Because if you’re not careful… you’ll get the horns.
When the markets go up, everything feels good again. The blood in the streets has been replaced with rose petals, a weight is lifted off your shoulders, and you can breathe easily. All seems right in the world.
But that can easily all go wrong again. It’s important to keep your head about you at all times because even if the market is trending upwards, you as an individual can screw everything up for yourself if you’re not careful.
The below is relevant at all times, but is especially relevant when you’re getting excited about the market.
Beware of Scams and Hacks
When the markets go up, the number of scams and phishing sites go up. More people are entering the space to buy and trade, and more bad actors hoping to take your money are coming with them.
We’ve recently reported on some creative phishing methods that target users of popular browser extensions and dapps. Phishing is one of the most popular ways of stealing your funds and at some point, you WILL end up on a phishing site.
If a website exists, there’s likely a phishing version of it somewhere else on the internet.
Unfortunately, there have been more than a few attacks on exchanges over the years. Never leave funds on an exchange that you’re not actively trading with. If you want to hold it, keep it in a hardware wallet.
How to protect your funds
- Never enter your private keys online.
- Install EAL or MetaMask.
- Get a hardware wallet.
- Use 2FA on all of your accounts.
- Keep backups of your secret keys in safe places.
More reading on protecting yourself and your funds.
Trade with Logic, not Emotion
There are also many ways to screw yourself over without being phished.
Only invest as much as you can afford to lose.
Crypto is volatile and it likely always will be. When values go up, you may feel like you’re missing out on gains by not investing more of your hard-earned fiat. ONLY invest an amount that wouldn’t ruin your day / week / month / life if you lost it.
Don’t play with leverage.
Leverage trading is a beast that you should not poke unless you have a strong stomach and are aware of the risks involved. Some products offer 2x, 5x, 10x, 20x, 100x, or even higher leverage and this can absolutely destroy you in seconds if you’re not careful. Don’t mess with this stuff. That is how you get yourself into the shit times.
Don’t dive into that hot new ICO.
Because chances are… it’s not really all that hot. FOMO is powerful, but you need to resist the urge to invest in empty promises. Ask yourself these questions first:
- What do you know about the people involved?
- Would their idea add value to the ecosystem?
- What criticisms have they received?
- Has anyone even heard of them before?!
Don’t try to time the market.
Whether it’s a bull or a bear, the markets are volatile and prone to swinging wildly in either direction. Ultimately, nobody knows what direction the market will go in, and trying to time it is like opening the door for Murphy’s Law to walk in and make sure you’re buying at the top and selling at the bottom — which is the opposite of what you actually want.
Not to mention the stress that comes with agonizing over just where to set your buy and sell orders. Maybe save yourself the ulcers.
Patience is a Virtue
A lot of this boils down to patience.
If you’re patient when you’re browsing the internet, you’ll be more likely to catch a phishing site before it catches you.
If you exercise patience when investing and trading, it’ll help you avoid getting caught up in the FOMO and making poor decisions.
If you take the above tips and add a hefty dose of patience, you’re likely to be more successful when navigating the wild west that is cryptocurrency, the various bull runs, the bear markets, and everything else.
Further Reading
- Protecting Yourself and Your Funds
- MyCrypto’s Security Guide for Dummies
- Getting Through the Shit Times
- The SIM-Swapping Bible
