Bitcoin Forum

In 2022 if you:
- kept all your bitcoin in self-custody,
- checked your backups,
- avoided noise like SBF/FTX drama, politics and put your attention and time elsewhere,
- withdrew bitcoin from exchanges,
- avoided "yield", "lending" and other scams of 2022,
- increased your bitcoin holdings,
- worked on your health, relationships, living conditions, knowledge, skills,
- gained new experience (inside or outside Bitcoin),
then you are probably better off and beat most other (individual) strategies. Congratulations!

Any other views? What else could have been done or avoided? Isn't avoidance of pitfalls as much impactful as chasing "yield"?

Chasing yields and profit is probably the most important thing to avoid. I made that mistake in the first year, getting so caught up in investment and chasing ICOs and following so many projects.

I invested so much effort and time to download wallets, help to mine even and even contribute so much to projects my own work was suffering. I took as few shifts as possible, I didn't focus on myself, didn't train extra, skipped all the additional learning. Even did not play as much sports.

Truly, Bitcoin is for buying and holding and using. And focus on your life, do more to advance your jobs, health.

Keep active and interested in crypto utillity and enjoy the discussions to keep your spirits up on Bitcoin (not crypto lol).

Your points are on point OP! I also have some to add:
- Read between the lines. Don't take mainstream media drama for what it says, question the motives that could be behind the article.
- Diamond hands. Don't sell what you don't need to and don't get sucked into the tricks of the charts!
- Learn the tech. Dive deeper into what is behind Bitcoin and blockchain, learn how to understand and appreciate its intricacies.
- Don't limit yourself. Expand your horizons and look for new opportunities, there are still plenty today!
- It's worth being said twice...DON'T USE CENTRALIZED EXCHANGES UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO! Definitely don't hold anything inside of them either. Every crypto has a supported wallet! Even the shitcoin long shots!
- Invest in your work environment. It will only allow you to do all of the above much faster.
- Invest your time into improving your cyber security knowledge. We are in the age of digital warfare, it is happening every second of the day and NO ONE is excepted! The last thing you want is for all of the hard work you have put into both following these principles and whatever you are pursuing to go to waste from bad security practices. In your spare time, research to become safer!

always be careful in acting, it also really has to be applied in all aspects of life, this is also very true in bitcoin or crypto investments.
we must have motivation and clear goals, in all things we must have high motivation, we must also apply this in investing in bitcoin or crypto, because with motivation and clear goals, it will definitely add to the feeling of enthusiasm and high self-confidence.

With those that you've mentioned then I can say that I did better last 2022 and hopefully that by this year of 2023, I can do more and so much better.

Well, I've avoided toxicity of people on social media platforms and I guess that's an achievement when I was able to block and unfollow a lot of them because of different shits in life that they've nonstop discussing.

And what's good to me is that I never chased the profitability of those yields or lending platforms, I kept mostly in bitcoin as I've seen the risk in those.

Best of all, sticking with your plan. It's easy to have such a list and plan to follow it, but actually following it in the long-term is the harder part. People often underestimate how emotions(fomo, panic, etc) can easily mess up a person's plans.

“Invest in yourself “, if any person understands this phrase, then definitely he will be the next billionaire. I mean many people including me, run behind money. I know everyone just wants profits and want to become rich overnight. For this they can do anything and everything. But instead of worrying for profits, if we minimise the loss, then definitely a time will come when profits will automatically fall in your wallet. Patience and wise investments are always the key for profits. So yes definitely the best strategy will be when someone learns from his mistake, and try to avoid it in future.

I think you’ve made some pretty good points there especially the need to keep your bitcoin in self custody. I think that can’t be reiterated enough.
In all you had posted, it was your topic head that resonates more with me. Stay humble and invest in yourself is definitely the best strategy of 2023. We as humans have all got lots of different potentials and it’s left to us to discover and unlock these potentials. What better way is there than to invest massively in yourself while being extremely humble.

A mind clouded with pride will never be open to new things and ideas and definitely wouldn’t be open to learning new things.

The words are really complete and make sentences when you say to try to invest in yourself. I member a few years ago I asked a successful person in my family what's the best thing for investing to get rich and I was expecting to hear names of stocks cryptocurrencies and even some other assets files like real estate but she said me if you want to be rich and successful in the same time and you want to use your time in the best way try to invest on yourself because this kind of investment will never disappoint you in any situation.

OP you just said my mind. You know why the fud keeps growing is as a result of many putting their focus and too much attention on bitcoin to making them rich quick forgetting that bitcoin is not a day bull neither is it a jackpot to quick riches bit s gradually process of building that takes a little time as the market is volatile.

Let me just add a little to your list

Talk to someone about bitcoin
Avoid too much of I too know.
Learn to do research.
Always be comfortable to asking questions.
Avoid problems so you could enjoy yourself.
Always surf the internet to get updated with the current technological innovation.
Make sure you run maintenance, update and upgrade on your device do as to avoid loss of assets
Also run maintenance on you automobile so you don't have any accident because of that happens, you would not be able to enjoy your life and your assets would go for bills and payment.

Always remember "not your keys,not your coin"

Investing in one's self has many interpretation and understanding. I believe that investing in oneself is acquiring skills that you will be needing to overcome some challenges and advance in life.
If you read OP very well, this might not be the definition of investing in yourself that he means. And this is giving me worries if there are some other ways one can invest in themselves.

Dont make yourself to be that emotional specially on things that could potentially affect out your decisions or analysis.If you are really that serious when it comes to holding for long term out of those
accumulation then you should really make yourself to have some space in the market.Dont make yourself that checking out every now and then when it comes to movement of prices because
it would really just make you impulsive with your investment plans because if you do really that much mindful about market condition then there are really that tendency that
you would  really be making yourself that derailed on your targets and goals.

True in real life, more true in trading (I learned about this small time doing stocks and I can see this all the time in crypto traders. They come up with strategies and plans and even say they are willing to go into loss at 10%, 15%, whatever, so they can start fresh again.

But the panic starts setting in when they keep losing and they think I have to chase this.

Then the longterm plan chucks out the window. Crypto especially is very very good at doing this!

That's it, now the lack of patients still makes people not to chose the right investment if they could understand what it takes to find out the right currency to invest on time then they could make a perfect investment and a great profits. For instance, if they had the right knowledge concerning bitcoin they would have made a fortune out of it but at this they kept warying at bitcoin thinking it would collapse some day whereby focusing their time and efforts on a high yielding platform or even leaving their assets on cex, that was why many fell in victim of what happened between ftx and terra.

Hence they should avoid chasing black goat at night and rather chased it at day time. Meaning chosing the right investment on time gives a reasonable profits in returns.

The bear market action plan is to do nothing. I realize every action is just a waste of time. Wait for a strong signal and act better. It is possible to trade for a few months in a year. Or better yet, close your computer, go to bed, go out, or do your usual daily tasks. Learn something new to increase your knowledge. Waiting is the best way not to waste health and money on the bear market.

This is called "strategic planning" when you don't chase money now, but prepare for your future (the very notorious "investing in yourself") in order to get big money. You can’t get rich for one night, but if you earn at least a penny every night, then wealth is guaranteed. It is better to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid making them personally. This is ideal, but in life most often you can't avoid your mistakes.


Therefore, you need to extinguish emotions so that they don't spoil your plans. There must be self-control.

To do this, you must not bet all your money in your investment. If you bet it all, you will need money to use and if your bet is not right after a few months, where is money for you to use. To have money for expenses, you have to sell your bitcoin at discount price which is lower than your entry. It means you sell it at lost price to have cash to use. With this pressure in mind, you will never have strong hands as your psychology is unstable and weak.

It is what I learned from my mistake in 2019 bear market and I don't repeat it in 2022 and 2023 bear market.

Have skills, knowledge for investing and patience when you are investing don't be distracted by your investment don't hurry, always focus and always put your mind on what you are doing when you are work and don't put your mistakes for granted learn from your mistakes and other people mistakes, and always think that this investing am doing I'm doing it for my future.Always risk and sacrifice,you would  really be making yourself that derailed on your targets and goals.

Done that already. Guess I am safe R. N.

lost more than $280+ on yield. I still regret it. Lost faith in any ALTS. Now all I care about is BTC.

Working on it.

Lost 5 kg in 3 months and was suffering from depression. Moved out from home to live on my own. Broke up with my girl. 2021-2022 was a living hell for me.

2023 has brought me some good news. Learned a lot from those events. Experience gained. I don't think there's anything else to mention here. Great work OP.

With how things go these days, simply finding the very reason to live and carry on for another 24 hours is enough a reason to congratulate them. Everything is going to the shitbox, pandemic, gun violence, corruption, economic crises, tensions in between borders that could very well escalate into a world war, deteriorating environment, and a fuck ton of other reasons that could get into people's heads and make them depressed. So to people who lost significant portions of their money, be it from your own volition or not, please know that this is not the end of the line, money could still be recovered but your lives and your importance to other people wouldn't be. Give yourselves a pat on the back if you weathered 2022 and let's all hope for everyone's success this 2023.

I appreciate OP's creative efforts toward maximizing the opportunities that you itemized in this post. I want to add that we should avoid overspending. This entails that we should only spend money on our basic needs and avoid wasting our money on luxuries. This will help us to save money that can be used for investment. We should also avoid get-rich-quick schemes that promise huge profits for doing nothing. It is very risky because many people have lost real money. It might not also be bad to bag a higher degree if it will lead to a pay increase in your place of work. A higher degree can also open new doors of opportunity.

Total avoidance of altcoins and bounties yield farming and the rest of them, 2022 is a hell of a year where many lost quite a good amount in altcoin investment.

-Most time I see altcoin as a distraction and what we need to do is build financial knowledge and motivation to keep Holding and increasing our bitcoin holding.

We can always find money if we are diligent enough to do things even outside our comfort zone.
I can put it this way, live simply and don't divulge much of yourself into social media.
You will have peace of mind if as much as possible, you won't be posting in any of these channels.
The reason why a lot is experiencing mental stress owed to the things they are reading over the net, or what they seeing on their feeds.
Aside from what the OP enumerated, if I may add. Limit your exposure to social media platforms.
It doesn't mean you don't care anymore but it is for your mental health. It will give you like a detox of what's happening around you.

Yup best advice and reminder for everyone of us, and it took me 3 months to start investing on myself, now I am starting new hobbies and planning to stay fit and healthy.
Health is wealth so don't just focus on material things or money, take care of your health as much as you could.
Try to live or work not just to pay bills but also for a brighter future.

In a day and age where simplicity lost its meaning, I doing going back to basics is getting a bit more popular. All those Instagram reels of people who "made it" talking about waking up early, working on yourself, working on being better, focusing on how to make YOU more valuable and not a product, is getting a ton more attention. I wouldn't disagree with it, some older generations like us would say that it is cliche because we grew up with that, but you have to understand kids under 20 years old all had weird and crazy periods with how social media works, so all of those "wake up early drink coffee and go to work" type of stuff might look normal to you and me but it doesn't really work that way for those young kids.

It's strange when I see that my 2022 can be quiet to learn a lot of interesting knowledge in life. I realize more problems I'm living as a machine than as a person, things stay that way and many events lead up.
This year when I look at the market I see more definite positives, possibly a lot more to do personally or for others. Sometimes we also need to stand still to see things.
And I like the way you mentioned personal humility, and I also added gratitude for the things around me.

Did all of these last year. Constantly accumulating Bitcoin that I've been storing in a non-custodial wallet. Constantly checking my backup keys as well while avoiding making some bad decisions that caused by the FTX drama sh*t. I didn't have Bitcoin in any exchanges last year. I didn't even touched these platforms that has a yield feature, or even those apps that lets investors to lend their money for an annual interest.

If there are things that I might regret not doing last year, these are the 2. I'm fatter than what I was in 2021 because I didn't have the time to go out and play or exercise etc. At the same time, I didn't gain any new experience at all (or if there is one then I can't recall what it is).

If I will add, I guess it's "Always learn new things". Businessmen always read books so that they will learn something.

These are pretty great advices to be fair but too much generic maybe? Like invest into your health? Really? I am not saying everyone does, like I for example do not and I am doing terrible these days and I should invest into my health that's true, I should exercise more, even joined a gym and failed to go after the first month, or should eat better and more organic healthy foods instead of fast food etc etc. I get it, but do you think people don't know this? Or "learn a new skill", well obviously everyone would want to, some do, some don't but everyone knows they should.

Good advices, even great, but too generic if you ask me, let me add one more " do not forget to breathe to stay alive".

For me, drafting a plan for all the investments I planned embarking on for the year and sticking to it so that nobody from somewhere will come up with no future thing tomorrow and I will be swayed by it.

There are always obstacles that we often met along the way while we are reaching our goals, but if we can stick to the original plan and focus on it, we will sure to succeed particularly in long term investment. Mostly, if we are not strong enough to face different emotions, we suddenly fall and quit, but if we are determined enough to  beat them and stick to the plan, we will always succeed in the long run.

I ignored the trends except the ones i found before they were trends. I didn't avoid the noise and even though i needed to sell during the crash it all went for things i really needed or my kids needed. I learned that just working out in the gym and eating healthy with a plan keeps my head cool and i am not as worried about the markets.
Even though there were some pretty close calls when price of electricity rocketed.

Now i am poorer but definitely more capable to deal what's coming, and i know from experience that there are going to be more opportunities in life to invest as i have constantly buying just a little more. And i can always leverage trade if i want to risk more.