Bitcoin Forum

Hey  :)
 
I once came across a time when I was unsure where the market is going to take us , thus I brought at a very high price , unfortunately the price came down as quickly as it climbed up.

The reason I believe I haven't lost even a single penny is because I believe you cannot loose when you don't encash.

Therefore I still believe holding for the long term can actually help you .

A profit or loss isn't realised until you sell. However, if you are holding Bitcoin for a long term gain, then you may be missing the chances to increase your holding by scalping or other trading.This is why I keep a small balance of fiat/Bitcoin in wallets with Coinbase, and I have made a few gains with these whilst the market is moving sideways.

But you know , not everyone does have time to actually check out the wallet balance and then trade also trading is not something that is a straight thing .
You do need time and effort , both.

I think holding is like gaining profit over long term but that too profit is passive. Therefore I think everyone can do that .

Now i understand what you mean by encash and I strongly support your claim, I once have a token am still hoding on to till date, I bought as high as 10usd per token and it fell to 4.5usd per token, but I haven't loose my investment as long as am still hoding on to my token. HODL!!!

Of course it is. Don't think about selling them because it could pump in no time. Some traders are just impatient and just sold their Bitcoin. Anyway, if it's your first time trading cryptocurrency, it's not the same with stock exchange trading. In trading cryptocurrency you better have study first before buying. In your case, I think you were just hyped and bought at its high. That's a newbie mistake. But it is what it is. You have to keep it or lose some of your money. And I know you're only choice is to keep it.

It's called deemed profit or deemed loss. The same thing applies in real world stock market as well. Once you bought in a some equities, your deemed profit or loss depends of that equities' market price. Same happens with bitcoin or similar instruments as well. What's the bottomline of your statement??

In crypto, You dont loose until you let go of your investment. Irrespective of the upward or downward movement thread of the market, I stongly reccomend the hodl your token policy. TEAM HODL!!!!

You just missed the opportunity to profit but I guess that is OK as long as you haven't move any amount of Bitcoin from your wallet, But that big chance to get it all is already there but you can not change the fact that you still lost on that time frame where you can profit from it, you surely haven't lost anything but you just lost profiting at that moment when the price exceeds everyone's expectations, but I guess you are not regretting anything back then so it is alright as well, but I think you should focus on the now because you can not get that back and try to get a double profit in the upcoming new all-time  high.

maybe for other merchant friends to take quick profits so they sell and disburse their funds for their needs, but for those who understand investment and long-term play they have never been disturbed by their minds when prices rise and fall rapidly, I am one of the long-term bitcoin holders long

That's the basic investment rule in the investment into cryptocurrencies. You only lose when you sell your cryptocurrency in case you bought at a very high price. The best decision is to hold on with your bitcoin for a very long term or you can invest into some potential altcoins that you see on the market. Some altcoins are good to invest and can generate huge profits.

True, but try telling that to people who bought coins at $18 000+ back in 2017. They are saying that they are losing interest on those coins, because they need to cover 1 year or 2 years Bank interest, before they can show a profit, when they eventually sell those coins. There was a 3 year gap between a dip and a recovery before, so some of those people are losing 3 years interest or profit that they could have made if they invested that money into something else.  ::)

I try to reduce some of those potential losses, by buying on the dip again and selling for some profit when it recovers. This way, I work away the losses by taking small profits on the recent trades and volatility in the price.  ;)

It depends on your definition of making a profit or loss. If you don't care about paper profits or losses and 1BTC is always 1BTC, then there is no way for you to lose. In that case you keep hodling.

Most people however think differently because they only care about what goes back to their bank account in fiat. I can perfectly understand that too, because crypto can be a very lucrative investment tool from time to time.

I personally don't care too much yet, mainly because I believe Bitcoin has much more room to grow in the coming years, but I would lie if I said that I don't pay attention to the price in the short term.

It's difficult not to pay attention to it because we're living it almost 24 hours a day, because this market never sleeps. I'm happy that I found somewhat of a balance between 1BTC is 1BTC and the short term price activity.

After the retreats in Altcoin prices, the old fashion came up again. If you don't sell out, you won't lose. Good and interesting point but I remember last pre-bull period for altcoins. All alts getting melt like an ice cube. And people has started to worried. Then some of them had to sold their coins. Because cash needed.

If you don't need cash in short term, it is good suggest. But if you may need cash, I don't think it is a good idea.

I think most people knew this method especially if they see the market's going down then they must have to HODL for a bit until the price rise back. And do some scalping if the price gains a little growth if they were an active trader. But for newbies, this might be a little problem for them if they don't know how fast the fluctuation of a cryptocurrency move.

True, you haven't lost anything, except the decline in the value of your assets, when you still hold it tight. But, most people who experience a decline in the value of their investment, usually will panic and tend not to think about the possibilities that can still occur later on. In a panic, people usually think shorter because they are afraid of losing everything.

I have heard this before, and have been in the situation many times. In fact, I hold many shitcoins with the same idea - Can't loose if I don't sell, even though the coin is -97%.

You know,
You cannot loose and you cannot profit...
You have 100% of the funds trapped.

Regardless, how ever you want to spin it - It's currently sitting at a loss and this statement is just a way of saying "I f*cked up" but lets look on the bright side of things...

Basically, you dont lose of everything if you do not encash  but if you will look on the bigger picture when you earn from the salary you can get here and then the price drops you are still actually loosing the value of your effort and you need to wait and hold until the price raises again.

If you are holding, this is true, in a long term you should not worry about price fluctuations

If you are trying to do some trades, you can always try to sell and buy again in a dip, so it's better to make a plan and stick to, obviously the plan need some adjustments, but this way is better

In my plan, I'm trying to accumulate as much BTC as I can, but sometimes I buy at a price and in a few hours the price falls, I only have the option to wait, as you said, you will only lose if you sell.

Taking your quote against you, you don't also earn without withdrawing your bitcoins!

It is essential that you set a limitation, cap, and a goal on your investments to know when to cash them out. Long-term investment and holding may yield you income but you may miss opportunities arising from sudden spikes and increase on its price due to its high volatility. You may want also to consider short-term investment as it may render you income relatively better than a long-term HODL.

That's an golden rule of trading that never sell your coins in a loss. If you have the ability to hold, then you can never lose in trading. You will hold your coins until they again reach your buying price and then you may sell.  There are only few cases where you invest in scam projects and there is no chance of the recovery of such coins.

Yes, you're basically right. The problem is that even though "don't invest what you cannot afford to lose" is like one of the most important rules, people tend to ignore it. And if you invested the money, awaiting a pump, but your investment is going down and you need this money, then you sell and you lose. Or if you're just greedy/emotional. I had around $1k in BTC when it was $20k. I didn't sell then, and I tried not to sell when it was $6k. But the problem was that this bearish trend was out there for too long, and I simply needed money for things like food, so over the course of the year, I sold all of that, losing a lot, as you can imagine.

You are right, If you don't en-cash and hold it for a long term wait until you gain a more profit to it. Holding bitcoin is actually a good profit.

right, our assets are fixed, but the value in usd decreases, and this is what makes traders panic. but if we have long-term investment intentions, fluctuations do not overload our minds, and panic can be avoided

That is my option every time I commit an error in my trades. Just recently, when BTC was above $12,000, I set a buy order at $11,000 thinking that if ever it will correct its way down, it will bottom out at $11,000. Apparently, it proved to be wrong and was based on an erroneous analysis. But I will not allow to just accept my loss. I would rather wait for another month or two than just sell with a loss.

But take note, this might never apply to the majority of altcoins.

Yes, until no selling is done, there will be no loss yet there are still chances of earning/getting profit. As long as you hold any amount of bitcoin, its value may change as its price changes and that change will be the basis if you'll ever gain or loss. It will be better if you choose to hold than experience loss by selling your bitcoin in a price lower than the time you bought bitcoin.

The original statement isn't always true.  

True, profits or losses aren't realised until you sell, but holding and never selling doesn't guarantee not realising a loss either.  Ask anyone who has held stock (without selling) of any bankrupt company, or even plane tickets of an airline that has gone bankrupt.   Or even in crypto, anyone who HODL'ed any of hundreds of alt coins whose charts have ONLY gone straight down after a small initial climb to sub .000X since their inception.   There comes a point with some assets where you no longer have a choice of selling as the asset in question has already pancaked.   It's like saying you won't crash into the ground if you don't parachute out of the plane first.   

That said, this isn't FUD... I both HODL and trade, but do disagree with the original statement.  

Of course, you are not affected by the price is you don't sell. BTC is still equal to BTC and that's what beginners should remember as well. They panic seeing their portfolio going down, but they didn't see that by not selling nothing has change. I also learn this the hard way that's why I usually don't sell my holdings, unless there's something really important IRL problems that I really need fiat and dump by bitcoin.

Definitely a yes. this is a waiting and timing game, patience is the key with a little bit of a luck and sharp instinct when to sell.
A lets not forget to play what you can only afford to loss. Never ever borrow to play only, many get burned with this.

Though losing opportunity for gaining more volume when the is cheaper because afraid to take the risk, you need another source of income for you cannot encash when you need money. You cannot depend on it because market is very volatile.

That's true. A lady recently chatted me up that a trader told her she can never loss in money trading bitcoin, I said there is a high degree of risk, because the value may go and we will have to wait for price to pick. I had to tell her the whole truth because I don't want someone disturbing my peace that her money has evaporated due to a half-truth. Holding with patient is very important.

Some would not prefer this. They would rather decide to just cut loss rather than go along with the fall. They prefer to suffer a smaller loss and then buy back at the bottom. This is the strategy of a lot of traders. Well, they have their own technical analysis from which they base their order prices. But to those who do not have any of this at all and are doubting which way is better, they better choose to HODL. If they are willing to wait though.

Please define what do you mean by "long term".

For how long do you intend to hold your coins, before you encash them? You need to convert them to fiat at some point of time, since the acceptability remains pretty low as of now. In my case, I purchased most of my coins in 2012, when the prices were around $10 per coin. I sold most of my stash in 2015, when the exchange rate was around $200, but that was after losing the majority of my initial coins to a scam. Now tell me which one was better? Losing the coins to a scam, or selling them for $200? I still have plenty of coins remaining, despite selling at regular intervals from 2015 to 2019.

Had I kept all of my coins, then I would have become a millionaire by now. But I don't regret what I did. Back then, I had financial constraints and badly needed the cash. And Bitcoin is such a risky asset, that you don't know when it will go down by 90%.

True holder don't care if it takes many years to take profit from a high purchase, long-term holders will be the one who will be rich because bitcoin price will gradually grow due to mass adoption.

Theorically you are right and i made same mistake when i entered the market.my lost is %70 and its too late to sell now.it was a small amount so its not a big deal but what if itwas a huge? If you dont accept the lose and hold, you misses other oppurtinities and there is no guarantee to back the price you bought.

Everything is relative, depends when did you buy your coins and on what price, what is your goal and what does long term means to you. For some long term is a 6 months, for some 6 years. But of course that it isn't wise to sell at lower price than you bought, that only mean you will accumulate loss and that you made the mistake at the very begininig - you have probably bought the coins with money that you need.

if you consider BTC as it is (a sequence of bits and bytes created over the blockchain) your sentence is correct IF you got your BTC for free.
Holding and encashing have two different meaning, just ask yourself why are we holding? 90% of the holders will tell you 2 different things: to support this technology and to get more gains based on the investment made.
So holding goes in pair with the market value, encashing is ignoring the market value (to a certain degree).

You don't loose if you don't encash.
We'll I agreed because even if you buy at a high price if you are patient enough you can make profit.
Although we should avoid buying when the price graph is expected to go down but that doesn't mean your final fate is loss.
All the best to you.

crypto is all about holding the crypto currency for long term that is how we make profits if we sell overnight in panic mode we loose all our capital

That's what I'm doing

https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/BTCUSD/
When you see the chart and set "All" you will see the peak so it's great for us to keep hold until it reach another "guarantee" peak !

I've done it over 5 years and it still happening

If we can manage to hold our coins during bear season, it absolutely nothing we could lose but in the way that we should have to sacrifice sometimes for the seek that we can move our investment. As to know that holding isn't a guarantee to save from losing especially when we are holding those dead coins. better to sell them and re-invest into the other coin.

No. You are not intelligent if you are blindly holding on to a cryptocurrency for an infinite period of time. Intelligent people are the ones who encash their assets at the right time. Bitcoin is not a physical asset, and it is a digital asset. IMO, any such asset will be having a limited lifespan. Now I can't predict whether Bitcoin will survive for another 10 years, 100 years or 1000 years. But I firmly believe that at some point in the future, another cryptocurrency or even another product will be able to replace Bitcoin.

Right now, we have more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies in existence. A simple majority of them are no longer actively traded or mined, meaning that they don't have any worth. Do you believe that holding such assets for the long term could have been an intelligent step? Also, are you sure that something like this will never happen to Bitcoin in the distant future?

Too much buts in your post  ;D ;D
Not everybody wants to trade actively. There are many who just wants long term gains which is why some of them totally forget about their investments for a long period of time.
I believe trading actively does give a good amount of profit if done right but long term investments are not bad at all. In fact I have myself invested a portion of my money in a long term investment (obviously in BTC).
So until you are gaining profits from your investment which gives you satisfaction I think it should be okay doing that.

You are right,but it's still very frustrating to see the price go down.BTC went from 12,7K USD to 10K for less than a week and I'm constantly thinking that I have lost more than 25% of my btc holdings.My mind is playing tricks on me,I guess. :)
Keep calm and HODL until the price hits the moon. 8)

You cannot lose when you don't encash, but your portfolio is actually decreased.
So besides you think you can hold longer, why not choose to sell it when you realize that it will dump for more. You can get a little bit of profit through it.

You will lose the moment you sell your coin after you did panic seeing that your invested money is continuing to devaluate, but if you are wise and you are just holding even you don't see any progress from your investment sooner momentum will change up and bring profits in time that the rise happened again.

Exactly mate because the volume of our currency remains until we sell them off so the safest place is our wallet staying our cryptocurrency
This is my stand ever since I read others panicking and scared of what will happen to their holdings.and also this is what I’ve learned from what happen in 2018 when the market deep badly but recovery on the next year

When the price of ETH was 0.10 BTC, I watched a lot of videos on youtube and in those videos or saw people say they bought a lot of ETH for the price of 0.10 because the price would go up so much, look more than a year now. ETH is 0.021 and it is dropping and from what I see the price has no chance of rebounding to 0.10 BTC. Bitcoin is a good investment, but you should always have a good strategy even if it's Hold for many years.

I also believe in long term. Anyways, I don't participate in some kind of ICOs and IEOs..to high risk.

This is very true and i have personally experienced same situation. I bought some btc and other altcoins when I first joined in early 2018. Since then, my investment kept dwindling and I decided to leave it untouched. Just few weeks ago, my investment was just as I invested and I'm still not touching until I accrue some profits

In some cases short term is more reasonable. But it makes sense. The major part of my investement is long term and I believe I won't lose.

Yup, it all depends on what coins we hold, if it feels that the coin has no more potential to return, it's better to sell it because it will only add value to the loss if it continues to hold it. Unlike the top coins that we hold, to sell it definitely requires careful consideration, because usually the price will go up again.

Whenever there is a dip or a hike(rise) in price, it just breeds panic among investors, the rush of whether to sell off and make profit, or to hold and see if making profits is feasible.

But technically you're correct in a way, if you still hold your coins, you have not actually incurred a loss or earned any profit.

Because all those gains and losses that you incurred are unrealized gains and unrealized loss. It means that once you sell your Bitcoin, that is the time it will realize gains or loss. So you are right, it is not gain or loss when you see the value goes up and down unless you sold it. So it is advisable to invest and hold to those coins that we believe will going to be in the market in the long run, like Bitcoin so we won't bother if we hold it for a long period of time.

So how do you calculate and enjoy your profits if you dont encash and enjoy your profits? Sure it looks good in your spreadsheets that you gained this much profits but thosr are just numbers because that investment of yours can loose its value overnight, so for me, try to ecash a portion of it and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

It is only applicable to stocks and investments that have fundamental values like gold or bitcoin otherwise it is a risky move. You can suddenly find yourself being a bag holder. It is also not applicable to traders because you need to set a stop loss in order to minimize losses. Only investors benefits to this move.

The problem with this notion is that you can't really predict the future, you might be all hopeful that after the many rain will come shine but it may not be so. Why you're hodling on to that coin and it's falling, truth is that it may never reach its ath in its lifetime again.

If you are holding a shitcoin, you better forget about this mantra. This is not absolute, after all. If you are holding Bitcoin, this applies. I am also with the preference to hold my BTC if it falls lower than the price I bought it, unless there is a pressing need to sell at a loss. I guess the OP refers to BTC since this thread is on this section.

Actually I don't recommend holding for a long time since there's a lot of missed opportunity happened just like you missed the swing trades and day trades but if you're looking for a big profit and a sure profit you should do the holding but there's no assurance when will that happened (the big profit)

You are only partially right. If you're referring to Bitcoin for instance,  yes, with patience you might see the price reaching new ATH and it doesn't worth to sell in loss.

But if you hold some sh*t coins sometimes is better to accept the loss and to sell before the price goes to near zero.

One seller in the market. And the other buyer is like this. The market is right. Right now ! The price has gone up. There is nothing to lose in the Bitcoin market. One time the price will go up.

I'd like to tell you that this is my mentality, at least I'm convincing myself that I will not loss money if I will not encase and even if my total portfolio now is only worth 10% of its original value, but I'm still optimistic the market will recover, especially the altcoins market.

There's the strongest hand. But I am personally taking this as a very risky strategy. In fact, a lot riskier if you take into consideration the altcoins market. Many of them are severely affected by the bear market so much so that they seem not have moved on a bit in their development. Volumes have turned into zero.

My decision regarding this will always be on a case-to-case basis. I will never sell a portion and encash my Bitcoin at a loss. But as to some shitcoins I am holding, I am very willing to let go of them even with a loss. 

That's probably the first thing that a person would think. Most of us doesn't know how to read the movement of the chart which will result into panic once an asset starts to decline slowly. I think a deemed lost is still a loss in profit especially in the altcoin market where most project tend to die quickly without being able to recover. There's a high possibility that you would loss the value of your asset.

This only happens when you are hodling an alts/coin that is very active in project development but in the case where you are hodling a shit coin and there is an opportunity to sell and regain part or all of your investment, better do so otherwise you ended up hodling bags of worthless shit coins.

Long term is not preferred in the case of smaller altcoins. 3-4 years back, I had invested heavily in altcoins. I had a large number of different coins, including Bitsend, Byteball, Litecoin, Denarius and Namecoin. Apart from a few such as Litecoin and Ethereum, most of them have lost at least 95% of their value during the last 1.5 years. Some have lost 99% of the value and are no longer traded in the exchanges. The trick is to convert them to more stable assets (such as fiat cash and Bitcoin), when you are having a chance. Once the prices crash and the coin is no longer actively traded, you may not be able to encash them. Another thing that can be planned is partial profit booking at fixed intervals.

I think the best way to do it is to be consistent with your trading and your principles should be rock solid with what could happen. Like if you ever reach the negative 2% with your entry, you would go and just cut losses, no emotional attachments towards it. It's just going to be like that most of the time, it's not a flaw with humans, but it could be a barrier towards your achievements with you. Something like that could hinder your growth and it's up to you if you decide to be helpful or not.

Personally, I'm struggling with that myself and I try to be consistent and not be emotional with my trading.  

This is reality, you have to be specific with alts that you are currently holding, it's not a good idea holding a shitcoin where only downfall always took place, before doing this investment you need to have proper research and make sure that good assumptions and a big trust to certain project has been established, from that point of views you'll be able to confidently hold and wait for the coin to growth.

We can't avoid that, though we learn already from our previous mistakes but when difficult time comes we do struggle because we are just humans.
It is just important that every time we commit mistakes, we should try correct by not doing it again, try to be consistent controlling your emotion as no good strategy would work if you are not in charge with your emotion.

That's just the reality that we are in, the struggle is part of our lives. It just so happens that you have a lot of conflict going on with your mind and emotions. I think that's how we really learn, by doing the wrong things, expecting the unexpected, and trying to be better every day. It's not quick and easy to change, it's a process where you need to follow the protocols and do what's right.

This has been my personal experience and i have lost a lot. It may still be true that you wont lose a single penny if you dont cash out the money you own as an digital asset BUT HODLing too much might have a bad effect. The prices may change drastically and the value you are keeping might fall to nothing. HODLing might still be useful but you need a lot of patience and keep supporting the Cryptocurrency that you are rooting for.

That is right if you do not close your position you are not in profit or loss. Thinking long term investment in crypto is a good idea but the same time waiting till infinity is not good. BTC went to nearly $20000 from $1000 but few people did not book the profit then it again came back to $3300. When there is bull run most of the investors become greedy.There should a proper plan for any investment I believe. If someone invested in BTC at $5000, he should book some profit at one level say $10000 and let the rest run will SL at BE. Such plan can fetch good profit to any investor instead of waiting for a long long time w/o knowing the point of exit.

Minimizing large amounts of losses then trades at some of the current prices, if the market shows a significant decline and buys back when the price falls to allow your capital to return
I applied the trading mode above personally and was a good solution to overcome the big losses