The Fear of Missing Out
I will talk about my experiences and perception of FOMO, why it is dangerous for you and what you could take away from my mistakes.
Should I buy or not? This was the question when the crypto market went to its all time high in December 2017. Many people made the ‘wrong’ decision and bought just because they thought they would make 100x.
If you do what everyone else does, you may become like everyone else. It is like the analogy of sheeps and wolves – either you follow the sheeps or be like the wolf. That’s what I remember at least.
But why do people FOMO buy? In my case it was because I ‘missed’ on ethereum when it was at ~20$ and I thought had not enough money for that. In fact this was not true – I just did not inform myself enough in the crypto space. I thought that I need like 1000$ or more … and then my interest stopped when I heard about the ‘hard’ way of buying.
Then I stopped checking the market prices until the end of 2017. This was the time when I first had the Fear of Missing Out. So I started informing myself about everything – from wallets to private / public key encryption. I mean I had cryptography in study and knew a bit about symmetrical / asymmetrical encryption. But still, it was necessary to translate that into cryptocurrencies.
After registration and being verified at a major crypto exchange, I bought an amount of something which I was willing to lose. At the time it was mid January 2018. Over the time until now the market dropped around 70%, which was not funny in the beginning.
My Take Aways
I will never do the mistake again of not analyzing the market and not fully inform myself. Either it is an ICO (or STO, whatever), you obviously need to know in what and who you put your money in.
Don’t listen to other people or to a voice As I already set, this might lead to bad decisions. Always make your own opinion. If everyone else buys, this may not be the best time for you. Someone said ‘Buy when there is blood on the streets’.
Also, taking small steps when buying something makes sense. For example: let’s say you are willing to lose 1000$ and want to buy cryptocurrencies/coins/tokens. The best way (in my opinion) would be to split that money as small as possible (maybe 100$ or 50$). Then you buy small amounts from time to time, like every month or so. On this way you get a feeling for the whole system and market. That will be very helpful, especially if you are a beginner or just insecure. Plus, you always bought at the average price, which also may mean that you won’t make too much of a profit.
The technology behind cryptocurrency (blockchain) in general is incredible. It’s power will change the way we use our technology nowadays. New tech branches will evolve and some parts will probably be disrupted, but I think not everything not everything.
Marius Reimer (@reime005)
https://mariusreimer.com for more about me, myself and I
