Back on Steemit after 6 months. What went wrong?

Hello Steemians, 

Welcome to my blog again. If you go through my blog you can see that I've been making comebacks again and again and I was not a regular here. Well that's because I didn't make enough time to write anything. Nevertheless I am surprised to see 1000+ followers on my blog. So I am giving it another shot. ;)

Last time I was here I made a post about my predictions on few cryptocurrencies and it was about my top 10 picks for 2018. That post was made when we were on a bull market and most of the people including me thought it was gonna continue. Well, we were wrong. I was a noob and didn't think it through. That market fooled most of us and now we've learned our lesson. At least the most of us. 

These were my top 10 picks and predictions for the end of 2018

1. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) -  $15 000
2. OmiseGO (OMG) - $ 200
3. Lisk (LSK) - $100
4. Power Ledger (POWR) - $15
5. Monero (XMR) - $1500
6. Litecoin (LTC) - $1000
7. Populous (PPT) - $ 300
8. Ethos(ETHOS, BQX) - $20
9. Everex (EVX) - $20
10. Bitcoin (BTC) - $100 000

Lets look at the current prices

1. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) -  $660
2. OmiseGO (OMG) - $ 6.8
3. Lisk (LSK) - $4.8
4. Power Ledger (POWR) - $0.19
5. Monero (XMR) - $118
6. Litecoin (LTC) - $74
7. Populous (PPT) - $ 5.74
8. Ethos(ETHOS, BQX) - $1.32
9. Everex (EVX) - $0.52
10. Bitcoin (BTC) - $5910

What went wrong?

This needs a longer post to discuss. I'll try to make it short and write about the most important points I can think of.

Most of us, the noobs (people who came to the cryptospace 1 or 2 years ago) came to crypto and invested in it because of the hype, the ambition of getting rich quick doing nothing. Everybody was chanting Moon and Lambo. Because all of us saw the bitcoin bubble, how the price went up crazy and we thought this would continue for the rest of the time. We were panicking, the FOMO (fear of missing out) kicked in and kept buying even the prices were crazy high. 

People didn't even bother to think that there are whales who can manipulate the market. I personally believed that whales will only benefit from the prize going up. So they wouldn't want the price to go down. That was stupid. What I didn't know is how they can make billions of profits by shorting bitcoin with margin trading. I didn't know the whole thing is their game. The market is purely manipulated by whales and some of the smart people and some lucky ones make profits out of it by following the whales with or without intention.

People who came to the crypto space thinking it as a quick rich scheme has lost their interest now because of the bear market. Lots of them lost their life savings because they bought the top. They bought the top and sold with a loss making the whales richer. Unfortunately that's what happened for most of the noobs. So they lose interest. That's why the market is not recovering quickly as we want. No one likes to lose money. 

The point is people who lose are the ones who got in to this blindly for the Lambos without proper research. If people were aware of all the facts like how the whales manipulate the market and how they make profits, history of the market and how it behaved in early years, knowledge about previous bubbles and crashes, people like me wouldn't have made these crazy predictions. Guess what, now we know. We learnt it the hard way. Still better than not knowing right?

What about the future?

It's best not to make any more predictions right now. One thing is for sure. This is not the end. If we look in to the past, every time the market crashed it has bounced back with new all time highs. Let's not go that far. Cryptocurrency, the new money for the world still has a long way to go. Yes the market is manipulative but it doesn't matter if you are in it for the long run. If you are not in the crypto space for a quick buck, you are still safe. People who has the patience and who doesn't panic during the crashes will get rewarded eventually. Don't trust the prices, trust the tech behind cryptocurrencies. It is one of the greatest inventions in the history of the mankind. It is too early to evaluate how far it can reach. Recently I read about the dot com bubble which was nearly a decade ago. It acquired trillions of dollars of market capital. Crypto never reached a trillion dollar market cap and it deserves much more than the dot com bubble.

I still believe my predictions will happen, not before the end of the year but eventually it will. I still follow these projects and they are really good. With all that being said this should also be mentioned, even on this bear market I am very bullish on Bitcoin Cash other than any projects or the Bitcoin itself. Because the people behind Bitcoin Cash works hard to make it the cash for the world. So do your own research about Bitcoin Cash before it's too late.

There are some basic rules you should follow if you want to survive in the game.

1) Do not buy every coin you see. DYOR (Do your own research) and invest in projects with real use cases.
2) Don't panic. Never sell at a loss.
3) Don't invest just to HODL.
4) Too much greed will give you more pain. Sell when you have good profits. At least sell a portion of your holdings.
5) Don't forget that Bulls and Bears will always be there in the market. And the Whales too.

These are the things I learnt during the two years I was in the crypto space. I think most of you have learnt these things by now. So I am writing this for the newbies who come to the space. We learnt from the mistakes. You can learn from others' experiences or you can keep doing the mistakes and learn the hard way. That works too. ;)

Good Luck... Remember it's not the end...!