How To Stop FOMO From Hurting You When Speculating In Cryptocurrencies

There is a force more powerful than greed or fear in markets; specifically for new speculators, that is rarely discussed. FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out, in my own long and storied investing career is probably THE single thing that extracted the most money from me during my extremely expensive 'education' on how this all goes together and actually works to increase my net worth.

I suppose if you are a purist, FOMO is a subset of just plain fear, but it needs to be addressed separately in my humble opinion. Most of my biggest losers in all my investing career were a result of FOMO. This is why I tend to be early in trades which sets me up for having to deal with some pretty uncomfortable emotions before the investment turns and does what I thought it would do, eventually.

So how does one deal with FOMO as it pertains to cryptocurrency speculation? Actually it is the same way you deal with all emotions when you invest - only this space is so ridiculously volatile it is infinitely more difficult to control your emotions. First and foremost you have to understand that this IS speculation. That simple fact largely determines how you play this game. Never ever - ever put any more money into any of these that you cannot afford to lose. Pocket change defines these investments. Forego a weekend dinner for you and your spouse; do NOT put the kids college funds here! If you do, I will find you and spank you!!

Besides it's not necessary to put that much money into these things. For example, Teeka from Palm Beach sent out a speculation on NEO in late February when it was trading at under 10 cents. By May it was $1.50, In july I sold some of my holdings at $6. In august I sold more at $18.50. I took profits to the tune of $4000 and STILL have over $100,000 worth of NEO. This defines a successful textbook asymmetric speculation.

I have done this repeatedly with several speculations. I have also done this with some of my own ideas, but that is a subject for another essay. Again - remember - no hurry - no big bets. Position size is tiny if you do it right. Place your bets, and sleep like a baby - go enjoy your life! One day you will wake up and be 20- 30- 50 thousand richer. It's hard to believe.

So how does one speculate with cryptocurrencies successfully?

Educate yourself.

You absolutely MUST learn about what you are getting into and to do that you need to have good sources of information. You will notice thit statement in almost every post I put here. You have to be super duper hyper aware of what you are looking at in this space. You have to do homework. You have to know that the sources actually know what they are talking about. You have to know enough about the market you are speculating in to be able to determine IF the sources you choose even know what they are talking about. This is a critical mistake many people make.

You can't just google or youtube bitcoin and expect to randomly get the best information in this environment. You will get the best marketers selling their supposed genius at trading...."Hey! Look at my wallet!", " I know how to trade these currencies and make a fortune!"......

Not to offend anyone legitimate creating these channels - but, at least 90% of the analyses I see by doing random searches have nothing to do with the authors intellectual, or trading prowess and EVERYTHING to do with a bubble, and a speculative mania. At this point you actually CAN blindly throw money at this market because of some underlying factors that have NOTHING to do with ANY of these tokens. There is a huge amount of capital flowing into a tiny market and it is pushing everything up good or bad. Some of these major tokens are actually completely separate from the underlying business and without good information you can be led down the primrose path very easily (Ripple - XRP).

I have found several sources of good information and will share what I can that I have found here. Some of these sources are proprietary and I will not front run any of that information, but there are others that are excellent for free on youtube. The paid services I found, or I should say that found me, are expensive and excellent. I have been a financial newsletter junkie for dozens of years and eventually found the best of the best. The planet's most widely circulated investment newsletter service, Stansberry Research just recently got into the game with Tama Churchouse's'Crypto Capital'. This is one of the two paid services I use. With these information sources I see no reason to go anywhere else. Any of my own research either branches out from them or the free youtube sources I list below.

The 'Palm Beach Confidential' newsletter, by Teeka Tiwari was the first informational service on the market from a reputable newsletter writing organization. Both Teeka and Tama know what they are talking about and they actually do have an inside track into the inner core of original crypto creators and investors. Teeka was first mover and his site is more polished. Tama has a slightly different take than Teeka but there is overlap.

There is a closed group of folks who do not want to be known and will most likely never be discovered. Good for them! They are creating the tools we will all be using to take back control of our private lives and money. This is what the entire industry revolved around originally. Don't you find it odd that Satoshi came up with bitcoin within months of the TARP bailouts......hmmmm. Again, this is another rabbit hole to go down but not part of this topic.

As to the free sources; there actually are several. The first place I send anyone asking is to Andreas Antonopoulos. Spend a few hours watching and learning from him. He will give you the broad overview in plain english. All information from him is good, and more importantly, safe to rely on as accurate. Start there.

Andreas is an encyclopaedic source of information, but he is by no means the only good source. Another is Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of ETH. Charlie Shrem is another. Another is John McCaffe. Notice that all of these and many more are actively involved at the programming level. More on that later.

I welcome any additional sources of good information in the comments. You can never have too much information. Try to stay more into the background information realm and NOT the trading gurus for now when commenting please. This string is intended to provide investable information NOT trading gurus. There is a gigantic difference. To me trading is one step away from gambling at best and that is NOT what I do here.

Take Your TIme

As I have said in many posts, this is a very nascent industry. No infrastructure is in place yet other than a few proof of concept networks. This includes bitcoin, by the way. It is cumbersome and easy to lose money due to user error. There are no wallets that will hold all of your different tokens in one place. There are no regulations, nor should there be, but they will inevitably come eventually - for all the good that will do (zero). So there are no rules yet in a gold rush mentality market.

Don't worry, be happy.

As it pertains to cryptocurrencies, FOMO has an enormous potential to have you act irrationally and - well, let's be honest about it, foolishly stupid. You can take a most brilliant investment mind and shred it to pieces once the typical greed and fear emotions creep into a fellow's speculative decisions. Add in some FOMO, brought on by a gold rush fever and potential disaster ensues to his financial future. I know, I have been there more than once before.

I am here to tell you, If you are new to this space and eager to 'get in' before it's too late - RELAX!

S L O W D O W N!

There is no hurry. This game hasn't even gotten started yet. and for GOODNESS SAKE do NOT put your entire retirement nest egg into this. Aim small, miss small. Hit the target and change your financial fortunes overnight. This may be the starry eyed dream you have coming into these markets at this point in time.

And guess what......

......you actually CAN score like this here and now. But you have to be careful; methodical - and if you are really new to this space, you need to be willing to learn about strange new things you have never even heard of or thought about; and that most likely make no sense to you whatsoever.

You have to understand that this is an entirely new form of asset class and nobody knows what we have here yet, much less what is to come out of it. This is a fantastical and bottomless rabbit hole for you to follow Alice and I down should you decide you have the stomach for it. This is where I live, out on the fringe of the edge in speculation land. I want you to know that you can actually STILL make a fortune with cryptocurrencies and will be able to for at least the next few years. The why of that statement is the subject of several other posts which will be crossed linked later here.

There is much more to these new blockchain based technologies than just a fast, cheap, effective and superior way to exchange value between individuals than the current fiat banking system; which is in itself a tectonic shift of power back to the individual away from all nation states. This is yet another rabbit hole to be crossed linked in a few other posts later from here.

There is truly amazing opportunity here to amass a fortune in a very short time here with almost nothing at risk. I have been in this space for several years and have seen a great deal already, both the good and the bad. This space can be incredibly lucrative and dangerous at the same time. Could anyone have seen Google coming when we barely had decent email over the internet and AOL dominated? Or how about Facebook? Amazon? ALthough I hate to admit it, I remember people saying to me "what do I need email for, I already have the post office?"

These are ASYMMETRIC SPECULATIONS -

If you are a trader and base your decisions solely on technicals, this information may help you decide between two issues that have nearly identical chart patterns. Otherwise, you may want to skip over me here. My heart is in the fundamentals, which are usually obscured -_ at best_ in cryptocurrencies. I have certain advantages through my years in this space that help me use my own common sense to judge whether or not a token is bullshit. And as with any exploding gold rush market, most of them actually are bullshit sadly.

It is critical to comprehend that these tokens are extremely volatile, thinly traded and highly speculative. This is the wild west so you need to think and act accordingly. Assume that everything you see is sourced from PT Barnum...and we all know what he said about suckers being born every minute. If it sounds too good to be true it ISN'T TRUE. That is probably the closest I can come to 100% sure of anything in life other than death and taxes.

There is no regulation in this space, nor should there be. If you grasp the entire paradigm of all of these permissionless, trustless, math based algorithm, open ledger, open source, cryptographic environments you instinctively know that the prime movers in this arena 'don't need no stinking regulators' and puny minded government officials permissions. That is the whole point of this entire enterprise. If you missed that I would strongly recommend that you skip your turn, go back to go and do not collect your $200 until you review a few hours of Andreas again and John McCaffe.

The likelihood that a token you are researching on your own is legitimate is slim because of the current mania in this space. You can't just blindly throw money at this. You have to have a plan of action first and a discipline BEFORE placing any bets. An entry point and exit point, if any, is a bare minimum. But you have to go farther. Any monkey can read a chart. There needs to be more to your choices than a chart that looks good if you want to make massive gains in this space. Gains that can turn $220 into $100,000 in 9 months like NEO did for me this year.

You need GOOD information BEFORE you start blindly picking nice chart patterns. Only after researching as best you can the token, the team, the idea, how transparent they are, IF they are actually solving a vexing problem, do they have a working ecosystem, a white paper? Or is the whole thing opaque and mysterious. Can you say Bitconnect?

looking at the charts to find a good entry/exit point AFTER doing this fundamental research you will do well. Not to beat the shit out of a dead horse but, you also need to burn into your head that these are speculative on steroids. NEVER put more than 500 dollars into any of these unless you have an investable net worth over $250,000. Then and only then do you go higher than $500. And no matter how much you have to play with no investment should ever go over $1000. If you stick to this one thing alone you should do fine. DON'T GET GREEDY, and DON'T BE IN A HURRY.

Traders have a completely different mindset than investors, and speculators have another mindset from the other two types of investors all-together. True speculators actually combine both trading and investing mindsets, with a cagey nose for trends into the future...and a set of brass balls the size of Manhattan. We speculators are a rare breed. We see things in the future nobody else does and we take a TON of shit from everyone around us until we are proven right....or wrong.....