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Being brave in a bear market that is bleeding is relatively easy for me. I write off anything that goes into crypto as zero expected value. This doesn't mean that I don't think that decentralisation and all that goes with it is worth nothing, it is just an acknowledgement of the highly risky nature of a sector that is best described as at the beginning of a very very long journey towards mainstream acceptance. It is all too easy to lose sight in our little bubble that most of the people in the world don't trust crypto and can not grasp the potential upending of the current infrastructure of economies, ownership and society.

So, being brave in a bear market is easy when you have written off everything as expected zero worth. You just hold and wait it out.... in fact, it is an exciting time in a way, as it is an opportune moment to learn more about projects and get in ahead of the hype and crush. That debacle of a Casper sale on Coinlist last week was a case in point... previous Coinlist sales have been smooth and orderly. Now, with the "get rick quick" mob at the door who don't even seem to know much more about Casper than the crypto ticker... it was a terrible experience!

Anyway, so we turn to be brave in a bull market. This I find much harder to do... I always start to question my choices, have I sold too early... what if there is something that I don't realise about a project that makes it worthwhile?

A case in point today... NewsCrypto (NWC) is a project that is listed on Kucoin since the last crypto winter. It's a token that has been sitting around on my Kucoin account for quite some time. I had won nice share of it in one of the marketing/trading campaigns a while back, but it isn't something that I would ordinarily purchase.

NewsCrypto is the token of a educational/trading/analysis platform. You need to stake it to gain access to their products and that is essentially the use case for the token. Like many utility tokens of this type, I don't really see the point of the token other than to give the developers a controllable development fund for the project. Actually, pretty much like most of the ICOs! NWC runs on other smart contract blockchains (BSC and Ethereum and Stellar), so it doesn't provide use for smart contract interaction either.

So, with these tokens, I question the need for them to exist at all... why not just pay for the products with BTC or other store of value tokens? Why have an additional layer of friction? Of course, it is good for the project, but not so much for the users.

As luck would have it... I hadn't dumped the NWC tokens immediately upon winning them when they were just worth barely anything. It turns out that over the last couple of days, the incoming launch of a DeFi portal and a new app interface has sent the NWC token up significantly. Enough so that I have wondered if it is now time to drop this bag that I have no interest in, in order to free up capital to invest in projects that have utility for me (or that I think have long term worth).

I took the plunge... market sell, can't be bothered chasing little gains here and there anymore. Now, I have to stop looking at the NWC price. It could be that it drops back down, or goes to the moon. The point is that I shouldn't FOMO back into a project that I have no belief in, but to keep the profit in the projects that I think have longer term usage.

So... being brave in a bull market... hard to do! But a little bit easier if you come to the conclusion that you are only backing projects on principle and NOT on winning those extra little numbers!

Over the next few days, I also have to start thinking of a plan to hedge some of the gains from crypto. Just in case...

Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.

Originally published on my HIVE/STEEM Blog!