Bitcoin Forum

trading and investing are sweet especially when its bringing a positive result where your portfolio is green and rising. the ecstacy of this events drives people crazy and they begin to build hope for maximum profit. human will never be satisfied especially in terms of making money because everyone always want more. however the purpose of profit taking is to have reserves to buy when market is down and to settle your offline and personal needs. taking profits cant be overemphazised. dont sell all your tokens at once, sell in batches and buy back some if there is need to. but dont procastinate profit taking else you might be forced to sell in loss when dips and urgent needs arise like some people did yesterday.

Purely GREED.
Being greedy is one of the best enemy or weakness for every trader, especially those traders that don't have a plan before opening a trades, like the  stop loss and target, so this will result a greediness and "WANTING MORE", especially if you are already in profits and you don't know where to stop or your target, that's why risk management is very important.

Greediness is the main reason why most of the traders failed to earn into crypto trading even in traditional trading.
Yes it is that doing trade is very good when you see yourself in it, but not all the time the price up that is why as a traders
you need to have skills of course. So that we can maximize our loss when we do trade activity anyway.

The wise have always said don't count your chickens before the hatch, which  relates to unrealized profit is not profit till you bank it.

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Greediness well not completely true   ::), but I would also like to think this is tied to lack of knowledge and failing to understand  how the markets work.

Pro traders know that for price to go up it needs someone to sell to help build the momentum of the upward move by filling those buy orders..and if you are going to buy... buy low and sell high and vice versa the rules haven't changed.

True profitable traders don't always trade too you need to wait for your setups to fall in place, in short patience pays.

It is the very human nature that we want to earn more and own more. I agree to the strategy of selling per batch and this is also usable in buying per batch. If the price was quite low based on what you're thinking, you should buy and consider it as the first batch. And when the price goes lower, then that's the 2nd batch and you should also buy again until you're able to be contented to buy. That's the same in taking profits, you sell in high price that you think and then sell again if becomes higher but always take time to buy again and take back those sold bitcoins or altcoins at lower prices.

It also came into my realization that in reality, having a huge value in our portfolios is just the same as having just enough. Unless we sell some of these coins, we can't enjoy that "money" yet. Selling some won't hurt us as long as we sell on the profit range but it would only mean you are making those imaginary wealth into a reality.
Last month, I cashed out another sum of money to buy some small property. I guess that's my way of claiming my unrealized profit.

This is just the reality, a profit is your profit only when you take (this is not rocket science) and as we are all aware, you can only take profits when you sell your portfoio to busd / fiat in excess of your invested capital on the token. Also, greed or dicispline in crypto trading is not healthy for anyone; and if you have trouble regarding greed or discipline, you can look up my post about trading psychology (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5238346.msg54168752#msg54168752)

It's like a bad habit that had been passed on by our ancestors.
Take everything that you can even if someone else will have nothing at the end of the line.

I'm not against it because they will always have a reason like they worked for it or it's their money that is on the line when they staked it, which is true.
It's just that, wrong turns are also happening for these reasons.
I already got my share of greed and I learned from it. I think time will tell where they will cross the same path and learn from it too.

Yep, it happened to me more than a few times that I bought a token/coin and didn't take profit when I was up around 30-50% or more in profit and the price came back down and I was in break even again or even loss in some cases.

The best way to avoid that is to always ladder some sells all the way up when the price is increasing and is bullish, even if it's just 20-30% of that coin that you're willing to sell, it's still safer than not selling anything, in other words you have to be a market maker or a whale or someone that knows for sure that price will increase more than that to not sell at all which is not the case for 99% or more normal traders.

I guess, 99% of the people will experience selling loss because of their stupid decisions influences by impulsiveness, greed, and FOMO. But I also think that we don’t need to warn them as they already knew it. They just had to try. They just had to experience it by themselves to learn and grow.

In fact, if they really want to pursue their career in trading and become successful, they will definitely learn from their experience and still keep going. If not, then I guess trading is not for them. They had to back to their day job instead. Trading is a simple way of business. You had to be emotionally strong to become successful. And that takes a lot of experience and lessons to be learned.

Thats the problem a trader must overcome. When acquiring profits, seeing you have unrealized PNL with your trade and then you wanted more profits and ended up seeing that green PNL into red one. Thats probably a bad move. What you should do is to "set up your goal profit". Whether you are already sure that it might go into your side but securing your profit first is more important.

We should have a mindset when taking out profits because greediness is something that always mess up things.

If me usually when see the coin still have chance to increased again, or maybe still hyped up i will sell to made my capital saved. And then rest of coin which is my profit i will hold it until it can get more, well maybe what make different is my capital is already saved and what make differences is how much profit that i will get.

I've seen this happened to many people they thought their asset gonna be pumping forever and turns out it's dumping hard and they regret, funny thing is, most of people who trades and have that kind of behaviour rarely learn from that mistake and they just want to create as much profit as they can not knowing that the market could turn upside down anytime. IMO, the best thing to do in trading world is to stop being delusional and see the reality, a coin could go far higher than the price where we were dumping but none of us could ever predict how much that coin could go. Taking profit early is okay because profit is profit and we can always make more next time.

It is true, in our minds there is a sense of wanting to get more benefits than what is obtained. This is human nature, sometimes we regret having sold it at a certain price, but the price has actually increased again. Even though we have already benefited from this, there is still a sense of regret for selling it too fast. This is an emotion that must be controlled, because thirst for profit is not good, you should think about the consequences that you will bear when you still want to get more profit than you get. Because, it is not good, if we hold it too long with the shadow of getting bigger profits, it can blind you to the current market conditions.

It is true, after a decline occurs in the currency that is on the top exchange, the price will definitely return to normal, but when we are in need of money for other purposes, and when you want to sell it, you are faced with a state of falling prices, inevitably you have to sell it. . Therefore, don't just hold onto one mature dollar, or invest all of your money. Indeed, if the amount is calculated, it will be more profitable, if we look at the conditions when the market is red and we are in need of the money, you will actually get a loss if you sell it. Better, keep part of your assets in the bank, and you can trade the rest back. If you feel that you have gotten enough profit, immediately take it, don't forget to leave a little in your wallet for you to trade again.

Holding is not easy at all, you must know when to exit and to take profit, because most of the time if you want to gain more profit the tendency is, the price will start to drop and you might miss the chance of taking profit on peak price.

I do hold some tokens and honestly, I miss so many opportunity to sell at a peak and now that I need the money, I have no choice but to sell it even at a loss price. This is the result of being greedy and being unprepared, you must not experience this so better to start doing your own analysis and have the target price always.

Unrealized profit is not yet your profit, in the same way, until you sell a losing coin in the hope that its value will recover, you will not record a loss. In order not to lose unrealized profit, you need to pull the stop loss closer to the current price or sell the coin in parts when it reaches the next resistance.

That's why you stop calculating for unrealized profits. In the first place, it's called unrealized since it's only a possibility, and possibilities run two sides, coming true or coming false. It also isn't involved only in trading, but also in starting up a plan to buy something. Never finalize anything until you actually have everything in place. Finalizing buying a coin when the funds used to buy it would come from selling another coin shouldn't be a final plan, but rather one that can adapt to changes.

It's all about timing.Knowing when is the right time to sell or buy is the hardest skill a trader can learn.
95% of all traders simply don't know when to sell,so they miss out profits or they sell at a loss,instead of HODLing and waiting for the next bull run.
I think that "procrastinating profit" is a wrong term,because procrastination is just another word for laziness.
Waiting for bigger profits is not laziness.It's pure greed,which is totally understandable.Greed is the main reason why people get involved into crypto trading.
Without having greed,most traders wouldn't be trading at all.They would just work on their 9/5 jobs.

And that it leads to greediness which mostly drives to the worse case about losing. Many traders disregard the meaning of satisfaction and they even more hungry when seeing their portfolio rising.

That was what I feel before, it is already there. I'd already reach my target price, in fact, it is more than that but somehow my greediness comes, and thinking more and more, I keep it and hold. Well, not all the time the market seems too good with us, I really find it regretting but it was done already and that I won't let it happen again that is why I sell my coins when I know that I was already in profit.

I also mean novice traders who sometimes consider a high portfolio value to be my advantage.  But unfortunately, as is currently the case, the crypto price has corrected quite a bit and my portfolio value has corrected quite a bit in nearly 50% of its high value.  I consider when the value of my assets is very high it is my possession and I feel quite lost when the correction occurs.  I realized it was not easy to become traders who had to make wise decisions.  Moreover, buying and selling decisions.  Hold or Cut Loss, all of which are extraordinary considerations.

OP, it depends on your own point of view, and your goals. You want more fiat? Then holding Bitcoin is unrealized profit, or loss. You want to HODL, and more Bitcoins? Then simply look at what the current price in fiat is as a guide of Bitcoin’s current “purchasing power”, not profits or losses.

Lol some people are going to tell you that you lack patience and that’s why you’re not able to hold all your assets while price is still going up, and they will be convincing you that the price still have a long way to go.

I tell people that whenever they think the profit is enough for them, it’s best that they sell it instead of continuing holding till they end up losing everything. It’s best that you have gotten something, instead of not getting anything at all.This is why it is important that we have other things that we are doing, so that way when your money is leaving here it is going to another investment that will grow your wealth.

There are a lot of trading strategies that could decide whether or not you can take profit or not. The best thing to understand first about uPNL is that it's paper losses. Unless you are going to close your position with the market, then it would be realized already. Some people who are new to trading wouldn't understand right away, and it should be learned too.

Some people hold positions for the long term because they are swing traders, uPNL that they have stayed for a long time. It would help if you weren't emotional with this. Scalpers or Market Makers usually tend to trade within seconds or minutes, and their uPNL is realized immediately.

There are many cases to consider, and you should decide what type of trader you will be.

Better to just focus more on buying the significanct dips of only true, useful and safe cryptocurrency with small amount(or amount you can afford to risk).   If possiblle, allocate a certain amount of your money in stablecoin to automatically buy the significant dips while you not available.
I'd advice to only sell parts of your investment when you need some money for other important things in your life.

You can technically make the unrealized profit as your own, the "technically" part is you can calculate how much you have guaranteed. For example let's say you buy something from 100$ and it goes to $200 and you put a stop loss at $150 that means you will make at least 50% profit from it guaranteed, it is yours, it will always be yours, there won't be any problem with that (as long as exchange executes your stop loss at the right price) which means unrealized profit can be calculated.

Sure if it is $200 do not calculate it 2x right away, but if you put a stop loss at higher than where you put because it increased, that means you could always consider that as your profit. Otherwise if you do not have that, you will not be able to actually calculate, there is nothing that would allow you to profit without selling unless you put a stop loss in there.

Its no a new thing when we do talk about Greed!

Human beings are naturally greedy which means even if they do saw their portfolio in greens, they wont intend to sell out to secure their profits but rather wait up even more for more possible
gains that they could get.

Even though how many times you are giving them some advice but still they dont listen and just follow on what are the things in their mind.

holding for long term is the best choice for op if he want unrealized profit and yes bitcoin is the key as its proven and tested.. Because doing it in a short period of time isn't advisable, it can cause some problems, especially if he can't handle his emotions on this kind of so volatile ways how to make a good return... Indeed being greedy is the common problem of some traders and investors nowadays.. So he must change decisions in my opinion..

Let people decide on their own on how much they want to buy and sell. It's their freedom after all. And not because they sold all their coins in one wave, that's a wrong move already.

We don't know but maybe they are following some strategies and it's effective for them.

We do have our own approach to any trend. Mind our business as others have their own strategy too. If a certain strategy work for us, it doesn't mean that others will have the same result.

It's greed in a way and another way they say its maximizing out a profit that could come from a coin. That's why some traders decide not to take profits because of past experience. But a good strategy is to take profit at intervals and leave some behind as moon bag.

It's happy to see that moment. Because current trend hurted me a lot. Most of my coin was in red shade.All my savings are in holding.Because I can't sell at low price.Because it was my long period saving,it can't accepted to loss.Traders should analysis about the market and hold till the price reaches a maximum value.

As a trader, greediness will be behind us, and if we don't have control, we will be late to take profit. Having greed is normal as we want to make a bigger profit than usual, especially in the bullish trend before. We can maximise the profit if the market moves good, but we can't do anything except follow it if it's not. It is why we always need to have strategies related to the market situations.

That sounds really an useful piece of advice. When we are in profits with any of altcoins then it would be much better to book profits and then we can buy back for same USD or BTC value when that coin coming down. I tried this with dogecoins: I sold some coins around 670 satoshi and bought back around 540 satoshi (but dogecoins made low up to 350 satoshi). This way I gained more than 100 satoshi per one dogecoins.

Whenever there is a sudden dump in the market I guess it would be much better if we leave off our holding without any major decisions as if we take any decision under pressure then that may lead to big losses.

If price of a coin increased much i will take out my capital and maybe a little profit to use in real life, and then hold rest of it. I think it can be considered profit too although if price dumped after i sell my coins to get my capital, and i can enjoy my profit too in real life.

I have done something similar with BNB as well. When I saw it go over 600 dollars I realized it can't go on like this without any drop at all, and I took a risk, I assumed if we go up even a bit more, it would eventually drop to low 600 levels so I would not be in too much loss, but if it dropped even more I would be in big profit.

So I sold all my BNB at around 610 dollars, then waited for it to drop and thanks to this new big drop I bought some at 515 dollars back again, I missed the low levels, turns out it went as low as 460 but I was asleep during that period, and I waited for it to back to those levels, it ended up not going there again so I bought at 515 in order not be too late. That is a good strategy, I really do not put that much thought into these things before but it was too obvious that we would have at least one fall before an increase again.

I agree with you, it is imperative to take profit, even when the market falls, you don’t need to sell everything, but rather in parts, because the correction will take place and no one will pay the losses for you, so this is the right strategy, especially with such volatility as it is now.

When you are trading with little known to new coins and tokens then it is recommended to book profits whenever you are seeing prices above or around your target prices. If you are holding a coin for years and you are just getting your buying price levels then you may go for booking for 25% of your holding so that you may not regret when market goes against you at any time; because you may buy back again for cheaper prices to maximize your stash.

I agree that unrealized profits are not our profits only when we strategize our profit booking methods we can finish off our trading without regretting yet with good profits in this everlasting high volatile markets.

There are some sorts of traders out there that are seeking for more when it comes to taking profit for they seem to be wanting more to come and never get contented to see that there might get any possibility to take larger profit if they will wait for quit a longer moment in time. This attitude is present in both newbies as well as for those who are already long in trading since many are after for the possible profit after a long term hold but being greedy makes us traders to become late on realizing that we might be wasting the opportunity available in front of us. There is nothing wrong on wanting more but you must see between the lines that wanting more can also come to gain regrets once you miss the opportunity of obtaining profit for not being contented.

Trading and investing very positive .when you portfolio is green and rising the ecstacy of this event drive people crazy and the begin to build hope. however the purpose of profit taking is to have a reserve is to buy when market is down. and to selfie your offline and personal needs taking proof it can be power optimised don't sell all your token at once sell in batches and buy back. Some if there is need to .if becomes  higher but always takes time to buy again and take back those sold Bitcoin and litecoin at high price.