By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down,
and we wept when we remembered Zion.
Ps. 137 & Boney M

Since I started my crypto journey in 2017, I've been scammed only a couple of times, and only for pennies like 2 or 5 bucks. Well, I was lucky and I was never so dumb as to throw my money into any "send me one ETH and I'll send you two" shit.

After the 2017 pump I put in crypto less than $100 of fiat in total, and got some pennies for free from faucets, bloggings, games, etc. I've been trading crypto for about half a year, and even if I'm a mediocre trader, to say the least (I know it from my previous non-crypto trading experience in the early 2000-s), by today I've grown my account up. Now I'm well over $500 on paper, at today's prices. I could say, I paper profited like 5x so far. Of course, I've wasted some money in losing trades and on various shit, but overall I'm up.

However, it makes me weep when I recall how much money I could have made. Really, my 5x could be 10x or 20x or even higher -- if...

Every now and then I think about why I didn't get the money I could. I think I've found some losing pattern which I would call a Too Early Mistake.

Yeah, I had a chance to become a billionaire by now. I didn't -- because I stopped trying too early. Actually, at that time there was no external reason to stop me. At that time I had no money problems or overwhelming responsibilities, I had a lot of free time, necessary tech skills, enough money to buy any fancy hardware, etc. I simply lost interest in the project, too early.

Then in 2017, I built GPU rigs and started a successful mining venture. I was selling crypto all the way up, then at the top, and then I sold it all right at the dump. I've got back the money I've spent on hardware and even got some profits. I spent them on my daily needs. Then after the dump, I sold all my hardware, at a very modest price (it'd paid itself off anyway and didn't cover electricity bills anymore). Had I kept it and continued mining at least for another half a year or so -- today I'd had a good bag of BTC (0.5 or even 1 BTC). But I stopped my mining campaign too early.

There exists a little exchange called Bitmax (it's not Bitmex). The exchange has a native token BTMX. It's possible to "stake" the token at the exchange and to receive daily "dividends", not in some self-backed shit, but in BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC. These dividends can be then swapped to BTMX and staked again (i.e. it's possible to compound it). About a year ago, when I found that exchange, the BTMX price was like $0.02-0.03, and dividend APR was like 50-80%. I jumped in and after some time I accumulated over 3000 BTMX (pretty little at that time). I traded them against USDT from time to time, growing my bag. Once I sold them for about $100 in total, expecting the price to go down soon. But it didn't go down enough to fill my buy order. After some time I withdrew my $100 because APR was like shitty 20% anyway. Today my 3000+ BTMX would be worth at least US$3500. But I gave up holding it too early, even though it was free, earning and compounding.

In September I had 0.01 BTC I accumulated at $9-10K swapping various shitcoins from faucets and elsewhere. I sold it all at about $13.5K and had to buy it back later at a much higher price. Hadn't I sell that 0.01 BTC too early, I'd have got the same today's "well over $500" account -- simply sitting flat on my ass and doing nothing.

I got a big bag of BNB at about $45, not for trading but for a "structured product". I sold it at about $50. I made some profit on my "product" indeed, but not nearly so much as I could have made if I sold my bag at $250.

Sushi -- same story.

I got 20 CAKE for free, sold 10 at about $1, and the rest between $8-10. A week later CAKE was at $18.

Even recently, I longed ALGO futures and averaged at about $1.11. This shitty ALGO was floating like a piece of shit in a waterhole between $1-1.2 for several days, and I was paying a funding fee every 8 hours. At last, I got tired and sold it all at about $1.12. Guess what? The next day the shit went to $1.35...

I could mention more of such failures, but it's already boring.

In my case, it's these "missed profits" that hold me behind. Why it happens so regularly? Honestly, I don't know. I only wish someone could explain it to me and show me the way out... Personally, I think the problem is risk aversion.

As far as I know, in English they have a saying Better an egg today than a hen tomorrow. Well, not always, I'd say.

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