This looks scary, right?

Big sea of red. You’re getting bags. Your “portfolio” on the exchange is dwindling. You might feel like panic selling. You’re seeing tweets of people selling and you’re wondering if you need to do the same.

I’ve got a suggestion.

I would submit to you that these big dips happen frequently. There are a few things that are worth repeating in times like these:

Be prepared Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. Don’t trade like the masses The masses are like a cat following a laser pointer on the carpet. The market falls down, so they fall with it and panic sell. They are praying to whatever gods will listen — PLEASE BUY MY COINS!!! The market goes up, so they say hey, let’s buy! No, no, No, NO! That’s the opposite. The experienced trader removes the emotion and BUYS when the market is down and SELLs when the profits are high.

This big sea of red is when I do my BUYING. This is why you keep Bitcoin in reserve. This is when all the sales happen! Everyone else is emotional, panicking, losing their shirts, and willing to give you their precious coins at a fire-sale-unheard-of-deal-price-of-a-lifetime!

But the money… it’s gone!

Yeah, I know. My portfolio is down by a huge amount, too… if I look at USD valuations, that is.

Here’s a drop in January 2018:

More recently, a 30% drop in 10 days

But if I look at the number of coins I have, it’s still the same number*.

Why is that important?

Well, I ask you to look at two things.

Look at the history of crypto Look at what you think the future of crypto is.

First, if you look at the history of crypto, you’ll see that there are a lot of stairsteps where it went up, Up, UP, thendownalittle, then up, Up, UP thendownalittle, then repeated.

Second, look at what you think the future of crypto is. If you think we’re at the beginning stages and early days of crypto, then you needn’t worry. Your own instincts should tell you to HODL. The cycle will pass.

What Wally Does

Let me tell you how I see the current cycle.

Gunbot keeps making me more BTC. Every trade, I increase my Bitcoin position inch by inch. Every day, I go for as many trades as I possibly can. Every so often, the cycles repeat.

Try to keep emotion out of it, and try to remain calm during the storm. Marvel at those around you who are willing to sell their coins to your Gunbot or your manual trading. And if you have an extra account that can do some manual trading, get out there if you have the spare funds and answer their prayers.

How to do it?

One way I do this is I go to whatever exchange I feel like has the volume — and then I sort by coin loss. Then I look for long-term coins or coins that I might really have a decent bounce. For example, on Bittrex, I can go to Wallets or the list of all coins and then do a reverse sort on % Change. It’s definitely not a great metric since it’s a 24h metric, but if it’s all you have, and you don’t have Coinigy, Trading View, CoinTracking or something else, you use what you have.

Then I look for the ones with the dips that have recently slowed down.

I like UKG – this is a perfect time to pick some up!

If I feel like HODLing then I just leave it in my account, or I set some dream LIMIT SELL orders for high amounts — I make it so that people need to convince me to get rid of my coins.

If I feel like making money on these coins, I set a LIMIT SELL order for whatever percentage I think will spring back – 5%, 10%… because in this season of crypto – these feel like they will spring back.

Now, I have to caution you – I’m pretty cavalier with my attitude here because I’m currently playing with “house money”, since I’ve been so conservative in the past, and have been so cautious. I can let it ride some.

Next up – Steem Dollars (SBD) – that looks like an EXCELLENT buy!

I did the same with bundles of MANA, WINGS, VOX, STORJ and a few others.

We’ll see in a few hours, or tomorrow, or maybe next week if this was a good idea or not.

Summary

It can be a scary world out there, and there are real dangers. But the more you know about the world, the less scary it can be. If you’re prepared, you can be ready for the natural cycles of crypto ups and downs and better yet, you can capitalize and make the best of them.

Update

Even while writing and updating this article with pictures and editing paragraphs, the market is already re-correcting and some of the coins I bought are profiting. Bags are clearing. The sun is coming out.

I have a feeling that the people who panicked will wake up and regret their panic sell orders, and maybe we can help them understand how to stay calm for the next time. We don’t have to feed off each other.

And if we look back at coinmarketcap, we see a much different picture — out of the three number columns on the right — 1hr change, 24hr change and 7 day change, the 1hr change is mostly green now, indicating a major recent uptrend

NOTE: The author of this article is not a financial advisor and this does not constitute financial advice, even though it’s a little scary.

I said it was the same number, but I hope it’s clear that the statement doesn’t include trades, manual buys and sells, deposits, withdrawals, etc. In fact, because I’m a Gunbot user, overall I’m profiting and increasing my BTC because that’s what Gunbot does — it uses a BASE (BTC) to purchase a QUOTE (some other coin) and then later sells the QUOTE for more BASE. So, over time, if everything goes as planned, I have more BTC.

Whether or not the BTC itself is “worth” more FIAT is a different story, and whether or not that is a desirable trait is yet another story.