Knowledge is available in many, often contradictory, ways and has limited benefit; wisdom comes from experience and offers gold from the combination of pressure (price drop) and heat (time). If you let go of your fixed views and reactive mind, the true nature of moment reveals itself, offering a path through the wilderness of a bear market.
This has been a tougher than normal bear market for all assets as there really hasn't been a place to hide other than cash and that started out at less than a 1% rate at the beginning of this current bear. Crypto was hyped as being less subject to the ravages of a bear market this time due to it becoming a mature asset and growing institutional involvement, etc...wrong! When the macro conditions are this bad, and some of the crypto institutions were flying by the seat of their pants more than we knew (or had not pants), it led to a very typical bear market for crypto.
The gold available from this is to learn the lessons given for the next bull market which could include:
-Don't chase yield! Earning 5% while holding an asset that goes down 90% isn't going to offset much of the pain, and the 5% (or more if you want to roll the dice) is subject not only to inflation risk but principal risk (indeed keep that LUNA tattoo ;) This offers the wisdom of avoiding greed.
-Take profits and don't buy back in too soon! It's great to buy and hold and dca but perhaps, with some basic common sense, and wisdom gained from this bear market, it will make sense to take some profit off the table when the hopium pipe is being passed around, and then wait until we hit price levels of previous bear markets and let time do it's thing before starting to nibble back into positions. Just as things can go up more than we think, as we can clearly see, things can go down more and for longer than we would have thought possible a year ago. This offers the opportunity for the wisdom of working with fear.
-Ignore price predictions and the talking heads! I sincerely hope it's clear to all of you now that the vast majority of these so call experts don't know anything more about crypto, or where the price is going, than you do. And in bear markets I find it's better just to turn off the noise and just focus on the long-term picture and other things in life, like reading, hikes, live music, etc. Balance off the siren call of the moment to moment movements in crypto prices and cut your screen time and add balance to your life, which is not really about money or crypto prices at the highest level. This offers the wisdom of equanimity.
-Focus on quality projects that have real uses! This is not the time to play with shitcoins, but look to see who is continuing to invest in the quality of their project and has real uses that will add value over time. There ain't a lot of them, but the ones we have should be the leaders of the next bull market. You can start to examine new projects for the next great opportunity but watch for real uses that can grow over time, and good management and tokenomics....don't be the shill they are looking for! These should be relatively small positions vs the quality names. Remember if this whole industry continues to be adopted as many of us think, than even the "boring" names will be huge homeruns, with a lot less risk. This offers the wisdom of avoiding delusion.
-And finally remind yourself, this too shall pass. All things are impermeant with a multitude of causes and conditions that are too numerous to truly know. Someday we'll look back on this year and brag about the prices we bought things at and how we survived the frigid crypto winter, and this newbies have no idea what they are doing now lol We will have earned our stripes, and used the alchemy of life to create a wisdom that can not be lost. When will this next bull occur and how much will it go up? I have no idea and don't really care, I just believe in the asset class over the long-run and focus on projects that will be there for that hopefully. And when it turns, it could be very fast and for reasons that seems unimportant at the time.
As humans we tend to take a trend and project it out in the future. Look at your own mind and learn to not trust it or even anyone else's. Thoughts are just thoughts and come up all the time, and are amplified by emotion. Learn to identify these as such (and here meditation can be of help). Pay attention to the deeper wisdom that you have begun to earn through surviving this last year. This will lead you to the gold, and a sense of peace even when all around you seems uncertain. I wish you the best and hope this sharing has some benefit to you.
