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That's a sound plan and it is probably what I would do, except I am basically out of the trading game as my trading fiat is practically depleted. I will probably just throw it sooner than later to buy a little bit more but, it won't make any difference. As I say it is too little.
I had been playing around with my buy orders over the past 5-6 months, so I had not systematically reset them, sort of assuming that the price would give some warning before going down so much. So, there was a bit of gravitation from me, too, towards running out of fiat - especially when more buy orders were filled at higher prices and left me less to work with.
So one thing that I do, when I get kind of desperate is that I won't be able to sell unless I am selling higher than I bought, so that remains one of the problems with running out of buy orders, then the range becomes BIGGER and BIGGER in that the price has to go up higher before a sell order is triggered (which is higher than a buy order).
I kind of get it, but there does seem to be a kind of way to reset the matter, just playing with smaller amounts.
I recall when I first started selling above $255 or something like that. My amounts were so small that one of my friends told me that I was just wasting my time, so each order was like $5 or something like that. But, my point is that even with small amounts, you can stack up positions and get back in business, even if the amounts are smaller and they build on each other.. maybe starting out with the minimum order amounts. little by little you can build back up and stay in the game...
I understand that you already decided, but I cannot resist making that point, and a bit of argument that I had with a few people that I introduced to bitcoin and showed them how to stay in the game and to practice, and they lose their attention for it, and say that the amounts are too small, and then when the BIGGER opportunities come, they don't have systems in place because they weren't practicing at all... I am not saying that you are doing that, but I am suggesting that it is good to stay in the game, even if the amounts become really small... not just for you, but for anyone who wants to attempt to accumulate BTC and use their cash flow and attempt to stay active no matter where the BTC price goes - even when it corrects way beyond expectations.
Of course, you don't have to disclose some of the feelings of embarrassment of how little or how pathetic the situation seems, but sometimes staying active might even be a matter of spreading out allocations so far .... like currently buy amount at the seeming extremes of $2,500 and $8k, and then just slowly adding until they narrow.. and when they narrow because something triggers, you might be back in the game.. just in a really small way... then building and building slowly.
Contrary to the 2013-2014 downtrend where I was able to almost double my BTC count I haven't played my cards well this time. I was overconfident that once $10K was breached on the uptrend (something I did not expected to happen so soon, but in a few more years IF lucky) it would act as a support/bottom. More so when the ATH reached almost double than that.
I really don't think that the situation is much different from 2013-14 - and so far this situation has been less severe, it seems to me.
Nonetheless, I understand that if you may have been playing your positions badly then you might have exacerbated, like you said, by expectations that fell out of line with what actually happened, so far.
So I not only sold too little from $10K to $19K but I depleted most of it rebuying on the way down to $10K. Under $10K I was already out of my plan and could only do some scrapping on the volatility here and there.
Those things certainly make sense to me, and if you leveraged, then you are even in a worse situation. Hopefully, you did not leverage... and you don't need to disclose too much if you don't want to....
My plan does remain to play smaller amounts when I fuck up and even to spreadout the intervals, but I am repeating myself. Believe me I have not played all situations well, and I have been locked out of doing anything for a while because I mostly wait for the price to come to me, or at least let the situation calm down for a while before I might adjust my own position to be closer to the price in order to get back in the game, if only at a slight loss (which sometimes is moving profits around)
Also scrapping on the volatility was way better/easier right after the 2013 ATH than it is now, for three reasons:
- The volatility was brutal, with huge flash spikes all over the place.
I know that some of the slopes are different, but overall, I still cannot see the situation to have been that different from the 2014 period... the only thing is that we have not had that additional fall from $400-ish to $200-ish.. which would be a drop to $2k ish.. which I still hope does not happen, here.
- Arbitrage and bots were not as advanced, and there were a few seconds delay between huobi (where most big movements originated) and Bitstamp action. So it was possible to outrun other traders if you were quick.
I will agree that there were a lot fewer exchanges to choose from, and likely there are more bots and more abilities to short bitcoin, currently.. but I still remain unclear about how the arbitrage was that different, just different exchanges..
- I was trading much more aggressively and with most of my stash. This time I tried to maintain my exchanges exposure to the same in fiat valuation, extracting BTC periodically to cold storage to achieve that target. I ended with only around 5-10% of my stash online and, even then, only a minor part of it in FIAT.
I lessened the percentage amount of my value that was on exchanges, too. I just put as much BTC as was necessary to set orders up to certain amounts if the price went up... and fiat generated from the sales.. attempting to keep fiat constant...
Likely it is an ongoing process (job) to attempt to keep your ratios in proper balance.
I did not adapt to the circumstances, or better yet my interpretation of the circumstances was incorrect.
could be that you were preparing too much for one direction... even though I kept denying the likelihood of downfall, I continuously maintained preparation, just in case.. at least down to $3k and perhaps $1k.. but that caused me to make sure that I had enough fiat out, too... so yeah, it can be possible to run out of fiat, mostly when buying too much and not preparing for down (even if that down does not seem likely).
I thought the market had already matured enough that a correction as deep as the previous was out of question. I fooled myself.
Well that part we should know that manipulators are going to attempt to pull all stops to manipulate as much as they can get away with.
I would not call it maturity, but I agree that there is a certain level of acceptance that it is going to be difficult for manipulators to break certain lines of support, especially when the price goes up so much and seemingly a lot of rich peeps have bought higher.. but they frequently seem to persist and use coins and information and disinformation and fud and drama and of course these various other stupid ass coins that should not even affect the price of BTC, which is also going to be ETH and its shit and stupid stable coins that are coming on the scene, too. Manipulators going to manipulate and use the trend and get others to sell and make the low price seem inevitable which causes lemmings to jump off the cliff....
so yeah, fuck the bear manipulators, but they are not going to give up until they have no choice... which some folks like majormax (and even hairy bearie) are more strongly suggesting that more down is inevitable.. Shit I am not going to give into their inevitability conclusions, but I am going to continue to prepare psychologically and financialy for the possibility that their version of events could end up playing out.
Still I have been able to "beat the market" in the sense that I end with a bit more BTC (which is always my goal) but for me is a failure.
I am thinking that it does not work out so well when you are not able to continue to accumulate and you become too BTC heavy...
Yeah, I am down to only about 4% fiat... so I do lose a lot more value with falling BTC prices as compared with rising BTC prices, but even 4% does seem to be enough to play with and keep accumulating and keep buying, at least some BTC if the prices keep going down.
Anyway, current price is more or less in line with my previous expectation so, in a sense, everything is going according to my plan as if the FOMO/bubble phase of the last bullrun didn't ever happen.
actually, that part is true.
The BTC market performed about 3x to 5x greater than the most bullish of 2017 expectations, so our current correction does cause BTC prices to be around the ballpark of the price of the high of the prior expectations. There is that.
I only feel a bit saddened for not having taken advantage of the opportunity of, at least, doubling again and for not having done anything when I indeed knew in december that this had to implode.
It seems a bit greedy to me to expect to double again.
All I want to achieve is a kind of ability to have more BTC the next time around, even if that is just 10% or 20% the next time that it gets to $20k... Maybe my expectations are too low? I don't really expect doubling of my stash, yet I am not usually too sure about the comparisons until the situation plays out, and there are some other things going on too in terms of how much fiat and ratios and maybe other valuable positionings (kind of like insurance that is stronger the next time it goes up).
My target is not to reach a price where I cash it all out but to have a stash that even when bottoming I still have enough to "retire" so I won't have to care about price shenanigans anymore. That will only be possible if Bitcoin really succeeds. So that's where my main bet is. Will try to play my cards better next time, though.
Actually, I had to tweak my plans in that regard too.
Earlier, in 2015-2016, I was thinking that I would be cashing out large portions of BTC, and after the rise to 2017, I figured out that the theory does not fit so well with the practice, and there are actually good ways to accumulate a lot of cash without really cashing out large portions of the BTC.. and surely, if you know for sure about real estate or something specifically that you want to acquire, then of course, you might strategically cash out a larger portion to achieve those kinds of diversification (whether consumptive or investments).
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