[Tales of a crypto-noob] - mistakes, FOMO and mentality

Cheers folks!

I am a noob. This is the sad truth. Or at least I used to be.

After hearing so much about cryptos and bitcoin-millionaires, I decided to get into this so-much-hyped crypto-stuff.

Follow me on my journey and learn from my mistakes instead making your own :)

My journey started at June, 6th, 2017...

Crypto, as well as trading in general, was all new to me. I started with creating a multi-wallet with exodus, because I read somewhere on the internet that Exodus was pretty good. After some reading on reddit and creating an account on Anycoindirect to convert fiat to crypto, I spent a few hundred bucks to begin with.

I spent some more time on reddit (soo trustworthy :D) to learn about good coins and got a portfolio of about 10 different coins within a few days. So far, everything seemed to be much easier than I expected. All coins were up 10-20%. Awesome. I was gonna be rich in no time. I felt awesome and happy and shared my awesome experience with all people around me. This was just crypto money and it is just a game...

Then, shit got real...

There was a coin rapidly going up on bittrex. 50% - 70% - 80%... I sold some of my coins and got in on the mooning coin. 120%. 180%. My lambo was already coming closer :) Then, all of a sudden, within a matter of seconds, it dropped. No... it imploded. Before I could even set up a sell order, I was at -70%. I panic sold, and to make up for my losses, I bought another promising coin. I was panicking. All the hype turned into panic. Currently, there were no green numbers. This was no game anymore - I was just burning my hard-earned money. Guess what happened again with the second coin.

This is how I learned about pump&dump. I got dumped pretty hard. Burned about 100€ of the 400€ I initially invested.

Some days later...

I decided I should do some more reading to get to know the markets better. I stumbled across a few coins which I found to be a solid investment - Antshares was one of them. Also, it was rapidly increasing as there was a conference coming up. Thats when I felt the need to get this coin. For the first time, I experienced FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out. That feeling, when you realize, that BTC were sold for a few cents some years ago and go for 2k+ today.

You don't want to miss that chance. So I got in. And again, when the conference started, the dump happened. The feeling is hard to describe. It felt like being torn apart on the inside, being smashed by a rock.

This time, I did not sell. This time, I regretted not having sold my ANS. I could've easily doubled my amount if I had sold and bought in again after the crash. Again, I was devastated.

Some days later, the crypto market crash happened. Everything started bleeding. A bloodbath.

Again, I started to panic. But instead of doing another dumb thing, I kept on reading on reddit and watched crypto trading videos from Ravinder Deol and @Suppoman on Udemy. Both the videos and the reddit-posts encouraged me to change my mentality towards cryptos. And to learn from my mistakes.

You've probably heard those a thousand times, but this is what I learned and experienced the hard way. Feel free to learn from my mistakes and don't make the same mistakes:

1. DON'T ever try to time the market, if you have no experience. If a coin with a low trading volume is skyrocketing fast, it's probably a Pump & Dump. Don't try to get on this. You'll burn your money. 
2.  Resist your FOMO. Other promising coins will come.
3. Don't panic sell and don't try to compensate for losses by chasing other coins. You'll lose that race.
4. Hold and buy the dip - if your portfolio crashes, don't sell. Hold your coins. They will recover sooner or later. If you have budget, buy some more for the lower price to improve your cost-average. As long as you don't sell, you don't lose any money!
5. Think long-term. Bitcoin took 7+ years to be where it is today. "Time in the market" beats "timing the market"
6. Read about the cryptos you want to invest in. Find out what they want to achieve, how they want to achieve it and if they offer something new that might actually be useful. If you are not convinced of a coin, the tech or it's purpose, don't buy it for long term holding.
7. Stop checking your portfolio 100x a day. This was probably the hardest part for me :)
8. Get educated. Read news and articles on the internet. Watch videos. Learn how the market works. Buy the rumor, sell the news - details here ;) http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/buy-the-rumor-sell-the-news/
9. Buzzwords - if a coin is hyped with words like moon, lambo, BUY BUY BUY, etc., be careful. People are probably just promoting a coin they want to pump to sell it higher. Many pumps are just caused by hype without any solid backgound.
10. The mental stress can become enormous. If you realize that you can't endure it, stop trading cryptos. I had many sleepless nights in the last weeks until I changed my mentality on this one.
11. Preferrably use a wallet and dont leave your cryptos an the exchange platforms. Also, always use 2-factor-authentication on your exchange platform accounts. You don't want your cryptos to be hacked, don't you?

I hope my story is helpful for some of you folks. Learn from my mistakes instead of making your own.

If you like my [Tales of a crypto-noob], I'll probably write some more stories in the future :)