Neediness In Crypto Investing

• May 24, 2021
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On September 17, 2020 I received a free airdrop of 400 Uniswap tokens (UNI).  At the time of this writing, this has been the most popular airdrop to date in the crypto space.  The day I received the airdrop, the price of Uniswap was goin all over the place.  That day it was swinging at $3-$8 and ended up stabilizing around $5.  This was my first airdrop so…I thought to myself “Oh my god, free money!” and sold those 400 coins almost immediately for $1400.  I was pretty happy.

Fast forward to today (249 days later) Uniswap’s price is selling at $24.24.  Those 400 coins I sold would have been worth $9,696 had I kept them.  3 weeks ago Uniswap reached its all-time high and was valued at #44.92…so 3 weeks ago 400 Uniswap coins were worth $17,968.

Deep in the Telegram and Discord channels of different crypto coins you’ll see wild success stories and some not-so-successful ones too.

Approaching the Market

The past “me” might have beat myself up over the decision to sell those 400 coins early.  The “me” now sees so many paths to $20,000 that it doesn’t bother me as much.  The main lesson I learned was how I approach the market can affect my results and the experience overall.

I don’t believe there are any accidents.  If I’m honest with myself, I can say I sold those coins early because that’s the amount I was comfortable receiving.  At the time, I was used to receiving amounts close to $1000, but not anything close to $17,968 at all at one time.  I was used to making $800 / week working my regular job and Door Dash on the weekends.  Attracting anything above $1000 at once was way out of my comfort zone.  If I had been earning $20,000+ checks outside of the crypto space, then I would have just left that 400 coins alone.  It wouldn’t have been that big of a deal to me, and I would have given those 400 coins the time and space to grow and mature financially.

The Real Work in Investing

It made me realize that the real back-end work to investing is becoming comfortable receiving the amount of money I want from an investment OUTSIDE of that particular investment.  That way, I don’t approach any particular income stream or investment with a sense of neediness.  I wouldn’t need an investment to go up in value during my specific timeline.  It can be fun, playful, and light vs serious and stressful when a coin doesn’t do what I want it to.

If I want a million dollars from an investment, am I comfortable receiving a million dollars outside of that investment?   Would I be comfortable or ok with receiving a million dollars all at once in my day-to-day life?  If not, then a million dollars all at once might stress me the fuck out.  There was a time where after hearing that I would have been like “yeah right…give me a million dollars and see if I’m stressed out”.  It gets real though.  I’m in Telegram groups where a few people’s $100-$1000 investments are all of a sudden worth anywhere from $10K to $300k.  I see the hate and jealousy that gets thrown their way.  I see that owning a coin that shoots up in value could be stressful depending on the way they frame it.  Do you sell that coin and cash out only to see it rise 80X more in value?  Do you hold it and watch it crash to ground in value?  Do you go half and half?

• If you do cash out…how much (if any) do you give to others?  What about homeless people you see on the street?  What about charities?
• If you don’t cash out… are you watching the charts 24/7 to see when you should sell or what the price is currently?  Stressed when the number goes down, euphoric when it goes up?

I looked at the definition of trauma – a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.  It’s weird to think that having a lump sum of money placed in your lap can be distressing, but I can see it now.  Add to this the fact that many of those people who’ve seen their coins skyrocket in value don’t know wtf their investing in, and it was just a lucky gamble or a call from someone who does know about that coin.

Security is an Illusion

Nothing is static.  This includes investments, the value of money, the trends of different markets, etc.  There’s no need to let those fluctuations manipulate your emotions – but they will if you’re needing investments to somehow “save you” from looking at other parts of life you don’t want to address – like the job you hate that you can’t take a break from and/or the time and effort it might take to learn a skill that’s more valuable to the marketplace and one that is more enjoyable and provides you with more fulfillment.

One of the reasons the crypto space is shaking things up is people are waking up to the fact that the security they thought they had in money is being yanked from under them.  The USD has continued to decline in value while Bitcoin and Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies have risen in value over their short history.  Printing money out of thin air doesn’t help the cause for the security-in-money case. In the long term I can see the writing on the wall for fiat money.  In the short term, I don’t know wtf this shit gonna do.

I’ve noticed friends try to approach me looking for me to give them a sense of security in their crypto investments in the short term.  I decline that responsibility.  The best I can do is invite you to  be an active participant in learning about your crypto investment and also explore the idea that the best security is to learn to not need security as much…kind of like the real work in investing is learning to not need investments.  ?

BTW…This is not financial advice, and I am not a financial advisor.  I learned to say that from the Youtubers.