Back to the Grind.

in LeoFinance2 years ago

Well, that was fun while it lasted. With it becoming crystal clear that the bull run is well and truly over, and having failed to take sufficient profits, its time for a reality check.

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Back to the real world.

This week, reality finally hit home for me that I had to go get a job. I've been out of the fiat workforce since January, and crypto has not been kind ever since. Luna was probably the last straw, but it was likely inevitable regardless. The plan had always been to keep working through this run, and keep accumulating through the bear market that was likely to happen (and is now well and truly here). But, because of being at a company that mandated the vax, and being unvaxxed, I found myself not welcome at my former employer for 14 years. I could still shop there, but I couldn't work there.

Anyway, not going to get all political in this post. I thought that taking a break and seeing if I could make a go of full time crypto would be a good idea. Obviously, the market had other ideas.

So, a few days ago, I asked at a competitor of my former employer if they had any jobs going. The manager (who I knew and had worked with previously) said she was hoping I'd be interested, and had a job available for me. Simple as that, I have a job again. No interviews, no resumes, just right place right time. My wife and I have recently started home schooling our 2 kids, and this position will fit around that nicely. Also, I get to contribute to building up this store, and hopefully take some business off my former employer.

Plus, it wont be too stressful, and I'll still have plenty of time to devote to crypto.

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Lessons from the last couple of years.

Now that the bear market is confirmed, it is probably a good time to look back, and learn some lessons of how to make the most of a crypto cycle. Here is a few thoughts:

  • Greed will ruin everything. Holding on to a position, or not taking profits is a mistake. Keeping everything riding during the good times leads to bad times.

  • Don't be afraid to sell an airdrop. During the last 12 months, a ton of drops happened in the Cosmos eco-system. Instead of selling the ones I was not real fussed about, around day three or four after listing when they hit their high point. Staking, and then watching them go -95% or more was silly. Should have sold out and staked up more on the high conviction investments.

  • Do more research. Look for people criticizing a project, and read through their opinions carefully. I had some doubts about LUNA and UST, for example, but never really dug in to why. There were plenty of warnings from credible people that Terra was shit, but few listened to them. While I never really got involved directly with the chain, holding the tokens locked in an LP on Osmosis was a bad idea.

  • Keep more liquids. One thing I've been really bad at is having liquid funds available. As soon as funds were there, they got staked somewhere. This means there is no funds to buy dips, and by the time funds unstake, the market crash will be all over. Keep liquid funds.

  • Take profits. Selling on the way up, buying on the way down. Pointless watching your bag moon, only to watch it drop to ATL and become practically worthless.

  • Don't stop working. When things are looking good, it is easy to sit back and watch. Take HIVE for example. When we had the nice little pump of HIVE up over $3, things looked sweet. But had I kept more active, and had some decent posts paying out around then, the HBD portion would have been significant. Squandered that opportunity by being patchy and inconsistent.

  • I'm sure there are more lessons, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

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Image Source: Pixabay

Time to work out a new plan. Now that I have a new fiat job, the pressure will ease on having to sell crypto regularly to pay the bills and put food on the table. So now, I need to re-asses the entire portfolio, and plan ahead.

I'm not sure yet what the plan will look like, but the first thing will be to focus in on the high conviction investments. Keeping in mind the lessons I looked at above, I'll re-work my crypto strategy and figure out where to focus what's left of my resources.


One thing is for sure, LEO and HIVE are a core component of my crypto life, and any future plans will have this community as home base.


I'd love to here what you learned over the last couple of years. Let me know in the comments section below.

Thanks for reading,

JK.


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So many things I can relate to in this post.

The current financial insecurity is wide spread and due to different circumstances, I too am wondering if I should get a real world job again.

I love that when you knew you needed one, it just showed up easy peasy, but also a result of your past efforts and relationships. (so not really luck rather results)

Redoing the plan. As the market got wilder in the bull run, and my bags looked big, I got a little wild with some of my long shots and holding as well.

I guess I have a lot of bags to hold through this season or I will probably consolidate some over time.

Ah well, I did at least take a few profits. amd have a decent amount of USD ready to use when the price seems right.

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Hey WU,

Yeah, it was time for me to get back into the real world. I'd had in my head for a while to apply where I did, and then when my former colleague appeared there as a manager, I figured it was time. We worked together well in the past, and she knows my work ethic and responsiblness (if that is a word). A good reminder to not burn bridges.

Something else I'm aware you can relate to, I have both my mother, and my mother-in-law going through cancer battles at the moment, so financial stuff has been put back into a bit of perspective currently. I hope things are going ok for your family.

I was bad at taking profits... Not next time around.

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The thing about the cancer is that it eats away at body and finances. We've been doing this for almost 2 years now. Missed work, medical bills, and then our off label drugs and supplements, it's a slow drain on what at one time felt like we had plenty, combine that with inflation and it gets pretty stressful. We are doing okay, but watching the accounts in both fiat and crypto go down, while prices are rising makes me pretty nervous.

Regarding the cancer he is on week 6 of 12 for this round and hopefully we get some scans after that and know how things are going.

Well let's remind each other to take profits this next round!

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I wish you all the best. Hopefully when those next scans come around, it is good news.

The other thing I forgot to put in my post, I wish I'd stacked up a bit more precious metals. Everything else in the world it seems is crashing (except for prices of food and living expenses, which are crashing up). But gold and silver look strong. Should have payed more attention to the stackers.

Take care WU.

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Also sending your family support and my thoughts are with you. I wouldn't wish the cancer battle on anyone! There are a lot of good resources out there if you look for things that can be used with or without the traditional chemo course. Depends of course on type and stage.

Yeah, the wife and I are looking around at options. My mum is in pretty good shape, and likely to come through all ok. The MIL however, may be a very different outcome. Still waiting there for test, but things are not looking good right now.

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Sending well wishes to your mothers <3

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Thank you Metzli, much appreciated.

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Congratulations for your new job! A lot of hard truths in your post. How hard it is to stick to them is known by the ones who really experienced a bull-run only. However, „don’t loosing the fun and curiosity“ is a thing that I would like to add. Good to have you around here !winex

Thanks mate. I wasn't here for the bull run in 2017, joined just after. Lessons learned this time around however, time to start building for the next one.

The curiosity and fun of learning about new stuff is still there, for sure.

Not going anywhere mate, except back into the real world a bit.

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Very glad to read this morning you have "landed on your feet" @jk6276. Especially nice to see a former competitor "snapped you up" given the opportunity. Speaks well for you!

Lessons learned. For me, I am unapologetically the long-term HODLer investor type. I will continue to be that with my long-term "prized asset" core HODLings and DCA, when I can - like recent (and continuing) DCA purchases of BTC and ETH.

That said, I think I will "adjust my attitude" when it comes specifically to my DeFi participation. Being a long-term HODLer in that area just seems to invite being uhhh ... "abuse" by those who know how to "milk" them ...

  1. Don't hesitate to get in and out of the DeFi token. Mostly out ...
  2. Trade in and out of whatever stable coin is offered. Mostly in ...
  3. Soon upon receipt, sell a portion of airdrops into stable, so at least some benefit was obtained.

I have come to this (for me) painful "reality check" after the largest losses of my time investing (since Aug 2017) - in a DeFi "very close to home" here ...

What I really do not like, about the above, is the inevitable aspect of deciding WEN to get in and get out. I have long thought "timing the markets" is a fool's errand. I truly believe those who claim they have done it successfully are a very rare breed.

More common? We hear only about the successes and silence on the "chokes" - overall they are in a losing position, likely a very bad losing position. Like say ... Going to any "fine gambling establishment" where "house rules" guarantee you are going to leave a portion of whatever you arrived with in their wallets on the way back out the door ...


"My wife and I have recently started home schooling our 2 kids."

Excellent. Our kind of people obviously, as we did the same, in our time. The reasons for considering this option have only gotten more uhhh ... "in your face" since ...

All the best to you and your family through this crazy, "new normal" time in our history.

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Excellent. Our kind of people obviously, as we did the same, in our time. The reasons for considering this option have only gotten more uhhh ... "in your face" since ...

The biggest reason we did this is the kids were not really learning anything useful. The frequency of sub teachers, consolidated classes, and lack of staff is ridiculous. That, plus wanting to better guide the morals and ethics being taught, and help the kids become critical thinkers instead of sheep was important to us, for obvious reasons.

DeFi is an interesting beast, for sure. I'll approach it very differently during this rebuilding phase, and with much more caution. Ironic to have fallen for the hype, and spin, while having just mentioned critical thinking. Definitely need to practice what I am preaching more. Question everything and ignore the hype will be what I try to do moving forward.

I do hope that some of the positions you are holding, (stuck with so to speak) come good for you.

Lessons for us all, my friend.

Thanks, as always for the very considered and detailed response, and indeed for our off-chain chats as well. It is always much appreciated.

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.

The little sum's add up. My entire crypto portfolio was built from income earned, mostly here on HIVE. Never had much fiat to put in, and have in fact taken significantly more funds out of crypto than I ever put in.

While the bear market is around is the time to work. HIVE and LEO earned now may not seem like much, but in a couple of years it could be a lot more.

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Yeah.
Its a good time to grind :)

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Glad you got a job again quickly.

Thanks mate. I always had in the back of my mind that I would end up back in a fiat job. It just fell in to place exactly when it was needed. Bit of a reminder to build connections with quality people, because you never know when those contacts may come in handy.

How are you travelling these days mate, I have been focused here on LEO and haven't checked in with you for ages it seems.

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My goal continues to be living off of crypto. I have targets set where I will sell a portion into USD and projects to stake long term at certain price points. This sounded good on paper. I only took a tiny bit of profits out, and my sell targets were too high which means I just watched it go up, and then back down again. This really hammers in the importance of dollar cost averaging.

DCA is definitely the go.

My big thing has been selling to cover my fiat expenses. I didn't have enough built up so the income alone could support us. Selling assets each week, instead of just income, while prices have slid the whole time, has really crunched a big portion of my base.

Never mind, originally I was not thinking of leaving work this cycle, so it is time to try and set things up better for 2 or 3 years from now.

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My goal has always been next run to have enough stacked up to be in the clear. Of course, had I played everything better this time round I would be a bit closer. Working on being better at the DCA game. As that improves, so will my odds of making it out of the grind next time we see ATH's.

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Winners and losers, once again I am a massive loser lol. Maybe one day!

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Our time will come mate. Work our way through this period, and hopefully in a year or two things will be looking up.

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One day. Then I'd like to be self sufficient and retire young.

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Youngish*

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Hello JK, thanks for sharing an important life update. This crash was damn hard on everyone. When covid hit, I realized the importance of having a side hustle. That is why I started crypto while keeping my main business intact. It pays my bills. You do the same man. Right now it's about survival. We can make money in the next bull run and not repeat the same mistakes again.

Also, keep posting as much as you can. 🤞 Take care of yourself and your family. Cheers mate!

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Yeah, I tried to make my crypto side hustle the main source of income, before it was ready to be.

Will definitely keep posting as much as possible, for sure.

Thanks for the thoughts mate, appreciate it.

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There were a few times I wanted to go all-in on crypto and leave the workforce. Mainly insurance and some medical problems made me stick it out. I have managed to keep stacking the metals so it all worked out.

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Yeah I ended up being full time crypto before I was ready to be, and it has become clear I should have looked for the new fiat job earlier.

I started late with the metals, but at around 10% of my assets now I'm planning to keep stacking. Crypto isn't the hedge against inflation and fiat crash that it was promoted as, but Metals are looking strong.

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Its a punch to the gut for sure it's always nice when you see yourself on hive making legitimate livable wages. That's now turned into a few bucks. But if you look at the amount of Hive tokens being earned now and start to focus on that and the potential it has a year or two down the road you start to see the real value and is why I'm now working triple as hard as before to stack as much as possible.

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I've heard it said many times that fortunes are built during the bear market. Those of us that keep working through the next year or two should have a really nice stack of HIVE and LEO and other stuff to be in a great position for the next run.

At least now that I'm back in fiat work I'll soon be able to stop selling my stash and get back to accumulating.

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Yep there was a time when my Hive staked value was worth nearly $300,000 during this last bull run! I see it only being worth more in the next as Hive continues to grow and advance.

I think I learned that if I am not going to utilize my stake while we are riding a bull, than what's the point of what I am building.

I will get better at automating.

And yes, I will take more profits next time.

I read here on leofinance to take profits even if you don't need the money or have a plan for it. If the profits are there take them.

I had never considered that before, I am building for long term, so I thought I had to stay long term always, but next time, I'll let myself have a nice dinner or two or take out enough for a bill or two when HIVE is at 3

Good luck on your fiat job.

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The way I see it now, is that taking profits can actually help grow faster. Sell 100 tokens at a high price, buy back 1000 when the price drops. My biggest thing is learning how to take profits, and keep those funds available, rather than just cashing out.

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or just hold and buy more when the price drops. yes.

I am ready for the next cycle. I'm starting to feel like an expert.

I never got away from my job but those are some good lessons. I keep hearing about taking profits during the bull market and I think that is probably the most vital thing to do during the bull market if you plan to live off of crypto. It doesn't help that the economy is still suffering from supply-chain issues so prices are elevated.

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Yeah, I'm thinking that the macro situation is staying bad for a while. Crypto sure hasn't been the hedge against fiat that it was claimed to be, that narrative has been killed off.

The original plan was for a couple more years in the job. But now its time to rebuild.

I think a lot of us will be much better prepared next bull run.

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Good lessons. I think we can all relate 😔

Yeah, it seems most of us are in a similar position right now. Learning and rebuilding.

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I wish you all the best , for job and family both.
Take care.

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Thanks mate. We will bounce back, better than ever. Just a matter of how long it takes.

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I learned that I should have more Bitcoin. Luckily I have a small hedge, so now I will buy some.

I think accumulating Bitcoin during this downturn will be in my plans for sure. Too much chasing big gains and high APR, and not enough focus on quality has been an issue for me.

BTC under 20K and ETH under 1K has me wishing I had dry powder to put in.

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I just did the exact same thing except, my previous employer randomly called me and asked me if I wanted a job. Happy to have fiat coming in so I can stack more crypto during these lows.

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