Sticking Around - The Daily Gwei #414
Crypto can change your life but only if you let it.
It’s no secret - the crypto markets have been rather boring for quite a while now and I’ve noticed that the ecosystem in general has gotten a lot quieter. Many of the short-term speculators are completely gone, there are no more random dog token forks, ETH is down 35% from its all time high and most of the scams seem to have disappeared. You may be feeling down or worn out at this point and I can totally understand that - but now is not the time to leave the ecosystem!
I first got into Bitcoin in 2013 and rode that bull market up from when Silk Road got shut down to Mt. Gox blowing itself up. It was a fun experience that I learned a lot from but once the market turned bearish in 2014 I sold all of my BTC, exited crypto altogether, and didn’t discover Ethereum until early 2017. As you can imagine, this is one of my biggest mistakes (and regrets) that I thankfully learned from once the market turned bearish again in 2018. Sticking around and growing my personal brand in 2018, 2019 and 2020 was probably the best thing I’ve ever done and I strongly encourage all of you to stick around in 2022 if it turns out to be a bearish year. Though even if it doesn’t, it if you want to “make it” with crypto, it requires a lot more effort than just throwing some money at a few tokens and hoping for the best.
During bear markets everything is quieter, the pace of the ecosystem is slower and it’s much easier to focus on what really matters. This is because the only people who stick around in bear markets are the true believers and builders that actually want to create something of long-term lasting value instead of speculating on random tokens. And because the ecosystem is much quieter, these people get a lot more attention on their work and it’s much easier for them to build a lasting community that helps to grow the product or service. In turn, some of these projects end up being incredible investment opportunities because the market is underpricing them relative to their traction.
On that note - from a pure investment standpointm - if we look back at 2019 you’ll see just how insanely profitable it was to stick around and bet on the right teams. Of course, there was ETH that you could’ve bought between $100 & $300 for most of 2019, then there was LEND (Aave’s token before the conversion) that you could’ve scooped up when its market cap was $10 million (it’s $2.6 billion today) and of course if you were an early liquidity provider of Uniswap, you probably would’ve recieved a 6-7 figure UNI airdrop. As you can see, there are plenty of lucrative opportunties when things are quiet because the market tends to underprice certain tokens in a bear market (just like it overprices many of them in a bull market).
Outside of financial opportunity, there’s also social/career opportunity - it’s much easier to build yourself up when you’re not competing with as many people as before. Though it all depends what you’re interested in doing and where you want to focus your efforts. I was always interested in educating people so that’s why I put a lot of effort into growing my Twitter presence, EthHub and The Daily Gwei. If you’re interested in working as something like a developer for a DeFi team then the pool of applicants will probably be much lower in a bear market which will mean less competition for each role (and a higher chance for you to get it).
Lastly, the best thing you can do for yourself during both bull and bear markets is to make sure you just simply survive and don’t blow yourself up. I’ve seen plenty of people over the years lose most of the wealth they’ve accumulated by using leverage, over-trading, gambling on random coins and falling for scams. I think the main reason this happens is that it can be rather easy to make some quick money in crypto (especially during bull markets) which leads people to believe that they are much better investors than they actually are. This then leads them to make poor investment decisions all in the name of getting another big win which results in overtrading which then leads to losses.
Anyway, I hope that many of you stick around for the long-term just as I plan to do and of course I hope you keep reading the newsletter. I know that I go on about focusing on the long-term a lot, but I think it’s critically important to understand and worth repeating - especially during times of bearish price action. I really do mean it when I say that sticking around in times like this can change your life - but you do need to put in the work and make your own luck.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.