HODL or Sell? My Experience HODLing
This is for people who may have weak hands (afraid to hold for a long time due to price fluctuation). Or for investors who just want to hold and forget for 6 months to a year. I wrote this on March 20th 2018 so the current price I have listed may be different.
When I buy a coin or token I figure out how much I can afford to spend based on risk determined by my analysis of the coin or token. Always do your own research (DYOR). I often invest more but I never invest less then $1,000 per coin or token. Investing anything less makes me mad at myself for not investing more when it enters a bull market.
When I buy a coin or token I buy some to HODL and some to sell, I will sell the next time it goes parabolic or to the moon. After the coin moons I always take out my initial investment and some profit. A good investor will always take out his or her initial investment. Develop a smart investment plan and stick to it. After getting your initial investment back you are free to HODL as long as you wish.
I have been holding Bitcoin since 2012 so I wont count it in my list. My HODLing of Bitcoin is the only reason I can afford to invest in other cryptocurancies. I will only provide a short simple explanation of the coin or token so if you have any questions about one ask in the comments.
Below is a list of my top five holds less than one year old. All numbers are rounded up, for example .18 to .20 and 9,800 to 10,000.
NEO (NEO)
Similar to Ethereum, Neo is a coin that offers smart contracts and allows you to make your own token. While holding Neo you earn a second coin called Gas with out having to stake any coins.
Buy Date: 4/28/2017
Price Paid: .20
Amount spent: $1,000
Amount of Coins: 5,000
This coin mooned a couple months later but I didn't sell, I liked earning GAS. I ended up selling 1,000 NEO on Christmas day 2017 for about $60 per coin. $59,000 profit for holding for 8 months and I still have 4,000 NEO that ears free GAS everyday.
Current Price: $70
Amount of free coins: 4,000
Current Value: $ 280,000
Amount of free gas: Endless
HODL Time: 2 years or $1,500 per coin
Ripple (XRP)
I told my self I would never buy XRP because of the amount of coins and because it is centralized. I kept watching it and more banks starting joining, it kept going up in price and I had all that NEO money so I bought some.
Date: 5/20/2017
price Paid: .15
Amount Spent: $5,000
Amount of Coins: 33,330
I sold 5000 XRP at about $3.00 while it was mooning, it ended up hit an all time high of $3.80. I sold 5300 at $3.00 on its way down. My plan was to HODL to $5.00 but it got so close so fast I had to sell. $30,900 profit in about 5 months holding.
Current Price: .70
Amount of Free Coins: 20,000
Current Value: $14,000
HODL time: 5 years or $10.00 per coin
Litecoin (LTC)
I have been buying, selling, HODLing and using Litecoin for years. Bitcoin is gold Litecoin is silver. I believe the founder of Litecoin, Charlie Lee is a good person. Everything he owns he bought or mined he didn't do an ICO or give himself millions of coins. I am a big Litecoin fan and used it as money for many years. I bought some to HODL this year so I will include it here.
Date Bought: 4/12/2017
Amount spent: $2,000
Coin price: $10
Amount of coins: 200
I sold half of my Litecoin February 23rd for $215 for a profit of $43,000.
Current Price: $160
Amount of Free Coins: 100
Current Value: $16,000
Time I will HODL: 2 years or $500 per coin
Monero (XMR)
Monero is a privacy coin and crypto enthusiasts love their privacy.
Date Bought: 4/19/2017
Amount spent: $1000
Coin price: $20
Amount of coins: 50
I sold half of my Monero at $400 January 10th, 2018 for $9,000 profit .
Current Price: $200
Amount of Free Coins: 25
Current Value: $5,000
Time I will HODL: 2 years or $1,000 per coin
Stellar (XLM)
My last coin is my top earner. Stellar is a decentralized version of Ripple created by the Ripple co-founder. I bought this coin before ripple because I liked the Ripple concept but am a strong believer in decentralization.
Date Bought: 4/13/2017
Amount spent: $1000
Coin price: $.0025
Amount of coins: 400,000
I sold 200,000 Stellar January 5th for .85 cents each and made a profit of $143,500.
Current Price: .24
Amount of Free Coins: 200,000
Current Value: $48,000
Time I will HODL: 4 years or $2.00 per coin
Have you noticed the pattern? When do I buy Coins and when do I sell them? I buy in the spring and sell in winter. I hold my leftover coins or bags for the next year. I own many free forks I got for free for HODLing, I will HODL free forks for at least two years.
The list above are the coins I profited from, I invested in 20 coins or token during 2017. I am not an expert investor, only 5 of my 20 coin or token investments made a profit. I will HODL my 15 bags hoping they will moon this year. I will not be making any purchases this year due to the amount of bags I am holding.
New to crypto? Join Coinbase with my link to get $10 of free bitcoin when you buy or sell $100 worth of Bitcoin.
https://www.coinbase.com/join/59b33aa1aebae700f22d7ebe
Legal Disclaimer:
I am not a financial adviser nor is any content in this article presented as financial advice. The information provided in this blog post and any other posts that I make and any accompanying material is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered financial or investment advice of any kind. One should consult with a financial or investment professional to determine what may be best for your individual needs.
Thanks for sharing these figures. I'm just hoping to find a couple of coins to hold until this December. I think some new coins will catch up and repeat their success. It just takes a long time to research and this post certainly helps.
Thanks for your comment. Research is very important, read the white paper and ignore hype. I'm not recommending the coins above they just happen to be the coins I was able to take most profit from.
Any coins that didn’t work out and you completely liquidated out of? Buying steem? Just curious
I'm writing a post now on my losing coins. I didn't liquidate anything, I'll HODL for years if I have to. I think I will be putting 5k into Steem power. I have been trying out this platform as research on steem and I like it.
Same here, been trying it out for two months. Not perfect by any means but I like the idea of it.
You can't lose if you sit still. You wouldn't sell your house if the housing market crashed, so why would you sell your coins in a crash...its simple
Exactly, you might even buy a second house.
this is the most important your post.
Excellent post, @davidmichael :) Great advice too, to sell off initial investment and enough profit when they moon to then easily HODL (Hold On For Dear Life) with the rest, because it's just pure profit anyway. Man, I wish I got into Stellar too at that price point.
Exactly. Invest, HODL, get your money back, use some profit to invest in other coins, forget about the old coins for a year or two. I got lucky with Stellar I bought it thinking it was a long term investment that wouldn't make much. It was terrifying waiting so long to cash out some of my coins. It seems to go up with XRP.
So true too. All the best
Well done, but a bit too complicated for 70 year old grandmas. I will just hodl the Bitcoin I managed to buy for $2k (more than 1 but less than 5) and I reckon my grandchildren will be quite thankful and will maybe remember Grandma fondly after she has carked it!
Best Grandma ever! HODL your Bitcoins they will be worth a fortune by the time your grandkids get them.
Thanks @davidmichael for sharing. This post really movitated me. Been hodling some coins since last year but each time the market is bearish I panic and sell all only for me to buy back at a higher price which has rekt me. But with this your strategy, I will start my investment plan again even if it means buying few coins with $100 each and hodl for atleast 6 months
Its really easily to fall into the pattern of buying high and selling low and hard to break out of it. If you don't buy based on hype and HODL if things go bad you should be ok. I invest I go in planning to HODL for a year or two this way I dont feel so bad if it goes down right after I buy it and if it goes up then great I can sell early. $100 is a great amount to buy, I only buy so much because I'm using money from past investments so I didn't really work for the money.
Thanks alot @davidmichael 🙌for the advice. Will surely put it into practice
I liked your transparency about your cryptocurrency investments.
Thanks I wasn't sure if I should have. I learned how important it is so get in and get out at the right time. Honestly I was patient and just got lucky, specially with my XRP I did not see that coming.
Hey like a previous replier your transparency is refreshing and not very common. People seem to get a little nervous about showing their holdings publicly given some of the news.
I'm curious you have posted some amazing successes what are some of those you deemed unsuccessful? I would list Bitshares as one of mine, should have sold out, Stellar another that I joined far too late thinking the Ripple connection may be of benefit though I am HODLING for the future like yourself.
Thanks for your comment. I am working on a post now about my top 5 worst investments, I should be done tomorrow or the day after. I'm holding a lot of bags, some that make the post are Zclassic, Einsteinium and Reddcoin. I own some Bitshares but I got them for 9 cents so I'm still ok. You might want to double you holdings while its down so you can sell sooner, I will talk about doing this in my post.
I'm in the process of putting more fiat into the market, clears in two days. I'm working on a post about the frustration of waiting for clearing funds (I'm not quite as flush as you) and watching the market correcting while you wait! In my case the funds were held up in a company dividend payment which was delayed by a month.
I'll check out your post. Do you use coinbase ? After you use them for awhile they start to let you make larger and larger instant bank deposits.
Our use of Coinbase in Australia is limited to BTC only and very restrictive and difficult to fufil identity verification so once I managed to get on a more local exchange (BTCMarkets) the ability to get fiat to the market improved considerably.
I wrote a post the other day about the frustration of over stretching your available cash. I didn't delve into specifics of exchanges as I figured if any Australians wanted to pursue me for details they would, note I'm assuming most of the audience here is in the US or Asia.
In this case it was more about spending my cash as another payment was due, that payment ended up delayed and I was hamstrung while the prices dropped again. I'm back to normal this week and thankfully the prices didn't correct too much over the weekend.
David, good to hear about your Hodl successes over the last few years. Seeing as your profitable coins are all in the top 10 coins in Coinmarketcap, I was wondering if your other coins are high up in the coin list or are they further down in the riskier unknown territories of say 50 - 150 coins. Kind regards,
Paul
Thanks Paul, I think only Litecoin was in the top 10 when I bought the coins. They were all pretty high up though, I like to stay in the top 100. I do have some coins that are not in the top 100 but when I bought them they were. The coins I bought that were not above 50 are doing really bad right now. I got lucky and sold the coins in my list at the right time the rest I didnt.