The Psychology of a Bitcoin Holder

How to become a Bitcoin holder? You need The right Mindset!

You will make the most money if you think longterm!
I received my first Bitcoins in 2013 and this is my story how I became a Bitcoin holder.

What is a Bitcoin holder?
A Bitcoin holder is someone who doesn't do short-term trades, who doesn't watch the chart every day.
A Bitcoin holder sees Bitcoin as a long-term investment. You don't sell, you only rebuy and watch your investment grow.

How I became a Bitcoin holder:
As I said, I had my first Bitcoins in 2013.
Did I hold them? Did I become a Bitcoin Millionaire?
No I don't! I only became a holder in 2017 after I changed my Mindset.

In 2013 the Bitcoin Community was relatively small.
Most people were not interrested in Bitcoin because of the potential Profit, but because of the Idea and the Technology behind it.
I am a Programmer myself and the first thing I did was reading the source code, then reading in some forums about Bitcoin and how people are using it, how Bitcoin mining works, etc.

After I was reading into it for a couple of days I thought wow, we have a decentralized and anonymous payment system. No bank or government can ever block your account, there is no inflation, it's fast, it's safe, no chargebacks, the currency is created by mining which is decentralized too.
I was immediately fascinated and I thought maybe I should invest some money in it.
But then I thought:

"Damn, 1 Bitcoin now costs $40. I wish I knew about Bitcoin when it was only worth $1. If I would have invested just $1000 back then, I would have $40.000 now. I don't think it will grow much more now. I am too late."

And I decided not to invest in it.

But what I did was using Bitcoin whereever I could. Back then a Bitcoin transaction cost only a few cents and only took a few minutes. So I used it as an alternative to PayPal.
I got paid by customers in Bitcoins, I cashed out Revenues in Bitcoins and I paid things that I bought online with Bitcoins whenever there was a possibility to pay with Bitcoins. I even ordered Pizza with Bitcoins.
By the end of every month I usually paid out most of the Bitcoins I had left on my wallet and just kept a few in case I want to buy something.

The time went by and Bitcoin was growing. Just a few months after I discovered Bitcoin, it went to $800 by the end of 2013 and I thought:

"Damn, I wish I would have invested in Bitcoin when it was at $40. Then I would be rich now. But now it's at $800 and there is no way it will ever go higher than that. I am too late."

Years went by and I kept using Bitcoin like I always did. Sometimes it went up and I made some profit, sometimes it went down and I lost some money.

This is a Screenshot from September 2014 of Bitcoins that I sold on localbitcoins.com

As you can see, I sold roughly 13.6 BTC for 4350€
1 BTC was worth between 350€ and 300€ at that time and I have lost some money there, because they were worth about 390€ each when I received them late August / early September.

I was never holding Bitcoin for too long because I didn't want to lose much in case it went down.

Then, in 2017 Bitcoin was growing drasticly. Many Investors discovered Bitcoin, the mainstream media, TV, Newspapers began to talk about Bitcoin on a regular basis and suddenly everybody talks about Bitcoin and everybody wants to own Bitcoins.

Mid 2017 Bitcoin went up to $3000 and again I thought:

"Damn, I wish I would have kept some of my Bitcoins that I received over last the few years. If I would have kept every Bitcoin that I've ever received, I would be a Millionaire now. But now even people who have never heared about Bitcoin are investing, so it's certainly too late now to invest."

Deja-vu?

It was at this point that I realized I had the wrong mindset the whole time.
When the BTC was at $40 I thought it was too late to invest, when the BTC was at $800 I thought it was too late to invest and at $3000 I was still thinking it's too late to invest.

In fact, I always thought it was too late. From 2013 till mid 2017 I never once thought "now it could be the right time to invest". I was just always angry at myself that I didn't invest earlier whenever BTC went up.

I changed my Mindset.

I began to realize that investing into Bitcoin has more to do with psychology than with numbers.
If you want to make profit, you have to think long-term.
I believe in the concept of Bitcoin. In fact, I always believed in it, even when it was at $40.
I believe that Bitcoin will grow even more over the next 5 years than it has over the last 5 years.
So what stops me from investing? The fear of losing money? Fuck that!

I finally invested a huge amount of money in Bitcoins at $4800.
Shortly after that it went down to $3000. Lots of people were panicking. China banned ICOs, lots of bad news in the mainstream press. But I just kept calm and I even bought some more Coins at $3500.

I told people that I think Bitcoin will be over $10000 by the end of 2017 and nobody believed it.
They thought the hype is over now, "Bitcoin is dead!"

Shortly after that Bitcoin went up to $19000 in December and I finally made a lot of profit.
It went down to $6000 after that and now it's back at $11000.

Moral of the Story: It is never too late to invest if you want to hold Bitcoin long-term!

When Bitcoin was at $10, nobody believed that it will ever reach $100
When Bitcoin was at $100, nobody believed that it will ever reach $1000
When Bitcoin was at $1000, nobody believed that it will ever reach $10,000

If you want to invest into Bitcoin, you have to get rid of that Dogma.
Now 1 Bitcoin is worth over $10,000. Do people believe it will ever reach $100,000?
I am certain that Bitcoin will reach $100,000 within the next 3 years.

Of course, Bitcoin will fluctuate, it always has, but as a long-term Investor you don't care about that unless you want to buy more coins.
The long-term trend is always upwards and it will always be.

Bitcoins are limited to a certain amount. There is no Federal Reserve Bank that can print as many Bitcoins as they want. Bitcoins are rare and they will always be rare, Fiat money isn't.

If you are invested for some time, you will reach a point where even the biggest panic sells can't hurt you anymore.

I know that many people think it's too late to invest now.
If we will reach $30,000 these people will regret that they didn't invest at $10,000.
When we reach $100,000 the same people will regret that they've not invested at $30,000.
It is a never ending circle and I know that, because I had the same mindset for many years.

If you always think it's too late to invest, you will always miss the opportunity.

One more important note that I want to give to all Investors, and that doesn't just go for Bitcoin, but also for every other Cryptocurrency or Investments in general:
Know what you are investing in!

It is one thing to look at a chart and see that it's going up but if that's your only incentive to invest in something, then you will probably panic sell when everyone else does and then reinvest at a much higher price.
If you want to hold long-term, you have to understand the technology.
You have to know how the blockchain works, you have to know how Bitcoins are created, you have to know the differences between Bitcoin and the Fiat money system.
It's not enough to know that Bitcoin went up, you also have to know why Bitcoin went up.
You have to know what the scaling issue is, you have to know why there were forks and what the lightning network is.

It is the easiest thing in the world to be a holder when the chart goes up. The challenge is to stay invested when the chart goes down.
If you know everything about Bitcoin and if you believe in the technology and the idea behind Bitcoin, then this will be much easier for you.

I never invested in a Cryptocurrency without looking at the source code first. You don't have to do that, but you should always do your research before investing.
Once you can answer the question why you think that this Cryptocurrency will grow long-term, only then it's the right time for you to invest in it. Else you might have a hard time holding it when it's fluctuating.

With that beeing said,

Keep calm and HODL