Crypto, learning from my mistakes

Good morning/evening
 
 
 
If you’ve been in crypto for more than five minutes, you’ve already been emotionally, financially, and spiritually rugged at least once. Congrats this makes you qualified to learn from the mistakes of the past… or at least laugh at them. I must be crazy as I document all of mine, there is no escape from my mistakes, they are here written down for all to see. BUT I did not carry on down the same road, I started learning, researching and planning. So what have I learnt so far?
Here are some of the hard earned lessons from my own crypto rollercoaster.
 

 
Have a plan
 
I had a plan, sort of followed the plan, did not trust my own judgement, went back to the plan. 
You do need a plan though, it is not always easy to think straight when the market is volatile, if I had followed the plan to the letter, I would have been out closer to the top than I actually was, hype got the better of me.
 
Do not chase a trade/narrative
 
If you missed that new narrative, don't worry another will come along soon enough, same with a trade, patience will pay off. It is better to wait for the next big thing rather than ape in at the top.
 
If it sounds too good to be true
 
An oldie but a goodie, it really can be that simple, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Put your funds into this protocol for 100% gains, yep right. When the KOLs on X are posting pictures of this or that token as 'The one' Just think, how much were they given to shill this and don't get involved.
Success in crypto often looks like:

• Hearing the narrative early
• Ignoring it
• And later buying something entirely different that’s actually good.

 
No more memes
 
Not my thing, if it is yours then good luck and each to their own. I did not have many meme coins to be fair and they were just what I would call, night out money, so really not the end of the world if they went to zero, which they pretty much did. Managed to take a win shorting Melania and Trump though.
Dog tokens, cat tokens, hamster tokens... the narrative machine never stops. (I had cat tokens.........Yes I am talking about you Chippie).
 
Don't trade leverage
 
Ok I do trade a few leverage trades, but nothing silly, not for long and not for a huge chunk of the portfolio. This is more for fun and usually no more than 3X. I spent a fair amount of time looking at liquidation levels this cycle to see if I could trade them, it worked for a while, until it didn't, but again I was not trading huge amounts. Almost more importantly, what I have found is that it is easier to trade a token that I do not hold. Take Solana for instance, because I like using the chain, because I think it is great, I have trouble shorting it, follow the chart, not your heart!
 
Don't love your bags
 
Guilty, yep Bitcoin has been good to me so it is hard not to love it but I did sell some, that was in the plan all along. Did I sell at the top? No but I didn't sell at the dip either so all in all I am quite happy with my choice. Solana may be a very different story, perhaps I will be round tripping this one. It was my fault, I kept looking at the fundamentals, on chain usage was higher than almost every chain, TVL was good, ETFs were to be approved (So far, only inflows too!) and constant building on Solana made me believe that price should go up. The chart said other things, I ignored that!
 
Alt coins
 
Well if you have read any of my posts, there was a lot of experimentation within the portfolio, to test things, see what worked for me and what did not. ALT coins were not my best play, even though there were some profits or at least some break even's because I started by waiting for the ALT coin to double, then would take out my initial and let the rest ride to see what happened.......Not much lol. I really don't plan on having many ALTs in my next portfolio.
Then there was this one, this is quite possibly my most spectacular failure, not much more to go to zero.
 
https://coinmarketcap.com/
 

 
But then I also had this, for the airdrops of which I got....none!
 

 
Ok so I had this staked and unstaked too late so missed out on selling, then I traded it and yes I ended up with more TIA but still not quite enough to offset all the losses!
 
To conclude
 
It was all about learning though, and it was fun at times and a bit stressful at times too. Timing is something I also need to work on when going long or going short. As for borrowing to buy Bitcoin, that was timed quite well and it is something I would do again but it was probably my highest risk play. 
Bitcoin will go up It always does, then it will go down again at some point but I will try to be ready, I will stay calm and follow the plan, I may even look at this post when I am about to buy some ALT coin and think twice, even my most researched buy was one that is down 95% but this is crypto and it can be wild, welcome to the rollercoaster and lets hope my bags may be slightly less embarrassing next time. 
 
What are your thoughts? Do you think the 4 year cycle is still intact? Do you think we are going to crypto winter or will we have a spectacular bounce and go to a new all time high? Even now I see good news about Bitcoin, yet fear is still extreme but no one warns you that most of crypto is waiting. Waiting for entries, waiting for exits, waiting for your bags to either moon or die. So currently just watching lol. As always, thank you for reading and please feel free to comment.