Flipping coins after one month of heroic hodling is part of what one consider normal crypto trading. Yes, recently even one month seems to count as “hodling”—.Profiting from very quick and supposedly smart investment has become an art in recent years.
Crypto is changing at a previously unimaginable speed to a almost frightening in ways that lead to organic and inorganic ownership and evolution. Words like “Hodl” and “long term” are words in process of redefinition thanks to innovations like early seed-funding investment, pre-sales and to the IEO bubble where —by the way— exchanges become new empires.
For any good trader these days, it is a common natural dream to be able to discover promising new projects before the mass of investors do, and to have the opportunity to grab some coins or tokens before open explosion in the market. If one is lucky, buying during IEO or, even better, during a lucky dip right after IEO, and being able to sell at 5x or 10x when when the token is listed in many exchanges or when the project releases new big annoncements; can lead to latest version of personal “moon”. These versions of the moon dream naturally do not include to worry about the real success or failure of the project in its future.
Granted! Early investors take the very first risks and make the initial steps plausible. They fund the project. They can be two or three big venture capitalists or many first believers. They do not bring the kind of investment you can call “smart investment” or “sticky capital”; but they are the ones who make it possible for plans to become real actions. They are strategically very valuable. Nevertheless, in many of these cases, “emotional attachment” happens to be a term that must be taken out of their dictionary. They tend to sell as soon as possible, usually during an early spike they might even cause themselves by pumping the coin for a few days –unless of course their tokens are locked inside a Smart Contract for a while–.
One question we need to ask here is “who are the first holders that will feel attachment for the token?” Emotional bond would be expected to begin, probably, with the first generation of investors who believe in the project. Are these loyal “hodlers” a second or third generation of buyers? Well, maybe! In good old ages of Crypto —even one year ago— things like “loyal communities” of investors were considered places where loyalty was found. Some forms of loyalty are still seen in communities. However things have changed. Communities are filled with distrust and coldness now. People are not as hot on their belief on a social revolution now. More and more investors are clear now that they want a quick buck.
Communities, then, are not the same thing they used to be. Trust and naive hope for a better future for humanity is not the only pure driving force. People want easily money today. People are ready to dump any coin —even those coins they love— for a quick reward. The doctrine of impatience and short-term hodling of modern one-monthism has invaded the mentality of regular community members too. One can see it in so many Telegram groups and forums. Investors who haven’t seen profit or some growth in one month while belonging to a community can become a real pain in everybody’s wisdom tooth.
In Crypto prehistorical ages —of course this means before 2017—, crypto investors were expected to hodl for decades. In 2017, the length of patience periods shrank and expectation became a matter of months or even one year. Now, in 2019, things in Crypto are supposed to happen in a period of 3 months maximum, one month desirable. Or else, investors start feeling anxious and in need to sell. They also worry they will not be able to brag. Rubbing quick success in everybody’s nose in social media seems to be a new sport.
Oh, yes, this is an important point that should be stressed enough. Bragging is essential! If you are a lucky early investor and manage to transform your investment from 1x to 5x or 10x, you will need to inform the whole world. It’s like a physiological need apparently. From the point of view of Crypto Psychology, these socio-cognitive phenomena might be the reason for the new paradigm of one-monthism. So many people sharing news proving that making a quick buck in one month is natural and it is easy, makes millions of investors feel desperate and try to obtain the same kind of high velocity in multiplying their funds. The more bragging one sees here and there, the stronger one-monthism turns.
One-monthers also invest during regular public sale and enter the community. Soon they raise the flag of their new coin or token as high as possible so that it can be seen from far. One thing surprises though. In many cases, the flag is not visible because the same person raises many flags. And here comes the next situation. New investors buy relatively small amounts of lots of new assets. It was old generations who invented the doctrine of “diversifying portfolios”. But new generations apply it until they sink into paroxysm. As they hodl many assets, they frequently appear to be willing to dump tokens that do not align to one-monthism in order to buy assets that do. Of course, from the ancient logic of one or two years ago, it does not make sense to buy at IEO to sell one month later! But remember, one-monthism is a new religion. It’s a new logic.
The meaning of “hodling” is changing. Naturally, there will always be very a few serious down-to-earth investors who understand perfectly well that organic value and organic growth can be achieved only though long-term spans of time. This means years, not months. Recently, these serious people are called “sophisticated investors” as opposed to the mass of the community who is expected to remain in urgent need of immediate results. A factor related to this is that new projects do not invest much energy in indoctrination. This is the really in Crypto nowadays. Many projects face problems that could be related these new schema.
In old times, a community was born, and, inside the community, one could naively stick to the belief that a powerful evangelization process would discourage or at least diminish feelings of selling urgency in their followers. Communities were able to became closed cults and people had faith. Campaigns agains dumping were held and faith were fed everyday with new hopes. Actually, an ideal community was seen as a place where people kind-of commuted day by day. The commuting ritual was like frequenting a church. There, people would be indoctrinated and guided. Thanks to the community attachment and engagement were an essential part of the game.
In present days this would be hard to obtain because people have half-active membership in several churches, even in many churches. To make it even more complicated, new investing paradigms teach modern values opposed to old values: “do not become emotionally attached to an investment”, they say. And, if we observe new markets, the inherent unpredictability and the intransparency projects exhibit at the level of long-run vision, push us to conclude that new values are more or less correct in many cases, since you cannot trust a project for the long term easily. Are we showing paradoxically adaptive responses to the new reality of the markets? Is short term hodling reasonable?
What will happen to the old value of long term “attachment” —true “hodling”— in the future? Will it still be important for the development of Crypto and for the realization of the dream of mass adoption? It could be too soon to answer these questions with certainty. However past and present evidence seem to continue pointing out to one constant unchanged fact: in a good project, long term holding increases the odds to multiply the investment exponentially and short term investment does not.
In every good project, then, there will probably be a tiny little group of people with cold blood and nerves of steel who, even in a terribly volatile market with obvious risks, will become that army of 300 spartan soldiers who will fight for the glory of their values. We cannot expect human nature to lead the majority to be strong hodlers in our new market conditions. We have to adapt to new kind of communities where even members with less emotional engagement are welcome. But we can also create some conditions where strong warriors have the opportunities to display their special power in battles and to be prized fairly for their patience and loyalty.
