Can you feel it in the air? That special feeling is here again, the feeling of the fast approaching bull market season. If you can't tell, I am very bullish for the future of the crypto markets, and while the bull market may not be officially here yet, it is always a great idea to be ready for it. For many of you this will be your first bull market, and some of you will remember the last one. There is nothing like a bull market, and that's why I wanted to give some tips and advice so that we can all be better prepared to handle what is coming soon.
Let's get started.
1) Have a Plan
You would be surprised to know just how many people enter the crypto markets without having any sort of plan. During the last bull run, all coins were at all-time highs, every day were green days and not just by a small percentage, but a large one. Many people thought the prices would keep going up forever, they didn't, and they weren't prepare for when the bottom of the market fell out. So I say to have a plan, what does this mean?
Well, first this means to do research before you make any purchases. Know the price history of the coin, previous all-time high, the market cap, circulating volume, research what the coin is actually all about. Why would you use your hard earned money and not even research where you are putting it?
After you have decided if this is a coin worth investing, you need to set price targets for yourself. At these targets you will sell off a portion, at the next target maybe you will sell more. Also what will you be selling into? Will you be selling that altcoin and changing it into bitcoin? Or will you be selling that coin for cash.
It's very important to remember what your goal is? Is is just to collect more bitcoin? Collect more cash? Or perhaps your goal is to be able to pay off your car? Write it down, this will help to make it easier to remember.
Because when prices are rising, it is so easy to be caught up in the emotion, thereby becoming greedy and wanting more and more, all-the-while forgetting the original goal that you set off to achieve. Those people who didn't stick to the plan, became too greedy, forgot to sell and eventually ended up with losses and no profits.
2) Be aware of Pump and Dumps
I think being aware of pump and dumps in the market is critically important advice. You know the crypto market well, but there's a coin you'e never heard of before with only a market cap of $100,000 soaring in price! Stay away! Any coin you may not have heard of, is a coin that will be higher risk. But a coin that is not in the top 100 of marketcap, is even riskier. In this zone it is way too easy for one person to be pumping the market of this coin, and after you buy it, it will be dumped on you as well. Again, this goes along with my tip #1, but always, always, always do your own research before you make any purchases. I always want to become somewhat of an expert in the coin before I make a purchase. This will allow me to understand the potential future of it, what my strategy with the coin will be, how much I need to accumulate and when to sell off, or perhaps how long I will HODL.
A recent example of a coin to be aware of is the recent pump in Dogecoin. Everyone from Tik Tok / Robinhood were FOMOing into the market causing the price to surge. But a movement like there, and especially a movement where people were all planning to sell off is a movement that will definitely have a dump. This Dogecoin dump hasn't happened yet, but it will.
Always be careful with these situations.
3) Be Careful Not To FOMO so much
Tip number three is to be careful not to FOMO so much. FOMO is the Fear Of Missing Out. This is when people see the price of a coin going up, and they don't want to miss out, and even though at the current price it isn't a good buy, they still buy in, because they are afraid of missing out. You probably already know the end of this story, but because they bought in at a bad price, the coin did eventually go down and they lost their money. I know it is very difficult, but when a coin is going up drastically, please avoid purchasing, there most likely will be a pull back.
A recent example of this was with COMPOUND. After this was listed on Coinbase and officially launched the Yield Farming craze, the price of this coin soared. Everybody wanted to join in, the price kept soaring and soaring, people didn't want to miss out. But then the bottom of the coin fell out and the price pulled back majorly and lot of people lost their money/profits. If you would have been able to be patient and wait for the pullback, you would have been able to purchase at a much better buying point. Research, having a plan and also patience is so important.
4) Remember to take some profits
Step number four is to always remember to take profits. I know many people want to HODL their coins until it reaches its ultimate all-time high price. But the truth is that could take quite some time to happen. In fact, there is a chance that time will in fact never come. as the prices rise, it's a good idea to sell off a portion to guarantee your initial investment. If you can guarantee your profit, you'll never have actually lost money if the price would go down in the future. Then you can let the rest of your portfolio grow stress-free.
Recently I have done this with a portion of my portfolio; most notably Cardano, Linkchain and Kyber Network. While I still hold the vast majority of those coins, I did sell some off during the surge in prices this week to insure my profits.
5. Be Careful of Crypto Scams
Advice tip number five is that if it sounds too good to be true, it most definitely is.
If you watch any crypto related material on YouTube, you have probably already seen it. There are loads of livestream bitcoin giveaways by "famous" people. They always are claiming something to the fact that if you send them 2 BTC, or some other coin, they will double it and send you 4 BTC back in return. While for many of you this is obviously a scam. Someone just entering the market could be much more naive and open to these attacks. Also be wary of the comments in articles and videos, people claiming to know a great trader that they got information from, and that you should contact them. This is also a scam.
When the bull market comes, more and more scammers come out to play. Always be on guard, and don't send out your coins to unknown parties. Never, never share your keys to anyone.
6. Prepare Now!
And my last tip of advice is to prepare now. Back to the step of FOMOing, you don't want to be that person. You want to be the person that researched far beforehand and accumulated to your target amount before the bull run sets off. Research is important. What new is coming to the coin, software updates, so on and so on.
For example, in January when Cardano was $0.035, I was buying in bulk, because I had researched and knew that Shelley was coming soon and I was confident the price of the coin would soar. Another chance might also happen with Ethereum. Soon Ethereum 2.0 is supposedly releasing. This will bring many improvements, that will vastly improve the chain, along with staking.
This could potentially be a fantastic time to buy ethereum. Of course, this is just my own opinion. Please do your own research.
Anyways, the moral of the story is if you do the research and purchase ahead of time, you'll be more satisfied with what you have and you'll feel much less FOMO, save money, and also maximize profits.
These were just some very basic tips that I wanted to share for the next bull run. But, really I believe we should always be following these steps.
Have you been following these steps? And do you have any good tips/advice of your own? After-all, knowledge is power.
As always, thank you for reading!