Everyone's a genius in the bull market.

Class of 2017/2018.

I entered the market by purchasing BTC, and my first alt was XLM. Stellar Lumens was a promising project, and during that time, the price was a fraction of 0.02 per XLM. Somehow, I was lucky to have caught the wave, but I was not equipped with the right experience and knowledge.

I did what I could- and came into this subreddit back then to chat around, understand the sentiments, and try to make the best of decisions.

There were a lot of things happening during that time. there was this 'Flippening', where BCH was expected to 'flip' BTC. Some people believed it, some people didn't. The argument made sense at that point.

Then, there was the ICOs. Every nook and corner had a new ICO, and everyone's trying to chase the next big thing. Here's the scary thing, everything became a big thing.

Everyone's a genius in the bull market, and I was too a victim of being overconfident, and was clouded by my own greed. In my experience, XLM went from 0.02 to 0.63 in mere 2-3 months. I felt like I was the genius for 'Catching it early'. What I didn't realize was that all of these alt projects are similar to start-ups, and start-ups dies, eventually. XLM became what it is today, still rather reliable, but the promise it had back then was different from what it is now.

The bear market was brutal. Similar to what we had seen recently, portfolios were wiped out by about 90% or so for those who are heavy on alts. Even if you have BTC and ETH, it'll take a dent. My unrealized loses made me chuck away my Ledger, and I didn't check it for 3 years.

In the TradFi world, start-ups would see some diminishing in value after the timeline of 4-5 years. In DeFi, it is much faster. By the time the bear market occurred, most of us were still clinging to the faith of your own 'homework' because you thought you've done the genius thing once, and you'll do it again.

Chances are- you won't.

Projects started to get renamed. Some coins were deemed worthless. Top coins started falling off the cliff, and I went in silence for a good 3 years for believing that "Holding is good".

What I've learnt was;

1. Always rebalance your portfolio from alts to the core coins (BTC, ETH) after you have gained your unrealized profit.
2. Always have an exit strategy and commit to it.

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I am sure most of the folks from the same timeline experienced similar things. I know a few people who were active in this subreddit back then, are not active now, despite the run that we had in 2020/2021. I just hope we're all in a better position to use these experience and knowledge in the next bull-run.

Just remember, during the bull run, everyone's a genius. The truth is further than that.