The ALT Coiner - Leaving Money on the Table, Regret, and Respecting Your Strategy

May 21st, 2017

This is the ALT Coiner - Experiences, news, and more from my Crypto portfolio.

Once again we're seeing multiple surges all over the crypto space. This Padawan trader thought it would be a good time to share a very recent trade and the lesson/s learned.

Remember, these are only my experiences and observations and should never be construed as investment advice. Trust your own research and join the conversation!

DGB and the Crypto-Gaming Trend

According to my blog page, 5 days ago I covered Digibyte as part of my Tier C investments. Basically, this tier of alt-coin is my lottery/hail mary/long shot investments that I really like but could easily fail in this increasingly competitive space.

Fortunately with DGB, this wasn't the case. I had accumulated most of my DGB in the 0.00000080 - 85 btc rang, and by the time I had finished I was holding approximately 800k DGB. This is no small bet, but I had felt very strongly about this project and the space that is now burgeoning around it.

Competitors in this space include BitCrystals (BCY), GAMES and MobileGo. These are not fly-by-night operations either, so the competition is going to continue to rage. And crazier still, we haven't included Peerplays into the equation.

Still, the speedy little network that's underlying DGB was also noticed for implementing Segwit. That's the same Segwit that has caused the Bitcoin community headaches for two years running.

Digibyte has a gaming platform that offers you DGB for playing a variety of titles. Their Gaming Hub has more details, some of these popular titles helped to bolster my confidence in this coin as a reasonable speculative bet.

When it comes to Tier C altcoins, I'm just a squirrel trying to get a nut ;)

For me tier C is like the lottery, coins at this level may moon or could very well languish in the low Satoshis. I found it important to remind myself constantly that any money I put in this tier is most at risk of being lost, since earlier in my trading career I found myself over-leveraged on a few iffy trades. Again, my first steps in market-trading were on Eve Online and then Crypto... live and learn, quickly.

When Digitbyte rose from 83 Sats to 125 Sats, I sold a little to help recover my initial investment. I sold batches up through 372 and made a very tidy profit in a few days of trading this project.

But as of this post, DGB is trading at 0.00000884. While I made a significant profit in DGB, it's clear that I left a lot of money on the table. At my highest sell around 372, I still left over 500 Sats per DGB on the table.

It's easy to kick yourself in the butt in these moments.

"If only I had held!"

"Why did I sell it so low?!"

"Next time... I swear I'll hold!"

This feeling can be especially strong if you lost money on the trade, a feeling I learned early and know all too well. It can be much easier to look backward and kick yourself in the ass since your hindsight is, after all, 20/20. But the harder, and more rewarding path, is to examine your shortcomings regarding the trades in question and learn from what it indicates about your trading profile.

Are you high tolerance for risk? Or are you risk-averse but interested in making Tier A investments in crypto. This is the question that you must ask yourself when you're trading that declining fiat for that appreciating crypto.

I went high risk on DGB, and while it definitely paid off in returns, the fickle nature of crypto at this Tier caused me to shake out at the top of the first 1/3 of the bull run. Had I ignored the exchange for several hours, my upside profit would have been even more significant. But with my limited trading experience, I am very pleased with the performance of this investment.

Do you believe in life after Pumps?

I could regale you all with anecdotes about trades I could've made last summer that would've earned me enough to end my corporate slavery, like how one of the first projects that made me drool was SAFE network (Imagine SAFE + Brave Browser/BATS?!?).

After joining Steemit in July 2016, one month after buying my first BTC (@700 and @600), I was already examining what other projects were promising a more Voluntaryist approach, and MAIDSAFE was the first project I wanted to, but didn't, invest in.

One thing about becoming your own banker that should be noted is: There is a lot to fear and a lot to prepare for, so err on the side of security and risk management.

At the time, MAIDSAFE was trading well below a USD penny. Had I bought even 100 USD worth of MAIDSAFE (using btc), I would now be holding tokens for a project that is trading in the market for about USD .30-35 cents.

But I don't regret not pulling that particular trigger. My risk tolerance was extremely low at the time, as I was still in the infancy of my trading life. It was smarter for me to learn how to secure my bitcoin, having never really been good at the old system crap, than to immediately thrust it ito the exchanges.

See, as a military vet, I understand the need for Operational Security, or OPSEC, so when I decided I'd become my own banker I immediately sought out information that would help me protect myself and my assets. I acquired a Trezor and learned how to protect my value from the institutions that would seek to drain value for no value added.

This meant that my risk tolerance was extremely low. In fact, the second crypto that I actually invested in was STEEM. And I did that because I can honestly say that the community on Steemit, and the relationships I have built here cannot be valued compared to what I've deposited in BTC. Steemit's community on comments and chat were there to help me understand this crazy new world of crypto, and I made sure to invest BTC as soon as I could into the platform, to show my thanks.

It deserves repeating: I had no knowledge of trading, cryptocurrency, or social media... and the community on Steemit has taught me all three disciplines without ever trying.

When investing, the goal is to buy low and sell high and to earn btc for your investment. Sometimes, we all get caught in a trade that leaves you holding a bag (I'm looking at you MYR). Depending on the level of your investment, this can cause you not only delays in executing other trades, but anxiety about the value you've placed as a bet.

But if you've done your homework, and have sold off limited amounts at intervals along a price increase, you should be able to recoup your initial investment while leaving you half of the Token amount you started with to ride out as potential upside profit.

Be Water, My Friend

Be water, and trust your instinct. If you bought into a project, make sure to analyze your risk tolerance beforehand. If you have a higher risk tolerance, you'll be more comfortable to allow the project to rollercoaster in price. But if that kind of action makes you itchy and nervous, you may want to respect your strategy and stick with higher Tier coins like BTC and ETH.

If you're just coming to the crypto space from fiat, Ripple/XRP might be a transitional project that would be much more familiar for you, as it is more of a crypto-fiat than a traditional decentralized crypto.

Respect your strategy and don't give in to regret. As always, this is not investment advice, so remember to study, converse and most of all, trade safe!

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Images/Gifs were sourced from pixabay.com and giphy.com

@prufarchy