A little motivation for those suffering FUD: my four year journey in crypto and how that’s shaping my mindset now

“Worry, doubt, fear and despair are the enemies which slowly bring us down to the ground and turn us to dust before we die.” ~ Douglas MacArthur

Whether you acted impulsively or with careful calculation, deliberately, if you’re feeling like it’s all lost - it’s not. We’ve only just begun. You’re experiencing the same emotions people have experienced through all of history. I’m feeling it. I’ve felt it before. I will feel it again. Whether you’re up or down know this is a step on the journey, not the destination. We’re still too far from the destination to know if it’s a shining palace full of lambos or a ruinous city, but we have our dreams.

When the dot com bubble burst in the early 2000s, many said it was the end of retail trading as well as the end of internet businesses. Amazon reached a high price of $113 in 1999. In 2001 it dropped to $5.51. I was with a friend who invested his scholarship book stipends in Amazon and he spent the initial day of the crash throwing up. He didn’t sell. He was too depressed to log in and sell his shares. He just let them sit there. He did eventually buy more (eBay, Amazon, Google and Apple stick out in my memory). Today Amazon trades at over $3,500. When it was worth around $700 he sold some off for a down payment on his house. Then he started buying more. He’ll be capable of retiring soon with enough for he and his wife to live very comfortably and put their kids through any school in the country, pay for weddings and vacations and just enjoy life. He turns 40 next month. I want that freedom too and that’s why I started learning about crypto.

I’m a little jealous of him, but I’m learning. I’ve been investing in crypto for over 4 years. After the big run up and dip a few years ago I couldn’t log in for like 6 months bc I just didn’t want to think about it. But eventually I did and started putting in a little at a time. This year I got more ambitious (moon fever or something like it) and started really digging in. Even though I’ve put in more this year than the previous three combined, I’m still so far up it’s not even funny. My initial investment of ~$1,500 is worth over $9,000. That includes the loss of having two ETH stolen in the bitsane scam. That was a loss of around $600 of my initial pot. So my remaining $900 is where my gains were. At this point I’ve invested over $10,000 across 8 tokens (not going to shill them here). $7,000 was this year and $4,000 of that was in the past month. I also trade stock and decided to sell some to fund this month’s buying spree. Those were gains from a smaller seed amount that’s grown and been added to.

My advice if you’ve been making impulse buys is to check your assumptions. If you still feel good about that investment keep it. If not, trade for something you think has a future. Know that we’re all risking our money in one way or another. Experience is a great teacher. Listening to the experiences of others and learning works out much better but it’s not as easy as screwing up on your own and learning from a personal mistake!

For me, Patience has won over impulse every single time. I used to day-trade until I realized I would have made more by holding and staking. Plus I have to pay taxes on a lot of those. I’ve only swapped coin to coin a few times since then. Only time will tell if those were the best decisions or not.

All that to say, it’s not over. It is just beginning. If you believe, keep going and know there are people who’ve been here far longer than me. From their posts I hear the same thing: keep going, don’t worry. FUD is natural but don’t give in.

I’ve talked enough so I’ll leave you with a couple more quotes for perspective:

“All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.” ~Narrator at the beginning of Disney’s Peter Pan

“You must let go of the illusion of control.” ~Master Oogway

Amazon historical price source

Bitsane scam article

Edit: fixed a link