FOMO, a constant danger, even if you know about it and have experience!

One of the first words you hear about when you start to deal with crypto-trading is FOMO. It means Fear of Missing Out, and it is even used among teens and people when it comes to social media as well. The fear of missing out is something that comes natural to all of us, simply because we want to be part of whatever is cool, whatever is growing, and wherever you believe big bucks are to be made.

In other words, the same concept is at work in a teenager who fears that if they do not pay attention to their phone, they will miss out on what's up with their friends (and only look stupid later because they did), just like in a trader who fears that if they do not buy in on a project or a crypto currency right now, they will regret in ten years, because it never reached the same low spot again.

I have been paying attention to what's happening in the crypto-world for three years regularly, and even though I feel like I am getting smarter, I am still telling myself and educating myself about FOMO regularly.

I am fighting FOMO right now...

Do you know what? I am having daily struggles with FOMO. My memory is kind of bad as well, but I am trying to strengthen it. I remember seeing Ripple at 0,2 USD when I entered the crypto-game. I bought some. After that, Ripple went to almost 3,5 USD. Steem went from 0,1 USD to 9 USD during the same time. There are many similar stories. And I am scared to think of all those who FOMO-ed in on Steem, Ripple, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all the other currencies when they were almost at the top.

However, it is a useful lesson to see that all those currencies have almost returned to the same levels again, and some even lower than before. We saw a big bullrun, but then suddenly the bears came, and it was a long bloodbath. When I fight FOMO, I often look at the charts, just to tell myself that it will get lower again.

But, what do I mean when I say that I am fighting FOMO right now?
Have you seen the recent rise in the value of cryptocurrencies such as LINK and VET? Those are two favorite projects of mine, and I pay close attention to them. And Vechain has increased almost 4x in value throughout the last months. That is totally crazy. And right now, I feel like I would have loved to own more of the token. Should I buy more now? NEVER! I know it in my head, but the fear of missing out is so easily knocking on the door. I feel tempted. What if it will moon like crazy and never return? It might happen! Luckily, I have some tokens still, and I will hold onto them. But, I will never do a big investment after a token has gone on a big run.

I am still suffering a bit. Almost 3 years ago, I bought some Link tokens at 4850 Satoshi, and just before the big LINK bullrun started, I did some easy trading, hopefully, just to gain some more. However, during such a short trade, I managed to sell almost my entire stack, and with LINK it seems to be true... it will never return to those levels again. It is painful, but still... I will stick to my principle! But, if it ever returns down to those levels again, I will, of course, be ready to invest.

An example of poor judgment

Recently, #NULS had an airdrop to everyone who had their token. I paid closely attention to it, and hoped that it would end up mooning a bit, just like the Steem token did before the Steem/Hive fork. The news was dropped quite early about the airdrop, and the token saw a quite nice rise. But, there were still no news about whether or not the big exchanges would support the airdrop. I had a little bit of BTC (luckily, not much) that I could use, and my fear of missing out, made me purchase some tokens 5-6 days before the airdrop. I was hoping that when #Binance and the other exchanges were to tweet about their support of the airdrop, the token price would fly, and I would be so happy!

So, I bought some NULS tokens, and the tweet from Binance came. I felt so happy. But, then came the interesting effect... the token price fell. Man, I felt stupid! Sell the news! Sell the news. That is what happened. Everyone expected Binance to support the airdrop, so that was already calculated into the price. And when the news came, the price fell. And I lost a couple of dollars making a poor little trade. And guess what caused it all... FOMO!

Bitcoin at 9200 makes it hard to predict the future

I am fighting FOMO all the time. And with the Bitcoin price moving between 9000-9400, it is hard to know what to do. I am not sure that the next big move from Bitcoin will go upwards. And if it would suddenly go down (like it have done so many times before), then the prices of altcoins and everything might drop with 50% quickly. That would be a way better time to invest.

We are waiting for Ethereum 2.0 to be released in a couple of months. I can already feel the FOMO in my fingers as I am writing this text. Staking is coming up, and it is going to be wild. I believe Ethereum has the potential of experiencing massive growth in value. Maybe I should buy some new tokens now?

What is the strategy?

If I had 1000 USD to invest (which I don't), I would not spent it all at once. One of the best ways to go against FOMO is by investing partially. Don't use it all at once, but spend it partially. Maybe you should split it up in 12 piece and spend 10% each month. You might regret (if the prices go up), but, you might also be able to buy way more tokens if the prices should go down. No matter what, you will still have some tokens of your favorite tokens, simply because you have bought more and more every month.

What is your FOMO story?

I have shared some of my thoughts about FOMO-ing and my personal struggles here in this article. Do you have some FOMO story you would like to share?

Considering how HIVE and Steem are platforms to which many people come without any knowledge of cryptocurrencies, it is important to educate ourselves on such topics. After all, when you first use the platform and get a taste of trading cryptocurrencies (starting with Steem and HIVE), it is easy to make mistakes, and I believe we can help each other sharing experiences and knowledge we have.

This is an original article written by me for Project Hope!