Bitcoin Forum

During the recent spike in the value of TWT, a friend of mine made double her capital trading. Although she had already made double her money, she set her exit point on the trade at a very high point hoping to triple her capital. Before the crash of the market and her profits along with it, she was excited and told me how happy she felt to have made something tangible trading on her own. I adviced her not to be greedy, that she should quickly sell since she has made double and not wait to make triple a her capital, but she refused and insisted on waiting. (I gave the advice  knowing that TWT is not a stable coin).
Some few moments after our conversation, i saw her with a long face saying that the market had crashed and if she had known, she would have followed my advice.

(This is not the first time she has made such a mistake)

Could this be termed "Near success syndrome in trading?".
Are you or Do you know someone with a similar episode?

Did you coin this phrase on your own?

Of course it has happened to many people. Getting stuck in the euphoria cycle is common specially the new entrants. The wise people will sell before the highest point is touched because they know that waiting for that top means a hurry in trade and possible exchange lagging, transaction fees being huge and all.

Altcoins specially suffer from these types of pumps followed by dumps.

But you are selling just before the top is reached you are still making a good profit. The important thing is to recycle the money after selling.

This, unfortunately, is not a pseudo success syndrome, but as you said, idle greed. It is necessary to always fix your profit on the highs, no matter how much% in the growth of the coin. I hope this story of your friend teaches you something. I'm actually the same;)

I do know if anything like that actually exists but at least to me this tells me of a person that doesn't really have the necessary skills to become a good trader, to become a good trader you need two different types of skills, the ones that can be quantified and the ones that can't, your friend was simply too greedy and I'm pretty sure that if she had been able to triple her capital she will still try to hold her coins expecting even more profits and then the same would have happen to her, so the first thing that your friend needs to learn is how to set a stop loss, that way in the worst-case scenario in which a crash happens she still retains most of her profits.

The second kind of skill that you require in this market has to do with your mind, you need to be able to be very patient and whenever you have thoughts about unlimited profits you should be able to control yourself and avoid thinking like that, this is where I am not so sure that your friend will be able to do it because as you say this has happened to her several times in the past and the problem is that with each devastating loss most people instead of learning that is not something that they should do they keep doing it thinking about all the money that they have lost already and that they want to recover.

She doesnt learn and as mentioned this isnt the first time she had make the same mistake.If she is really serious on making profits then she should really be
contented on what she do earn rather than on being greedy and do ask for more.As she had already the experience then she must be aware about the probabilities
or she do tend to make out some experiment until she do able to hit it out on making some big gains? Well, this isnt bad but you should prepare nor accept
on what are the probabilities of things to happen.

I guess not.

http://www.rexchimex.com/2017/04/near-success-syndrome.html?m=1
https://www.rymstarayekwu.medium.com/near-success-syndrome

If he was really that close achieving the goal then it should have been that syndrome but if not I think that was just some sort of no plan B or something or does not implement a stop-loss even if it's just on spot market. I think I know one and that's my past self but I did grow and now I always stick to my plan and there's no way perfect on trading you really can't buy at the very top or bought at the very bottom but if you devise some plan that be happy if it will be executed.

This is an emotional expectations in trading that the success is near. Success can be defined with fullfilment of your expectations in the specific area. It will vary person to person. Individuals want success or want to be successful in a very short time and it's human nature. In trading, it is rarely can be seen. But the current bull ran can make you happy but can't determine a syndrome of near success because it varies.

We all want to be successful in trading, but of course, there are also the strokes of luck that should be well taken advantage of, especially in the alts, I have a friend who when he acquires alts he places a sell order at + 30% and when he gets there It sells them, because it knows perfectly that all the alts are m per bitcoin share, that is, they do not have a life of their own, the only one that has a life of its own is bitcoin. So he may always succeed there, he may not reach or take advantage of 100% of the raise, but he makes sure profit. But it all depends on the style of the trader.

IF this is not the first time she is making such mistake and losing profits then she didn't learn anything from past trading experience, as a trader it is always important to make sure that profits you made are safe that is why most people convert their profits into stable coin before the prices crashing out.

Your friend profably suffering not from near success syndrome but in a wrong psychological method "greedy" syndrome.  ;D

When we are setting our target profit like having 20 to 50% profit, we stick on that part. Since we all know that market will suddenly move and perform unexpected sideways. We shouls be stick on our goal profit. But from what I have seen from your friend, she waa overly confident that the market will still go on her expected bullish price and she forget that correction always occurs.

She has gained profit but she wanted more. That's greediness and that's what she have to dealt with to prevent those loss trades again.

Ah yes, that feeling when you know you nailed it. It's like an early celebration syndrome as well. It's happening to me in studying not in trading though. Since when I nailed something, I usually celebrate so immediately then forgot where I left then I get drained out after that.
In hodling, I think it happened to me as well like back when Bitcoin went to 20k and I thought I can almost sell then suddenly it plunged.
Anyone remember that year? 2017, yes.

I think this kind of situation is not applicable at all places. Let me put it this way, if I bought bitcoin at 15k, and it became 30k and you told me "you made double of your profit, you should not be too greedy and get out" and I followed your advice, I would have lost an additional 20k+ profit. Does that make sense? Of course not, I should keep and be more greedy in that situation, which means "leave when you double your profit" is not really a good advice depending on the situation, in your situation it was a good one in mine it was a bad one.

It means it depends on the situation and sometimes you should get out when you can and sometimes you should stick with your investment and wait, that is why I believe we should not be really rushing into judgment when others investments are on the line, let them make their own decisions so you do not get in trouble with them.

This strategy used by many traders.Learn from the past is important one. Because by the trading experience we can learn, when to hold. When to sell, so past experience plays a vital role in the trading.The traders change to stable coin inorder to save loss.

Ask me! My friends always go crazy while doing trading or gambling their money. Mostly in gambling people go nuts. For example, a friend of mine turned his 5 bucks bet to whooping 2K on a slot. But no, he wanted more and more so gambled the money on crash game, and guess what all he had at the end was "0". His face was red like a tomato.  ;D

Can't help it. Same thing happens whenever people are trading their money. It has to be really really responsible one otherwise one can end up with zero's. That feeling is heart felt but if you are too greedy then karma hits back.

We can't support them, besides moral base.

I don't know anything about "near success syndrome".
But I did understand something about your friend.
She can't control her greed.

You could always put triple the price if it's one of the known coins in the market. The popular ones.
BTC, ETH, LTC, and more.
If you are willing to wait for months or years then it won't be a problem. Just don't let your emotion take over.
Add up the research to find an exchange that will last that long. Better to just keep it in your wallet.

I was caught by this fallacy as well in the past. I think that is something that every developing trader must go through. It is a lesson that is best learnt on your own skin and hopefully when you are not rolling with a large capital.

Just tell your friend to stop feeling sorry and instead look at it as a valuable lesson for the future.  ;)

You wont really be becoming a good trader if you havent experience these unfortunate events and this is really a pretty common scenario because price is always unpredictable.We do really have those kind of hopes that
the price might even shoot up more and on the fear of missing out those profits or trying to maximize it out then we would really be having this kind of behavior where we do still hold up our position ever we are already
in profits which it might only result into two possible situations neither you would lost up your profits due the price goes to the opposite instead or you would make profits even more because the price goes on what
you had expected.

Sometimes you can guess if the market would crush especially when it's altcoin, technically even for bitcoin a 50 50 chance of guessing and gambling at the same time. Well, she did trading so she should have known but ignore it because she was greedy to make it double everything is unstable from my experience altcoin should be the one we should look after to why? first of all, some altcoins can be easily produced plus it can be a scam.

Still, One thing I know when it comes to trading set a limit like if she made a double income out of trading and that limit was your sign of advising to stop as it is a good sign for you if you're into trading. At the end, it's not too late for her to stop it should only be her lesson, yes it's a great loss but in the near future may not be in trading but in some way, she can apply that lesson.

Also, I would like to advance if she is into altcoin why not get into Etherium? or bitcoin? she may lose here but there is a chance of a kickback when it starts to drop.

Yeah, that's proven caused karma or unlucky jive mate. It happened to me last 3 years ago, I been so greed and it ended up miserable losing all tokens I had and opportunity loss was really depressing. Thinking about more successful trades, would rather brought you bad effects both emotional and physical. Those days made me learned serious aspects in life which nowadays, everything will set unto right path as well.

the mistake people make is not knowing how to take profits in a trade or investment. you can easily take profit and keep holding with patience. you dont hold by thinking it will keep going up, people need to buy and sell, so it will go up more and go down a little and move higher. she needs to learn, these are part of the lessons we learn in the journey. divide your holdings and take profits at intervals.

There are two points that i think this is mostly experienced, they are;

Not taking profit at the planned time or
Entering a trade too late due to skepticism

These might just be the factors behind near success syndrome.

The coin mentioned above is doing quite well recently as it's currently trading above 80cents although few weeks back it was below 30cent. Now the faults is on your friend, is she a trader or an investors. She should first ask herself this question before picking the next coin to buy. I believe she hasn't found out what she really what to do because as an investor, if she had held unto her investment, right now the story would had been different as she would had probably tripled her investment.

Many noobs jump into the industry without realizing what actually they want to become whether it's to be a trader or an investor. They just joined with the mindset of profiting and when this profits aren't coming there way, they panic and this also cause them more losses just like what your friend experienced.

It is called as greed in simple words and I have seen guys who were rich within their minds and went to moon when a token they bought was sky-rocketing but when the price dropped they actually got back to earth again. I can relate what happen with your friend who lost because of extreme greed but it happens with most of us.

I would call it as "being virtually rich" because although technically she (your friend) could have sold and doubled her money but she didn't, so she became rich virtually but never materialized into actual profits.

People often laugh on how someone once bought pizza for 10k BTC but that doesn't mean he spent millions or billions of dollars for pizza actually, it was just normal price he paid at that time and now if that asset turns into gold doesn't mean he was a fool.

Isn't it just greed? No need to use fancy words to describe it, people might even think a different idea if they heard of it. Just call it greed, as it is. And she needs help imo if this isn't her first time having such an experience like this. Tbh, I myself have had greed take me, like a lot of times. That made me honestly realize to just stop and quit trading, call it quits, and just hold whatever coins I want till whenever I want. I invested the absolute minimum that I could and well, I just thought of it as a possible passive income (if the price goes up anyhow). The other path honestly goes to her being a full on trader, but she has to rein in her emotions first, or rather her greed.

A lot of people have this “Near Success Syndrome” lol. There are many of them and you can even see them on this forum. It’s just greed that is their problem. On a regular, an investment can’t get you up to fifty percent your invested capital, and anykind of investment that claims that is considered a Ponzi or scam.

But, now we have Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies that can get you up to fifty percent and even hundred percent and more than that, but for some people, after they have gotten up to hundred percent, they are still greedy and they want to make more. I have seen someone who has gotten triple of his investment, he couldn’t at least sell part of it to retain some profit in case market should fall. So it’s normal thing here, a lot of people do it.

I think people can bring success in their life no matter what they do but if you want to trade with your own money you must trade with your own currency you want to trade online and you want to earn money by trading then of course I  I think you need some time because if you find a good trading partner then of course I think you can move your life forward very easily with trading income.

I think that at this moment many have the success syndrome, but they should not be trusted, because many times you have to expect the unexpected, the important thing is; If you are winning that you know how you are winning, not that you are winning without knowing or because you are lucky, the best thing is to win but knowing what methods you use or what strategies you use, because in the bullish market it is very difficult to lose, when the Corrections, when there is a bearish stage it is where many lose most of their money or their great part, it is when they say or draw conclusions that they never learned or why they lost if they were doing so well.

The best thing is to always make reflections as you win or lose, a great speculator of the 1800s was called Jesse Livermore, he became a millionaire 5 times and 5 times he went bankrupt, finally he recovered but a great lesson was to learn from the experiences of himself and accept them, I think that was his great learning.

There are lots of people for sure that have got into the same situation after gaining their first profit through trading is that they are putting extra into their first capital into the thinking that double the capital will gain double the rewards. It must just come into the wrong move that people will be making is to think it will apply all at the consecutive time having no precautions and putting all your capital all at the same point wanting for that double reward and gain can really lead to loss and that is very awful for many have underestimated on how market changes having them losses rather than gains. Always remember not to put all your capital in one blow just because you have attained good results at first trial. Better to think first of managing what you input so that potential loss will not slap you real hard.

Traders that are not profitable most of the time are like that not because of lack of opportunities but because they are unable to curb their greed, as the example given by the OP her friend had tremendous profits already, asking for more than that was just greed and instead of selling when she had the opportunity she kept waiting for profits that never materialized.

This is why people need to set objectives when they make a trade and once those objectives are reached they need to sell, it is true that sometimes you are going to sell sooner and you may miss the top but it is way more likely that you will sell before an important crash and you are able to retain most of the profits you obtained during the time you kept your trade open.

Lucky the holders when the  price move like how BTC behaves now, but if not it will be not profitable by just holding, there are more chances to earn in trading especially now that the market is active and there are plenty of coins that can also give us profit if were able to buy and sell them at a right time. It’s hard to determine when the price will rise so as long as were in profit we can just consider it success to avoid regretting too much in trading.

This has often happened in trade circles. Where they hold the coin regardless of the height limit, they are too sure the currency will continue to increase continuously without any prediction.

Usually happens to a beginner, who trades or invests his funds. They make a profit but are still not satisfied with what they are getting and instead choose to hold the coins to the point they want. Even though they already know the currency price will fall in time, the mistake is to continue believing and hold the coin for a bigger profit.

Supposedly, sell if you feel that you are getting enough profit, especially if the profits you get have reached twice the initial capital. I think it is more than enough to sell, if you are the one who continues to hold on to the currency, then leave a small part of the capital to remain on hold on the coin, so you can monitor the ups and downs of the price and buy it again, if the price is normal and goes up again.

This is one of the most common mistakes in trading. People tend to be greedy if they are seeing the money the invested in being doubled. They feel like it can go higher just like your friend who thought that she can make her money tripled. Being greedy is a rookie and newbie mistake. We can never tell where the drop will come and so we need to set a strategy and respect our exit plan in order to secure profits. Profit is profit. You can always look for other opportunities if you already secured to the profit. This is the beauty of trading. We have endless opportunities so never focus on one trade and be greedy about it. Some may be successful in to that greedy trade but most will not. A good trading strategy is the one that will give you more profit in the long run.

When you are just new into this market then most likely you would able to commit such mistake due to inexperience towards this market.

We are just humans which emotions cant really be that controlled if you arent aware on things that could possibly happen this is why we do see every now and then those people who had
whine off just because they had missed out an opportunity to make money due to greed or too much waiting.

If you do really like to succeed then always secure out profits when you do see gains.Accumulate or try to compound it.

Exactly there are so many ways in which the friend of the OP could have protected her profits and yet she did not do it, for example one of the most simple strategies when your money has doubled is to sell half of your coins, if you do this and then the market crashes at least you did not lose any money and you are back at square one.

But if the market keeps growing then you can keep getting profits, but a person like that will never implement this kind of strategy as they are being blinded by greed and they think that if they sell half of their coins then their profits will get smaller too, not realizing that if they are mistaken their capital will go down to the point it will be almost impossible tor recover what they lost.

Exactly what i did whenever i went into pump and dump groups to make investment. Sometimes the problem with these investors is greediness, they are very much greedy with their profits, instead of picking out their profits; they will rather keep them until the market start crashing and after the crash they start crying fowls on the Internets. The profit you take when before the market start crashing is your profit and not what you saw in your portfolios.

Emotional trading will lead to such bad consequences, there is no perfect time to leave the market, just do it when it is necessary to do so. Greed and fear can eat the trading capital if used recklessly. Trading is not a game, we don't have a second chance to trade the same market patterns at a unique time. From another approach, if your friend sold the coin on a 20% pump the continuation of the bullish trend will be pain for him. The pain we feel as trader is caused by either greed or fear, so never decide with emotions. The emotionless trading is possible, we just need to sit tight before acting. Patience will be rewarded sooner or later, from my trading experience.

Everybody likes to have perfect trades from time to time on where they do really target out to exit nor enter the market on the best time as possible.
When they do saw that it did price drop or increase even more after they had done their move then that would really be making out some emotional
feeling that you have must wait a little bit more but what if you do see the other way around where things go to opposite way?
Securing profits aspite of the price will always be considered as a good call because gains are gains and theres no taking it back.
Dont rush up because people do make mistakes due to this kind of behavior.

Had she listened it would have been a successful trade, that right there is probably a great lesson for her to learn early on in trading. Sometimes you really have got to get burnt to never want to play with fire again. Better to take these licks now and learn from them, Ive done it, we have all done it.

What happened to your friend was experienced by many traders, because sometimes we really have to feel that way in order to learn to control our
emotions when trading. Sometimes it is difficult to control the greed that we have, so stick to the plan is something that must be done. I think this is
an opportunity for you to motivate your friends again, if cryptocurrency is very volatile. So if it crashes, soon the market will quickly recover.

So starting all over again, try to give advice again to your friend not to repeat the same mistakes. I'm sure your friends can become successful traders,
because if someone fails to keep trying to get up, success will come naturally. Because experiencing losses in crypto trading is common and experienced
by all traders, but how do we get up and fix mistakes. This may not be owned by all traders.

Tell your friend that it's ok. It really happened to most traders.

Your friend will never understand the risks if all his trading will be winning.

A simple, charge to experience. I hope your friend knows already what to do next time.

I have TWT too, binance has given me the token because I've traded in the certain time. Until now I still hold this coin although as your friend feel when the coin has a high price I keep hold the coin, never sold them. Actually, I still got profited if I sell now, at that time 100 TWT only has a price $15 but now the 100 TWT is priced around $60. 

Actually, it depends on your friend intention. If you she still comfortable to hold the coin then there will be an opportunity for the price back to increase. But, if she just feel lament because she didn't sell the coin when the price is high I suggest to sell her investment now. She will be regretted and her target will be high and it is not good the investment based on her greedy and never know the strategy behind the movement price of the coin.

That's it.
Usually, impatient people will suffer losses, regrets, and disappointment. However, HOLDing also is a kind of trap, why? It is because this also a reason why we miss a huge opportunity and we think that holding for so long will see the market moving high.

As mentioned by OP, his friend rejected selling his coin during its ATH because he overly thinking that it continues to surge, he forgot about the nature of volatility and ended up full of regrets and desperation.

I agree with your point but it doesn't make sense to continue trading if the target has been met. According to the trading plan, if the target is 3% daily, better to take it and leave the market, greedy traders will want to take all pips on the market but it is meaningless after one point. Lets keep it simple and obey the rules we preset before starting the trading journey, otherwise, it is not too far to get rekt in case of a huge drop. Even one single red candle is enough to clear the major market players from the market after margin calls, stop-outs.

Too much greediness will certainly ruin us and this is what happens to your friend.

I have this bad experience as well in the previous Bullrun. I thought everything will be fine, I thought the market will continue to move high, If you see on the speculations board that time, everyone is very positive and optimistic but suddenly, dumps come and give me the nightmare.

And from that, I learned a lot, and that we don't be positive always but also, we need to analyze the market if we have to sell or just hold.

Hehe yeah and greed is the absolute description of watching your coins go high and low but not selling them.

I don't think anyone can help with how greedy someone is and the only possible way to avoid loss is that when you failed to sell at the peak price, at least sell it quickly once the price is dropping again. Like if the price touched $100 and you missed and it is dropping then at least sell at $90 before it eventually comes down to the original value or maybe even below.

Everything is happening virtually so whatever you manage to cash is your actual profit.

I think that most people lose their money like this precisely because they do not have a plan, whenever you make a trade you cannot assume that you are going to win, obviously that is what we want but we need to have plans for every single circumstance that can happen in the market.

For example what happens if the market begins to go against your prediction, how long will you hold your coins? How much money are you willing to lose while you hope for a reversal? Will you buy the dip? And obviously you need to plan for success as well, what will you do if the price goes up more than what you thought? Will you keep holding? For how long? Will you buy even more coins? Until you have the answer to those questions then there is no point in trading or investing in the markets at all.

Me too, it did really give me out some lesson in life and having those common line to be followed "Buy when everyone is on fear and sell when everyone is greedy"

This is the thing ive been following now when it comes to market trend.I have committed the same mistake as yours on that first bull run we do have where

everything is hyping and growing without realizing that I should have secured out my profits while its still at peak but due to greed you would really be
ending up on holding up and ask for more until you realized that its too late since the market had already flipped out.

Well sometimes it is unavoidable, like when you really need some money. You won't care about the trends happening around you anymore like "is everyone looking for some coins to be grabbed by those who panic sells?" or "is everyone looking to sell right now because of the bull run and wouldn't just hold a bit to get to the ATH".
I made the same mistake like back in 2018, especially when Bitcoin went below 7k like I thought I could never find opportunity to buy again then it fell below 5k.
It was one of my memorable mistakes.