I've experienced 3 market cycles now and it always feels like this.

Storytime. I think I can almost be considered an OG by now. Recently, I've started to observe my emotions more seriously during the market moves and I've had valuable insights while doing so: what I am feeling right now is probably very close to what many other investors are feeling. This is great to know. It helps me to estimate how the market might react in real time.

I've joined this sub in 2013 and my first buy was in Dec 2013 during an epic leg up. Bitcoin crashed upwards like I've never seen again. Incredibly, though, I almost timed the top perfectly and bought in right before it crashed down again, ultimately moving from around 1k to 350 or so. Imagine my feelies. I was naive and very new. But the reason I've joined was a bit different than the reasons moon bois are joining today. Back then, Bitcoin was pure magic. And it was subversive. It was a big F U you to the banks. That was the selling argument. And it was always clear to me since then that Bitcoin is either going to 0 or to infinity. I still believe that today.

After my first buy, I was in the red immediately. Double digit percent loss. But my conviction was strong. I've spent the next months reading and understanding BTC. I've practiced with lots of different wallets, I've sent transactions around (they were still free back then, yes, 0 transaction fees) and generally got comfortable with using it. I noticed that, yes, this technology is insane, and yes, I can send anything to anyone, it takes a couple minutes, and yes, it's almost free, and yes, nobody can do anything about it.

Remember, I was a complete noob who was down 25%, 50%, 65% his investment. But I'm not an idiot. I know it will go to infinity and the chance of it going to zero is so low that I've decided to keep buying like a retard. I've started putting almost all the money I've got into it (I was a very poor student back in the days, don't get too excited). I figured "the lower my buy-in price is, the earlier I will be in the green". Long story short, I've been red for almost two f*cking years. Can you imagine being red for two years and still keep buying? One part of me was extremely scared ("I am YOLOing all of my money into this thing that might just fail") and extremely bullish at the same time ("this shit will go to infinity but it might take a couple decades").

Then 2017 came and we've experienced a wild increase of the price to 20k. Even my family got involved at some point because they've seen my huge gains and got FOMO. My mother turned her 5k into an equivalent of 50k. They started to interfere with my plan and give me (well meant) suggestions on when I should sell. Of course they didn't get it, they are too old to imagine a cyber future where this stash of satoshis will be the ultimate commodity. There was insane FUD around, including the biggest FUD I've ever seen, which was the block size wars (look them up if you don't remember it). Then the crash of 2018 came and everything evaporated.

However, from this bull run onwards, I've never been in a loss ever again. The price never went lower than my average buy-in but that actually made my feelies even harder to manage. Now my thoughts weren't "Oh no, you could end up with a loss" but "OH NO YOU MIGHT END UP BEING TOO STUPID TO TAKE A PROFIT" which was way more frightening and ego-crushing. Although I had hands made of diamonds, I've had several moments in the year-long crash that followed where I almost sold. We saw 20k, 10k, even 6k, and I still believe that the fact that I use a hardware wallet (and not keep my sats on an exchange) is what ultimately saved me from making one of the biggest mistakes of my life, which would've been selling my stash at 6k.

Fast forward 2020. How things can change. The covid crash to 3500 was completely different. I've seen the price drop in real time which triggered the most bullish sentiment in me that I've ever experienced. Without a doubt of seeing this as an incredible opportunity to buy, I threw a bunch of money in and converted it to BTC. I knew that BTC was on a fire sale! And then we've seen the beautiful (but this time not so mind-bending) bull run of 2020.

Now, BTC is not only about cypher punks anymore. The game is world domination. I started to understand the waaaaaay bigger implications that this will bring to the world. Money is broken. The world is broken. Our governments are going nuts. Our politicians are noobs. And society is full of fear. I wonder if there is an asset that is invincible and that spreads freedom tech by infiltrating the hearts of people by promising them huge gains... Mhhhh!

And now we're here. I look around this sub and all I see is myself. Many new people in this sub, many people afraid of losing their hard-earned money. I completely get it. It's how I felt. It is a lot harder to stomach if you haven't put in the time to learn about the tech. But that's why we're in this sub, to support each other. And I'm not saying that to sound corny, I'm saying that because I've experienced it 100% myself. Without this sub, I wouldn't have been able to recharge my batteries, rethink my strategy, reaffirm my conviction, and observe the development of bitcoin in real time. I wouldn't have seen masses of people giving emotional support to each other, because at the end of the day, this is what controls these price movements. Emotions.

So, if you feel afraid right now. If you feel like you've made a huge mistake, if you feel like this could've been a bad decision, then good, this is what a huge part of the market is thinking right now. Observe your feelings, judge them with distance, extrapolate them to the masses of people also looking at exactly the same chart as you do. And start using that information for you. Fear is a part of the equation and the reason I've written up this long-ass post is so you can appreciate this without having to go through hell first, like I did. What you are feeling right now is almost "priced in". Money can be made when there is blood on the streets.

That's my advice. Do not buy the next best shitcoin. Nothing is even close to becoming a "replacement" for BTC. Ask yourself why you like Bitcoin, learn as much as you possibly can (I highly recommend listening to the hundreds of hours of articles in the Bitcoin Audible Podcast) and keep stacking if you know why you're doing it. That's it, I'm out! Peace!

TL;DR: Breath in, breath out, and HODL!

Edit: Wow this one blew up. Thanks for all the kind words, I'm happy that I could help at least some of you. If you're interested in learning more on the macro view of Bitcoin (which is the rabbit hole that I've been falling into the last couple months), check out ???? this reading list that I've compiled with a bunch of great articles.

Edit 2: To all the FUD accounts that suddenly started swarming in: I know you, I can see you, and we all noticed that you move in groups. This one is for you:????