Dad

In the last bull market I ran up a small bag (mid 4 figs) to a big bag (mid 6 figs) and all the way back down to zero. Here are the key lessons I learnt on how to play the bull market and *hopefully* come out of the other side with life changing gainz 🐂👇🏻 Lesson 1: Don't Marry Your Bags 💍 You may think you've found the next big thing. I did when I found $LUNA last cycle. I got completely obsessed with stacking more $LUNA and never really took profits despite the fact it ran 100X+ from my first buy. I was always worried that if I sold tokens they price would continue to go up and I wouldn't be able to buy back. The reality: Even for tokens with bullish price action there will be several large dips throughout the bull market. If your coin has done multiple Xs in a small amount of time, it's probably the perfect time to sell a % of your stack and take profits. If you're obsessed with stacking tokens, it's likely the market will retract and you'll be able to buy back and keep the difference. If not, by making sure you always keep a moon bag you'll be able to continue to enjoy the extended pump. Also remember - all coins will dump HARD in the bear market. In most cases you'll be able to pick them back up in the future at a fraction of the cost if you still believe in the long term vision. EXAMPLE: $SOL - ran from $1 to $250 and then all the way back down to $10 in the bear. Lesson 2: Rotate Profits into Trending Narratives 📖 Throughout the bull market there'll be several rotations of narratives. You have the traditional $BTC -> $ETH -> Large Caps -> Small Caps narrative which will play out throughout the term of the bull market. However within that time there'll be several mini narratives seeing "sectors" of coins pump. Example narratives include: L1s, NFTfi, GameFi, DeFi, Chinese Coins, AI Coins etc. etc. Keep an eye out day by day on which coins are pumping and whether there's any commonality between them. Even if you think the narrative is bullshit, don't be afraid to jump on the train. Don't be afraid to jump into something which has already partially pumped, narratives will play out over the course of a few weeks, as long as you're early-ish there's money to be made. You'll likely be able to jump on coins that will do 2-10X. When they do those multiples TAKE PROFIT. When you're narrative trading you want to sell a large % of the coins you were holding. It will feel hard to sell because at the peak of the narrative LOTS of your timeline will be tweeting about the coins and you'll think they're going to run forever (see lesson 1) - they won't. They'll dump back down as people enter the next narrative. Because you've taken profit, you'll be able to enter the next narrative early and with bigger size. Lesson 3: Avoid Staking/Locking Up your Tokens 🔒 You're going to get tempted to lock your coins in all kinds of staking contracts with lockups ranging from 1 week to 2 years to earn yield/airdrops/points etc. Whilst there will be short term value in doing this, and you may want to allocate a % of your token holdings to staking/lockups - make sure you keep the majority of your tokens liquid. When the shit hits the fan it will be fast and it will hurt. You may be missing out on that 20-50% APR yield short term, but having optionality to sell your tokens when you need to will save your ass when the time comes. There are also plenty of yield options with zero lockups e.g. money markets, LPs etc. If I hadn't had the majority of my $LUNA locked up in 3 week staking, I might have saved a significant % of my portfolio when it crashed. Lesson 4: Stack Stablecoins 🪙 As the bull market comes to an end, you want the majority of your portfolio to be in stablecoins. Throughout the bull market you should be moving a higher and higher % of your portfolio into stablecoins. Early bull you should be fully allocated, but at the end of the bull you should be 90-100% in stablecoins. Make sure you're taking profits along the way and make sure you're putting a % of your profits into stablecoins and tucking them away for a rainy day. Keep doing this and keep growing your stablecoin bag. You also should diversify the stablecoins you hold $USDC, $USDT etc. and where you hold them. Split you stablecoin bag into different stablecoins on different chains and in different wallets. I recently got phished for my entire stablecoin bag, because I'm an idiot I had them all in one place which made my portfolio a single point of failure. Don't be like me. Holding a sizeable % of your portfolio in stablecoins will enable you to come out of the bull market with something to show for it, if you just HODL tokens, they will retract 80-90% from the top (with a handful of exceptions), no matter what anyone tells you. You will have 2 years of bear market to re-accumulate the coins you want to hold for the next cycle at bargain basement prices and by playing the bull smart, you'll have plenty of capital to allocate. Lesson 5: Don't Over-Leverage ☠️ If you don't leverage trade already, at some point you'll want to start trading leverage. You'll see people (including me) posting screenshots of 10X-50X leverage plays where they've made 1,000% gainz in 3 hours. You'll probably try it out for yourself and you'll probably win a few trades & think you're invincible. Then you'll leverage up one time, the market will contract 20% in the space of a few hours and you'll be liquidated. When you trade spot even when the market contracts you'll at least still HODL the tokens. If you leverage and get liquidated, you'll be sat with NOTHING to show for it. These 20% retractions will happen several times throughout the bull market and likely there'll be little to no warning. I wouldn't completely detract you from using leverage, but start with a small % of your portfolio. Get used to trading. Learn to use stop losses and limit orders to take profit. Use low leverage. Be extremely careful. You don't want your entire bull market gainz to be lost in the space of a few hours. Leverage trading also takes a toll on your mental health. You'll be looking at your phone CONSTANTLY. You won't be able to sleep properly. Lesson 6: Look for Alfa🔎 Whilst you're going to want to take a wide approach to the bull market, it's likely you'll end up focussing attention on a few specific tokens and ecosystems that you're bullish on in more depth. Make sure you join telegram groups & discords to keep up to date on everything that's going on. There will likely be token launches, airdrops and specific events that are going to pump the price of coins and you want to get this info early and act on it. If everyone is talking about it on crypto twitter, you're probably too late. Try and make frens with smart people and fellow degens and create smaller groups where you share information with each other. Ideally have a group of people who are all focussing on different ecosystems so you can do the hard work for each other and share specific opportunities that are upcoming. What you'll find is that often big events are "sell the news" events. The price action happens ahead of big events happening, so you want to be in early and out early. Don't be the last guy in or the last guy out holding the bag. Lesson 7: If you're screenshotting - SELL 📱 Short but sweet. If you're screenshotting your trade because you made a shit load of profit and showing it to your friends - it's probably time to sell some or all of that position. If you're happy with the gainz you made on a trade TAKE PROFIT. Lesson 8: Beware of Scams & Rug Pulls 🚩 As the market goes up, the amount of scammers will increase exponentially. Some common things to look out for: - NEVER google a crypto site (and I'm speaking here from experience). Scammers will pay for ads with identical looking URLs to the real site and phish your information. Always get your links from verified sources & bookmark them so you know you are safe to return. NEVER enter your seed phrase into ANYTHING unless you are 100% sure it is legit and needed (it will almost never be needed) - Be VERY careful of social media sites. People will message you on X, Telegram, Discord if you ask a question. It will look like they are trying to help you. They will impersonate admins. Their handles will look exactly the same. Double/triple check that the person you're talking to is the person you think it is. DO NOT click on unsolicited links. - Do not connect your wallet to any site if you're not 100% sure it's legit - If something feels too good to be true, it probably is. A moment of greed could see you rugged. Summary: Crypto bull markets offer you the opportunity to make life changing gainz if you play it the right way. You can turn a small bag into a big bag in a short amount of time. You will get greedy along the way. You will think it's going to last forever. It won't. We're on the 4th or 5th cycle and it always plays out the same way, with the same risks. You will need to take risks along the way but make sure they are appropriately sized according to your portfolio. And most importantly, make sure you're coming out the other side of this bull market with something to show for it. Learn from my mistakes (I'm talking to myself here) and make this a run to remember. Most importantly, enjoy it - the bear market sucks.