NOW is the time to prepare for the bull market: Use the bear to do your research, develop your knowledge and skills, and plan your exit strategy

A key characteristic of a bear market is that the bear is slow, with long periods of crabbing because bottoms take time to form. The bear is perfect for preparing for the bull, because the bull market will come back, even if it could take years due to a poor macro environment. All the adoption is sufficient evidence for that.

In this post, I will provide some advice on how to prepare for the eventual bull market. My goal is to help educate people who are new to investing or trading crypto and to remind the more experienced people to not forget their ‘essentials’. Please add to my three tips in the comments.

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(1) Determine your (long-term) crypto goals

What exactly do you hope to achieve with crypto? Are you earning money for a house or a Lambo? Try to define your crypto goal(s) and make them as specific as possible. The answer to this question determines how much money you need and should at the very least inform your strategy for investing or trading crypto.

A key issue here is the risk to reward ratio - how much risk do you need to take to maximize your chance of achieving your goals? If you want to become a millionaire, you need to find a project with a low market cap that you expect to become huge or give leverage trading a try.

If your goals are more modest, it is likely better to go for a safer strategy where you buy larger projects and DCA during the bear. For instance, I just stick to top 25 projects and use a DCA style acquisition during the bear, because crypto is a relatively small part of my holdings and I am already a bit older so already have my own house, child, and stable job.

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(2) Develop your crypto knowledge and skills

Regardless of your goals and risk appetite, you will need to do your research and invest time and effort into developing yourself. They often say that the bear market is perfect for innovation and learning and in my opinion this is true. We really have a lot of time during the bear because bottoms take time to form.

Try to learn about the markets, about old projects, and about new projects. Read whitepapers, look up developer activity, test a crypto project, enrich your understanding of macro factors, learn about technical analysis, follow a crypto course, read a crypto book, etc.

You can even start to learn a crypto skill, such as programming, which would allow you to contribute to projects. Doing so helps gets you hands-on experience with a project and helps to know people. Moreover, crypto skills can help you find a job as there are many job opportunities in crypto. Every (major) company is acquiring people for a crypto purpose.

Just to be clear, watching YouTubers with silly faces is not a solid research strategy.

Dont be the friend - avoid these social media shillers

(3) Plan your exit strategy

An exit strategy is a plan for when you will sell (some of) your cryptocurrencies. It is best to have a plan ready before the bull starts, because during the bull it is human nature to get (very) greedy - your emotions will cloud your judgment and make it difficult for you to take profits.

That is why the biggest crypto regret most people have is that they did not take (enough) profit during the bull. Profits are only profits are when they are realized. This place and social media will sell a HODL mentality to you (“Diamond Hands!!1”), but if your need to earn money to achieve your goal, HODL only might be a silly approach. This market is very risky.

Remember, almost no one times the exact top (or the exact bottom). Try to set realistic targets and avoid cashing out everything in one go because that is a recipe for trouble. If you cash it too early, you will hate yourself; if your target is not met yet the bull is over you will also hate yourself.

There are many different types of exit strategies, such as:

• Sell a part of your portfolio at certain price targets (e.g. sell 1000 Moons at $3, $5, $7, and $10).
• Sell at certain moments (e.g. sell 1000 Moons on a set day every month during the bull).
• Sell when you doubled your investment and play with "house money".

Choose the one that fits your wishes and goals. Lastly, don’t forget to hold yourself to those targets. Or at the very least, set a stop loss at your target for taking profit when that target is met.

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Yeah, sorry Peter, even you need to get your exit strategy ready

PS. As always, cross check this information with other sources. One source is never enough.

EDIT: Yes, by NOW in the title I mean during the bear, of course :-)