I sold at $57, fml.

[awakening]

I'm just waiting to go below $65 before buying back what I accidentally sold.
I went to sleep and forgot I had a sell order at $75. Bad wake up finding my coins gone
Now I hope for a little dip to $60 or below and I can get rid of those nasty dollars waiting there

If It goes to 60$ or lower I'm going all in. Right now I don't have coins again.   
I just feel bad without bitcoins, so I will buy them, put in cold storage, and stop staring at the chart 24 hours a day.

[pyromaniac]

I bought bitcoins twice: first time for $4.5 second time for $11 in last december. And I would not sell it untill $500 for BTC because after popularisation their price will grow up dramatically.

[Geist]

I bought bitcoins twice: first time for $4.5 second time for $11 in last december. And I would not sell it untill $500 for BTC because after popularisation their price will grow up dramatically.

That's an understatement. It's used by people all over the world, if it gets to just 1% usage the price of a single bit coin could go up to 10k, and considering the state of fiat currencies today, an alternative could become very appealing to a lot of people.

[tonto]

You should ask yourself why you decided to sell. You say you bought some of them at 2$. That indicates you have been here for a while, at least longer than I have.

Did you somehow stop believing in the future of Bitcoin? Was it just a panic atac? Try to pinpoint the feelings that triggered your decision and make a mental note of them, and be alert next time those thoughts come into your brain.

 
I sell/trade at various points because it lets me buy shit that my wife wouldn't agree to let me use "real" money with.  Such as an AR-15, paintball gear, silver bars, kick-ass computer equipment, etc, etc.   So don't feel bad.
 
My range of trading has been as low as me selling at $5 and as high as selling at $50.
 
I value tangible objects, but this current roller-coaster ride has me in a holding pattern at the moment.

[David M]

I just thought I would add this little nugget I learnt from being a futures trader and adviser for 20 years..

80% of the people whole trade lose money
10% break even
5% make money
5% make good money

Every single trader believes they will "make good money".

[Luis_GT]

I've almost quadruple my investment... so I can say I made good money... lol

[rupy]

If you are going to sell. Sell in small increments over time. Not all at once.

If you average your price over months you will get a better deal more than likely.

THIS! I sold 20 BTC from 30$ to 100$, and I totally don't feel bad because:

1) If BTC goes below 50$ I can buy at gain = I don't mind BTC crashing.
2) If BTC goes above 100$ my remaining BTC are worth more = I don't mind BTC bubbling.

Win-Win sort of.

The important is the revolution of the mind (the technology), greed is just sad!

It's still all completely proportionate. You're just spreading your risk I guess..

Yes

[Rallye]

You guys have no idea how bad I am feeling right now.

I sold at 65 last night...  bought back in at 94 today.  lost 600 bucks.  I feel like shit, that was about 1/4 my total savings.  all this after coming up from 20 to 21.5 btc.  now i have 14.

[Elwar]

We still have the weekend dip coming. If it does not rise too much today and tomorrow it may come back to the 80s or so.

[johnniewalker]

selling at $57 was really stupid and if you really don't know what you're doing then you're better off out of Bitcoin. That's the whole thing with the crash, get rid of weak hands.

lol no mercy

[johnniewalker]

hold=gold

[b!z]

We still have the weekend dip coming. If it does not rise too much today and tomorrow it may come back to the 80s or so.

i'm too late for that.

[shmadz]

I like this thread.  ---Even though I have some suspicion that the OP is just trollin'...

BUT - for the purposes of this thread - I have suspended my automatic response that everyone on the internet lies.

Soooo, I thought I'd tell my story of failure during the first bubble. Perhaps the OP can take some solace from the tale. I'd like to title it:



"A Short History of Woe and Enlightenment"

I first heard about bitcoin around late March 2011 - shortly after the Fukushima incident. (*footnote* - I personally was 100% completely asleep until this moment. I probably still would be if I didn't have friends who were living in Japan at the time. This caused me to start looking into things and realizing that the world was not as I had imagined)

Even though I'm kind of a hardware geek, I still didn't really get into bitcoin at that time (first mistake) - It wasn't until bitcoin hit 2, then 3, then 4+ that I actually looked into mining. I already had a 5850, but as the price continued to climb, I bought more and more hardware. As the price continued to rise, I was hooked. I started telling everyone I knew about how cool bitcoin was. (second mistake)

And then the collapse, and that infamous string of unfortunate incidents and bad press. My friends all thought I was a fool. I didn't sell on the way up, I didn't sell on the way down. I told myself that this thing I had discovered was real, that it did have value. I refused to sell for anything less than 30. "Once it recovers back to 30, then I'll sell and pay off these video cards." This limit changed to 20, 15, 10... Finally I broke. I sold enough to cover my initial costs for the cards, and a little extra just for "bragging rights".

Looking back, I didn't really sell because I couldn't afford to lose the money I had spent on hardware. I sold so that I could tell my friends that I hadn't lost money on bitcoin, that I wasn't a fool. (first lesson learned)

Then the tide turned. Bitcoin didn't fall to zero, didn't fail, at least not yet. I don't remember exactly when the 7970 came out, or what the price of bitcoin was at the time, but I decided to make an investment (4 cards cost me $2600 CAD at the time, THAT part I remember) - This time it was different. This time I didn't care what my friends or anyone else thought. (second lesson learned. and all my friends thought I was completely nuts, btw)

The rest, as they say, is history. There have been many mistakes and lessons learned. The most important part is to be honest with yourself. Sure, It's difficult to admit to others when you've made a mistake, but it can be much more difficult to be impartial enough to admit to yourself that you've made a mistake. If you can achieve this, however, you will then be able to look back at your decisions, analyze, and then move boldly on to the many new mistakes you will make in the future.


p.s. I have no idea if selling at 57, buying at 90, or any of this will turn out to be a mistake, or a gloriously fortuitous decision. One can only hope to make the best decisions they can at the time, and learn from the results.

[ruski]

I sold out at 62, dont feel bad. Looking forward to the next plunge.

[darkmule]

Sold just a few at $180 on the way up.  Felt silly for a few hours 

[adamstgBit]

I sold at ~25, and then i watched in awe! 

I still a good stash, so no regrets!

[relm9]

You guys have no idea how bad I am feeling right now.

I sold at 65 last night...  bought back in at 94 today.  lost 600 bucks.  I feel like shit, that was about 1/4 my total savings.  all this after coming up from 20 to 21.5 btc.  now i have 14.

Sell low, buy high 

In all seriousness that does suck, I wouldn't of went all in at $94 though. Should have staggered your purchases throughout the day... would've gotten a lower average cost.

[thoughtfan]

I just thought I would add this little nugget I learnt from being a futures trader and adviser for 20 years..

80% of the people whole trade lose money
10% break even
5% make money
5% make good money

Every single trader believes they will "make good money".

A few more considerations to add to this:

Very many people who trade don't really know how much they've made nor lost primarily because their record keeping is rubbish.

Many more people who trade believe they've done OK than actually have (which I think is a reason bad record-keeping is so common because not knowing allows one to keep the success delusion going).

I have noticed the trend in success report posting when usd/btc was on the way up tended to express their success in $ whereas since the ratio was going down success tends to be reported in increased btc holding.  Making USD when the price was on its way up was 'easy'.  But if the end-goal was increased btc holding how many of those who believe they 'did well' actually held more btc at its peak than had they just bought and held?  Making BTC when the price was on its way down was also 'easy'.  But if the end-goal was to make more usd how many of those who believe they did well actually made more by trading than they would have had they just sold first opportunity on the way down and stopped trading?

And just another couple of considerations that may be worth contemplating:

most people have an idea when to get in to a trade but many many don't at the point of entry have a clear strategy as to when to exit - for if it goes well and for if it goes against them.

Many people who trade do not have a clearly defined policy regarding how much money (whether btc or fiat) one's trading capital is and how one decides for each trade what proportion of the 'bank' to trade.  I would even venture to hazard a guess that most people trading fiat and btc haven't really decided which of the two to treat as one's bank and therefore don't even have a clear picture as to what an 'open' position is (if you think of your bank in fiat an 'open' position is when you own bitcoin with the intent to sell for fiat profit whereas if you think of your bank in bitcoin your 'bank' is when you've bought some fiat with the purpose of selling it back for bitcoin).

Oh and one more... Heads up to the OP for reporting a lost trade and redressing the balance somewhat.  It is easy to get the impression from reading the forums that a large proportion of those who trade do well most of the time and do very well fairly frequently.  The most likely reason for that in my opinion is that people don't tend to report their losses.  I say this because it might be tempting for those not trading to join in the fun because it's 'so easy' to make loads.  I'm not saying it's not - just that you may not be getting a representative impression just from reading the forums!

I should make it clear for anyone keen to take any of my 'wisdom' on board that I am not a trader and have never had much success trading.  However I have spent a lot of time learning enough about it to be comfortable not trading!* To the extent that I have a 'bank' is in bitcoin and I am delighted to have not lost - neither on the way up nor the way down simply by holding!

* Just as the book that has 'made' me most money is John Mullins' The New Business Road Test: What Entrepeneurs and Executives Should Do Before Writing a Business Plan - not because I have had many successful business ventures (or even one) since reading it but because I've not kept trying loads of apparently brilliant business ideas of mine on whim meaning I've stopped wasting time and money on ones that were almost certainly to have failed!

[deadweasel]

I just thought I would add this little nugget I learnt from being a futures trader and adviser for 20 years..

80% of the people whole trade lose money
10% break even
5% make money
5% make good money

Every single trader believes they will "make good money".

A few more considerations to add to this:

Very many people who trade don't really know how much they've made nor lost primarily because their record keeping is rubbish.

Many more people who trade believe they've done OK than actually have (which I think is a reason bad record-keeping is so common because not knowing allows one to keep the success delusion going).

I have noticed the trend in success report posting when usd/btc was on the way up tended to express their success in $ whereas since the ratio was going down success tends to be reported in increased btc holding.  Making USD when the price was on its way up was 'easy'.  But if the end-goal was increased btc holding how many of those who believe they 'did well' actually held more btc at its peak than had they just bought and held?  Making BTC when the price was on its way down was also 'easy'.  But if the end-goal was to make more usd how many of those who believe they did well actually made more by trading than they would have had they just sold first opportunity on the way down and stopped trading?

And just another couple of considerations that may be worth contemplating:

most people have an idea when to get in to a trade but many many don't at the point of entry have a clear strategy as to when to exit - for if it goes well and for if it goes against them.

Many people who trade do not have a clearly defined policy regarding how much money (whether btc or fiat) one's trading capital is and how one decides for each trade what proportion of the 'bank' to trade.  I would even venture to hazard a guess that most people trading fiat and btc haven't really decided which of the two to treat as one's bank and therefore don't even have a clear picture as to what an 'open' position is (if you think of your bank in fiat an 'open' position is when you own bitcoin whereas if you think of your bank in bitcoin your 'bank' is when you've bought some fiat with the purpose of selling it back for bitcoin).

Oh and one more... Heads up to the OP.  It is easy to get the impression from reading the forums that a large proportion of those who trade do well most of the time and do very well fairly frequently.  The most likely reason for that in my opinion is that people don't tend to report their losses.  I say this because it might be tempting for those not trading to join in the fun because it's 'so easy' to make loads.  I'm not saying it's not - just that you may not be getting a representative impression just from reading the forums!

I should make it clear for anyone keen to take any of my 'wisdom' on board that I am not a trader and have never had much success trading.  However I have spent a lot of time learning enough about it to be comfortable not trading!* To the extent that I have a 'bank' is in bitcoin and I am delighted to have not lost - neither on the way up nor the way down simply by holding!

* Just as the book that has 'made' me most money is John Mullins' The New Business Road Test: What Entrepeneurs and Executives Should Do Before Writing a Business Plan - not because I have had many successful business ventures (or even one) since reading it but because I've not kept trying loads of apparently brilliant business ideas of mine on whim meaning I've stopped wasting time and money on ones that were almost certainly to have failed!

This is great advice.  Thank you for sharing!     I need to get my records in order.  They went to hell at about $98/BTC. 

[Realpra]

You can't predict markets short term, its gambling.

Even if you are 100% correct in your logic, short-term it is so random that it will not help you.
You can "cheat" by trading faster (with robo-trading, which can also fail when unexpected events occur) or spend resources gathering information about where the market is headed (which you can't do short-term unless you are MtGox).

Even IF you correctly called both peak and bottom you have to remember that volume at those points is likely to be very low ie. not many sold at 50 or bought at 260 so you might not have been able to do that trade even WITH perfect information. (+MtGox was down some of the time)

(If you search me on the forum you might see that I predicted a bubble/crash in early 2013 back in Nov/Dec last YEAR and I still didn't try to trade this because in 2 years BTC will be higher than 260$ ea. and I didn't know the exact top/bottom.
Why trade for a few hundred bucks, risking thousands, when holding may make me a freaking millionaire in a few years time?
Start of April I guessed 60$/225$, but I also guessed wrong before that, who will bet 1000-10.000$ on a random guess they made?)


If you believe in Bitcoin for good reasons then buy in again immediately and don't trade/worry for some years, things take time.
If in doubt leave some in Bitcoin and invest in other things with your other money.
If you don't believe in Bitcoin for good reasons then sell/stay out and invest in something else.