
The thing about crypto I have been saying for a while, or at least POINTING OUT, is that it is an EXTREMELY young thing in terms of anything finance related. We're talking about something that is only 12 years old.
At the same time, of course, most people talk about crypto as "the future," and speak of it in terms of "replacing fiat." The latter argument seems ridiculous to me. But, that being said, I DO think that crypto will play an important role in how we transact in the future.
If people are contending, only 12 years in, that the best has already come, and that the upside is potentially gone, I am not sure how that same person can make the claim that crypto is the future if they also think the best is NOT to come.
Consider that the stock market is 400+ years old, and money itself is tens of thousands of years old, having taken on many, many forms over the years. Money itself is not dead, and money itself will never be dead. People will always trade something for something even if "official" money is abolished.
With that in mind, if I am to believe that crypto is worth investing in now, I have to believe that 100 years from now it will be worth far more than it is now, and so for that reason and with that in mind, I take the same stance I take on ANY investment I make.
And that is that "any time" is a good time to buy. Because the outlook is not based on what it will do today, but rather what it will do tomorrow, and if I use the stock market as a gauge, one thing has held true, and that is no matter if the market goes up or goes down in the short term, the stock market is and always has been higher in the end than it was before. If you look at the "ultimate" trajectory of the stock market, it is NEVER down overall, and so there again, "any time" is a good time to buy into it.
Granted, this is a broad analysis. One still must make the right choices as to WHICH coins or tokens will be successful and hold their value and which ones will not, just like stocks. But again considering the age of crypto, the broader perspective—or the macro if you will—is that the "market" will always be higher tomorrow ultimately than it was yesterday. And if I do not believe that I can only come to a single conclusion.
Crypto was never worth investing in in the first place.