Bitcoin Forum

Mates, let's talk about HODL and break down all the myths how long to hold coins and whether it's beneficial to hold them for 2, 3 or 5 years. Is it as profitable as everybody says?

I will draw upon my own experience and reading of the situation. Hopefully, I'll also engage in the discussion! The worst advice (and the most popular at the same time in this forum) is to hold your coins as long as you can and that the five-year HODL will definitely make you extremely rich.
Everybody advise this each other without elaborating on the details and aims. It doesn't matter whether you hold Bitcoin or Ethereum or a conservative portfolio of the coins from the top 10 or a risky one of shitcoins. The only answer is HODL without other options and compromise!
Here is my story which tells you that there mustn't be the "one-size-fits-all" approach. I'll try to prove to you that you shouldn't leave the market for a long time if you want to make good money but not just make at most x4 (maybe) in some years in the riskiest market which more likely takes your money than lets you earn!
I got to one of the brightest historical moments in the market. I started using the exchange at the end of the summer of 2017. I saved 100-300 USD from my salary and purchased Bitcoin. After that. I exchanged it for different altcoins (BAT, Stratis, wings, omg, tenx, sia, golem.nem, xrp etc, ltc, and others). The set of coins was quite good, as you can see.
Nowadays I'm still not an expert, and at that time I purchased what seemed to be innovative. I considered Bitcoin not to give as many X as fresh and promising altcoins do. I wished the market had "gone along" with me. That's what followed next: altcoins kept falling - they also were falling when Bitcoin was going up. Looking back, I understand that the best strategy was to purchase Bitcoin and hold it by the end of November and then shift to altcoins which started going to the moon one after the other.
I followed my strategy and kept buying different altcoins losing my money. I'd been holding for a long time before bulls occupied the market and it started going up. But you know these human instincts of greed.
You can't just sell 80% of your portfolio at the first strong pump in your life especially when the whole forum tells you to hold to succeed! Naturally, I thought that my coins would grow forever. By the moment of the December pump and "bull madness" in the market, my portfolio had grown from 3,5 thousand USD up to 12 thousand USD in several weeks.
After that, there was a market crash, which has been lasting by now. Now my portfolio is in the hole, and I keep holding it hoping for another pump, then I definitely won't be greed! My portfolio hasn't changed in a year. I continue purchasing small amounts of coins which I'm not afraid to lose because the best moment for the purchase has been just now.
The message I've got from this situation is that long-term hold is not the best strategy. You must be flexible, ready to learn and adapt your strategy to the changes in the market. To make really much money, you have to be strong and able to take quick and executive decisions on the sale of all your assets at the moment when everybody around is jumping for joy and pouring all their money in the market!
The second moment: after the market fell down (we wait, don't lose money), and then fell again and again (and maybe one more time), it's better to purchase small amounts (!) of coins at each downfall investing more and more money. Along with this, the news not only about the market but also these assets must be positive! Thus, you'll be able to make much profit and withdraw money after some waves!
If you just hold your coins, you can do this for many years from big rises to big downfalls and get nothing. Yeah, maybe I'm simplistic, and everything depends on your financial situation and global understanding of the market, and hence the set of coins you're holding. The choice of coins is one of the crucial points because if I'm honest, there're few coins which cope with 5 years of hold.
Moreover, I'd emphasize that it's a bad idea to hold without following the news and correcting your portfolio by including new coins and deleting unpromising ones which stop to develop (because the team broke up, for example). In recent 6 months, I've included some ZIL coins (3%) and QuarckChain (5%) in my portfolio. I also got some TEZOS after its recent crash and excluded some coins which didn't meet my expectations in the last six months.
 I'd like to say that even if you're a dilettante like me, you will notice the coming of the global bull or bear market. In December it was obvious but we were blinded by greed. I've got burned but now I'm ready for the second round! I believe it'll be in 6-12 months. The longer, the better! I'll manage to get ready for another wave.
And, yes, I believe in HODL but which I will manage, which allows me to adapt to the market, not the other way around. When the market will give me a hint to sell, I'll sell and get profit!

I am inclined to think that it would still be worth holding the coins, the profit will undoubtedly be. the main thing to have patience

If you bought a cryptocurrency 1 year ago, now you have earned.

What should investors do that bought cryptocurrency in December 2017? Many lost 70% of their money

Now I consider the best time for investments

you must be careful to buy altcoin in the market for later in Hold, as many fail for the desired price. you should have a lot of information about one coin correctly. but if one altcoin is clear and successful in its project, surely the price will rise sharply.

Losses are an inevitable part of trading, especially if they are associated with ignorance or inability. Buying in late 2017 and early 2018 was initially stupid, so I do not feel sorry for people who lost money.
They aren't not investors, they are hamsters

Trading and hodling is just a high stakes game.
sometimes you win, sometimes to lose.

What I find out is that, a scheduled takeout, is very good. You take out, on a defined schedule (e.g. every end of quarter), no matter what the price of crypto is.

If you bought altcoins at the old prices, you just have to keep it, do not buy it yet, it's unknown when the market turns around.
I'm try not to hold anything Besides BTC and ETh.

People gets overwhelmed by sharp increase or decrease in price but if we look at the average price of bitcoin, it's only had decreased once in 2014.
The average bitcoin price of 2018 is larger than of 2017 and it's increasing. Just be sure to buy on low and not in highs.

That depends, if you hold one year you may get nothing but if you continue to hold after maybe one month or some time the coin or the market may increase a lot and you make lots of profit.

I have been a hodler believer until I understood that when you spot a bear market like the one which we are experiencing right now, to sell for then re-buying lower is actually a much wiser choice...

i think that all your post can be recap in this words: "buy low and sell high".

Off course if you hold your coin enough to sell when they reach maximum price and the buy again when they drop you will gain a lot of money...but how hard is to do that?

there is no doubt that we need to keep tokens or invest in the top currencies at the moment, as they have slipped, we need to wait for growth.

For this time i prefer hodl your money on cryptocurrency and do not to buy something. You have to believe and be patience for profit like me, because i have 1 year to invest my money on Ethereum and I profit $ 2500.

Nice to read your story! I think most of the people on here are holding their coins and hope that the markets recover.
For the moment I am also holding most of my coins.

Of course when you holding an asset there should be some time to finally sell it. And it's better to do this at price peak.

I've been holding ethereum since December. I was very happy because of the rapid rise as at January this year, but it has proven not to be funny at all when it started falling till this very moment. I have decided just to leave it until it increases again, as I cannot sell it now.

It´s been a very difficult year for hodlers and the results have probably been not satisfactory at all regarding the results, but that´s is the life of a holder really, you can´t do much more.

Thank you for sharing your experience, I think this is why this forum exists. Everyone should share their mistakes and victories.

Thank you for sharing your experience. IMO, investing in crypto is an interesting experience. The holding process really test your patience and the ability to differentiate fuds and real news. End of the day, I believe the result will be fruitful.

If you're a holder you should have patience. Coz if you're in hurry you'll make a lot mistakes. So Patience is the key to success and holders going to win even bear markets occurs.

Hold is a good strategy, but you should always check the price and sell your coins at the top, like it was in early January, 2018. Because the blindless holding won't bring you as much profit as smart management of your funds

Interesting experience! Thank you for such a long detailed post with all of your mistakes described! I'd like to read several times to note useful details! Good luck to you! I think I'll revise my strategy for long-term investments! ::)

Yes.Holding for a long time may be good depending on the potential of the coin itself.But i guess you will have more profits if you also do day trading as long as you know how to handle its risks.If you really want to gain maximum profits,then diversify your portfolio at least.

https://i.imgur.com/drncopv.png

Timing the market is hard, that is why I like long term investing,

If you bought Bitcoin exactly 1 year ago, you are up 2x right now.

"The profit will undoubtly be" Then what's gonna happen if it turned out as a loss or after the end of one year, the market value of the altcoin is less than what it is? Just look at bitcoin. Aug 2017 vs aug 2018

Truly we cant be sure if we gain or not from such a long days of holding. We know how market change and it volatility became strong which we can't determine if that certain coin will go for moon or just buried down. It is better to be in short term investment as we can easily tract our coins.

Hodl strategy is not bad but sometime many investors do panic in times of bearish trend. This is what makes the hodl unproductive. To many investors cutoff their investment for them to lessen their losses even if the coin have a chance to recover.

I had my own share of experience too in Crypto,  just like you narrated.
Have come to a decision on Hodl and short term coin,  some part of my fund is dedicated for HODL.
I made little calculations of what verge and Neo use to be May 2017,  and saw that 100usd investment in both each would have made me thousands of USD. If I Hodl them.
I bought few back then and sold when git little profit.
A long term or Holder must be patient enough while a shirt trader needs to know the market well

The experiment sounds quite interesting, but in fact it all depends on what assets you have decided to invest and at what point you have opened a position. Only if all the stars have come together and you have opened a position in a good time and a good asset, you can earn on the strategy hodl.

An impressive story i must say. However; i know three guys that purchased a particular coin at the ICO; when this coin got to the exchange, the value quadrupled seriously bullish....
Two of the guys sold off their coins to fiat and made a hell lot of cash; while the other one is still waiting for the coin to come back to the value he bought the coin.

Greed can only be dealt with if you have a strategy put in place. For me, i keep 60% of the coin and sell off fourty percent once i notices that a coin has mooned. In that way, i don't wallow in regrets and self pity.

You too can give that a trial.

Though maximum profit is not guaranteed in the crypto world because of the unpredictable and unstable market but to make good gain hodl is the answer but it is always good to make wise decision while investing by choosing prospective altcoins

now we just have to keep, with such prices to sell tokens is not extremely profitable, it is better to buy

When you have entered into the crypto world one thing you should keep in mind that losing and winning both comes in hand to hand and if you have lost some of the money than I must say you must have learnt something from that, the thing is investing in the coins and keep using them will only be helpful if you have a good knowledge about the investments of the coin. If you have bought coins at the older price better to wait for more and have patience as the market is expecting to turn green and when the market rises better to sell off your coins at good rates.

Hold your coin especially if you investing in top 5 coin. No matter what happen you should hodl it at least for 3-4 years. 1 year is not enough. Remember...people who got alot of profit last year is people who hold bitcoin from 2014 or maybe from 2012. The patience is the key for succees in every aspect especially in crypto currencies. Down trend happen but there is always the bottom and up..

Holders use to win the race but the long bearish market seem to have thrown everything off balance, still hopeful the year close on a good note

It is still time to buy more if still have remaining cash in fiats or in tether, we are having the lowest levels of lows before a boom.I dont think thing will go worse than this

i bought XVG at $0.002 in 2017 june and sold at $0.2 in 2017 end. so i got 100X withing few months. holding is most safest and easy way to get profit. meanwhile you can do day trading and increase your bag

For the last year, the hold did not bring any profit to me - only the losses .. the coins that I kept only fell in price .. it is possible due to the situation on the market this year ... but this is a fact.. :-\

Perhaps I will repeat myself, but everyone has its own character and patience in each of the different thoughts and they set priorities in different ways, so I think that there are no advisers here, but my point is to keep the coin!

Yes, I completely agree with you, crypto coins are different and some of them have no chances to grow even in the longer term, others are doomed to stay stable, so investing in them doesn't make much sense, e.g cryptocurrencies that have billions units in the circulating supply - on one hand they may seem promising, the technology is awesome, huge marketcap and the team consists of serious people, on the other hand - how many people and how much have to buy it to cause a serious shift in the price? And news are extremely important, yes, you can hold even though you know that the coin will decrease in price, because you're so sure it will eventually recover, but why not trying to sell it when the price has increased instantly and it's very unlikely it will stay that way for much longer (like when BTC reached $20k)?

There's nothing wrong with selling at an all time high, like last year.
I always tend to HODL a large portion of my crypto assets, but when Bitcoin hit 20k, I sold just about everything.

I've recently been rebuying quite a lot, but I'm holding off the largest purchases until I see the market going up again.
I'm not a big fan of day-trading, so I tend to look at long term investments. That doesn't mean that I never sell though.

Yes, according to history, we can see that as long as we hold some excellent cryptocurrencies for a long time, it will bring us huge profits, so it is very important to maintain enough patience. Only if we have enough patience, then we It is able to get a good return from this market.

Thank you for sharing your experience, as a beginner I have to find out the right time in choosing a decision, especially in HOLD or NO